And I Have Good Coverage

I’m not the first.

I won’t be the last.

I’m going to vent about the medical insurance situation in this country.

I have good coverage–AARP Medicare Complete issued through United Health Care.

Yesterday I spent 1 hour and 48 minutes with my cell phone connected to my medical insurance customer service number.  A lot of that time was spent on hold. My battery went down from 72% to 33%.

I ended up as frustrated at the end as I was after the initial 20 minutes on hold before I talked to a live person.  I eventually yelled at that live person.  I never do that. I’m not proud of myself.

I’m not going to try to explain to you what the issue was.  I could, but I’d just relive the anger from yesterday and you don’t really care anyway.  I wouldn’t if you were telling me the story.

Here’s my take on this:

1.  Customer service people are doing the best they can with the training they have.  I get that. But they are not medically trained.  They are trained to follow the directions on a computer screen.  They need pieces of information to fill in the blanks on their screens.  Many of us don’t have short answers that fit in the blanks on their screens.

2.  So they keep asking the same questions and we keep giving them the same answers that don’t fit.  Then we get put on hold “for a few minutes.” I asked my live person to please come back to me. He said he would.  He did.

3.  Then came another set of questions.  My answers still didn’t really fit in the blanks.  They were about the same as my original answers.  Then I went on hold again.

4.  Next, I got “conferenced-in” with another live person.  Three of us were on the line together.  More questions.  More time on hold.

5.  The second live person came back and told me they would be contacting the doctor’s office and would approve or disapprove within 72 hours.

6.  Approval or disapproval wouldn’t answer my original question.  For that, we wait for the claim to be filed and for the insurance to pay their part.  Then we can appeal the part we’re required to pay.  That should be easy to resolve.   And why couldn’t they just tell me that at the beginning?

I am a liberal Democrat.  I am glad people can get insurance now, thanks to Obamacare.

But the same screwball insurance companies are making decisions about my medical care, not my highly-qualified doctors.

AND THIS IS NOT WORKING!!

Okay, thanks.  I needed to get that out.