Lemme Tell You 'Bout MY Last Hour

The 60 Minutes I'll Never Get Back: Man vs. Machine

Dear Friend,

My last hour elicits thoughts of Thomas Paine’s famed lamentation: These are the days that try men’s souls. He was probably an ADHDer. The rumors are true. We are the least patient, most easily frustrated variety of human walking this planet Earth.

So, I’m gonna spend the next hour writing to you about how my last 60 minutes got wasted. And by “wasted,” I don’t mean day drinking or indica strains. I mean bureacracy and retarded automated systems wasting my time. (I mean retarded in the literal sense, so don’t get on my ass about it — I’m in NO mood.)

I got a random phone call this afternoon from United Healthcare (heretofore referred to as “UHC”), my self-insured insurance company. This started a chain of events that still has me scratching my head.

When I answered the phone, instead of a live person on the other end, there was a robotic voice that instructed me to call this other toll-free number. The robot just casually assumed I had a pen handy to take down its information. I scrambled to grab a pen write to down this toll-free number, because — as you and I have discussed before — I have this auditory processing issue with my glitchy brain — my brain’s Doppler Effect. My brain buffers like Windows ’95 until any verbal instructions I receive lock in and I process them. This meant I had to listen to this obnoxious robot riffing this toll-free phone number three times before I wrote it down correctly. (I’m suddenly contextualizing why I struggled so hard in school . . . )

I called the toll-free number, praying it wasn’t some Nigerian prince stealing my data, pretending to be my insurance company. The off-shore person who answered the phone — for whom English was a second language — asked me for all of my information. She was painfully slow taking it down, with me having to say “D as in Dog, E as in Egg,” to spell out my full name for her. Painful.

I never learned the correct way you’re supposed to say words when you’re spelling out letters for someone; I’m semi-aware there’s some World War 2 military protocol for spelling out letters, like “whiskey tango” when you’re telling someone “WT,”(which I learned from an FBI agent was code for “White Trash”) but I must’ve missed class that day. I don’t know this words-for-letters protocol the rest of the world seems to know, so I just struggle to make shit up as I go along. I’ll pause awkwardly, straining to think of a word to describe the letter, then blurt out something weird like “V as in vulva, or U as in uvula.”

The off-shore rep finally got my name spelled and found me in her system. Success!

Then she asked me why I was calling her. (I was hoping she could tell me why I was calling her. This phone call wasn’t my idea of how to best spend my Thursday afternoon.)

I explained that a UHC robot had just called me and asked me to call back. “Ok, let me check on your account.” Long pause. Finally, she returned. “We were just calling to make sure you were happy with UHC. But while I have you on the phone, can I just verify your information and your current healthcare provider?”

If there’s anything that irritates the hell out of me, it’s these contrived, extra-syllable names that replace simpler words. Who, in their infinite wisdom, decided “doctor” (2 syllables) should become “healthcare provider” (4 syllables)? I fucking hate it. No one asked us consumers which term we preferred. They just foisted this bullshit term on us without taking a vote, or conducting a single focus group. It’s like the marketing industry. During my too-long career, demographics and psychographics became “buyer personae” and in the last few years, flipped to “ICPs,” or “Ideal Customer Profiles.” I’m sooooo over these revolving terms, designed to confuse us. But, I digress.

I rattled off my address, phone number, and my current provider, whose complicated last name I had to spell twice. (Her last name is Nguyen, and you betcha, I used “U as in uvula.”)

Then the off-shore UHC rep asked me for the phone number of my current provider. I had to look it up in my Contacts. I slowly read it to her. Twice. Then she asked me for my doctor’s address. She had to wait for me to Google that one for her.

Then came the moment when my Thursday nearly got totally ruined. And I can take a lot. Why, just last week, my washing machine and air conditioner died on the same day — a day it was hot and humid. The offshore UHC rep told me, “That healthcare provider is not on your preferred provider’s list. She is out of your network. She only takes Medicare/Medicaid patients. I am going to email you the preferred provider’s list.” This was curious because:

• I had just seen my doctor a week ago.

• I am not a Medicare/Medicaid patient.

• The front-desk woman at my doctor’s office took my insurance card with nary a problem.

This was some. fucking. revelation. I was panicked. I catastrophized the hefty bill I was racking up at my doctor’s office. I’d just had a thyroid biopsy (it was negative, but thanks for asking), a sleep apnea test, and a blood test.

The UHC rep chirped that I should download their UHC app. She asked for my permission to text me the link, which I approved. I hung up with her, opened my text messages, clicked on the link, and tried to download the UHC app. I had to double-click the side of my iPhone, which triggered the Apple I.D. to pop up and ask me for my password.

Guess what this ADHDer can’t remember? My fucking Apple I.D. password!

I tried what I thought was my password. No bueno. I clicked on “Forgot Password.” Apple I.D. sent me a link to type in my new password. I typed in what I thought was a new password. I was scolded to not reuse my last password — the one I had just tried to use in the first place, but for some inexplicable reason it did not work when I typed it in the first time! How is it possible that this keeps happening to me?!? I created a new password and finally realized success. The UHC app downloaded to my phone.

To verify I was who I said I was, the UHC app asked if it could text me a code. I said yes. I waited. I waited some more. After one minute of receiving no code from UHC, I clicked on “Send Text Again.” I waited. I waited some more. After another minute of receiving no texted code from UHC, I was ready to throw my fucking phone through the wall.

Next, I called my doctor’s office. I couldn’t rest until I verified how much debt I was in. I was placed on hold for 10 minutes. During that 10 minutes, a recording offered me a call-back service so I wouldn’t have to continue holding. I was instructed to type in my 10-digit number and hit the pound sign. I did so and got a recording, “We cannot call you back at this number. Please try re-entering your 10-digit number and then hit the pound sign.” I wondered if it rejected me because my area code was from Illinois (and I now live in Florida). I tried entering my phone number again — hoping for a different outcome, because sometimes with technology, when I do the same exact thing twice, I do get a different outcome the second time — but I still got the same error message. I hung up. I dreaded it, but I knew I had to call back.

I called back. I got placed on hold again. I held for 20 minutes, ignoring the option for the call back service — I’d learned that lesson the hard way.

The front-desk woman who finally answered the phone was wonderfully efficient. She accessed my chart right away. I asked her if she took my insurance. She confirmed that they did. I told her that the off-shore UHC rep told me otherwise. Front-desk woman doubled down, insisting they do take my insurance. (You can’t blame me for needing loads of reassurance at this point.)

I asked her to please check my balance. She did. It was zero. (Big exhale.) Then I asked her if it was true that my doctor only took Medicare/Medicaid patients. Front-desk woman started laughing and said, “No, that’s never been true at all!” I asked her if her call-back system doesn’t work with out-of-state area codes. She admitted their call-back system was glitching, so at least I wasn’t losing my mind altogether.

I hung up with her. Since my UHC app wasn’t working, I decided to check for any emails from UHC. I found one that said I’d missed my last payment. This was odd beause they had my credit card on file and it had always auto-paid in the past. I tried logging into my UHC account on my laptop computer. Once again, for the third time in an hour, I had to reset another password. They insisted on texting me a code number so I could log in. Guess what never came? The bloody texted code!

These multi-factor authentifications are gonna be the death of me.

Now I’m have to call my off-shore UHC rep again to try to pay my bill. This meme says it all: