Thursday, July 7, 2011

Score one for the little guy

I'm trying to decide on a theme song for this post.  I'm torn between "We Are the Champions", by Queen, "Rip Her to Shreds", by BoomKat (thank you, Mean Girls soundtrack), and the theme from Rocky, by...whoever did the theme song to Rocky.  Feel free to read on and weigh in.

The last time I posted, I was gearing up for a conference call with my insurance company. I am, by nature, not a confrontational person. I like to talk trash, but inevitably, when the time comes to put up or shut up, I panic, my mind goes blank and I stumble through the conversation, only to be haunted by what I should have said for the next few weeks after the incident. This is why I love Dina (shout out!). Dina is now my personal barracuda, an employee at my son's therapy center who handles the insurance filings and is now a rock star in my book. She offered to conference call with me to my insurance company to try to get things straightened out. Unbeknownst to me, Dina had been trying to call my insurance company herself for a while, only to get transferred repeatedly to their "provider" department, aka "Press-One-For-English, Haha-Just-Kidding!" land. Knowing what I know now, I can only imagine that this was intentional, and they somehow saw Dina coming. This conference call was undoubtedly the most entertaining time I've had in quite a while. After being transferred to the "These-People-Pay-Our-Premiums-So-Be-Nice" department, Dina proceeded to take a sip of water, clear her throat, make sure her claws were thoroughly sharpened, and tear the representative to itsy bitsy, teeny tiny shark-bait-sized pieces. Excuses?  No ma'am.  Lost claim?  Let me tell you how you're going to fix this, honey.  She literally steam-rolled over the girl and no kidding, I had to mute my phone to keep them from hearing my laughter. The whole time Dina's doing her thing, I'm mentally hiding behind her back like a kid being picked on at school, cheering her on. "You go, Dina! Go on with your bad self!". Apparently my school yard self is pretty ghetto. And stuck in the 90's.

So, in conclusion, Dina simultaneously got the job done and probably put both our names on some ominous insurance company LIST, but I don't care. I was deliriously happy once I realized I was actually going to get PAID, until I realized it's all going right back into therapy and I'm probably going to drown in debt anyway. Still, very excited, since my kid is doing PHENOMENAL, by the way. Definitely money well spent.  But it leads me to wonder - how is the average, barracuda-lacking person supposed to DO this?  Are the insurance companies really that sneaky?  I like to think I would have gotten it straightened out myself eventually, but who knows.  Working for an insurance company (albeit not a medical insurance carrier), I've always been a little skeptical of the insurance-companies-are-evil line.  But I've heard enough horror stories now that it makes me REALLY nervous about this whole process.  Hopefully now that we have a suddenly-very-nice insurance company contact, this process will go a little smoother from here on out.  But if not, there's always...

OOOOOOH, Barracudaaaaa!

Annnd, we have our theme song.

No comments:

Post a Comment