I'm listening to a meant-to-soothe me sound, that I suspect is activated when I'm-going-to-lose-it callers are being put on hold. It's a pseudo-eastern flute sound with a babbling brook in the background.
I'm waiting for the sound of birds chirping.
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| Unsoothed, December 2019 |
I grew up reading Asterix and Obelix like many European children my generation.
Occasionally, a movie would be made and it would be pretty bad, compared to the comic books.
Bad and largely unmemorable... Except for one sequence in The Twelve Tasks of Asterix. The story is loosely based on the Hercules storyline.
One of the Herculean tasks assigned to our intrepid Gauls concerns the maddening experience of the human brain vs. bureaucracy: Asterix and Obelix are to enter a building and get "the pink form" or something like that. As they approach the building, they notice a number of frankly erratically behaving humans...Humans who have seemingly lost their minds and are either laughing hysterically, behaving like they are rabid animals or pirouetting senselessly.
By the way as I'm writing this I am now, for the 14th time this week, on a long hold and this time, listening to country music presumably because I am not yet categorized as about-to-lose-any-marbles I have left.
Going back to Asterix: A and O go into the building and come close to defeat.
You see they are sent from one Roman equivalent of "I'm doing my nails, what do you want?" bureaucrat to another and always chasing unobtainable goals. I'm summarizing in my own way but it's essentially: Oh, no, we can't give you the pink form. You first need the yellow firm. Ok, where do I get the yellow form? Well you have to go to the 7th floor. There is no seventh floor...and so on and so forth.
My situation more or less:
My doctor wrote a new prescription (phone calls 1 and 2)------>pharmacy could not process (phone call 3)-----> I am told it's an insurance issue so I call my insurance (phone calls 4 , 5 and 6-lasting a total of 2 hours including the many holds)-----> Pre-authorization needed by doctor so I call back my doctor (phone calls 7, 8)-------->Doctor's office notifies me that pre-authorization went through 5 days ago (phone call 9)---------> I wait and then call Walgreen's pharmacy to check on continued delay (phone call 10)------->Am told the delay is at insurance level so I call back my insurance (phone calls 11, 12 and 13) --------> After a very bureaucratic confusing conversation, I ask them to listen to the transcript of my ostensibly recorded previous calls and they find needed data and report that the issue is at the Pharmacy level, which I then call back (phone calls 14 and 15.)
Oh and I just got a text, one week after my doctor's prescription for an acute health issue, that my medicine is ready for pick up.
By the way...back to Asterix, the way that he and O (well really Asterix because, you know, he is the brains of this dynamic duo) solve their predicament is by inventing a new form and perfunkling the whole building which leads to a bureaucrat inadvertently handing the pink form.
My version of getting through was less fun. I just kept repeating during insurance and pharmacy long calls: " it's ironic right that I'm calling now for the nth time about a treatment that has been medically deemed appropriate for me and that we are obviously dealing with human error issues, which I should not be taking personally except that I am because of how I feel right now and because I take care of so many people who are stressed beyond belief by their dealings with systems supposed to help them."
Complaining to people on the phone is not an evidenced based technique for resolving problems.
I know that but I could not help myself. I have not been at my best exactly.
Oh and don't think I don't know that I count myself as lucky: insured for one, used to those stressful systems for two and very frustrated but able to see the process through for three.
That makes me even more concerned for all our patients.
One time I was in Norway for a meeting and I had forgotten an antihypertensive I took at the time.
I go to a pharmacy by my hotel and explain my situation. Pharmacist sternly tells me I need a prescription from a local doctor and points to the nearest emergency room. I kindly tell her that it would be a misuse of an emergency room, I just need to avoid an emergency by taking my medicine. She looks at me even more sternly: well....then you will have to pay the FULL PRICE. Ok, I ask, what is that?
Folks, it was 12 dollars for a month. For a medicine that is still 20 dollars here after my insurance coverage kicks in. Oh, and the cost of the generic medicine I was waiting for all week, had I chosen to get it out of pocket bypassing the insurance/pharmacy liaison conundrum?
About $800 for a month.
So do I believe in universal health care?
Yes. I do. Our current systems make us sicker too often.
That is one thing I know that is true as an experienced doctor and patient both.
Love to you all,
Anne
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