I have a patient who is an ‘animal lover’.  She recently asked me if I agreed with the idea chimpanzees be reclassified as hominids. I responded if they did that we might also consider the proposal of delegating certain people to the ranks of Great Apes. I’ve started a little list, starting with those who run telephone customer services.  Many of us are dissatisfied with these telephone mazes. They seem to be run by men with diabolical thinking and complexity of mind, or in the new classification, by a bunch of monkeys. 

 

Medical insurance companies are the worst. Often when I write a prescription it comes back as ‘prior authorization required’. This involves spending a great deal of time on the telephone trying to locate a person. First there are friendly reminders I could be doing this on line (translation: we would rather I hang up). Second come the computer recorded options menu options, none I really want. Voice operated guides are the worst. Often I start pressing buttons at random or say odd words on the hope the system will assume I am an elderly person or an idiot, to direct me to the next available representative.  

Sometimes the programme hangs up on me after some cheerful euphamism for ‘f*ck off’.

 

After a real person is obtained the real battle starts. I want one thing (Rx approval) and they want something else (Rx denial). Some youngster with acne and a GED is going to question my medical judgment so I have to be on my toes. 

Being a shrink means I can play some really sinister mind games, which I don’t regret doing when it comes to health insurance companies. I’ve learned arguments using clinical logic gets me nowhere. I need to 

  1. argue what I am doing will save them money or 
  2. b) make them feel guilty for a denial.  

“Very well, I will convey to my patient you denied him his medication, the only one that prevents him from killing himself and everyone at the plant”. 

Ugly I know but patient’s health is at stake. 

 

It might take a group of monkeys with typewriters a long time to produce Hamlet but it looks to me as though they could make a start with customer service menus.