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Magic Oddball (3847)
Journal of Magic Oddball (3847)
Normally, calling Kaiser's advice line results in talking to a front-line rep within a minute or two, then waiting 5-10 minutes to talk to an advice nurse. Last night, calling them resulted in waiting on hold 5-10 minutes to talk to the front-line representative, and 30 minutes to talk to the advice nurse...and today, it was 10 minutes to reach a rep, and an estimated hold time of one hour. Which, as it turns out, meant that at exactly 1:00:00 the line went silent, then hung up on me ten minutes later. Fucking figures.
Just to make it that little bit more annoying, every 20 seconds (yes, I timed it) their system repeats the "we're still assisting other members" message and restarts the on-hold music. So I just had an hour of hearing the same 20-second clip of two songs over-and-over-and-over. Maybe it's a deliberate attempt to annoy people into ending the call for their own sanity.
(No, I wasn't calling about the coronavirus... My mother's having some problems with unexplained severe nosebleeds that last several hours, and I needed to know at various stages whether it was severe enough to warrant a trip to the ER.)
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday March 12 2020, @11:32PM (6 children)
Never a cordless!
You can do a lot of things while you're on hold, paint the house, make a souffle, ferment some grapes, record time lapse of plate tectonics...
Maybe some day people will vote for humane medicare care for everybody, but not this year apparently.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Friday March 13 2020, @06:07AM (5 children)
I'm actually using my cellphone, since I made a point last year of picking out a replacement that has a decent speakerphone function. Thankfully I'd switched to Mint Mobile after seeing someone here mention it, so I've got unlimited minutes instead of the 100-minute/month limit I used to have.
I'd like to say I was productive the two times I was on hold, but all I really did was give the almost-20-year-old cat her potassium supplement and wrote Kaiser's Member Services a polite note telling that they need to fix their broken on-hold system music so it stops looping the music every 20 seconds.
Let's face it: with the politicians we have, if we did manage to get Medicare for everyone right now, it would be warped into an inferior version of the HMO-paid-for-by-Medicare setup that is prevalent now.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday March 13 2020, @04:34PM (4 children)
... are the politicians we choose. A lot of people don't seem to want to accept that little factoid, but yes, with what we are doing now, we will turn it into an HMO, when it could be an 'in and out' KwikeeMart.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday March 15 2020, @02:01AM (3 children)
And even more don't want to accept that we had to choose between turd sandwich and giant douche.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday March 15 2020, @02:11AM (2 children)
That's because you didn't. The choices are limited by the voters themselves. All problems are self inflicted.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday March 15 2020, @03:06AM (1 child)
Well, I could write in my neighbor across the street, but I doubt many people know him...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 17 2020, @01:13AM
A group of friends and I did that to a guy in a local election as a joke. No one registered early enough so every candidate was a write in. He ended up winning by a couple of votes.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 13 2020, @12:08AM
I suspect that, from their point of view, you are an annoying prole who should be glad for the honor of paying exorbitant premiums for next to no service. Stop whining and just die already. It's really what's best for everyone. At least that is what my experience has been when dealing with "health" insurance companies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 13 2020, @03:16AM (5 children)
Except everyone, and I do mean *everyone* else is calling about Coronavirus.
Free advice: Yes. To the ER or an Urgent Care Facility [wikipedia.org].
And you're welcome.
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Friday March 13 2020, @04:43AM (4 children)
Yeah, that's what I was assuming as well; it's why I felt compelled to point out that I'm not one of the people clogging the lines calling about it instead of looking up info on the Kaiser website.
The problem is that we've now been at the ER four times (local ER twice + 'assigned' Kaiser 40 minutes from here on Tuesday, then today it was the closer Kaiser ER a mere 25 minutes from here)... Today's ER doc finally packed her sinuses with gauze twice before getting the bleeding to stop at around the five-hour mark, then a while after we got home, clots began intermittently slithering down the back of her throat, so I tried calling for advice. (The doctor said to come back if there's blood dripping past the gauze in her nostrils, but didn't mention the back of her throat.) That bleeding stopped a little afterward, but the pain has been ramping up until she's now at "8/10" even with pain medicine.
I could take her to the ER again, but she doesn't want to go down there (further increasing the chances of catching the stupid virus) if they're just going to say there's nothing they can do. Especially given it's now late enough that there won't be any ENTs available this late to actually try to find out where the bleeding's coming from instead of just replacing the packing, which is excruciatingly painful. So I'm again on hold and reaching the 1:02:00 point as I type this...sigh.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 13 2020, @05:22AM (2 children)
AC you replied to here.
I'm sorry your mom has to deal with this. That must suck really badly.
Although I wonder how much an RN (or even an LPN) can do to help over the phone.
My guess is that if you can get in to see an ENT directly, that would likely be more effective and useful than going to the ER.
N.B.: I am not a medical professional.
I hope your mom gets the care and attention she needs and is soon feeling and doing much better!
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Friday March 13 2020, @06:21AM (1 child)
Thank you for the well-wishes... I finally got through to one of their RNs, who then called over to the hospital ER, and was told that if I take her to the ER they might be able to slightly deflate the balloons built into the gauze (which may cause the bleeding to return), but otherwise to do exactly what you said — call ENT first thing in the morning to see if they can squeeze her in. I'm not sure which we'll do yet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 13 2020, @07:56AM
If it were my mother, my decision tree would be to check her to see if she has the signs and symptoms of anaemia that are worse than her baseline. If yes, ER. If no, ENT.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 13 2020, @06:16AM
Get her to an ENT as soon as you can. Repeated idiopathic epistaxis like that is not a good sign in an elderly patient, especially when it lasts for hours, to say the least. Not knowing what medications she is on, her other symptoms or signs, nor her medical history, I won't hazard a guess or give advice, but suffice to say get her to an ENT. Pick a couple with good ratings or grades and are covered by your insurance and then call around first thing in the morning to see if any can fit your mother in. Somebody at one of the places should fit you in their schedule, especially if you don't really care which one it is. Hopefully it is something easy like rhinotillexomania, trauma or irritation from over-packing gauze, or she just blew her nose too much from rhinorrhea.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Friday March 13 2020, @05:02PM (2 children)
I don't think it is necessarily insurance specific. I have had luck calling hotlines for insurance lines that are not the ones that I have, but I know some companies are worse than others.
https://member.carefirst.com/members/health-wellness/24-hour-nurse-advice-line.page [carefirst.com]
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 13 2020, @08:47PM (1 child)
The problem is that all the lines are probably clogged right now. One of my friends saw 86 patients yesterday and only 11 of them were not related to a cold or flu-like symptoms and half of the ones that were wouldn't have brought people in any other year. It is so bad, he literally had a kid come in with a broken arm and the parent asked him, in all seriousness, whether the Coronavirus made his bones more fragile.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Sunday March 15 2020, @04:06PM
Sorry for your mom. And also sorry that it;s only going to get worse ...
Here we have the 811 health phone line, so jammed up that the government had to bring in another number JUST for COVID-19 questions [www.cbc.ca] for triage.
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(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Monday July 06 2020, @05:03AM
Is there a callback-style service people could use to wait on the line for you and ring you when someone takes you off hold? At least that way you wouldn't have to roll the advice dice in the future. Also seems like this would be an issue for most people who use Kaiser.