I Hate Having to do Other People’s Jobs for Them

OK, here’s the situation. In July, I visited a dentist’s office. Their business policy required me to pay for the visit up front, then they would send the claim to my insurance, and if any was covered by insurance, they would send it to me. I remember filling out a form telling them how I wanted the money refunded.

Somewhere along the way, I did get a notice from the insurance that the visit was covered and the money would be paid to the office. I heard nothing more from either. Recently, my wife has been on my case to call and find out where the money is. I hate making phone calls. I’ve documented some of the many painful hours I’ve spent trying to straighten out simple medical claims here on my blog. I finally broke down and called today.

I gave my name and the issue. The person who answered the phone immediately said “Oh, I have a note here to call you to ask what card you want this refunded to!” I decided to save any discussion of “OK, how long have you had that note, and why the heck haven’t you bothered to call me until now?” for my blog. So, here you go.

I am starting to believe that I should have the ability to bill businesses for my time when I have to call to follow up on problems that are caused by them. If they drop the ball, and I have to call to straighten things up, I should be able to send them a bill for the time I spend on the phone, plus gathering documents or searching my gmail and Evernote archives for any data related to the event. This should include Comcast and Verizon. Comcast definitely should pay me for the 40 minute phone call in which I was told by tech support that I lost my IP address and have to call Microsoft to get another one. I was also told that there were no managers or engineers (or anybody who understands DHCP networking) available. Comcast should also pay me for the last time when I called, was told I’d be transferred to Customer Service (you mean 1-800-COMCAST isn’t customer service?) and got a “The number you have dialed has been disconnected…). Seriously, Comcast, as soon I find a viable high speed internet provider, I’m leaving. Verizon DSL is NOT a viable high-speed internet provider. It was horrible, and Verizon couldn’t pay me and include my own personal 24 hour tech support to use it. FIOS might be viable, but there’s that whole Verizon stigma associated with it.