Tricare Issues

Tricare is the health insurance we have in the military and so far, in the seven plus years we’ve been married I have had few (as in maybe one) issue with them. I had a great doctor when pregnant with Alice and after she was born, another great doctor with Jake and after he was born. We had an immediate transfer to a specialist when our issues with George first came up and fantastic doctors after that. I’ve had a doctor here or there who didn’t fit with me, which I either complained about (in one case) or didn’t go see again (in the other case).

But this. This is crazy! And it’s not a doctor complaint, but really more like a process complaint.

Chris got a referral for equipment he needs and gave me a phone number to call so they would get our updated address. Since we moved out of housing we do have a forwarding address and so while we will eventually get our mail, that won’t happen for a few weeks. I called the number he gave me three times and left messages, all I wanted to do was verify they got the new address.

I got a call back this morning and the woman I spoke with apologized because she was away due to an emergency – which I completely understand, but why wouldn’t the system offer you a way to get a secretary or someone else in that case?

She was able to give me a copy of his referral and even stayed after the office closed in order to give it to me. I had a couple of other errands to run and figured the medical equipment office would be open until 5 so I could still call them this afternoon.

Then I call the number and it was disconnected. I thought I dialed wrong, but nope, it was disconnected. A call to Google 411 found me the same answer. Okay fine, I’ll drive over quickly and talk to them in person. Except the address on the paperwork was for a local car dealership.

So what do we have – no phone number and no office. Luckily for me, I have a Blackberry. I did a search for the company name and the town – nothing. Then I did a search for the name and neighboring town since that one is bigger and found an office. I called and talked to someone. I was under the impression that we just needed the piece of paper and we could walk into the office, pick up what we needed and walk right out.

Yeah, right. Chris needs an appointment on a day when a clinician can see him. And it will need to be about an hour long appointment. Put that together with 16 hour days and us wanting to leave right when leave starts and you have a frustrated me!

Now I have to make another call at 8AM on Monday, hope that office will fax paperwork quickly, then the medical supply office has to fax something else to the dr after the first office faxes. Then once that is done I have to hope the dr will sign the paper quickly so Chris can get an appointment as soon as possible. He said maybe he’ll be able to take an hour and a half off to get to the dr Tuesday – but he can only go on Tuesday if the paperwork is all complete.

Why did they (medical in this case) make it seem like we just take that paper in and we could walk right out?

And the wrong number and address?! That is just unacceptable. I am going to call on Monday and let them know, maybe they just have the wrong info in the system. Whatever the case is, I knew it needed to be done so I made the calls I had to. I know Chris doesn’t have the patience to deal with figuring it all out. I can’t imagine that others would either.

This is the worst experience we’ve had – which really isn’t anything that bad to have to deal with in the grand scheme of things. And I am so glad she called me back today – if we didn’t get a chance to take care of it until we were gone from TX we would have had to start about half way over.