Must….make…the….pain…..stop!

It started simply: I got the mail; the monthly medicaid forms arrived for the boys (we don’t use it anymore because they are on my insurance, but they will always have medicaid until they are 18), but the addresses were slightly wrong. There was a typo and so the street address was one digit off.

I found the medicaid number to call. I waited, got to talk with a lady, she asked me lots of questions before I could tell her why I was calling; she typed out every answer I gave; finally, I got to tell her the address was wrong, and she said “Oh, I can’t change that. You need to call this other State number.”

I called that number and waited and talked with another lady. I told her “The medicaid address is wrong in your system; it has a typo.” She said “And….what are you wanting me to do?” Me: “Can you please correct the address to the right one?” Her: “Oh no, I can’t do that. You need to call this other State number.”

So I called that number, and the guy asked for the case number; I gave it to him (on the medicaid forms it says “Case No…”) and he said “That is not a correct case number. It should begin with 1010.” So I gave him the boys’ socials, and he began asking about their other insurance (the one they have through my work), so I gave him all of that information. Then he asked “Is anyone pregnant in your home?” And I said “Why does that matter? I am trying to get you to fix the address.” Him: “Well, we need to know these answers.” So I said, “Yes, as a matter of fact, my wife is pregnant.” Him: “Is she on medicaid?” Me: “No. Only the boys are on it because we adopted them through the State.” Him: “Okay. Well, I can’t change the address. You need to call this other number.”

So I called that number and spoke with a young man who asked me a bunch of the same basic questions; I answered, and he asked “For verification, what is your address?” And I told him “That is just the problem; the address you have on file has an error in it that needs correcting. The correct address is 123 but your system has 124.” Him, sounding confused: “Uh-huh. Do you mind if I put you on hold?” Me: “That’s fine.” Him a while later: “Uh, what is it that you want me to do?” Me: “I would like you to correct the address.” Him: “Uh-huh. Just a minute (on hold again). Okay, I can’t do that. You need to call this other number.”

I called the next number, beginning to despair of finding even one competent State employee who could change a wrong address or even know who the right person was who could. The next number, though, was a nice lady who actually seemed to have a clue; she asked me some relevant questions and then gave me two numbers to call to fix the problem–direct numbers to real people. She said that there are two divisions within the State’s medicaid system and both have to be updated.

The first number I called gave me voice-mail that said “You have reached Sue; I have retired from the State of Texas. If you need to reach someone, call Jenny at…” So I called Jenny, and she told me to call the other lady (the same other lady as the competent woman gave me, so I knew this was a good lead). I called the other lady, Joy, who totally knew what was going on and even said “Sounds like someone had some fat fingers and messed up the address. We have it right in our system, so I will create a Data Error Correction Request and send it out to correct the other system.” Hallelujah! I told her she was my heroine and that I was grateful that there was at least one competent person who worked for the State. She laughed and said, “Well, don’t thank me yet–wait until January and see if the address gets corrected or not.” What a great lady.

All told, over an hour on the phone trying to get the State to change one digit.

State-run healthcare: Consider yourself warned.