Oh Aetna, how can you terrorize me? Let me count the ways! (Do you like the healthcare dart board I designed?)

So….you know I am soooooo thrilled with how well Obamacare err the Affordable Care Act is working out so far.

Do you sense sarcasm?

Damn straight.

Healthcare in this country is still a hot hot boiling hot lava coated mess in my humble opinion.

When the “window” opened in November, Aetna forced everyone out of their old plans and into their sparkling new ACA compliant plans (and got rid of dental but that’s another story).

I spent hours going over plan choices by myself and on the phone with Aetna Representatives.  In the end a representative from Aetna out of Nashville talked me into  the PA Aetna Gold Zero Dollar Co Pay HMO Gold Savings Plus.  Yes the darn plan has more last names than a Real Housewife on Bravo. I still don’t know if I have it straight.

But anyway.

In the end it came down to I did not mind paying more for continuity of care. As a breast cancer survivor in active treatment continuity of care is CRUCIAL, correct? I am not only lucky to be alive I am lucky to have really and truly amazing doctors.

I was told not once, but multiple times every single one of my doctors was in my new plan.

The first Aetna cluster poof  (see I am trying to be polite) occurred in when they were taking out the money to bind the new policy.  First it was the end of December 2014, then it was December 15th, and then it ended up they zapped it out of the account around November 17 or 21st (I forget which date, I am a haze of stress right now).

When trying to figure out what was going on with my new plan I had to call back customer service a few times.  I magically found myself transported to an off-shore call center in the freaking Philippines.  Really nice people, serious language barrier as they were lacking a true working knowledge of colloquial American English. Sorry, it’s true.  And where I used to work actually had an office in the Philippines so it was like déjà vu only in this scenario no one was paying me to be frustrated.

The Philippines people are super pleasant but unable to deviate from a script.  All they kept trying to do was sign me up for auto-pay. After a few calls I figured out if you demanded long enough they would transfer you state side. That is how I ended up in Texas and the nice Aetna lady solved the mystery of when and how the binding premium payment was happening and sent me a premium paid letter.

But January 1st rolls around and no new Aetna ID card.  So I start calling again.  Once again I get sent to the Philippines. This time I got so frustrated I hung up on them and went to Aetna’s Facebook page where I got a very pleasant Social Media Customer Service Rep who e-mailed me the following today:

HI,

I requested the ID cards please allow 7-10 business days to receive. The PCP
you’re requesting is not a savings plus provider therefore we can’t elect
the provider as your PCP.

Please let us know if we can help in the future

 

WTF in all CAPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So I started calling all the Aetna numbers I had.  God smiled and I amazingly and against all odds got the guy on the phone from Nashville who talked me into my plan.  He pulled everything up again and still shows my doctors as being on my plan in his system.

So WTF Aetna? How many systems do you have?

I have now put this back to Aetna to deal with but Christ, I do not need healthcare drama.  I had enough in 2014 when they (Aetna) wanted me to leap off the operating table after a 4 1/2 hour instead of a 1 1/2 hour hysterectomy and go home.

I pay my premiums on time if not early each month. I play by the rules.  All I want is continuity of care. I paid for continuity of care. Bad word bad word bad word.

I have pain in the back of my neck from stress from dealing with this today so I had to write this post to try to release some of the stress. And once again I come full circle: there will be no healthcare reform in the United States until someone actually grows balls in Washington and reforms the health insurance industry.

It’s all still a crap shoot.

Sign me still cancer free and frustratingly yours.