My neighbor Maggie has a health insurance plan that provides a healthy benefit to purchase frozen prepared meals delivered to your home. She recently was discharged from the hospital after a fall. These meals are a God-send since they are very nutritious and easy to make in her microwave.
Hour One. It's 8am and I am calling her medical insurance company to order more of these healthy frozen meals. The first customer service agent is the vendor for the prepared meals. She says the subscriber can order online. Maggie has no computer. I request to make the order over the phone. After an hour, I am told I need to contact another department and given a phone number to call.
Hour Two. I am calling the medial insurance healthy rewards department. This customer service agent wants to email a catalog of products Maggie can order using her healthy benefits subscriber U-card. Maggie receives $213 each month to spend on approved supplies. However, I notice that there are no prepared frozen meals in their online catalog.
Hour Three. I am now rerouted to a third department and this customer service agent explains the subscriber healthy benefit service. I share that I am looking to purchase more of the prepared frozen meals, and she has no clue what I am talking about and puts me on hold on and the line goes dead.
Hour Four. I call back the Healthy Rewards department and start again with my request to order the frozen prepared meals and this customer service agent give me another phone number to the service vendor called RFoodX. Remember, this was my first call at 8am and their agent could not order over the phone.
Hour Five. I call RFoodX and start from scratch and this customer service agent reviews Maggie’s benefit plan in which she has $213 to spend each month on supplies that I was informed include the frozen meals. However, this agent says that I need to call the Healthy Benefits department and they can take her order over the phone. Really?
Hour Six. I am back calling the Healthy Benefit department and explain again my request to the customer service agent that I want to order the frozen prepared melas. She reviews Maggie’s benefits that include $213 each month for supplies, She explains that she can take orders for supplies from the catalog over the phone. I once again share there are no frozen meals in their catalog and share the vendor RFoodX will not take the order over the phone. I request to speak to a supervisor who can solve this problem and complete the order. I am put on hold. This time a manager comes on the phone, I share the problem and she gives me a fourth phone number to call another department..
Hour Seven. This new number is to the Healthy Reward department.. I share with the customer service agent the purpose of my call is to order the frozen prepared meals and that the vendor website RFoodX says to call their number for customer service. You guessed it, the phone number comes to the Healthy Rewards department. I am told to call the medical insurance customer service department.
Hour Eight. It is 5 o’clock and I am defeated. But for one last time, I contact the medical insurance customer service department. The agent is very sympathetic, but he has no clue what to do and it’s now 5:58 and the service closes at 6pm EST. He transfers me to another customer service agent.
Hour Nine: Folks, we are talking to Jeremy. I start from the beginning and Jeremy listens. He reviews Maggie’s online medical plan that includes benefits that indeed include frozen prepared melas. He noticed that her card is from 2023 and she has not been reissued a new 2024 card. The U-card number needed to purchase the frozen prepared meals online is incorrect. I require a new U-card number. I have no idea what is the correct U-card number since there are five different number on the front of her medical card and two more on the back of her medical card. Jeremy and I are working together online to login into her account and update her file.
Hour Ten. 7:30pm. We have uploaded on the medical insurance website Maggie’s information to get a new 2024 medical card. This will generate a new U-card number to hopefully order the prepared meals. I go back to the RFoodX website and put in the U-card number and the site says “incorrect” number. Jeremy on his own time shared that he doesn’t hang up on his customers until the problem is solved. However, the main office closed an hour and half ago but he chose to stay on the phone with me. He promised to call me back at 8am the next morning.
Hour 11: It's 8am the next morning and no Jeremy, I wait till 8:15 and call the health insurance customer service. No, the agent doesn’t know a Jeremy. He transfers me to another department. I ask this agent I can’t locate Jeremy but can he give me the new U-card number to order the frozen prepared meals. He notes online that a new card was ordered yesterday but we have to wait two weeks for the card to be delivered by snail mail. The subscriber then has to call the health insurance to activate the new card. On this new card is the new U-card number. I ask this agent for the new U-card number so I can order her food. He replies that due to security reasons, I have to wait for the card to be mailed which takes two weeks and Maggie then has to call customer service to activated the new card. Again, I am defeated.
Hour 12: I decide to make one more phone call to the health insurance customer service department and Casey answers. Question, can you kindly give me the new 19 digit U-card number so that I can order the frozen prepared meals for Maggie before her Healthy Reward benefits expire for this month. Casey looks up the number and without any fuss shared the 19 digit number with it's security code. The last four digits of this number do not match what is printed on the website. This is a God moment. I notice that when Jeremy had me login online to get Maggie her 2024 subscriber card, a new U-card number was issued. However, the 2024 card thst appeared on her login page was not undated and incorrect. I asked Casey, please don’t hangup. Let me go online to the RFoodX checkout order form, insert the correct U-card number and security code and by the grace of God, it works!!! Thank you, Casey.
It took 12 hours, 18 agents, 6 different phone numbers to make the online purchase of the meals.
In the meantime, Maggie was transported by the Bethany paramedics at 5am this morning to Warsaw Hospital. When I talked to her on the phone in the emergency ward, I was connected to her room in the ED and asked what happened and she simply said, “I needed help.” Keep our Maggie in your prayers.
Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends who have been victims of a scam called our medical insurance system. The chaos and nightmare of getting the services from your medical insurance are the result of management that is out of touch with the human need to listen, to learn and to love their subscribers. Sadly, managed care is not interested in customer service but fleecing the patient when one is sick and most vulnerable. Lord, give us the patience and tenacity to challenge this injustice and stop the abuse.
