10 Things about Insurance

I’ve had a rough week with our new health insurance company. I’ve been on the phone with them a good part of every day at work debating over what has and has not been covered during September and what needs to be done to get everything in order. My HR department, CEO and CFO all ended up involved, lots of tears were shed and voices raised (thankfully not at me) about these issues.

Here are 10 things I learned this week about dealing with insurance:

• No matter how convincing their mantra of customer service is, the customer is NEVER right.


• No one at any level of an insurance company really knows anything; they’ll have to check with their supervisor. Yet none of them will just skip ahead and put the CEO on the phone to help solve my issues.


• Insurance companies, doctor’s offices and pharmacies DO NOT like or attempt to communicate with each other.


• You get MUCH quicker service if your office is three feet from your company's CEO.


• Talking to a female insurance rep that also has children gets you much more sympathy than a single male.


• Conglomerate pharmacies (aka Walmart) suck. Life gets easier when you deal with pharmacies where you can actually talk to a pharmacist rather than a teenager in a dress-up lab coat.


• Changing pharmacies quickly gets people’s attention.


• You have every right to be proactive and on top of your insurance issues. You do NOT have to wait until an EOB arrives and then starting asking questions, no matter what your HR rep says.


• Having the right doctor who asks the right questions and knows your name and situation has numerous life-saving benefits, literally and figuratively.


• No matter how badly you’ve been treated or how many hoops you’ve had to go through, when things are finally resolved, all you can do is say “Thank you so much for your help” about a thousand times (and actually be sincere) – even though you’d rather reach through the phone and strangle someone. Something weird overtakes you and makes you feel gratitude that you shouldn’t!

Life is ok now. All the issues are resolved and things will hopefully quiet down. But I feel sorry for my colleagues and anyone else who doesn’t stay on top of their medical life and know what’s going on. Things will get really hairy for those people when they think they’ve met their deductible but didn’t read the fine print. Lesson for the week: be in charge of your life and take crap from no one!!