Insurance woes.
Spent an hour on the phone with 2 insurance companies. First tells me exactly what I need to know, but can’t help. this takes maybe 10 mins. Argent Health is good about service to pharmacies. She even connected me to the company I needed to contact and exactly what to tell them.
The second company is not so great. She has no idea what the other company is talking about. After 35 mins of telling this woman, that yes, indeed he HAS been getting $1.00 copays, she finally tells me that she will check on a different profile, and see what that says. She goes off for 10 mins, and finally comes back with “Oh, yeah, we took his L.I.S. off.” L.I.S. is Low income Subsidy.
Ugh. He got this LAST WEEK. So after another 5 mins of badgering, I get her to put the L.I.S. back on, in exchange for informing him that he NEEDS to switch to the generic from now on, for low cost prescriptions. No more brand name Norco for him.
The next is a drive-through customer. She hands me a card. I run it through and get every error in the book. Unmatched cardholder, invalid recipient, invalid group number, Check DOB, etc. After getting that all sorted out, “Claim submitted Prior to plan activation”. Wonderful. Its her NEW card for 2008. I ask her for her other insurance card. “But thats my new one. I don’t need the old one so I cut it up this morning when that one arrived.”
WONDERFUL…. New insurance plans go into effect January 1st, so you need to keep your insurance from the previous year until that date. Tried to explain this to the woman, but she wouldn’t believe me. “No, they sent me that new card, the old one doesn’t work anymore.”
So I ask for the company that she used to have. Its the local blue cross. I ask if she had a family plan. Yes. So I asked her for her husbands cell phone. I called her husband. Thankfully he understood that the new insurance goes into effect on Jan 1, and still had his card.
Third was a medicare part D plan. I alluded to the new Protonix generic, pantoprazole, in the previous post. As expected some plans haven’t added it to the formulary. One of my techs spent 15 mins monkeying with this guys plan because it was telling her that the drug was invalid. Switched it to the Protonix, and it charges him the brand price.
Wait, what?
Yes, it tells us that the generic isn’t in the system yet, but the brand has been bumped up to the non preferred list? So I called and badgered them into giving him the old price.
I loath most insurance companies.
Tags: Frustrations, Insurance | |
