Reverend Ref +

HOME ALONE

It's Friday, the day of no classes. It's a good day to do some reading, some cleaning, some writing.

Over the lunch hour I went to a service review of the Community Forum. This was supposed to be a session on how to talk about difficult issues, but got conflated with talking about the election of Gene Robinson. For those of you wondering about it, you can read up by going here or here (although you'll have to scroll down for his post on Community Forum). I'm not sure if this fits into the category of irony or not, but the service review was better than the Forum itself.

I also had to talk (and I'm using that term lightly) with the Really Big Insurance Company about a visit to the doctor that I made last month. The letter says that I must respond within 45 days or the claim will be denied. Hmm. Okay. The letter says to call this number, 1-877-123-4567 (you didn't think I'd post their actual number, did you?) and answer these questions: Do you or your family members have other medical coverage? If yes . . . Do your dependents have other medical coverage? Do you have Medicare? All reasonable questions. So I called the number and got a recording that said, "Please enter your Tax ID number." I don't have a tax id number, nor is there one on the letter they sent. So I say nothing. "I'm sorry, I didn't get that. Please enter your Tax ID number." ___________. "I"m sorry, I didn't get that. Please enter your Tax ID number." _____________. "I'm sorry, I didn't get that. Please enter your Tax ID number." I hung up.

Never did this idiot recording say, "Push "0" for assistance." Oh, hey, look. They have a website. So I went to the website. The letter says, "Go to [Manage My Account/Coordination of Benefits]. That choice doesn't exist. Hmm. Oh, I need to register first. So I got all registered AND THEN [Manage My Account/Coordination of Benefits] came up. Okay, I can live with that. Verify other subscribers to this account. Okay, me and The Kid. Then it said, "Finished." Nothing about answering those questions on the letter.

So I called a different 800 number. The gal answered the phone (after the obligatory push 1/push 3/push */push . . . ). Very friendly. I told her the problem and she indicated that the claim had been submitted . . . today as a matter of fact. Wonder if that had anything to do with my verifying me and The Kid on the website. Like, "Duh!"

It sure would be nice if the info in letters matched recordings on phones that matched websites. But I supposed that would mess with some department's mission statement.