This was my first normal day back to life after vacation. It was supposed to be uneventful and calm. Ha! Says who? Today I experienced the daily double of frustration and anger. For today I had to deal with issues with my health insurance company (Aetna) and on the very same day, had to contend with the idiotic Mass Registry of Motor Vehicles. My 16 year old son wanted to apply for his learner's permit since his 16th birthday was yesterday, a Sunday when our beloved RMV is closed.
This morning, after sorting through a pile of unopened vacation mail, I found a claim form from our insurance company. It was curious. There was a very large charge (over $1,100) for some medical supplies that I knew about, and there was a column that listed the "negotiated fee" that Aetna had supposedly negotiated with this medical supply company. The negotiated fee for this order of supplies was listed as #23.50!!! I am quite sure the supplier did not agree to get paid $23.50 for over $1,100 worth of supplies. So, because I expected to get a bill for the balance of the cost of those supplies, I phoned Aetna to get clarification and hopefully correction.
Surprisingly, I reached someone on the other end of the line (after many many menus of options with Mrs. Telephone-Computer Lady) with a strong Indian accent. I was dumbfounded. Had our health insurance company actually outsourced it's American health care plan customer service line to India? That seemed outrageous. I am still not sure if I just got an Indian representative working in an American call center or if I was actually speaking to India.
The rest went as you can imagine it went. I explained the claim situation, he had it on the screen in front of him and I asked him some questions. It was as if we were speaking 2 completely different languages. I would ask a question and he would respond by telling me the limits and details of our coverage. The problem with that was--That Was Not What I Asked Him. It was like he was reading from a script.....a script from a completely different situation. I was getting very frustrated. I asked to speak to a supervisor. He had no illogical rejoinder statement for that so he sputtered and then put me on hold telling me he was going to research my claim. He came back after at least 10 minutes and once again, told me about our plan. ARGH!! Was he trying to piss me off? Was he hoping I would just hang up? If so, he was doing a good job! I again asked him why the supplies were not covered, he mentioned the co pay and deductibles again and then put me on hold a second time...tick tock.... tick tock.......
Since we were forced to take this insurance in April after my husband's company forcibly switched all of us from Blue Cross tho Aetna, we have not had a need to call Aetna up to this time. So, I am not sure if this is the way they handle everything or if I was just the unlucky schmuck to get a Bozo on the line today. When he came back and gave me no answers at all, I did what I never do. I hung up on him. I am usually polite even if I am pissed off, but I was beyond pissed so I just gave up on him.
This afternoon, my plan was to take my son for his learner's permit. In preparation, I looked on the Mass RMV website to find the application he needs to fill out before the test. They allow you to fill it out online and print it out. Great!! I filled it out SS number, Birth date, name, address, driving history, health issues, etc. I got about the 10th and final screen and hit SUBMIT and got an error message that it had "timed out." OK, I went back and filled it out in a fraction of that time and again got that message. I did it 5 more times and every blasted time, it gave me that error message. Obviously that RMV web application works as well as everything else in this state. Meanwhile, my son slept until a teenagery 12 noon today. I looked online to see the wait times at the local RMV and at that point they were about 50 minutes. We decided to go anyway and just wait. However, I forgot one fact. The RMV has closed many branches around us and so this one branch in the area that actually does the permit testing has been extra busy ever since. They also have a parking lot not built at all to handle the overflow. There are no other places to park when they are full, either. You guessed it; we got there and there was not one open parking space. As a matter of fact there were 2 or 3 cars double parked waiting for someone to leave a space!! We opted not to stay and came back about an hour later. It was even worse than before. We will try again tomorrow when they open. We will be one of those losers in line for the opening!!
I fear that this is how our world is going to be from now on. The idiots are running the asylum. In an effort to save money health insurance companies are raising copays and deductibles, not covering a lot of services and supplies and are outsourcing their customer service to India. Great! They must want to go out of business and let our Government run health care. That is where we are headed at this rate.
If the cost of insurance keeps rising and we get less and less coverage for our money all of the insurers will all go out of business and our incredibly inefficient and corrupt government will take over our health care! Old people--you will not get those knee and hip replacements, those open heart surgeries, that Chemotherapy anymore. That will not be cost effective. Middle aged women--you will not get your annual mammograms, pap smears, and if you get cancer good luck getting any cutting edge drugs to treat it. Men? Well, actually since things are still predominantly run by men, Viagra is probably here to stay for now. No worries. But, if you have a preemie baby, forget all that costly care in an incubator for a month or 2. You will be told to take the baby home and hope for the best. And my son who has had Juvenile Diabetes for over 12 years will probably be told that insulin pump supplies are too expensive so he will have to go back to injections 6-10 times a day. We will all pay dearly if the government gets more involved in our health care. Look at the mess they already have with Medicare!
As for the RMV, it is bad, it has always been bad and it will always be bad. I don't see it getting better ever. They have no reason to improve. We all have to get a license, we all have to register our vehicles; they have a captive audience and we are stuck with them!
Back to me...how much frustration can a person be expected to take in one day? The RMV and a Health Insurance kerfuffle are about all I can take. I think I need a Calgon bath and a martini...and although I do take baths, I do not drink, well, hardly ever. I may have to make an exception today! Cheers!!
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