Monday, January 20, 2014

Fun with Insurance

Recently I had to call the insurance company for a patient.

Dealing with automation can be lots of fun:

"If this is a Medicare Part D member, please press 1. Otherwise, please press 2."

Me: "Representative."

"Ok, you want to talk to a representative. First, I need to get some information. Is this for a Medicare Part D member? Please answer 'yes or no.'"

Me: "Yes or no."

"I'm sorry, I didn't understand that. Are you trying to process a claim? Please answer 'yes or no'."

Me: "Yes or no."

"I'm sorry, let me transfer you to someone who can help. But before that, I need to get some information. Please say or type the ID number of the person you are calling about."

Me: "Six one one eight five seven one two three."

"Did you say, 'six one nine two seventeen one-hundred-eighty? Please answer yes or no.'"

Me: "Yes or no."

"I'm sorry, let's start over. If this is a Medicare Part D member, please press 1. Otherwise, please press 2."

Me: "May I please just talk to someone? I don't have time to fuss around with an automated system that doesn't understand a F----ing thing I'm saying, my patient is bleeding on the floor and my technician is busy doing Quake-N-Zap. Now let me talk to someone, NOW!"

"Please hold."

<pleasant music plays>

"Hello, this is Insanity Insurance, what is the nature of your call?" said by a human, finally....


2 comments:

Sarah Glenn said...

I make these sort of calls for my mother and go through the same crap. Hate the automation, hate the fact that it's replacing a human being. They may not be smarter sometimes, but at least they're employed.

Anonymous said...

Did they at least speak English without an obvious accent? Nothing I hate worse than finally getting a real human and figuring out I'm talking to some outsourced offshore call center.