Dear Mr. Insurance Company,
Thank you for being sooooo easy to deal with. I'm glad your phone number doesn't appear anywhere on my member card, after all, why on earth would I ever need to contact you? It's not like I have ever had a question about a bill, or a benefit. Its not like I have ever gone to the pharmacy and had my jaw unhinge and fall to the floor in a bloody heap when the teller read me the total.
But honestly, I'm glad I have to get on the internet and look you up before I am able to give you a call. You know why? Because I loath calling you. I LOATH it. I would rather submerge myself in a vat of ice than to be subjected to the dispassionate, dim witted teller that answers the phone. Can I help you? IT SURE DOESN'T SEEM LIKE IT. But really I don't blame them, after all, it's not easy answering a phone call half a world away and pretending like you actually work for the company you say, and are not in fact just a telephone operator in a damp building in Bhutan with another caller inquiring about motorcycle insurance holding on the other line.
No I blame you Mr. Insurance. I blame YOU for my rage because you are the reason I spent half a day scouring the internet, printing off paperwork, filling out paperwork, faxing the paperwork to my doctor, refaxing the paperwork because my fax machine apparently wasn't working, breaking the fax machine when it continued not to work, driving to my doctors to hand deliver the paperwork, waiting in the waiting room with a menagerie of sick people, and finally handing the paperwork to my doctor so she can scribble out a prescription.
And was that the end of it? Of course not, that would still be too simple for you. Because that i wasn't dotted and that t wasn't crossed, the mail-in pharmacy decides to give me a call. I try to call back but of course they are closed. So I wait. And when I do get a hold of Mr. Aziz who mistakenly answers the phone with the wrong company name and then quickly corrects himself, we finally get things squared away. WRONG. Because two days later I get another call. Well of course you must get my permission to run my credit card if the total is above--HOW MUCH!?! But why Mr. Aziz??? Why is it so much??? Yes of course, I will call my insurance company right away, of course they will know!
Just let me find the number...
So I scream repeatedly at the automated woman who asks me questions but can't understand me when I use certain four letter words in my response, and I eventually am put through to a real human--who may or may not actually be Mr. Aziz once again. Oh, this is a question I should be asking the mail-in pharmacy and not my insurance provider? Of course, why would my insurance have any idea why they are charging me 55% on a prescription that should only cost me 35%? That clearly has nothing to do with you, Mr. Insurance.
Back to the mail-in people it is!
But this time I press a completely new set of buttons and am put on with a whole new branch of people within the phone web of cyberspace. And we talk and talk and I threaten him with cutting words when he tries to tell me to call my insurance about this issue and finally we find the problem.
Oh, these kinds of test strips are non-formulary?
So unless I want to sell a kidney I should change my meter brand?
And get a new meter?
And throw all the other ones in a box somewhere because they weren't good (cheap) enough for you to cover?
And in order to get a different kind of test strip I will need to fill out more paperwork?
And go back to my doctors?
And re-fax it in?
And wait another week for a response?
And I will by that time, of course be out of tests strips completely, so I should go to the walk-in pharmacy?
And pay an arm and a leg, even though the point of this whole mail-in endeavor was to avoid such outrageous charges?
Excuse me, what was your name? Where do you live? Do you usually lock your back door at night????
...
So I rage and I rage. But in the end I give in. Because I am at your mercy Mr. Insurance. I LOATH you. But I am at your mercy.
No comments:
Post a Comment