Tag Archives: frustration

Stories and Meditations

It’s a Downsy-Daysy

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Today is grey, not dark grey just medium, it’s chilly but not cold. With no set appointments I am trying to get phone calls related to Grandma’s health insurance made. Not the best way to cheer ones self up.

So far Swedish wins the just answer the phone and get the info into the account race (2 min 48 sec). The loser so far is Seattle Radiology-Integra at 15 minutes. Two more calls to go.

I am (perhaps too easily) amused when the robo-voice thanks me for my patience. It makes me wonder: is it patience if you put up when you aren’t given the option of shouting out your frustration?

I always used to think that patience was a serene state of mind while waiting or repeating for the nth time the same information. Now my standards are slipping. It’s a bit like surviving vs thriving.

In today’s news we have people all over protesting right now: they are communicating frustration. Sadly, I feel like they are doing the equivalent of when I lose it and tell the robo-voice that its wrong, I am not patient. I have no choice. Or, worse, hang up.

Better to laugh. Every call that gets through to a real person costs them money and helps rationalize a job for that human being.

Don’t get me wrong: it is important to have a voice, even if the powers that be disregard it. I am being frustrated because I don’t feel like I know enough on the subject to have a valid opinion. Everything I read seems biased one way or the other. I have taken to trying to read both sides to get an idea of what might be real. The problem is that the knee jerking judgement on both sides puts me off.  I wish that I had confidence that the policy makers were doing something other than just jerking their knees…and jerking people’s lives around as a product of ignorance, but I don’t.

It’s grey, in the sky, in the world and in my head. I think I’ll go buy some primroses to prime my pump.

 

Stories and Meditations, Uncategorized

If we were having coffee…

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I fear that I would run on and on about me.

The last couple of days, mostly yesterday, found me really upset.

I don’t like to bad mouth people, but one person in particular has me ready to spit nails.

The story goes like this:

I thought the deadline was the 12th, next Monday, the day when Medicare stops paying.

When we applied for Veteran’s Administration (VA) Aid and Attendance for my grandmother we had to use a VA accredited agent. I looked around for one for free, which shouldn’t be hard since they aren’t allowed to charge for their services! But no one called me back in a reasonable time frame…I am talking over a month.

The ones that charge call back. So I found an outfit called Senior Services Navigation, recommended to me by a case worker at a home care company. She (it seems to be a one woman show, give or take) charged less than the outfit in Arizona and it was to be a one time fee for life, including all updates for the VA and applying for Medicaid if it became necessary.

It became necessary.

So I contacted her. Sent her PDF files of The Letter (from Department of Social and Health Services, DSHS) and documentation needed beyond what she had collected to send in the VA application less than a year ago. In addition to sending a scan of The Letter, I outlined in an email the list of documentation they wanted and noted for each item if I thought she had it or if I attached it or would supply it. She responded to that email! Concurring that she had the documentation I thought she had.

Thursday, the 8th, since the deadline was looming and I hadn’t heard from her I checked in (by email). She responded in the afternoon on Friday (yesterday) that I needed to send her The Letter so she could do the submission, plus a bunch of verbage about how she could only do it if I had sent her all the right stuff. I looked back and I had indeed sent The Letter, on December 2 (now is the 10th).

I hauled the letter up on the screen and the actual deadline was the 8th. Crap…Double crap. I called DSHS and was apologetic and concerned. The right person to talk to wasn’t in, naturally, but the man I spoke with was soothing and said that he made a note on Grandma’s file. H said just get it in as fast as possible. So I went in search of the one thing I didn’t have: the letter from the VA.

My Grandma is pretty organized, and not at all demented. I called her and she told me where to look. I went through every sheet of paper. There was the letter saying that they were considering her application, but not one saying it had been approved laying out the details. I figured that I would send that along to at least show good intent, and maybe it would have a claim number or something that they could use.

I got the things Grandma needed to sign together and took them over. At that time she said maybe it was in the box that the butterfly fans came in. For the record there is no such box, but I understood what she meant and, after another quick trip across town, I finally had it all. I mailed the package priority first thing this morning.

I am still trying to find a polite-ish response to the email this gal sent. I don’t blame her that I read the date wrong, but if I hadn’t trusted her to do her job I would have reread the letter at an earlier point and caught the error. The submission would have been on time and I wouldn’t have wasted a bunch of time communicating with her and scanning things so she could do the submission. I need to let her know, because one of the forms I sent in assigns me as grandma’s representative, post dating the one we signed for her.

Morals of the story? Always check in the butterfly fan box! and doing it yourself can be less work and stress in the long run.