Wednesday, January 03, 2007
They're evil I tell ya!
I have decided that Kaiser Permanente insurance is evil. When we switched companies, most things stayed the same except health insurance. We went from a wonderful enhanced PPO, to the worst kaiser plan there is. ( You know, $40 office visits, $200 a day co pays to be in the hospital) And we pay twice as much for this as we did the Cigna plan. I can deal with all that. Yeah it sucks to switch pediatricians but I can deal.
Then I tried to call and get an appointment. Do I get to call the office? No I call an 800 number and speak to someone who is probably not in this state or maybe the country, they make appointments for the OC. I am told for the kiddos 2 year check up, we don't get to see a doctor just a nurse. I requested a doctor and was told no. It took me about 45 minutes to make the appointment, the lady had to check 3 different facilities to finally find a nurse who was available for her 2 year check up, which is over a month away. That really bothered me that we couldn't see a doctor, so I called member services this morning. The lady was nice and she called the office for me, put me on hold for a half hour and told me all I had to do was ask if I wanted to see a doctor. ( The fact that I asked 3 or 4 times yesterday didn't matter.) She gave me the name and number of who to call to get an appointment with a doctor.
I called this local number and ended up being transferred to the same call center I called yesterday. I told the lady what I was told by the previous person at member services. She said "well there is no way I can help you. I'm in a call center. We don't have a direct line in, I have no way to know who that person is." So I'm back at square one, except my BP is a little higher and I want to scream. Poor DH, I called and yelled at his voicemail that he needs to find a new job with better insurance... I did call back and apologize and tell him to not listen to my message...
I'm sure part of the reason I'm so irritable today is because our neighbors alarm went off sometime during the night. It went off until the contractors working on the house got here at 830 this morning. Did I mention their condo is attached to ours?
Oh well at least my kid is cute. :-)
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5 comments:
I usually make my appointment one month in advance too-- but I always done that with all of our doctors. I don't really have any problems with Kaiser Permanente when it comes to Peanut. Did you pick a pediatrician yet? With Peanut's pediatrician, we can do same day appointments instead of waiting at urgent care if she needs to see a doctor asap. Also, I always ask to speak to the nurse at pediatrician's office to make the appointment, it's better that way :).
There's 2 ways to get through the pediatrician's office. The first invloves a lot of bitching on my part. I would say something like "you know, this happened to me last time, and the doctor had always tried to squeeze me in. I need to have the appointment asap. I don't know why you CAN'T do it. Please call the office for me now or patch me through." Usually at this point, they are so sick of me, they will just patch me through. Also, you can ask pediatrician for his contacting information when you go in to see him. Peanut's pediatrician returns all calls in the same day. So, when I call his line and leave a message about needing to see him asap, he always calls me back and allow me to go in without an appointment if there's no openings.
Kaiser IS evil. My granny had them back in Pasadena. What a nightmare!
I grew up on DeSalle St. in Laguna Hills (take Alicia to Cousteau to Mackenzie), worked at the Togo's behind the Wendy's on Alicia and graduated from LHHS in 1985, then Saddleback in 1988, but I ran out of there in 1990 and I have to ask you HOW DO YOU DO IT? How do you afford to live there? Doesn't it seem a little nuts??
But I remember Salt Creek before they built the Ritz, when it was still cool, and when you could still get a cheap house in Laguna Beach, so I'm a relic. But everytime I go down there to visit my sister (who lives in Marbella), I feel like I need a thorazine.
My company just recently switched insurance companies. We were given the choice of 3 different plans to choose from. They made it difficult to choose the PPO verse the HMO (Kaiser, which was a great deal cheaper) but I went for it. I'm willing to pay a little extra money for the PPO now that I read your post!
I've never had a good experience with HMOs.
Reading all that made my head hurt. I can't imagine having to go through it. Yikes! Good luck.
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