Still Life with Robin: "Your Call Is Important to Us"

by Peggy Robin

It's open season for switching health insurance plans....and I'm thinking of giving up my Cigna PPO for something else. Not because of the coverage for my medical visits, lab work, and prescriptions -- that's been OK. Just a few minor gliltches here and there, which I've been able to resolve on the phone with customer service. So that's not my complaint; it's pettier than that: It's the hold times when I have to go over something with a customer service rep. It's the hold music, too. I set my phone on speaker and set it aside, and then have to listen to this endless loop of elevator music. Then it stops, and for a brief moment, I get all hopeful that a real person is about to come on the line...and then the music starts up again.

Of course, I could take the mechanized voice's offer to leave my number and get a callback. That's often the best (or least bad) choice these days. But that's annoying too. I don't feel I can make any other calls while waiting for the callback. It could come in 15 minutes or it could come in 3 hours. You never know. 

This, I should add, is just the lead-up to what is really making me think about switching. So far what I've described is how calls are handled at all big insurance companies, and I know I would not be any better off with another health insurance company. Some could be even worse. 

Here's what's getting to me: On top of these long holds, my insurance company also calls me out of the blue with offers of "benefits." I have my own doctors that I like, and I do all the recommmended checkups, and I get all the tests I'm supposed to get at the recommended intervals, so I don't need reminders to schedule these appointments. And even if I did, I would set them up with my own M.D.s, never with a Cigna-selected nurse-practitioner. Nor I am interested in hearing about any of the other freebies they say I'm entitled to. I'm already managing my health care and want to go on doing that -- even if it costs me nothing to use the practices they're touting in these calls. Well, it does cost me something -- my time of the phone listening to some Cigna rep trying to get me to sign up for stuff.

Question: Why do I keep picking up the phone? Answer: Because seeing "Cigna" on my caller ID makes me think they're calling about a billing matter, and I don't want to miss a call like that. It's only when I realize it's just one of their sales reps pushing me to schedule a health check with an N.P. that I don't want or need, that I lose my patience with them. I've told them time and again not to call me for anything other than my own particular claims. It does no good at all. I continue to get these calls, maybe three or four times a week. 

Will I quit over this? Not sure -- and I have until December 8th to decide. In the meantime, I've been dreaming of this small act of revenge: I will hook my phone up to an automated music loop. As soon as I know it's a Cigna salesperson on the line, I will say, "Your call is important to us. Please hold," and then immediately switch the phone into music-playing mode. 

What to stick them with? Ravel's Bolero, maybe. Pachelbel's Canon in D Major? Or The Little Drummer Boy? Let them suffer pa- rum-pum-pum-pum for the next 20 minutes! Serves them right!

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Still Life with Robin is posted on the Cleveland Park Listserv and on All Life Is Local on Saturdays.