Pat-inCO
Hawkeye
I HATE voice response units! ARRRRRrrrrrG!
I am fortunate enough to get reimbursements for some of my medical
bills. Each one has to be submitted on a super whiz-bang special form,
and they then take their sweet time in responding (I'll bet we all have that
frustration - - at least we get some of it back).
This morning I wanted some information on a claim I submitted a full month
ago. Well . . . I'll just try that super new fangled device called a phone.
Since they tell me that I can call them at thus-and-such number, I did.
Got a voice response unit that gave me the obnoxious "say this for English
and that for spanish and the other for any other language" (if you can
understand what you have to reply, you ARE speaking English, so WHY
the rest of the "stuff"?)!
Got past that and it then says "Say the first three letters of your last name".
After five retries I hung up.
Called back once I had calmed down a bit and went into the same garbage.
After one try at the letters in my last name I resorted to a technique that
some people do not know about (that's why this thread). Any time you
have one of the VRUs, you can hit (press) the pound key ( # ) multiple
times (how many is determined by the VRU itself) and it will transfer the
call to a . . . (GASP) . . . REAL PERSON!
Unfortunately, I got a real person that was marginally smarter that the
VRU that I had to deal with, at the start of the fiasco. At any rate, the
claim has been received, processed and a check is "in the mail", that
they tell me will be here in seven to ten days (middle of next week). :roll:
Do remember that the #, repeated at least ten times (sometimes many
more) will get you to an actual person. Hopefully, you will get one that
is more intelligent than the one I got. :roll:
I am fortunate enough to get reimbursements for some of my medical
bills. Each one has to be submitted on a super whiz-bang special form,
and they then take their sweet time in responding (I'll bet we all have that
frustration - - at least we get some of it back).
This morning I wanted some information on a claim I submitted a full month
ago. Well . . . I'll just try that super new fangled device called a phone.
Since they tell me that I can call them at thus-and-such number, I did.
Got a voice response unit that gave me the obnoxious "say this for English
and that for spanish and the other for any other language" (if you can
understand what you have to reply, you ARE speaking English, so WHY
the rest of the "stuff"?)!
Got past that and it then says "Say the first three letters of your last name".
After five retries I hung up.
Called back once I had calmed down a bit and went into the same garbage.
After one try at the letters in my last name I resorted to a technique that
some people do not know about (that's why this thread). Any time you
have one of the VRUs, you can hit (press) the pound key ( # ) multiple
times (how many is determined by the VRU itself) and it will transfer the
call to a . . . (GASP) . . . REAL PERSON!
Unfortunately, I got a real person that was marginally smarter that the
VRU that I had to deal with, at the start of the fiasco. At any rate, the
claim has been received, processed and a check is "in the mail", that
they tell me will be here in seven to ten days (middle of next week). :roll:
Do remember that the #, repeated at least ten times (sometimes many
more) will get you to an actual person. Hopefully, you will get one that
is more intelligent than the one I got. :roll:
