The Intelligence Estimate

I have a confession to make. I am on an anti-depressant for general anxiety disorder. There. Take that Tom Cruise! Now, I say that to say this: if I ever have to talk to another insurance company or pharmacy I may very well need the services of an amazing criminal lawyer. (Isn't that an odd phrase, criminal lawyer? I mean, I know they're crooks but....)

When I started my job here I was supposed to have insurance after 3 months. Then, on my first day, I get told that they've ammended that to be ONE YEAR from my start date. Well, after copious amounts of bitching and whining and all around poor-sportsmanship, they've relented and given me insurance. The insurance should have been effective on August 1st..90 days after I started. But the geniuses in the home office made it effective SEPTEMBER 1. So I get screwed out of one month of coverage.

Now then, because I didn't have the insurance yet, I waited to get my anti-depressants refilled. On September 2 I took in the perscription only to find out that because I was now with a new healthcare provider I need to get a pre-authorization before the perscription could be filled. The pharmacist assured me that he would call the doctor's office (which is in ANOTHER STATE mind you) and get the authorization so he could fill the perscription and I wouldn't have to pay through the nose for it.

Now I've been going back and forth with the pharmacy for a week and every day it's a different story. "We need to call the insurance company." "We haven't heard back from the doctor's office." "Nobody sees the wizard, not nobody, not nohow!" So for a week I've been coming down off my anti-depressants. In other words, been getting depressed, anxious, angry and all around miserable.

Well, today I call in and the pharmacist get mad at me. "You need to call the doctor or the insurance company. Because the pre-authorization is stuck somewhere and I don't know where it is. YOU need to call." I NEED to call? For a week now I've been hearing, We'll call, we'll call, we'll call. Now, all of a sudden, I'M THE ONE WHO NEEDS TO CALL?

So I call the insurance company. I get into an automated listing asking me for my account number and member ID. Well, because my imnsurance is so new I don't have an ID number. This holds up the line for a couple of minutes. Then the space age voice on the other end says, "I'm going to transfer you to an attendant now...please have your ID number ready." Then I talk to this guy (who very politely looks up my account using my name and birthdate) and he tells me that he has no idea if there's been a preauthorization because that's a different department. Call this number.

I hang up and start again. I start out on hold...forever! Every now and again there is the voice that tells you that the call may be monitored or recorded for quality assurance pruposes. I'm half hoping it will be so there will be a document of how screwed I've been. Then Christina comes on and ASKS ME FOR MY ID NUMBER! I tell her my situation as politely as I can after being on the phone for 25 minutes. She looks up my account and gets some information from me. She then puts me on hold while she PERSONALLY calls my doctor. She even comes back every now and then to tell me that she's sorry I have to be on hold for so long. When hse finally comes back for good she said, "Well, the office wants to get this done today because you've been without meds for a week, so call back this afternoon and we'll try to get this done before the weekend."From now on if I need to get anything done I'm going straight to Christine!

So, for those scoring at home, here's the current enemies list:
1) Drury Lane Water Tower Theater, my employer for screwing me on coverage.
2) Walgreens Pharmacy
3) United Healthcare of Illinois
4) Tom Cruise