I've been on "Hold" all day with Kaiser pharmacy.

[maveric]

All I need to know if I can pick up my scrip.
When you call you get a recording with options, you know "for this, press 1, and so on... My option was #4, speak to a pharmacy rep. When it rings a rep answers and quickly says "therssomeoneinfrontofyoupleasehold", then the musak. Being a nuerotic northeasterner waiting and patience is not one of my virtues, but just for shits and giggles I held to see how long it would be before they got to me.

1st try: 35 minutes before I hung up. I redailed and was put directly on Hold without even hearing the rep tell me that she was sending me there.

2nd try: 55 minutes before I hung up and did the redail thing I mentioned earlier.

3rd try" 1 hour and 40 minutes after the"therssomeoneinfrontofyoupleasehold".

I started this around 11:00 AM PST its now 4:36 PST and I still dont fucking know if I can pick up my meds.

Are they that busy that they can answer a 40 second request from a longtime paying customer?

Just another thing thats wrong with the Healthcare system in this country. Understaffing and apathy!

[skygazer]

1. I hate those frigging things!

Supposedly they make things run more efficiently - yeah, right! And they're so impersonal. I saw this in Reader's Digest (of all places) and thought it was a riot so I copied it -

Thank you for calling VeriCom Customer Care. Your call is important to us, though not as important as it is to you. If you are calling from a touch-tone phone, press or say 1. If you are calling from a rotary-dial phone, please stay on the line while a customer-care representative makes mocking, derisive faces. Para assistencia en espanol, go to South America and try your call again.

Your call may be monitored and/or recorded for staff entertainment purposes. For security reasons, please enter the last four digits of your junior high school locker combination, followed by your mother’s pet name for your father on evenings when she’s had too much sherry.

To save us money and expedite the dismissal of customer-care representatives, our express automated-speech response system is now available. To use this system, press 1. To speak to a customer-care representative, call the Peterson County unemployment office. To hear these options again, hang up and call back.

Welcome to the express automated-speech response system. Please say your 67-digit personal account number, located on the upper lower left middle corner of the one page of your bill that has gone missing, followed by the pound sign. If you thought * was the pound sign, say Ding Dong.

I heard 894375904279643850432759478847686350542356889448590824837698072459. If this is correct, say Yes. If this is not correct, it’s your fault. You are mumbling, or have a funny accent.

For payment information, say Payment. If you have calls and charges you don’t understand, say Pinhead. To hear these options again, say Attention Span of a Gnat. To hear the call of the long-toed stint, say kirrrrr-PIP! wacka wacka wacka!

Welcome to the automated payment information center. Our records show a payment of $149 was posted on January 23, 2002, following a 12-day processing period, during which time Accounts Receivable Clerk June Smetak was unaccountably absent and consequently your payment was recorded six days after the due date. A late fee of as much as we can possibly charge without government intervention has been posted to your account. Accounts Receivable Clerk Smetak has been promoted. Whoever said life was fair?

To exit the express automated-speech response system, press or say 1. To enter your 67-digit personal account number again for no special reason, press or say 2.

Please wait, a customer-care representative will be with you shortly, or be short with you, or something. Currently all of our representatives are busy helping dilute our profits. Calls will be answered in the order in which we feel like. Your expected wait time is 42 minutes. Your expected blood pressure is 210/130. You may hear clicks followed by silence. You may hear “Whole Lotta Love” done entirely in strings. You may hear yourself say regrettable things, which may be monitored and/or recorded.

For example, our records show that you used the phrase “gabbling nitwit” during your last call to customer care. This has been noted in your record and will be reflected in the quality of service you receive and the tone of voice of the customer-care representative, should you somehow manage to reach one.

I’m sorry, 0 is not a valid prompt, even if pushed furiously 11 times in rapid succession.

To use our express automated-speech response system, press 1. To hear our website address, press 2. To speak to someone about your anger-management problem, press 3.

3 is not a valid prompt. Thank you for calling.

[AlCzervik]

2. Have you ever tried the mail order line?

It's much easy if it's something you take all the time, i do it for allegy medicine.

[democracyindanger]

3. Report it to your state AG

[Lori Price CLG]

4. This may sound like a 'dumb question,' but...

If you hit '0' instead of '4,' do you get a person (operator) right away? It may be worth a shot.

Yes, health care is one of the motivating factors in fighting in the second American Revolution. :)

Lori Price
http://www.legitgov.org/

[maveric]

5. I just called "Member Services" to complain.

Told them that I have been waiting all day just to have a quick question answered, and that my premiums have just been raised 25% only to get poorer services. The lady told me that she would contact the pharmacy "right now", (by secret number I guess), and get right back to me. She put me on hold for 22 minutes only to come back with "I couldnt get through to the pharmacy. You will have to try and call them right before they close at 9:00 PM". Member Services are no help at all to members. I again told her about how much more I have to pay for my allready crappy coverage and all she could say was for me to calm down and try calling the pharmacy before they close!
WHAT KIND OF SHIT IS THAT?