Rumors From the Front

The shopping is done. And me, I'm done in. But mightily relieved that's over.

Now: I couldn't get hold of the right people at Health Options yet. In fact, when I tried this morning while waiting for kmom to come, the folks at the main customer service phone couldn't find any record of my grievance in the system.

Now that is very interesting. After it didn't show up in the computer, they even put me on hold and talked to the Authorizations Department. k? Nope. Never heard of her.

I told the nice lady it was OK, I had a direct extension number for the person handling my complaint, and I'm sure she knows where it is in the Auth Dept. I thanked her, said sorry, I should have just called that person first, and hung up. But I'm extremely glad to get this info.

See, sometimes a big contractor's pay is partly based on such performance statistics as *Grievances Filed as % of Member Base.* And incompetence provides deniability. *Oh! gee, just imagine, we under reported grievances by 82%?!? Shoot, we sure do need to get some better data processing types in here! Can't get good help these days for NUTHIN', huh? so sorry, we sure goofed didn't we, heh...*

No time left to call the Right Person till I got home from shopping. She didn't pick up; I left a message asking her to call and let me know where it stood: yes, no, or still processing...and if she'd already left for the day instead, then have a nice weekend...

Next, I called Chair Care. The pres was on the phone. I explained to the nice lady that I'd been trying to get Health Options to cough up a scooter, and since it may be a while still, was wondering if we could do a short-term rental. Even if I had to pay.

And she told me...she'd been on the phone that morning with some very nice man from Health Options, who wanted to know prices and models and things. He was collecting info for my authorization.

Okay. I don't have a *yes* yet. But! If they were determined to say No, they probably wouldn't be doing price checks.

She thinks it was the same nice guy who'd helped me before - I told her his name. He's the one who spent 3 hours on the phone with me two weeks ago, taking my 3rd phone complaint and walking it upstairs to the Higher Authorities as I waited on hold, so he could get me instant feedback. The feedback was: have the patient do a written complaint. That's the one reproduced below, a few posts down.

The Chair Care lady thinks we may hear back as early as Monday.

So I said, well, heck, I can wait a few more days. It'll take that long to sleep off this shopping trip anyway.

I don't count my chickens until they hatch.

But I sure can feel hopeful. And I do.

Oh...BOY.