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medpundit |
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Sunday, December 12, 2004Medicare's toll-free telephone line, one of the federal government's main methods of disseminating information about new prescription drug benefits and drug discount cards, gives accurate answers less than two-thirds of the time, congressional investigators say. In a test of the service, investigators from the Government Accountability Office found that 29 percent of callers received inaccurate answers, while 10 percent received no answers at all. ..."We found that 6 out of 10 calls were answered accurately, 3 out of 10 calls were answered inaccurately, and we were not able to get a response for 1 out of 10 calls," the report stated. In another recent report, the accountability office found that Medicare provided even less accurate information to doctors who inquired about the proper way to bill for treating Medicare patients. In response to 300 test calls, the office reported, customer service representatives gave correct and complete responses to only 4 percent of the billing questions. About 54 percent of the answers were simply wrong, and 42 percent were incomplete or partly correct, it said. From my experience, that sounds about right. What's more, it's also true of every other insurance company. It just isn't in their best interest to give us the correct answers, and so no effort gets spent to correct the situation. Believe me, they all operate like the insurance company in The Incredibles. So, if Medicare is forced to change its ways, can we get the other insurance companies to change, too? posted by Sydney on 12/12/2004 09:10:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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