A smooth sea never made a skilled mariner.
I’m having a chance to hone my skills again. Do you remember the incident with the insurance company sending us a check? We had thought the case was closed — both the insurance company and provider had said the provider had been paid. Then we received another bill from the provider and a check from the insurance company. We weren’t about to cash the check, so after talking to the insurance company we signed it over to the provider so we would be out of the mess.
Or so we thought. Wednesday we received a letter from the insurance company saying they had overpaid, please send them a check for the overpayment. Needless to say, I’ve spent a few hours dealing with the insurance company trying to get it all resolved. I’ll spare you the details. I do have the names of two people who promise to follow through on it, and one of them is a supervisor. The adventure continues.
Have you had a chance to develop your skills lately?
July 12, 2014
What skills?
You should be actually talking about Mountain People. Since you are talking about mariners however, this is perhaps more apt.
“A ship in port is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for.”
~ Grace Hopper
I watched the Tour de France today. Some French guy became “King of the Mountain”. (So very colorful, green landscape, crowds of cheering people all along the road., the houses passed, the racers. At one point it got dark with changing weather into rain. Exciting! I digress from the subject.)
Rummuser,
You think dealing with people in big systems without wasting one’s time and energy doesn’t take skill?
BHB,
Digressing works too!
I think that the worst part of medical problems is trying to figure out all the statements and bills. When I was having migraines every day, it was simply beyond me. Fortunately, I can now stay a bit more on top of it but it’s confusing.
My most recent skill is learning to use an iPad to replace a computer. I hope not to be doing that for too long!
You’re doing great with the iPad. I wouldn’t have known if you hadn’t mentioned it.
I sympathize with having to deal with health care bills when you’re having migraines. They’re bad enough when one is in tip-top shape!
I’m glad that Tom deals with keeping track of the finances & dealing with the messes.
Andy does most of the finances, I handle the health care part. He’s very happy about that.
i received a bill this month for the extensive heart tests i had last.
the last time they put me through them… i didn’t have to pay anything but my co-pays.
this year i had quite a little sum to pay.
apparently ‘things changed.’ without my knowing it.
i called my provider first to see if the charges were legitimate. they were.
i paid.
end of story!
good luck with yours!
xo
I think it’s bad when they change things without telling people. That’s one of the worst parts of our present system, the patient doesn’t know ahead of time what the charges will be.
Tammy – things have changed – seem to be a big trendy by-word all over the place…
Learning to co-habit with many other people at the local library computer stations has been interesting. The kind of people who regularly (like me) drop in to do things. The effort I have to make to be connected and so on.
Had hoped by now the man next door could sort out at least a few hours of home connection via something new he has got – that should work within the perimeters of our shared section homes…but somehow all he has said regularly “when I have less work on”
In a few weeks, I will be relearning about 2 totally unknown university lecturers on how their “style” works. Both come with other people saying that one gets side tracked and the other is very interesting and on to it! Time will tell…
Yes, you have plenty of chances to practice your adaptation skills. Yay, Cathy!
I’ve been reading your past few posts about the road work and all the rocks and water and it sounds so exhausting…and here I am complaining about weeds!
Then your refrigerator problems and now insurance conflicts.
It’s always something isn’t it? I’m sorry that things can’t be simpler and less stressful.
Hmm, let’s see…what skill would relate to this post?
Oh ok. When I signed up for my cell phone I was promised a credit to my account that would appear in 8-12 weeks for a “special” promotion tied to using a credit union. They also had another promotion that involved me receiving a Visa gift card. So after 4 months on my plan, I had still received nothing. I had been into the store last month and they said it would appear on this months bill, which it didn’t, so after a long online conversation with the cell provider, they told me it could only be resolved by going back to the store. So that is what I did.
Here’s where my “skill” comes in.
I have found that by not getting loud and/or angry but simply stated what I intended for them to do, works for me. I sat there while the guy called different departments and was transferred a total of 8 times. I just sat there silently waiting. I would make an occasional statement but I’m pretty sure that they were trying to tire me out and have me tell them to just forget it. He would cover the phone and whisper things back to me and I would just look at him and slowly shake my head.
Finally he asked what I wanted them to do and I quietly told him to tell them to get their magic wand out and put a credit on my account. He looked at me and made another call. Call after call I would just sit there and text things to my Facebook account and ignore him. Finally, after a little more than TWO hours, he was able to contact someone who credited the whole thing back to my account. That’s my skill, being able to wait out the situation. I know from working in different jobs that there is always someone that they can contact that will have the power to do what needs to be done. I just remain calm and quiet and refuse to leave and it usually works.
Good for you! I have a speaker phone so when I get put on hold for long periods I can do something else — just like you and texting.
The interesting things about his one is the gal who I talked to Thursday evening, who was going to follow through and let me know how it turned out, left me a message Friday morning. She said she couldn’t get through to Central Billing, so she gave me the number and asked me to take care of it — have Central Billing send the insurance company the check so they could get it resolved. Say what?
I did phone Central Billing, got voice mail that said leave my number, they would phone back the next business day. So I phone the insurance company and got another agent to work on it. She did some research and gave me extra information, like check dates and numbers, and said she would follow through on it.
The nice thing is before I was connected to her I was asked if I was willing to give them feedback after the call. Well, yes! I gave her all excellents but said I was displeased on the whole. That got me to a supervisor, so I had a chance to repeat how well the agent had handled it and filled him in on the whole long story. I have his name. He said he’ll be out of the office Monday and Tuesday, but will check Wednesday to make sure things are getting settled. I will keep you posted!
PS As you can tell, we’re not very stressed about any of this. My first reaction when I heard the message on the answering machine (trying to dump the problem on me) was, “This is going to be my next blog post!”
We found out last year when my husband had surgery just how complicated medical bills and insurance companies can be to sort out, and I’m still not sure we have. I hope all your issues get resolved quickly and easily!
It’s ridiculous. Hospitals charge for every little thing, including things the patient didn’t use. When confronted they say it’s not a fixed sum, it’s just an amount to be negotiated. Mostly our insurance works fine. I was surprised this time, and mostly I’m keeping my sense of humor because we had sense enough not to cash the check. The problem is clearly between the provider and the insurance company, and it’s the insurance company that made the mistake.
Jean my comment was answer to this specific question about my skills. “Have you had a chance to develop your skills lately?” I should have at least one to answer!
Ah, but passive floaters through life don’t need skills, do they? 😉