One of the distinct pleasures of civilian life is dealing with medical insurance and the attendant entrenched bureaucracy. Yesterday I had a very interesting interlude that left a smile on my face, at the end. For nearly a year I’ve been trying to get them to pay a bill for my wife that they admit they should be paying. Every time I called they would say, since it involves eye care, that it had to go to this other insurance company they contracted with. When I called this other company they would say the original company had to pay because it was outside of “routine” care. I had been increasingly vocal as they played ping pong with the claim, each referring me back to the other. Yesterday, I received a call from the original company, from a guy I think they use as a kind of “fixer” for these out of the main stream type claim. He was a hell of a nice guy and asked if we could conference call with this other company. I said sure as long as he did the set up (my kids were not available to talk me through how to do that). We waded through the countless computer choices and finally we were talking to a human being. This new guy says since it was a claim involving the original company’s insurance he would have to transfer us to a “special section” who handles those type claims. After a few more minutes of canned music while we waited, another person came on the line. After we explained the issue she started going into a spiel about how she could only reveal certain information. At this point, the original guy said, hold on a minute. He clicked off and then returned shortly and told this latest lady to drop off. He then apologized profusely to me and said that the eye care insurance guy had transferred our call back to his company. The lady was seated literally a couple cubicles away from his own. I said, somewhat sardonically, well now you know exactly what I’ve been faced with for the last year. He again apologized and said it was completely unprofessional (picture me agreeing with this statement enthusiastically). He said he was going to elevate the problem to his supervisor to get the issue fixed, again, we’re dealing with bureaucrats. I was smiling because for at least a little period of time this guy was in the shoes of someone dealing with the bureaucracy he’s a member of. Maybe he’ll be better or at least more understanding in the future. Life’s composed of small victories – you take them where you can get them. Yesterday I won, at least until the supervisor level start referring issues to each other.
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