Making upselling look like customer service

...and then sticking you with the bill

Photo by Jonathan Borba on Unsplash

I simply can’t with health insurance today.

After weeks of navigating my mother’s health journeys—she is fine by the way—I am gobsmacked that this is our reality. First, the amount of items and information the healthcare system burdens an almost 84 year old woman to navigate is ridiculous. Nobody asks about transportation, comprehension about any prescriptions, or how to integrate care across a multitude of providers. They hand out appointment reminder cards and move onto the next task.

The smart-phone is a dubious participant in communicating and transferring information, at least from mom’s perspective, so I had to intervene. Admittedly I should have done this years ago. Obviously not revealing anything privately held (it isn’t my story to tell) the number of emails and texts to remind us of our appointments, tell us that our information is available, information post appointment and add to that the musings of a profit driven entity, I am not surprised why mom quite often just doesn’t want to answer her phone.

The staccato but efficient delivery of phone call reminders can be overwhelming and disorientating. No wonder many of these visits are cancelled or met with trepidation. One office, instead of calling to see why mom hadn’t been in the office in a few years, simply removed her from the system. This meant that when she finally got around to calling her primary care doctor she was funneled into a new patient category and de-prioritized for appointments. This same doctor never asked mom’s vaccine status or the myriad of other questions I was able to lob at him once I made myself an active participant (driving 528 miles each way for the privilege).

I am not immune from the tedium on my own behalf. Today (May 2022)I receive a bill from my November 21 covid booster appointment at a CVS Minute Clinic. What an absolute scam. Somehow I am supposed to know that although the health professional administered the booster while simultaneously noting I was also due for a flu shot—was able to administer the first vaccine without prior authorization but the flu shot came with a $74 bill. Not covered by insurance because the minute clinic is out of network. Oh and yes, part of that was a $28 vaccine administration fee. Again, out of network.

The straw that broke this camel’s back was when the health insurance company that I have been with for decades seeks to confirm an email address I haven’t used in over a decade. I remind them of the standing-room only (for everyone but me) trip to the heart and lung machine a year ago where they had access to all the updated information on the administrative side that they could handle. I mean—this interaction was a kid’s meal compared to the Whopper Combo of May 2021.

I can only imagine the up-charges solicitors of free vaccine clinics for covid have been held responsible for paying out of pocket. Welcome to our fast food healthcare system. “Would you like fries with that?” “Hey how about a flu shot?”