Help, I’m in H.M.O. hell! Just another ‘Sicko’ day

[marmar]

From the Penny Post, via MichaelMoore.com:



July 27th, 2007 4:45 pm
Help, I’m in H.M.O. hell! Just another ‘Sicko’ day

By Andrei Codrescu / Penny Post

I went to my pharmacy to get another prescription filled, an act that’s become so routine for most of us, we go through the drive-in window to get our pills. Only this time, things were different. My health provider’s card, which used to assure me of a generally reasonable price, was rejected. I had to either pay full price, which was so outrageous I could hardly believe my eyes, or straighten it out with my provider, which quit doing business the usual way two days before.

If I paid full price, the pills cost 10 times more, I kid you not. A $10 drug was suddenly more than $100. So I decided to straighten it out with my health provider.

After going through two rounds of voicemail hell, I got a human who told me that the provider had spun off its drug prescriptions to another company that should have sent me a card that would ensure that I got my usual medication at the covered price. The human was good enough to give me a number for this new drug company and, after several rounds of voicemail hell, supposedly “due to an unusually heavy volume of calls” — yeah, I bet — I got through to another human who informed me that my card should have been sent weeks before. The trouble was, it had been sent to an old address that I had changed on every form I could think of, including that of my health provider.

Well, that’s easy, I said, change the address and send me a new one. That’s not possible, the human said, you have to have your provider send us your new address. But, I said feebly, I have just given you all the information that proves that I am me: my S.S. #, my H.M.O. number, my birth date, my mother’s maiden name. That may be, he said, but we must receive your address change from your provider.

Go to round five of voicemail hell back to my provider where, after a good half hour, I punched into my cell phone everything a robot asked about me: my S.S. #, my H.M.O. number, my birth date, my mother’s maiden name. When the robot was satisfied, I had only three more circles of hell to go through before I found a human, who asked me the exact same information the robot had. After ascertaining that I was really me, she listened to my problem and said that she couldn’t possibly change my address, because such a change had to come on a form provided by the employment benefits office of my workplace.

At this point, I said, not so feebly: Why can’t you just move your cursor to the top of the page and enter my new address and forward this address to your spin-off company so I can get my frigging drug at the price you guarantee, because I pay a whole lot of frigging money every month for that discount? Well, that was when I heard the click of the abyss and the H.M.O. human shoved me off the edges of her consciousness. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/news/article.php?id=10076

[IndyOp]

1. The last line of this article sucks BIG rocks...

All I can say is, God bless Michael Moore and Stacy, vote for Hillary Clinton and take your Xanax like good boys and girls.

Vote for Hillary Clinton and you'll get to KEEP your H.M.O. -- only it'll be even larger and more impersonal because $$$ will flow from taxpayers to the government to a few big H.M.O.'s. At least with your business paying the company can threaten to leave the H.M.O. if their employees are very unhappy with it.

Edwards is the only viable candidate whose plan will allow EVERYONE to chose a single-payer system and kill off most H.M.O.'s within a few years.

:thumbsdown:

[candice]

2. Wow, I feel lucky to have wasted only 30 minutes trying to get Dell to stop

sending catalogs yesterday. After my previous negative experience with their outsourced nice but clueless tech support, I swore I'd never buy another Dell. But I'm getting sick of receiving catalogs all of the time. They waste trees and I have to burn fuel to take them to be recycled. There was no easy way to get to a human being who might remove me from the list, but when I did reach India, it was quite time consuming since the person didn't really know any of the words I was using. Even the name of my town, which is the center of Silly Valley was a big blank. Before I call I wasn't totally wiping off Dell, but afterwords, no way would I get involved with them again. I'm sure that their contract worker in India didn't know how to get me off the list (or Current Resident was beyond comprehension as was the concept of a street address to which mail is sent.

I just hope the catalogs stop coming. If not, I'll forward them to Michael Dell with a note begging him to stop the junk mail.

Companies that care about customer support don't outsource because it wastes their customers' time. Given a choice between dealing with a company that outsources its support and one that stays in country, I'll always chose the latter. This is based on my personal experience. I bought my second Dell because of the excellent tech support out of Texas.

[peacebird]

3. I pay for the top tier BC/BS insurance thru my company. I pay a lot for this. But now

I have had my routine yearly PAP smear bill returned saying I had already used up my allotment AND my Dexa bone scan also rejected by them. FWIW - the only change was I had a complete physical this year also as I just turned 50.

I hit menopause very early (39) and was diagnosed with osteopenia 8 years ago. This check was to see whether I needed drugs yet or could continue with diet and excercise. BC/BS decided it was a "routine" scan even tho it was marked as diagnostic, post menopausal and osteopenia and refused to pay.

I am fortunate - I have health coverage, even tho I pay dearly every month for it.

When did insurers start deciding NOT to cover basic preventative medicine? Good grief - to reject a yearly PAP smear?!? To whine about a yearly mammogram even tho I have ALREADY had a lumpectomy with lumps called "displasia"?

HELLO!!!! - I am a petite white woman with osteo - trust me, it's gonna cost a hell of a lot MORE if I fall and break a bone than if they pay for a Dexa scan every 4 years.

[Crunchy Frog]

4. Well, he should just thank his lucky stars that he doesn't have to contend

with the bureaucracy of a single payer, government run health care system. :sarcasm: