Diabetes & Pain-In-The-Ass, Administrative Tenacity

Since mid-November, and right up until yesterday afternoon (December 19th,) I’ve spent countless hours on the phone re: health insurance, prescription Rx’s being refilled; squeezing in final, end-of -year Endo and eye doctor’s appointments. 

Not to mention 4 hours and five different weekly phone calls with Edgepark re: my end of year test-strip RX - before I was finally given a ship-date yesterday afternoon - and after being on hold for 22 minutes. 

A three month supply of test strips will be shipped out December 21st. 
Fingers crossed and we shall see.

As of today, December 20th, I’m still waiting for one more DME authorization - it’s a new one, fingers crossed it will approved and billed before the end of the year. 
More to follow. 

These are the things that no one tells you about when it comes to living with diabetes or other chronic illnesses - the time spent on the phone, the hours spent on hold, in order to stay healthy. Thankless and frustrating tasks that we have no choice but to do because our health depends on it.

I try and schedule most of these calls and or tasks around lunch - so it doesn’t cut into my work time too much. I eat my lunch while on hold and my with trusty notebook and pen near by to take notes re: any and all information - including current issue, CS name, refill/ship dates, and the likes there of. 

And I immediately schedule follow up calls in my iPhone calendar as soon as I hang up. 
It's stressful, it's annoying, and like you, I do it because I don't have a choice! 

And lets not forget all the stupid insurance or third party admin mistakes that have nothing to do with us - but impact us directly. 

Like my insurance billing me for a separate visit to UrgentCare 4 days after I received stitches on my foot back in April. 
I was mistakenly billed for a new visit, except i wasn't a new visit -it was follow up visit, which according to UrgentCare, all follow up visits for a specific injury are free of charge up until 10 days out .Since I had 10 freaking stitches on the top of my foot, of course I went back several times to make sure it was healing properly, and to get my stitches out. For some reason it's not computing and even though all the dates line up. 
So incase anyone hasn’t told you as of late - GREAT JOB AND WELL DONE re: all the pain-in-the-ass, administrative tenacity that diabetes requires - not just in December, but 365 days a year! 

BRAVA for multitasking during your endless hours on hold, and fuck yeah, for your tenacity  - diabetes and otherwise, and for never taking NO as your final answer! 

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