Recognition for being a reviewer

On Friday, on a review platform, I got recognized for making the top 50 prolific reviewers in North America. There were only two Canadians on the list. I was the highest ranked Canadian on the list.

It was a nice honour. It was weird how I heard about it, though. It was from a fellow reviewer that I didn't know.

I sometimes wonder how some folks find out about such details well before I do. I have a local manager who didn't say a word all weekend. Odd.

Anyway, I'm delighted with the recognition. It was a nice way to kick off my weekend and vacation.

Reviews and talk

I like writing reviews about local businesses. I find it relaxing. I also feel that it helps folks with researching whether a business is worth their wild.

Last week, I received a message from a community manager, inviting me to a forum to discuss how I write reviews. It's pretty cool and it's a nice honour.

This casual talk happens in January. I am looking forward to it.

Dealing with incompetent insurance and drug representatives

I dread talking to both my insurance company and the drug company program these days. It seems that every time I have an upcoming appointment, I get annoying calls from them. I then get all worked up dealing with their stupidity.

Today, just before a meeting at work, my cell phone rang. It was from my insurance company. I let it go to voice mail. I then let it sit there for over three hours before I decided to listen to it.

It was from my assigned case manager at my insurance company. She was the one who gave me the option to either have my insurance company dispense the drug for my eye injection or go with my ophthalmologist's pharmacy. I elected to go with the latter when I was asked a couple of weeks ago. Instead, both my insurance and this drug program went with the former. Um, so why call me to ask what I want and then not respect what I want?

The case manager asked me to call her. She had more questions for me. Again, I wasn't thrilled.

I was driving over to Starbucks. It is frappuccino happy hour and I managed to get my order in before the 18:00 cutoff time. I decided to call this case manager.

She seemed friendly. She didn't annoy me as much as the first time I had spoken to her, simply because I asked her the question that has been on my mind for a while. Why wasn't my decision to go with my ophthalmologist's pharmacy honoured?

She advised that she had told this drug program what I wanted. For some reason, it assumes that everyone wants to go with the insurance company's pharmacy. I flat out said that I get stressed out dealing with all these people who cannot communicate with one another. I told her that these calls get me all worked up, which is contrary to what I need to do. She understood and apologized, saying that she would fix everything.

Finally, I asked her whether I was going to continue talking to these various insurance and drug program folks every time I go to my next appointment. She confirmed that I would not.

I find that when you have too many parties involved in such a situation and they aren't as bright as you'd expect them to be, no one communicates effectively. The patient suffers the most.

I do hope that I don't hear back from any of them anymore. For the first time, I actually felt good after speaking to one of these folks. Let's hope that it was my last.