O! What a frustrating day! Several days, actually. I am trying to get a Medicare program, a private Medicare prescription drug provider, two pharmacies, and my primary care to coordinate to get a medication to me. Someday soon, I’ll write about the private insurer’s web site, that wouldn’t allow me to log in because my account did not exist, but wouldn’t let me create an account because it already existed, then directed me to use the chat feature in the lower-right corner of my screen when no such feature existed, then directed me to call a number that’s staffed seven days a week from 8am to 8pm Eastern Time, but then asks for the same information (date-of-birth, member number, reason for calling) three separate times before telling me the office is closed for the weekend, putting me on hold waiting for a representative for over twenty minutes, but then letting me through to a representative on another line while I was still waiting on hold on the first line. On and on and on.
The pharmacy web site (CVS, though still sometimes called Longs here in Hawai’i) took the cake, however, when it put me in the loop above. I let it run for half an hour, while it cycled through trying to display my active prescriptions then saying it needed more information, then going back to trying to display — all without any intervention from me.
I finally put it out of its misery by closing the browser window. I suppose some subprocess of their web server is still cranking out those half-finished pages.
At this point, the insurer (Humana) assures me that my coverage (which I’ve never used before) is in full force, but the pharmacy (which has my insurance information) is telling my provider that the insurance company says I don’t have any coverage.
So the insurance company says everything is okay, and I just have to get my doctor to do a prior authorization request. The doc has done so, but it’s rejected by the pharmacy who blames the insurance company. The doc can’t do anything else because the pharmacy says they can’t do anything else because the insurance company tells them I don’t have coverage. Calling the doctors office doesn’t help because they’ve done everything they can. Calling the insurance company just gives me their assurance that they can’t possibly be telling the pharmacy that I don’t have coverage. The pharmacy says I have to use the web site, which puts me into the infinite loop above.
As always, this leads me to wonder… I’m a reasonably healthy, fluent English speaking, well-educated retired physician with multiple computers and phone lines. How would, say, someone in the midst of chemotherapy for cancer, disabled and impoverished by their illness, with limited English skills, and no insider knowledge of how this abominable system works ever be able to navigate this hellscape? And is that actually the point?
—2p