Perhaps you read my post a few weeks back wherein my health insurance provider intended to DOUBLE my monthly premium because of a serious and chronic condition…which I don’t have. And the only way that I could get my premium adjusted back down was to have my medical records, and a letter from my doctor, sent to the underwriters for their review. No promises, of course. But they’d review it. Again. Of course, it was their initial review that had determined that I have a serious and chronic condition in the first place.
Because they are, apparently, morons.
Hopefully, you’ve never had to get a copy of your medical records. They’re yours, and yours for the asking, but in this day and age of HMOs and PPOs and feedlot-style health care providers, you have to find just the right department and pay a small processing fee in order to get them. To obtain a letter written by your doctor should be easier, if he or she has the time, but in my case the doctor in question is a colleague of my usual GP, who was on vacation the day of my visit, and so I was bounced around from office to office until someone figured out who needed to write exactly what on my behalf and then where to send it.
By the time I made all of the phone calls and got all of the paperwork, I’d also applied and been approved for health insurance from a different company. Yay!
Today, I called my “old” provider and requested that my insurance be cancelled, effective immediately. When asked why, I explained that I didn’t like having to jump through all of these hoops to prove that I didn’t have the chronic condition they were accusing me of. The rep apologized, and then informed me that I can’t cancel over the phone. I have to fill out a form. A-ha! More hoops! To speed things up, he can email me the form. Well, that’s a relief! Also, I confirmed that I can return the form via email as well, although the rep seemed astonished that not only do I not personally have a fax machine, but I also haven’t worked in any office with a fax machine in a number of years. Because this isn’t 2001.
A couple of hours later, I received the email. It contained not the form in question, but an attached HTML document which I was instructed to download and open. I did, and was directed to a secure Web page that required me to create a password- and secret-phrase-protected account which I then had to sign in to in order to get to the page where I could finally download the Disenrollment Form. The Disenrollment (is that even a word?) Form which contains precisely zero personal information. Not an address, not a member number. Not even my name. And therefore, requires precisely zero security.
It’s as though they’re BEGGING me to leave.
The World of Wink 
My daughter was denied the payment for her first child’s birth because the insurance company said she was a man. A man who had just given birth. Sheesh.
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Holy smokes. I hope she was able to get that cleared up right away!
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More hoops! I returned the Disenrollment Form via email, and immediately rec’d a reply containing this paragraph:
“If you are using a Gmail account, they no longer accept our encrypted emails so you will not receive your reply. Please send us another request using another type of email account.”
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You seem like a really pissed off individual that has nothing better to do than complain online. Get off your computer and get a life!!!!
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Wow, Lola. So much anger! I actually have a very full life, which is precisely why I don’t get to write blog posts as much as I’d like. I can see by your viewing path that you must also be busy, as you’re basing your commentary on having read only .015% of my posts. As a matter of fact, out of 394 posts written, only 10 made it into the “Pet Peeves” category. I assure you that most of my posts are typically of the humorous or educational vein (if they manage to stay on topic at all), and invite you to read through some more. You’ll see that when I do occasionally make negative comments, I’m careful to never call out any person or any company by name, unless I’m writing a review. In this case I was, as you point out, “really pissed off” by the ineptitude and lack of customer service provided by a company to which I’d paid thousands of dollars.
However, I assume that your anger is based more on my negative review of A&A Estate Wizards, since that’s the search term that brought you to my blog in the first place. Unfortunately, I know a few people who have made a point of not patronizing any Wizards sales based on their own similar experiences. If you’re affiliated with the company then my opinion may hurt your feelings, but it is not mine alone. Please take my account here of one person’s experience not as a personal attack, but as an opportunity for the business to improve and exceed expectations. I wish you all the best.
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Wink, I just have to say…well said!
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