Yesterday I could have pulled my hair out. I'm filling out an application for Healthy Families, a low cost health insurance program for children. I needed to call to ask about income verification, since our situation is different with all my earnings being done abroad and dh is self employed. I call and get the dreaded automated menu. Press one for this option, press two for that option. I rarely push those options -- I wanna speak to a PERSON. It drives me crazy.
Then I am put on hold because "all the representatives are busy helping others" and it ended up that I HAD to leave a voice mail message. I hate doing that. I want to speak with a person TODAY and I don't mind waiting to do it. This system gave me no choice and now I have to wait up to two days for assistance getting this done. It sucks.
I also tried calling this local health care clinic to see if they did vaccinations for babies, since Aidan's four month well baby appointment is coming up and he needs his next round of vaccinations. Well this place, nobody answered the phone and the voicemail was already full so I couldn't even leave a message! I tried about four times to call and got the same thing. This clinic's address was just over a mile from home, so I took Aidan for a walk thinking if nobody is answering their phone, perhaps I could talk to somebody in person. Aidan was in a grumpy mood and cried and screamed the whole way down. It sucked. I got there to an empty building!! They'd moved! I asked the dry cleaning lady next door what happened and she said they moved but didn't leave a sign saying where their new location was. What a waste of time. But at least I got some exercise despite Aidan's crying.
I decided to just make an appointment with a pediatrician that takes our insurance (with a HIGH deductible, so his well baby appt is out of pocket anyway) and got him in for this Thursday. It will be AT LEAST a few hundred bucks so I hope that Healthy Families calls me back.
4 comments:
I usually press 0 about eleven times to get a person. Or pretend I have a rotary phone. These tick me off too.
I would imagine that a low cost health care/insurance clinic would be low on expensive resources, like humans to answer phones, and maybe even a building ;)?! I mean, where does their money come from anyway? The Bay Area is very expensive to operate in. And I'm not sure you would have any recourse with them if you had a "customer service" complaint, especially since it's very low cost. Poo. Well I sure hope you do have a more positive experience with the one you're paying out of pocket for. At least you got some exercise in. :)
Yeah, I understand but not being able to leave a message is too much... Now the place eager to take my several hundred dollars -- they picked up the phone quick, a real person too! It's the same everywhere. Money talks...
Amy,
I hope it won't cost you several hundred dollars. Here, our pediatrician charges about $160 for a first appointment/ consultation. After that, it is like $90 - $110 for visits, just depending on if it is original visit or follow-up.
Because you don't have a job yet, you should be able to sign up with DHS's free insurance for all of you. Of course if Golf is working, you may not be able to.
Good luck!
Jyotsna
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