They aren’t the only ones. I learned more from an article in yesterday’s paper than I did in a week of training.
Not so far, but I’m sure it’s coming soon.
Actually, I quit. I really didn’t see the point in trying anymore. Smartest thing I ever did.
Otto, the dreaded calls per hour quota. Fear it.
Is anyone actually still expecting our government to do anything humanely and decently??
I keep asking myself what a very smart person such as yourself is doing in that miserable excuse for a job, but obviously you are there because you need the work. You have my most sincere sympathy, and my best wishes for better things to come in your career. (Too bad you don’t live one nation north, for not only do we have equal rights, but in some areas we also have one heck of a shortage of legal assistants and law clerks, which based on your posts on the SDMB I think you’d do well at.) Anyway, hang in there, and keep getting those resumes out. Illegitimi non carborundum.
After the democrats take over in '06, this bs will be tossed and a real help will be put in place.
It’s often determined by the need to keep legacy systems going (that is, all the old crap that the new crap is supposedly trying to replace). If there’s just one mission critical function which is missing in the new crap system, then the old crap system has to stay online until that one mission critical function is implemented. The challenge then, by definition, is to identify and implement all of those mission critical functions into the NEW CRAP system before you even roll it out in the first place. Sadly, it’s the nature of health care systems the world over that such a task is almost herculean in it’s nature. Trying to make it look simple by describing it as so, doesn’t necessarily make it so.
I just saw the first commercial about the drug benefit.
There will be many more I’m sure.
Arg!!! Welcome the the revamped Democratic Party lonesome! All the traditional conservatism with none of the conservatism! For every one thing Bush does I like, there seem to be 3 that I just pause for a moment before doing a :smack: . Can anyone understand why I’ve been so disagreeable (well, more disagreeable) in the past year and a half or so? It’s bullshit like this.
See, I knew this was going to happen when this plan was announced. Did anyone honestly think the federal government would be able to implement a plan such as this smoothly?!? Here’s a general rule of thumb as I see it.
Step one: Call on DC to get the 535 lawmakers to agree on something.
Step two: Include enough addendums, qualifiers, provisions, pork, favors, etc. of all 535 to actually get the bill passed.
Step three: Tell the voters that what they did is going to work, to hell with the real impact of the system implemented.
Step four: Stand back, watch the fallout, then campaign on how you’ll change the system you implemented because the “other” side screwed you over.
Step five: Rinse, repeat.
How anyone can entertain the notion that Washington can somehow create a Utopian medical system is beyond my comprehension. No matter what political party they belong to. The age-old question still applies, IMO.
“Have you been to the DMV lately? Do you want them running health care?”
Otto is just one lone voice in one lone call center, and we see how the problems there are a hinderence to service. Now expand that to all the other people dealing with this shit. And that’s just what happens in the individual office. Now think of what the supervisors and their higher-ups have to deal with by answering to the politicians that wrote the guidlines without ever taking the time to find out if those regulations on workplace implementation were even feasable, let alone reasonable.
Want to know how to completely fuck up anything? Get the federal government involved in anything that tries to give nationwide service of something that is completely based on the individual. There is very little chance of writing a rule that applies equally to an 80 year-old retired banker in California and a 65 year-old part-time hotel housekeeper.
But if one-size-fits-all is the standard, this is what happens.
I know Limbaugh is considered a demon by most here, but I think he hit the nail on the head years ago during the “government shutdown” in the '90’s. To paraphrase, he stated that the best this country can do is have the politicians in Washington “laid off” for awhile. That way they can’t fuck anything up more than they have.
I don’t remember many Medicare rants from 6 months ago. Now that the government is getting involved even deeper? I expect many more to follow over the winter,
How about a copy of your rant printed out and a copy dropped on the desks of all management? You probably won’t accomplish much other than your own satisfaction but just imagine the joy of watching them scramble and try to identify who did it.
Ah, such refreshing optimism, that one political party is significantly different from another.
Otto, you have my sincere sympathy. I have never wanted to be a call-taker in any capacity, and your contract sounds worse than most. Is there nothing else you can do that isn’t so completely ass?
Humm - perhaps Otto needs to find a nice Canadian fella to settle down with…
Ugh, I feel for you. Sounds like a classic case of the left hand, right hand, brain, and backside not having a clue about what the other is doing. Occasionally I’ve been broadsided by similar situations, being named as the go-to person when I had no clue about a particular process. All I can say is don’t let the job kill you, and offer my sympathies. 
Maybe because my grandmother owned and ran a nursing home, I have always had great sympathy for the elderly, and to hear this story just sickens me.
Scared and poor, most likely widowed, lonely and confused people trying to get their medicine and this is the crap they are treated to? Just disgusting.
Please, Otto, do us all a favor and go personally to your nearest Senator or Congressman and let them know what is going on! Blow that fuckin’ whistle!
What is the worst that can happen - you lose this crap-ass job?
No, the worst that can happen is that I’d lose this crap-ass job and by virtue of having no money lose my apartment and my not-yet-paid-for car and end up either dead on the streets with the frozen bodies of my two innocent cats or living with my parents in Iowa, neither of which is an attractive proposition in the slightest.
So this “massive taxpayer-funded giveaway to the pharmaceutical industry” is also actually keeping you from freezing in the gutter? When did you buy Bristol-Squibb Meyers?
Yeah, it sucks royally that tax money is being poured down this poorly implemented rathole, and that your job is total ass, and that you aren’t being provided with some tools that could actually help some folks, but surely you can see some benefits going somewhere other than the pharmeceutical industry. Right?
Well it is a job and I do get paid for it; what’s your point?
Not like I’m talking with every Medicare recipient in the country myself, but a significant number of my callers, after I calculate their yearly estimated out of pocket expense, indicate that they’re not going to save much (or any) money on this plan. Many of those who are currently on Medicaid through their state comment that they will be paying more under the new plan.
I hope Otto mails the OP (anonymously if necessary) to both his Senators and all X of his Representatives.
And I hope other Dopers select and paste, and send it to theirs, saying, “I’m a constituent. Is this true?”.
If you aren’t 65 yet, you probably are connected to someone who is.
HHS is the government (Health and Human Services), not the pharmaceutical industry.
Besides, a job is a job. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.
In the Bush administration, they are one in the same.
Otto, is there any chance you could make some punched cards? You know, like they used before computers?
The only other suggestion I have is to keep plugging at your poker skills.