It’s the little things…

It’s the little things (and some stupid things) that drive up the cost of medical care in the US.

For example, I received a call from the mail order prescription company, Medco  that is part of my medical plan to confirm an address prior to filling a prescription. Caller ID displayed an 877 number for the incoming call. Listening to the message and giving the appropriate voice responses I was was informed that the call was being transferred to a representative for assistance.  No more than 30 seconds later the programmed voice tells me that all representatives are “busy now”.  Please call another 877 number by Tuesday or the prescription would not be filled.

Wait a minute! You called me! I immediately called the 877 number provided, provided all the same voice responses and actually connected to a human representative.  The person didn’t seem to concerned when I explained the previous call they made to me.

With the rising cost of medical care attention to the little things could help save everyone money. 

Let’s consider who placed the original call; the mail order prescription company. I am sure they know how much that cost along with the infrastructure to handle the voice responses.

I have to call back on another toll-free number. Gee, I wonder who get’s billed for that. Well you know the mail order prescription company gets the phone bill. Had their system worked the resulting charge would have been for only one phone call by the company. Since they had a pretty uncoordinated system, not having a representative available, I had to place the second call adding to the phone bill.   Cost? Pennies maybe. Add all the calls made and not handled properly by the prescription company forcing the plan member to call back and the cost now doubled.

Maybe not so small…just stupid.

Andy