Or really any other company that jerks you around for profit?
Real question.
Every single time I interact with my healthcare, they drag me through some maze of processes where they're just waiting for some minor clerical error so they can deny a claim. Then like, they'll "screw up" and deny a claim through multiple rounds of review, only to approve it 6 months later after sucking away weeks of my life fighting it.
The maze they set up has me going to places multiple times, and getting turned away because X doctor isn't in Y system because it's two separate systems that are not meant to go together, but they were the cheapest options so my insurance will only cover them.
I actually need a better way to cope with this because I'm putting off healthcare because I dread the fight. And whenever I'm fighting it, I'm just picturing myself trying to fight claims when I'm fighting cancer on chemo or something and I just don't know how I'd manage.
How do you all manage? (if you even have healthcare at all)
I put off care until something breaks for the same reason. Any time you see a medical whatever for whatever reason they treat you like a shady mechanic, as a Pandora's Box ATM, over charge your current insursnce deliberately and force you to sign papers saying you'll pay the over charge which is in addition to your constsntly jacked up premiums due to systemic overcharging.
If - when - there is an issue, it's going throguh Pan's Labyrinth with every contact - after the minefield of automated menus - bouncing back to square one with fingers pointed at the source who bounced you in the first place.
My folks are recently retired. They are in a limbo spot of
Healthcare.gov but a couple years short of being qualified for medicare. Also they make too much on their fixed income to quakify for those really cheap plans they keep advertising about so it's $100's of dollars a month out of thier hard earned savings just pissing away for essentially "life rent". Anyways last year they had to play phone tag for hours upon hours with Blue Cross over the course of 3 months just to get coverage. This resulted in BCBS blaming Healthcare.Gov and vice versa with canceled plans and mystery bills which also resorted to hours wasted on the phone.This year was a bit better with only a months worth of phone tag, including them assigning an unknown doctor two cities away, which had to be corrected with Priority Health.
These types of interactions is what keeps my CHUD father voting Rethuglican and how socialism is evil, even when pointed out this is a crapitalist setup that is why they keep sending you to these publicly traded companies and do everything to frustrate you into bleeding your retirement funds to them before you keel over.
You don't "deal" with it - you endure it until actual socialism improves or get lucky enough to escape to a better more affordable country. Yadda yadda
They OWN you.No healthcare, I'll eat shit if anything bad happens to me, but at least routine care is easy. Call a couple places for an estimate (they have to give you one now), make appointment, pay. My next physical is supposed to cost $73. Flu shot is $25 at Costco. Etc. I'll get a catastrophic plan eventually.
I dread seeing the estimate come in the mail. It brings on a terrible feeling of anxiety. Everything costs so much and at this point, I just wish they would nationalize the whole industry and cut out all the middlemen.
I have pretty good insurance through my spouse's job, and it's still a nightmare.
They recently switched the specialty pharmacy for my medication (without telling me), and it ended up resulting in having my Rx cancelled. I was only able to piece this together after spending hours calling both pharmacies, my doctor's office, and the insurance company. I'm lucky enough to be able to get things sorted out, but I had a whole week's worth of phone calls that I ended with a resigned "well, this hasn't helped me, but I'll have to call X again."
