continuity of care – round 2

My gut instinct was right not to trust these customer service people at Blue Shield. After yesterday’s two hour debacle on the phone with a host of players, I was informed today that we need to fill out a form and send it over to them so that they can start the process. Why no one yesterday told me about this and that was with me asking them if there was any paperwork that needed to be complete is just unfathomable.

I faxed over the form and called again to make sure that they have received it and to get someone to say the magic words that he can go ahead with his appointment on Friday. The first person I spoke with said that they did receive the fax and asked  me, “Why can’t he just postpone his therapy appointment?” I informed this nimrod that it was chemotherapy and not just therapy. I called again because I didn’t trust nimrod #1 and nimrod #2 said that they didn’t have a record of the fax and to resend it so I did with them on the phone and this joker advised me to just pay upfront for the chemo appointment. I explained in a heavily sarcastic tone that I would love to do that but the holidays were a bit rough this year and that I didn’t have a spare $36,000 just lying around at the moment. My sarcasm was wasted on nimrod #2. Finally on my third call of the day, I was connected to Saint Sally as I will now refer to her. She personally walked over the form to the Medical Management office which is the department that deals with the Continuity of Care (another fact no one had bothered to tell me about) and that we should proceed with the appointment because she understood that delaying chemo can be a do or die situation. I thanked her and she told me that someone would be calling me back to confirm that he was ok to go to his appointment but regardless, we were just to go.