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Hold on a minute…

39 Comments

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My husband and I have great health insurance through his military service. We rarely have issues and there’s usually no reason to complain.

Until now.

Our medications are prescribed by our doctors and sent to a mail order pharmacy at their main campus here in Maine. Refills are done by phone and if there’s something you can’t wait the ten days it takes to process? You can pick it up in person.

Until now.

Because they shuttered the local pharmacy due to government staffing cuts a while back and if you have a problem now? Too bad, talk to the bots.

So of course we had a problem when their automated refill system updated and didn’t transfer payment information for security reasons. The next time I needed a refill? I was denied because they no longer had my credit card number.

When I tried to update it online it said no, I had to call and personally speak to a representative. The only problem with that was everyone else in this network found themselves in the same situation and there was only one phone number available.

One.

.

.

See those numbers in the top right hand corner?

One hour, twelve minutes and thirteen seconds. That was me, on hold… and not the least bit happy about it.

In the end I waited over an hour and a half to speak to a human … and no, I was not pleased.

With no other way to update payment information and no chance they would fill prescriptions without payment… half the state of Maine was probably calling the same number at the same time.

It was maddening.

Even more maddening? That number is the same one we use for refills and now even the bots aren’t picking up because the system is overloaded with calls. And it’s not like we can drive to the pharmacy because they closed it.

Government efficiency my *ss.

😡

39 thoughts on “Hold on a minute…”

  1. It’s amazing to me that decision makers never look even one step down the road to consider unexpected consequences. Closing the store was certainly going to increase call volume. I think a 10-yr-old could have seen that coming.

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      1. Except that the consequences may not have been either unexpected nor unintended. Hanlon’s Razor says, “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” Sometimes I’m not sure which it is these days. Maybe both.

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  2. Wow, that has not happened to me for this. I am a Veteran. What I do find is that my VA is too efficient and will send me refills without asking. I had to stop by speaking with a person and saying , “I will let you know when I need it.” She was surprised. I had the time, so I called en transit. No problem.

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    1. Maybe, but it would have been based on an under-utilized asset. The fact that she had a credit card on file tells me there was a civilian contract at play, and that contract no longer proved cost-effective. Maine does not have a huge retired military population, unlike Florida, Arizona and Texas, and our VA system here in Tampa hums like a finely-tuned NASCAR racer.

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  6. It is your local VA, not the system. Cupcake and I use the “MyHealthyVet’ sight to monitor our lab results, pathology reports. MRI images, make/confirm appointments, and order our meds. “CLICK”. Done. 3-4 days later, the refills are in our mailbox. Has not failed us in 25 years.

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    2. Technically it’s not the VA.

      “Martins Point is not a VA hospital, but it’s a major provider for military families through the Department of Defense-sponsored US Family Health Plan (USFHP), a TRICARE Prime option, serving military retirees and their families in Maine, New Hampshire, and surrounding states. While not a VA facility, they partner with the DoD to offer healthcare, and there have been legal disputes with the government over payment calculations for this program. “

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  7. This reminds me of calling the unemployment office during the Great Recession.

    EVERYONE was calling, had to call, to get benefits.

    Hold times were long, on the order of yours.

    If you got disconnected, the clock restarted when you called back in.

    I got disconnected.

    A LOT.

    We all did.

    My (former) colleagues passed around tips.

    For example, one recorded message meant you would, eventually, get a human.

    If you got the other recorded message? We figured out that meant hang up and call back. You would NOT get to a human with that message.

    No system can handle being overwhelmed.

    The government is just really good at building systems particularly bad at handling moderate volume.

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      1. It sounds like the bungled switch over / physical pharmacy closure pressure-tested the phone system.

        Given government track records, I suspect that at any time over the last 24 years, had it been encountered, this volume of calls would have broken the phone system.

        But nothing happened to trigger that volume.

        Until now.

        Liked by 1 person

  8. Ah, yes…. similar reasons are why I’m still not collecting soc sec disability or retirement. Before layoffs the hold time was running 4 hours… I dunno what it is now because I still haven’t sucked up the willpower for perpetual hold.

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  10. I can’t even… how is it in this modern world when a bunch of politicians squabble things like this fall apart? It’s maddening and I’m shaking my fist at them all. So sorry you had to deal with this.

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  13. I feel your pain about being on hold. A few weeks after I submitted everything to get Bobbie 2.0 titled, I received a letter in the mail saying that they couldn’t issue it because there was a form missing. After finding the form online, it was clear the form (which is meant to be filled out by the border agents) was for RVs that have motors/engines. I called to clarify and they said, “Nope. You need this, too, even though your trailer doesn’t have a motor/engine.” So I called the border and they were like, “Nope. It’s for RVs with motors and engines and yours doesn’t have one.” I said, “That’s what I thought. Why do you think the DMV thinks I need this form?” The border agent then had some choice words about local government. I called the DMV back and that’s when I was on hold for nearly an hour. In the end the woman told me, “Uh, I’m going to have to investigate this and call you back.” Stupidly, I forgot to get her name. About a week and a half later, just as I was starting to wonder/worry what was going to happen, the official title arrived in the mail. Huzzah. It was finally over. BUT, someone somewhere caused me a lot of worry and wasted time with their erroneous idea that I needed that extra form. Grrr… A little incompetence causes a lot of inconvenience.

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    1. Ha!
      It’s something called a landline. Back in the dark ages it was the only form of communication and now we give that number to any business or account that requires one so our cells aren’t flooded with junk calls.
      😉

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