Ahhh @!#P$ insurance companies!! Part 2 and 3

So when we left my story, I was waiting for my HR person to call me back.

Part 2:
I did get a call back while I was in my car driving on the highway, not from the rep I called but someone else in my HR dept. She said she wanted to help me but she didn't understand my problem. I tried to explain that I just needed a paper from Blue Cross Blue Shield saying my coverage with them was over. She was very nice but still confused. How could I need that from them when I didn't have BCBS insurance in the first place? I told her I DID have them for insurance. She said I couldn't have them because they weren't an option offered through our company. ?@?!?!?@#:#!P!?! HUH ?? ?!?!!?!?! I KNOW I have BCBS insurance, I've been dealing with them for weeks over this other problem with my doctor's office I'd been having. The lady just kept insisting that I couldn't have them and I needed to find out who I did have because even though she's HR, she doesn't have access to my records so she couldn't tell for me.


Part 3:
I had to give it a day off between dealing with this to calm down. I devised a new plan though. I'd call up my insurance company, ask when was the last day I had coverage with them, and then when they tell me, I say, Great, I want it in writing! Ha, it's fool-proof! ....
So I try out my new plan, and they tell me they don't have an end date for me, I need to contact my HR dept. Okayyy... I call back the lovely lady from HR I spoke to the day before. I tell her that my insurance, BCBS, doesn't have an end date for me and needs her to send it to them. She still says I don't have BCBS but that it's not her side that sends that sort of thing, it's another company my HR works with called Connect One. Great, I get that number and I call them to tell them to send my end date to my insurance!

Well. This part turned out to be pretty much pure hell. It was more menus and options than I have ever seen a phone system have before. Plus it was voice activated too so if I so much as breathed gently into the phone, it took that as some crazy answer from me. Once it suddenly switched into Spanish because I sighed too hard. There was supposed to be some number to dial to turn it off and I tried it but then it said that was not a valid code. So I pushed all sorts of thing and listened to all sorts of menus. Finally it said connecting you and by the way, here's the number we are connecting you to, and it was THE PHONE NUMBER FOR BLUE CROSS BLUE SHIELD THAT I HAD BEEN CALLING ALL OF THIS TIME AND BEING TOLD THEY COULDN'T HELP ME. WTF?!?! Now I was pretty much losing it. Plus I was no longer covered by insurance so if something happened today, I was going to be SOL. I needed to get this resolved URGENTLY.

I hung up and called the number back and tried another set of menus that I hoped wouldn't just connect me to BCBS. I reached a person!!!! YES!!! She answered, Retiree pension and benefits, how can I help you? Noooooo!! I told her who I was trying to reach and she said all she could do was put me back into the menu system, but I needed to hit 4 for medical. I told her I DID hit 4 and that's how I got to her!! She said sorry and dumped me back into the menu, but something went wrong and it hung up on me.

I called the number back and tried MORE menus that sounded right. This time, at every new menu set of options, I immediately tried to hit 0 for an operator or any human at all. Every time it told me that it was not a valid selection. Finally, finally, finally, I got through to someone who sounded like she might actually be in the right area to help me!! I tell her my problem and she GETS IT!! She's nice, she's polite, she's smart, she's understanding. She looks up my records and........ I have no end date in the system with them either!! She says I need to call HR and have them send the end date to Connect One so they can send the end date to some other company called ADP so they can send it to BCBS. REALLY??!???? Oh . My . God . So.

I called HR back and left a message with this new information............

I still have not heard from HR again.

BUT. There is good news :)
My husband was able to go into his HR office and plead my case about how I couldn't get the paperwork from BCBS and his insurance WILL be able to add me on, effective immediately, and I can just get the paperwork whenever I can get it. YES!!! :D So it's a happy ending, even though I don't have 100% of what I need and I will apparently have to deal with these bozos for a while longer.

Ahhh @!#P$ insurance companies!!

GAH I am so frustrated! I just went round in circles what felt like a billion times with my insurance company. My insurance with them ends tomorrow and all I need is a statement that shows that fact. I call and the lady says no, you need to call this number instead. So I call them and that number is only for Cobra benefits?! That's not what I need. I call back (and get the same dippy lady again, I think) and I try to explain my problem in different terms. She says I need to be transfered to the benefits department. The person that answers there treats me as if I'm the dumbest freak on the planet because I was transfered to her because her number CLEARLY isn't the right one. She gives me another number to call and tells me to also contact my HR department. I call the number she gives me and it's for Time Warner employees only?!?!?! SERIOUSLY?!? Okaayyy. I give in and call my HR dept at work, and of course, my lovely HR rep isn't there, rarely was when I worked there either. I leave a message for her but I really doubt I'll be hearing from her any time soon. All I want is one damn piece of paper that shows I no longer have coverage with them! How can this honestly be so difficult?

Raw foods, on the move

I'm moving all of my raw food blogging to http://dkdreamsofgreens.blogspot.com/
I just think it'd be nice to have everything in one spot :)

Green Smoothies!

I have finally discovered green smoothies! I'm so in love with them! If you aren't familiar with them, basically it's like some spinach or other greens mixed in with bananas or some other fruits in a blender until it's at a smoothie consistency. It'll look bright, beautiful green but it will taste like whatever fruit you've put in the blender. It's so good and it's such an easy and fabulous way to get tons of greens without all the salad chewing.

I don't know what it is about it but it's all I want to eat. So I've decided, I'm going to commit to a week where that is all that I eat. Starting this Monday, July 7, I am only going to enjoy green smoothies for 1 week. I will be feasting on them left and right. I am so excited about my new feasting plan, I can't even put it into words!! I already spoke with my husband about it because I don't want him to think I'm doing anything weird or drastic or won't be getting enough nutrients. I want him to be comfortable with the way I'm eating as well. Plus, I really do need his support because if he's asking to go out to dinner every night, then I'm going to be doomed to fail. I don't think I could walk into a restaurant with my smoothie and just have that while he has a whole meal.

I'm so pumped up about this plan and I can't wait to put together a grocery list with all the great smoothies I want to try to make! I got a copy of Green for Life from the library and I'm going to use several of those suggestions to start with. It turns out, I'm not a huge fan of mango, which is a common fruit to use, so I will have to make some substitutions. I'm okay with banana although it is not my favorite. I can't wait to find out what my favorite combination will be! The fun starts Monday! :)

Raw Food!

Okay, so I've been a little behind updating. Here's what happened. The dog was soooo sick for days and days and I was freaking out about her. We had her into the vet 2 times where we were told she was totally healthy and they didn't know why she was so sick :P Given lots of meds but she didn't respond to them very well so it was just all really stressful. Just as she was recovering, all of my relatives came in town for my sister's wedding. I had a lot to do in the final days leading up to the wedding and it was all pretty stressful and busy for a while. Between all of that, I kept around 50-60% raw until the Wednesday before her wedding when it was just impossible to find the time for it, and I gave in and ate the Standard American Diet (SAD) until this past Monday. I've never been so happy to get back to an eating schedule in my life! So now I'm back to raw and very happy about it and should be getting back to regular updates soon! :)