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As you may remember, I am now supposed to have health insurance coverage via a COBRA plan. That is handled by a middleman, which sends the money on to local woman's spouse's former employer.
It transpires that the only thing the COBRA people do efficiently is cash checks. Our check was, in fact, received and cashed a couple of weeks ago.
When I tried to refill a prescription, the pharmacy said it looked like I wasn't covered. I called the insurance company, which said they showed the same thing, and I needed to talk to the COBRA people.
When I finally got through to someone there, she told me that the notification to the insurer that we had paid was sent today. But she wasn't sure if that meant it will be going later today, or if it had already happened, and there's no way for her to check that. What she did know is that they only send those notifications once a week. Also that it should take "48 to 72 hours" so I will have my coverage back "by Wednesday, Thursday at the latest."
Then she told me that they know this is slow, and "that's why we make the coverage retroactive." I did not actually yell at her in pointing out that no, that's not why—they make it retroactive because federal law requires it.
Then she asked if there was anything else she could do for me. I said "let me get off the phone before I fucking scream at someone," and I tapped "end call." I try not to yell at customer service peons, but whether she was incompetent or trying to be obstructive, it was obvious that she not only couldn't do anything else for me, she hadn't done very well at what I'd already asked for.
tl;dr: We need single-payer health care, but in the meantime, can we at least have minimally competent people answering the phones?
It transpires that the only thing the COBRA people do efficiently is cash checks. Our check was, in fact, received and cashed a couple of weeks ago.
When I tried to refill a prescription, the pharmacy said it looked like I wasn't covered. I called the insurance company, which said they showed the same thing, and I needed to talk to the COBRA people.
When I finally got through to someone there, she told me that the notification to the insurer that we had paid was sent today. But she wasn't sure if that meant it will be going later today, or if it had already happened, and there's no way for her to check that. What she did know is that they only send those notifications once a week. Also that it should take "48 to 72 hours" so I will have my coverage back "by Wednesday, Thursday at the latest."
Then she told me that they know this is slow, and "that's why we make the coverage retroactive." I did not actually yell at her in pointing out that no, that's not why—they make it retroactive because federal law requires it.
Then she asked if there was anything else she could do for me. I said "let me get off the phone before I fucking scream at someone," and I tapped "end call." I try not to yell at customer service peons, but whether she was incompetent or trying to be obstructive, it was obvious that she not only couldn't do anything else for me, she hadn't done very well at what I'd already asked for.
tl;dr: We need single-payer health care, but in the meantime, can we at least have minimally competent people answering the phones?
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