and the cold,
visiting with dear Bill and Jennifer,
encountering American history,
and celebrating David's birthday with ice cream and brownies,
cannolis,
and donuts.
Back in Austin for less than 24 hours, everyday reality has struck me square in the forehead as I called my insurance provider to check on the progress of straightening out a misunderstanding I'd had several weeks before with the person who sold me my new dental plan. I first logged in to the website, which had no information about my specific account. Then I called the customer service number on the back of my insurance card, and after communicating with a machine discovered that the status of my account was the same as it has been a week and a half before. I spent the next several minutes trying to convince the machine that I needed to speak with an actual person. When it was finally appeased, I spent 20 minutes on hold, waiting for the next available call taker. I spoke with the call taker for 30 seconds before the call taker determined that I had called the wrong customer service number and transferred me to a different department. I waited on hold for 20 more minutes. As soon as I finished explaining my predicament to the person who could presumably help me, the call was dropped. I'm not sure why the call was dropped, maybe I accidentally hit the "end" button, but just the same, I had to start all over. When the whole thing was over, I had been on the phone for over an hour and spoken to 4 different people.
While I was slightly frustrated that the misunderstanding had happened in the first place, I was dismayed that the process of setting everything right was SO cumbersome. I found myself dying for an outlet to tell someone about my experience so that the inefficiencies could be addressed. Still, I have the suspicion that this is not an unusual experience when dealing with insurance companies. My insurance company, United Healthcare, is a huge firm, and it makes you feel a bit like you've been lost in the masses. Has anyone ever had a similar experience, or is communicating with your insurance company relatively easy?
I don't usually read reviews (I admit I'm thinking mostly of restaurants) because I don't trust that the reviewers have the same preferences I have, but I see the value of consumer feedback for businesses to know how to change for the better. When it comes to communicating with an insurance company, there MUST be a better way to do things, so here is my review of United Healthcare: While all United Healthcare representatives I've ever spoken with have been courteous and pleasant, I found navigating the United Healthcare web of websites and phone numbers and automated services to be complicated and taxing.
3 comments:
Jennifer and Bill! I remember them!! Yay!
Loved the pictures of the icicles!
Have I mentioned before that one of my full-time jobs is being a medical secretary (as in, my OWN medical secretary)? We have had several frustrating experiences trying to communicate with various health insurance companies (and the doctor's offices and pharmacies that use them). We've had three or four different insurers in our (almost) eight years of marriage. I think they all have the same problem- too much bureaucracy. I remember a specific time when we had to keep calling different offices (insurance company and doctor's office), and each time we would call one of them, the person we talked to would say that we needed to call the OTHER office. We had to spend hours on the phone and call at least six different times before it got straightened out. :p Not sure if this is due to incompetence on the part of the offices, or just a natural result of all the regulations they are required to have (or both).
Elisabeth-
We had a follow-up episode involving the same misunderstanding, but a different doctor's appointment, and I was so put-out with the whole insurance thing that David tried to handle it for me. His experience was similar to the one you described--talking to three separate entities that all call themselves United Healthcare, but they only handle very specific things (which is very confusing when you're trying to figure out who to call). Each said it was the others' responsibility to take care of what we needed taken care of...blah.......We've concluded that insurance is great as long as you never need customer service...
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