Sorted out...sort of.

*sigh*

It isn't as though I expect life to go perfectly, you know, but some days the little bumps in the road feel like New York City potholes. And it seems like the path of life was laid out by cows in the 18th century (*wink* to the Blockheads, particularly the Bravehearts.)

When I last blogged I was waiting for my insurance to approve the continuous glucose testing sensors for my pump, and I was glad that I wasn't waiting on pump supplies that were more vital because it had been two weeks since I'd requested them. They arrived on Wednesday...which, if you want to do the math, is actually 21 days from the day that I ordered them- so not two weeks, but three. That's closer to a month- on a "rush" job- than is acceptable, if you ask me. Three weeks is how long you can check a book out from the library. Three weeks is how long a track break was when I was in elementary school.

Elementary school...which is when I ordered the blasted things.

 

I'm pretty sick of the red tape, to be honest. They know I have insurance, even if they had it wrong. They've never not gotten paid. They should have put the sensors in a box the day I requested them and sent them, then taken care of the insurance submission and everything. That's good customer service. That's the kind of thing I'd expect when I was dealing with, oh, I don't know...a place that deals with life saving medical supplies. I have ordered things I didn't need from Amazon.com and gotten them the next day. But I guess I've learned my lesson- from now on, I don't wait until I'm short on diabetic supplies. I order when I've got plenty and allow for the sloooooooow process to take place.

 

I think we're all a little spoiled in this day and age when it comes to instant gratification. Amazon is a part of the problem, actually- I can order books and have them show up on my doorstep in less than a day if I'm willing to pay enough money. Maybe Amazon should start selling pump supplies. I'd be able to get them fast and cheaper. I mean, eventually Amazon will be selling us everything and we'll never have to go to a real store again, so this isn't out of the realm of possibility. In fact, it may be scarily accurate.

 

The bottom line, though, is that it all comes down to the bottom line. I look to places like Medtronic and Dexcom for life support, and they look at me like this is my high school yearbook picture:

 

I'm money, baby.

 

I've probably talked about this before, since it's one of those things that I rant about, but that whole "there's a cure, and we'll find it" line that the lovely and talented Mary Tyler Moore kept saying back in the 1980's is baloney. If there is a cure, it won't be more profitable than keeping me a diabetic, and I'm sure that Lily (they make insulin) and Medtronic (pumps) and Dexcom (blood glucose testing) and the myriad of other companies that make blood testing strips and diabetic foods and pumps and glucometers and glucose tabs and glucagon shots and this stuff

 

'Cause goodness knows I can't handle the sugar in the regular stuff

 





aren't exactly chomping at the bit to make sure that the millions of us that have diabetes suddenly don't need their products anymore. I mean, I know it sounds cynical, but I'm a capitalist at heart and even I'm like, man...a cure for diabetes would probably hurt the medical economy in a big way. What the heck would happen to totaldiabetessupply.com and all of its employees if diabetes were cured? All the engineers working on advanced pumps and monitoring and stuff would have to engineer something else. What on earth would Wilfred Brimley talk about on Liberty Medical commercials if there was no more diabeetus?

 

http://sspdapparel.storenvy.com/products/3619474-diabeetus

For goodness sake, there are even t-shirts that depend on this disease!

 

All joking aside, the medical industry is called an industry for a reason, and while all of these companies are trying to help people with diabetes they are still profiting from them, so I'm gonna stay cynical on this one until I actually see that there's a cure. In the meantime? I'll order my supplies sooner and hopefully avoid this kind of drama in the future.

/rant on

You all know that I have had my issues with insurance and doctors and medical companies in the past. Frankly, that a week ever goes by without me having to deal with the horse crap the medical industry produces blows my mind. I should be used to it by now. I should be.

But I am so not.

I am out of MEDTRONIC MINIMED ENLITE sensors. Medtronic is the company that produces the pump I use. The company that, until this year, I've not only had few problems with but have defended to my endocrinologist's staff every visit. That ish stops now, because I am having one of the absolute WORST customer service experiences of my life with this company right now.

Let's go back a few weeks...actually it's months. I got a bill for umpteen THOUSAND dollars because apparently no one at Medtronic has any follow-through when someone leaves. The person who was handling my account left (or was fired, or got beamed up, I don't know and don't care), and no one bothered to follow up with my insurance company, so I was stuck with a bill for my entire $6999 insulin pump that I was told by Medtronic was completely covered.

 

Okay, I get it. Shit happens.

I call my insurance company to speak with our patient advocate, she gets on the phone with whomever and calls me back. "We're cutting them a check," she tells me. Problem solved, right? Nope!

I called Medtronic about my bill, because I wanted to be sure they got the check. Apparently the insurance didn't send a big enough check, because Medtronic still had me owing them $1600...plus about $600 for miscellaneous other things. Now they were also charging me for things like blood testing strips and pump supplies, which had always been FREE once I met my deductible even when I only had my insurance. As of November of last year I have been double covered. You can imagine my surprise and anger at this situation. So I told them to please, run everything through the insurance again, because I am double covered and I should not be charged for these things. Whomever I spoke to said okay.

Weeks went by. I didn't get a bill. I started to worry.

Actually, that phone call was a massive waste of time, as you will see.

 

So I call Medtronic AGAIN, and this time I am still being charged $2000+ for things that I have no business being charged for. I ask them to send me a paper bill immediately. Upon receiving it I make a Watson and Crick like discovery...they have my primary insurance wrong.  I call the insurance patient advocate again, and she tells me to fax over the bill, which I did. I then called Medronic because lo and behold! Those sensors for the CGM they tell everyone last 6 days only last between 3-5 is you're really lucky, and I was almost out. I was also going on vacation for a week and going to be sensor-less for the whole trip if I kept going through them at the average rate, which made my husband and me uncomfortable.

 

So I again call Medtronic, explain to them that my insurance company was looking into the bill, that I was leaving in five days for a vacation and had one sensor left. I also pointed out the err in my insurance. The woman that I talked to said okay, went to look at my account, and someone was already in it, probably at my patient advocate's urging. Regardless, the Medtronic employee said she'd put a rush on the sensors. Problem solved, right?

 

Dr. Cox- just tells it like it is.

 

Be glad that I didn't need something important, like, oh I don't know, insulin or pump setting supplies, because guess what? I logged into my Medtronic account today (the day we got back from being away for a week, mind you, with one sensor that at best will last the 6 days Medtronic claims it will, and, at worst, bends as soon as inserted and is a dud in less than 24 hours). This is what I see when I logged in.

 

W. T. F.?????

 

Because Blogger won't let me change the size, further infuriating me, let me tell you what that says: PENDING AUTHORIZATION. This is what "rush" means to these people. "Rush" to me means, "I kind of need this yesterday, so if you could get it to me as soon as is humanly possible, that would be of great benefit to me." "Rush" to Medtronic means, "You'll get it whenever, lady."

 

So now I have NO sensors, and I'm a little more than a little pissed off. Two weeks is not a "rush" order. What if that had been pump supplies- the kind that get insulin into my body so I don't die? Seriously? I cannot even begin to comprehend why a company that I have had so few issues with over the past ten years I have used them now suddenly becomes the most infuriatingly non-communicative and incapable company I have ever had to deal with in regards to my diabetes. I am so mad right now I am virtually seeing red.

 

Actually, I'm seeing green.

 

I want Medtronic to fix this, because I like my pump, for all of its faults, and I like the CGM element, for all of its many faults. But if at my next doctor's appointment my endocrinologist suggests we try to go with a different company and all of this shit is still unresolved, I will gladly return this new pump and go with some other company, because this is getting to the point of too much for me.

 

Oh, and did I mention the nurse practitioner that I usually work with at my endo's office doesn't work there anymore, so my June appointment has been pushed back to August?

 

Time for one of these. I'll meet you at the restaurant at the end of the universe.