Health insurance in the US is not great right now. People being denied coverage, people being terminated for the slightest issues, costs going up astronomically every year and other problems are making people justifiably angry. Many people, including myself, are hoping that we have a public option available soon. Everyone in our country has quickly learned to hate insurance agents with every fiber of their being.
This makes it so hard for me every single day. I am an insurance agent. I work for a non-profit company that works to provide decent, affordable coverage to those who otherwise would be without. Our company goal is to have everyone in New York City provided with quality coverage. My company is so fucking awesome that I can’t even begin to explain to you their levels of awesome. We work tirelessly to help people get insurance. I spend my day on the phone with doctors, hospitals, and pharmacists to help make sure that all of our insureds are treated properly. My CEO and direct supervisors go out of their way to make this a fabulous place to work, paying for 100% of our health care costs and 100% of my transportation costs as part of our benefits package. Making sure their employees are well cared for is just as important as making sure their customers are well cared for which means I am not stressed out about work stuff while trying to help the people who use our services. We have an entire department devoted to helping our customers fight claim rejections and reduce their bill if a claim can’t be covered. The awesome is palpable in my office every single day.
Yet every single day I am told by people that they hope I die. I am told by people that insurance agents are bottom feeding cunt buckets and we don’t deserve to live. I am afraid to tell people what I do when they ask about my job and I often just explain that I work for a non-profit if it isn’t someone I know well doing the asking because I really don’t want to get punched in the face. I understand the frustration people feel with the insurance industry but it is so hard to try to help only to be verbally beaten by those you are trying to help. Other professions get similar treatment but now healthcare seems to have been thrust into the spotlight so it is getting much worse for me abuse-wise. I always manage to go home happy that what I am doing makes a difference but the abuse is really starting to wear thin. I can’t take 10 minutes to explain all of this to the people screaming at me though so while this isn’t necessarily a rant I do feel the need to say the following:
Leave me alone you god-damn-ass-butt-moron! I do everything I can to help you short of opening a fucking vein to provide you a blood sacrifice and I don’t appreciate the constant insults that start with the ever pleasant phrase “you people”! I understand you are sick or injured and upset. Things you have no control over and things that are difficult to understand can be really frightening and insurance counts as both of those things but I would appreciate it if you would stop wishing death upon me for trying to help.
I think this is a good and deserved rant, because I think you deserve a place to be able to blow off some steam. Rather you do it here than for one of the folks you are trying to help.
Yeah, seriously, what’s so hard about that? Surely you’ll concede that the majority of insurance **companies **in this country, if not their actual employees, are disgusting scum. When I was working for a telemarketing-type company, I made damn sure to lead with the fact that I was making calls to do fundraising for non-profits.
Heh…try being a lawyer sometime. Particularly a grossly underpaid and overworked lawyer in a non-profit devoted to representing poor people. And, if you need some salt with that wound, factor in that said lawyer makes about half what his classmates are making now.
Yeah. From now on, anybody that asks me about work is going to be told I’m a proctologist.
Generally if I get into a conversation about it I go with that basic description but as of late letting people know that you work in health insurance is a half hour conversation at least. You can also tell if the person you are talking to is a democrat or a republican based on the tone of voice they use when asking that all standard question, “So, what do you think of Obama’s health care plan?” Then I have to explain about adverse selection and all sorts of other stuff because just a simple positive or negative answer is then lorded into a political discussion the likes of which have never been seen outside of a campaign debate. Then after all of that you get to hear either stories about how their nephew’s baby’s best friend was denied coverage and died or about how their cousin’s wife’s mom lives in England and died due to the wait for care. And it doesn’t matter if you agree with them or not, just the subject matter in general stirs up the angry with everyone no matter which side of the debate they are on.
It might be easier to tell people I sell cars for a living.
I just punched the screen with my fist when I read you were an insurance agent. I only wish it was your face and not my computer screen. Now I have to go buy a new monitor because of the stupid insurance companies. Thanks a lot.
For what it’s worth, I am always polite with the insurance people I deal with, even though the companies themselves are constantly trying to screw me six ways from sunday.
I had a kid recently. So far, my insurance company, which enthusiastically added my daughter to my policy without any hassle whatsoever, has not once actually paid a fucking doctor bill for her without first rejecting it. And the reason for rejection is almost always the same: “our records indicate that you may have primary insurance from another company.” This has been “straightened out” by them over and over and over and over and over, and yet last night I received yet another Explanation Of Benefits with two new rejected claims with this same reason. The tally of unresolved charges rejected for this reason is now at $1100. Oh, plus the $2100 for “phototherapy” that my doctor assured me was covered by my insurance but guess what – it isn’t.
We also have a rejected charge on the day of my daughter’s birth for “routine infant care.” It’s $4100 fucking dollars. Reason for rejection? “patient not eligible for coverage on date of service” Hey assholes, it’s a fucking newborn. That you “automatically” cover for the first 30 days. That coverage needs to start the moment she is born or it’s pretty fucking useless.
And here’s another one I don’t get: $600 in miscellaneous lab work. Covered 100%. Oh, except every single line item has a “copay” of a random value ranging from $1.99 to $69.66. All the copays add up to nearly half the bill ($266). How this copay shit is decided is beyond me but I probably have little recourse but to pay it or have my credit destroyed. I can’t wait to find out the $7000 epidural actually has a $5000 copay.
So you’ll have to excuse me for being irate at the goddamn insurance companies. If this is the experience for someone with “good” insurance who can afford to 1) eat the cost when I get screwed and 2) spend half my workday on the phone with the insurance company, I am truly sorry for people in worse situations and think we seriously need a better system.
I’m pretty sure that if I or anyone in my family ever gets a serious illness, we’re going to be fucked for the rest of our lives despite having insurance. What a country.
See if your homeowners will cover it. I think rage at an insurance agent is an act of God.
It would seem to me that screaming at an insurance agent when something goes wrong with the policy would be akin to yelling at the car salesman when you have a wreck (which I’ve no doubt people have done). I understand the fury at the executives who make the policies and even the GED recipients who decline bloodwork as unnecessary, but from my understanding the agent doesn’t have jack to do with this type of stuff.
No, it would be more like screaming at your car insurance agent if you are hit by another car, and then they refuse to cover your car repairs because of “pre-existing rust”. The agent who sold you the insurance may not determine the bad policies, but they’re the front line face of a company who is trying to screw you over.
I understand the rage people feel, believe me. However I have also paid for people’s doctor bills on my credit card when the doctor couldn’t find their coverage and waited to be reimbursed once the problem was taken care of in their system. I have bribed pharmacists with cake and had them release medications at a copay rate while that person’s coverage was being reinstated. I have negotiated with providers to provide care now and wait for payment later (and they freaking hate that) while we process student verification forms for dependents. There is a lot of suckage with insurance but I am damned good at my job and I go above and beyond to help people when they need it and I don’t appreciate being screamed at because the CEO of a company we don’t work with got a million dollar bonus last year by denying coverage.
I am sure you are a nice person. But you associate with an industry that is riddled with assholes, so you should not surprised if you get shit on. It is guilt by association, and maybe it isn’t fair, but when your neighborhood is full of carjackers, you should not be too shocked when your friends don’t like to come over anymore.
Sorry to the OP, but I came in here because the title was Health Insurance Blues, so I thought it would be a rant about health insurance, and I’d join in the rant. I have all this rage with nowhere to go. So now that there’s no place to rant and you’re the only one who’s here. . . .
Whoops - forgot William McGuire, whowas granted a 1.1 BILLION dollar golden parachute for retiring (of course, he had to repay $468 million, including a $7 million civil penalty, because his options were illegally backdated. Crime pays!
Welcome to the fall out of the outrage du jour, created by your friendly media. The good news is that eventually the public will move on to another subject/business. The bad news is that it will probably be at least four years. Good luck!
