Monday, March 16, 2009

Just ask George...

Just spent 30 minutes on the phone with Humana...only 10 minutes per department (apparently that's good?).

According to Humana customer service representative Randy, Keith is over the limit for the year (2009) for medroxyprogesterone, although they admitted that didn't make sense based on last year's needs. That confusion bumped us to the next department. Randy told us he'd fully apprise the rep in Pharmacy Customer Service of the situation so we didn't have to repeat the story. Well, he was sort of right.

While we didn't have to repeat the story, the Pharma Customer Service rep spent most of her time advising us that we should let Medicare know that they had Keith's birthdate wrong on his official paperwork. We assured her that we had done that multiple times and, after her 3rd admonition about it, I cut her off and said we needed to focus on the medication issue. She looked at the records and said, "oh, this is the wrong department, let me connect you to Pharmacy Clinic Customer Service...I'll call ahead so they understand the situation and you don't have to repeat the story."

I knew we must have gotten to some inner sanctum of customer service because the hold music was in the classical vein. George came on the line and smoothly told us that after looking at Keith's records, he had a solution underway. He faxed a request to Keith's doctor and advised us to tell the doctor to elaborate on the medical need for this prescription. Humana would then have an answer in 24-72 hours as to whether Keith could have this medication in the dose the doctor prescribed.

So, perhaps we have a victory in this skirmish. If so, I know that next time I go straight to George...lol.