The incompetance of Medicare and the Veterans Medical Center

I am in total amazement at how screwed up the Health Care industry and the Department of Veteran’s Affairs is. I have just spent an hour on the phone trying to straighten out a Basic Benefit Claim Detail that my hard-of-hearing, 90 year old father got in the mail a couple weeks ago. First off, the claim that was not cover occurred in October of 2006. The explanation was that the provider did not submit the claim in the required amount of time. Not my dad’s fault, is it?? So I call the insurance company. After an eternal wait on hold, they tell me I have to call Medicare to get an Explanation of Benefits for that claim. So, I gather all my dad’s Medicare info and make the call yesterday morning. Nobody wants to let you speak to a real person anymore. I had to wade through menu after menu of options, before I was even transferred to the que for an estimated 15 minute wait time to speak to an agent.

During this wait, they babbled in my ear about how easy it would be to hang up and log onto their website to find information. Yeah right, how many 90 year olds do you find surfing the net these days? Finally I get an agent, who tells me she is unable to help because their database is down and I must call back in half an hour!! To play it safe, I wait several hours and call back after lunch and go through the same hoopla and 15 minute wait, only to be told that the database is STILL down. Was told that this has never happened before. Of course, it’s because I never had to call them before.

The same agent tells me I can go online to medicare.gov and register Pappy and find the claim info on-line. So I proceed to try and do that, except our firewall at work will not allow me to connect to their site, after I’d spent 15 minutes filling out all the required information. So, I try again at home, and finally succeed in getting him registered but must wait for an e-mail password. I get that, and today I try to log in and find the claim from 2006. Guess what? The on-line information only goes back to 2007!! So I must call Medicare again, oh joy!!

This morning I do that, prop the phone under my chin for the 15 minute wait, and finally get an agent who tells me she can’t talk to me cause I’m not the person in question. I do get her to send Pappy a form to fill out and send back so they will talk to me NEXT time. The agent looks up the date of service on the claim and can’t find it. I give her another claim number from the second visit in 2007 which was listed on the same form, that WAS paid. She can’t find it either! I look at the claim and tell her it says you paid $$63.75 towards this claim. Too bad, she still can’t find any record of it. She tells me I have to call the provider, which is the Veteran’s Administration Health Services. *sigh*

So I look up the number for the VA and try and navigate through their menu. I hear the option to be transferred to the billing department, and obediently press *4* and am transferred. The phone rings several times and when it picks up, a pre-recorded voice tells me that this number has been changed, and I can call the National Directory Assistance Service at 10-15-15-800 and this call will cost me $5.49 and show up on my bill as coming from Nevada. WTF??? I hang up and call the main number again, this time choosing to dial “0” to speak with an operator. After about 35 rings, some guy picks up and I try and explain that somehow, their phone system is really screwed up. He says he will connect me. The phone rings and I get a pre-recorded message from some guy who is an collection agent and wants me to leave a message with what company I’m from. Arghhh!!!!

So now I try and call the facility where Pappy actually had the doctor visit. They, of course, tell me I have to call the billing department at the main office. I try and explain that I already tried that and got some weird directory assistance message. She puts me on hold for five minutes and looks for another number. I try the new number. Get the same directory assistance message. I call the facility back and tell her that number did not work. She puts me on hold AGAIN for another five minutes and comes back with a direct number. I hang up and call it. It rings for about 50 times and nobody ever picks it up.

I hang up, and have now wasted over an hour and gotten nowhere. How can the government be this bleeping incompetent that they can’t even program their freakin’ automated phone systems correctly??? Unbelievable.
medicare, Blog, health insurance, veterans medical benefits, government, , Rants, Medical claims,