Patience has never been one of my better virtues…lol. I may no longer see the world in only black and white, but I still have no tolerance for stupidity, and I feel like I am being bombarded with stupidity right now!
I had my annual mammogram and ultrasound back on March 25th. When I called to schedule the exam, I explained that my insurance was expiring on March 31st, so I had to have this all wrapped up prior to then. No problem, they said, so in I went for the imaging.
I was told while I was there that the facility did not have a radiologist there to review the images, but not to worry, I would receive a call within 24 hours if additional imaging was needed.
I have cysts in my right breast. I also have dense breast tissue and a family history of breast cancer on both sides, so I am considered high risk – like MRI’s once a year high risk – and the facility was, of course, aware of this. They performed my first MRI in 2024, when my mom was diagnosed and treated for breast cancer.
I didn’t get a call the following day, so all was well, or so I thought. At 3:16pm on March 30th, I received a message from the facility, asking me to return the call. The person left no name, no extension, and no reason for the call, even though I always give my health care providers the ok to do so. It’s my stinking cell phone, so I think it’s ok for them to leave me messages about myself…lol.
I call back two minutes later, and I began getting the run around. No one knows why I was called, or who I was supposed to speak to. I told them that I had been seen the previous week, and after a couple of transfers, I ended up in scheduling, where the person was able to get enough information out of my record to tell me that I needed to come back in for further testing. At that point though, she didn’t know what, exactly, I needed to come back for.
She dug a bit, and she was able to speak with the person who made the original call to me. She said that the radiologist wanted additional mammography and ultrasound images of my right breast (you know, the one with the cysts). I said, “ok, but my insurance expires tomorrow, so I need to be seen before the end of the day on March 31st.” Well, that couldn’t happen, because there are only certain appointments available for recall patients, on two specific days per week, and the first available appointment wasn’t until April 13th.
By this time, I was, admittedly, annoyed. I have now been on the phone for almost 20 minutes, and I have been bounced all over, because the person who made the initial call didn’t leave adequate information for me – just call us at blah blah blah, which was the general phone number for the facility. Add to that, I now have to waste an entire afternoon making the trip back into the facility (45 minutes each way), because of changes that they had made (in the past, results were given at the time of the testing, unless I had a very early morning appointment), without my knowledge, and when I asked the young woman who I was speaking with about the insurance issue, because my insurance will be expired on April 13th, her response was I have no idea.
I began doing deep breathing exercises to avoid saying the things that I was thinking…lol…I am a work in progress people; just because I am a follower of Christ does not mean that I am not still human, and that there are not still times where I just want to unload on someone!
Fortunately, after she said she had no idea, she did have a great idea, and she put me on hold, so she could contact her supervisor. She came back and told me that her supervisor said because this was a them issue, and not a me issue, that this would be “a no-charge visit”. I asked again, and she assured me that I would NOT be charged.
You all know where this is going, right? Late April rolls around, and I receive a statement in the mail from my expired insurance company. Imagine my frustration – I was going to say surprise, but I honestly wasn’t surprised…lol – when I saw a denial from them for my visit to this facility on April 13th.
I immediately called the billing department for the facility, which isn’t actually a department, it’s a whole different company, and if I had to guess from the handful of people that I have spoken with there, it is not a US based business. The nice woman I spoke with on April 27th said they she would forward the issue to whoever, and I would receive a call back in 7-10 days.
No phone call, but I got an invoice for $933.00 from them yesterday! That, honestly, sent me over the edge. I don’t know about you, but I am a busy person. I run a business, I run a family, I have four-legged kiddos that count on me, I am helping other family members with business and estate planning, like, we all have better things to do than to fight an invoice that never should have been issued in the first place.
I, again, called up the billing people, and I asked to speak to a manager. I got a voicemail, and left a very, I won’t say angry, exactly, but stern and probably somewhat aggressive message, requesting a call back. I know that you get more bees with honey than with vinegar, but at that point, I just needed someone to actually do their job.
Needless to say, no call back again from the billing people – A++ customer service there – so this afternoon I called the facility directly. The nice girl I spoke with explained that there was nothing she could do to help me directly, only the voicemail person could, but she would send an email with my account information to her, and in it ask her to call me back today to resolve the issue. Anyone wanna’ bet on whether or not I get that call…lol…I am betting that I have to call the nice girl back again tomorrow, and request that she send another email.
It’s possible that I am inadvertently doing something to attract this sort of thing, because I have been unable to process my subscription order with Thorne Supplements (yes, I am calling them out by name, they have had plenty of time to fix this, and have done nothing of the sort) for well over a month now. Back at the beginning of April, I got an email telling me that the payment method that I normally use is no longer valid. Strange, since I have been getting these shipments regularly from them for the last four years without a problem, and the charge showed it was pending on my card, but no worries, I changed it to a different card.
It fails again, same email, but when I log into my account on Thorne, I see a message there that I should make sure that my payment and shipping information are up to date. Ok, no problem, I reenter my shipping address and credit card information. Same result, failure, same email, so I try reaching out to customer service via phone. I call and leave a voicemail, per their instructions (long hold time, there were 11 people in queue in front of me, leave a message and we will call you back), but get no call back that day. I called again the next day, and spoke with a nice girl that told me that the problem was an accounting issue. She said that she would speak with them and call me back by the end of the day. That never happened. I called again the third day, and left a message. Why can’t we just talk directly to the people who can fix the problems?!?! I finally had to start sending emails, since the telephone customer service people were unresponsive.
A little background, I had my gallbladder removed in 2022. I began taking a couple of their supplements prior to the removal, before I realized how bad the stones were, and I was working with a nutritionist and naturopath to save it. Their digestive enzymes were a life saver for me! I finally had to surrender to the fact that the gallbladder had to go, and I had to stop taking all of my supplements for 10 days prior to the removal surgery, and without the digestive enzymes, I basically couldn’t eat. I dropped 10 pounds in those 10 days, it was awful. I continue to take it, because it contains ox bile, which is similar to the bile that we produce, and that my gallbladder would be releasing when I eat, if I still had it, so this is supplement that I rely on to stay healthy.
Long story a bit shorter, Thorne has a fraud charge back on my address. I don’t know when this supposedly happened, or what exactly that means, because no one can tell me. I suspect it has something to do with an eBay purchase I made for a Thorne collagen product that I wanted to try, back in mid-March, since my early March subscription processed without a problem. It was shipped to me from Thorne, but with a strange name and mutilated mailing address on it. I cannot be sure though, because like I said, I cannot get answers from Thorne. The last response I got was to buy their products (for more money) from Amazon. Can you believe that?!?!
I asked then to have this escalate to management last Thursday, but again, no response, so I just called and asked to speak with management. You can’t just do that either, the customer service person has to send them an email, so we’ll see if anything comes of it.
Is any of this an emergency, no, and I know from experience that it can always be worse, but this is something I have been battling for the last two years with our business, so it strikes a nerve with me. That is a story for another day. I have very good but very expensive attorneys working on that, so as badly as I want to name names and to share the WHOLE story, I am going to have to be careful with that post, so I don’t jeopardize the case, but please know that I am working on it.
Back to today’s “drama”…lol…I’ve got enough enzymes to get me through until I can find a new supplement company, and I just got the bill for the additional images, so I have plenty of time to fight it, but it sure is frustrating when you try to do everything right, and you are still faced with stupidity. I know that this is part of my lesson in patience, and I suspect grace as well, but at some point, shouldn’t people be held accountable for their actions (or inactions if that’s the case)?
Rant over…lol…thank you listening. If you would like to share your “why can’t people just do their stinking jobs” stupidity story here, please do. Misery loves company, and it would be nice to know that I am not the only one that feels this way! It also feels amazing to get this out into the universe. Letting this stuff go in whatever way works for you (this is quickly becoming my way) is a great form of therapy!
I am also going to take a couple extra minutes now to express gratitude for all of the amazing things that happened today, and all of the blessings that I have in my life. We have to stay focused on the good, so more of it will come our way!
Much love to all of you, and to all of them too (grace…lol…see, I can do it 🤪), with Hope and Faith!