Aetna Repo Man

Miss a few payments on your car? The repo man will hunt you down and take away your car.

Can't afford to continue paying for the big screen TV? The repo man will come and take it away.

Buy the wrong arm? The Aetna repo man will come take it away.

Eric Simpson was strangely calm when the insurance company called last week, saying it was sending a man for his right arm.

The woman on the phone told him he should have known he had only $2,000 of coverage through Aetna for artificial limbs. And the arm, which he'd just received that week, cost more like $37,000.

Whatsa matter? Didn't Eric read his policy limits?

Angelo Russello had the job of taking Simpson's arm. He works for Allied Orthotics & Prosthetics in Northeast Philadelphia.

Nice job.

All week he'd been visiting Simpson at Moss Rehab in Elkins Park, fitting the device, teaching the 32-year-old Germantown man how to flex his muscles to move the thumb and fingers.

"I felt like a fool," says Russello. "I've got to tell you, this has never happened before."

Simpson read his face and said, "Just take it."

Eric Simpson is growing used to being disarmed.

My guess is, moonlighting as a repo man probably wasn't covered during the initial job interview.

So what does Aetna have to say about this?

"A miscommunication," Aetna spokesman Walt Cherniak said yesterday.

Miscommunication?

Perhaps the repo man was told to break his kneecaps too?

Aetna officials had mistakenly considered his new arm medical equipment rather than a prosthetic, which is covered in full. They called Simpson to apologize.

And as for Eric's arm?

And the next day, Friday, Russello returned the arm.

This is really bizarre.