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1. Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 29-Aug-2024 03:52:49 JST Paul Cantrell

   Oh joy! Went to get my COVID vax update this morning (timing makes sense for me: students pouring back with cases at peak, yuck), and…

   …the pharmacist tells me HealthPartners insurance is refusing the updated vaccine.

   SPOILER: The end of this thread is that I got the shot, but private health insurance should be burned to the ground.

   1/

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 29-Aug-2024 03:52:46 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     @inthehands In #Ireland, we can’t get a #COVID vaccine for love or money.

   • Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 29-Aug-2024 03:52:47 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     Consider:

     - I can afford to pop $200 out of pocket and get reimbursed later. Not everyone can.
     - I can afford 15 minutes wasted on the phone. Not everyone can.
     - I can get back to the pharmacy easily for the billing retry. Not everyone can.
     - I’m sufficiently fluent, pushy, and culturally privileged to navigate this whole stupid situation. Not everyone is.

     Each of those “not everyone”s is somebody who doesn’t get vaccinated — at who knows what cost to themselves and to us all.

     4/

   • Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 29-Aug-2024 03:52:48 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     Called HealthPartners. Time to human: ~10 min. To their credit, the human was super nice. Turns out HealthPartners did some massive internal corporate faceplant, and the vaccine wasn’t entered into their computer systems properly. It’s wrongly refusing across the board.

     Problem will be fixed “by Saturday.” My appointment is now.

     2/

   • Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 29-Aug-2024 03:52:48 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     They have a solution:

     - Pay for the shot out of pocket now (which is $200).
     - Save the receipt.
     - Bring the receipt back to the pharmacy after Saturday (physically, this can’t happen over the phone, not that CVS is reachable over the phone anyway), and ask them to refund and rebill, and then it should go through.
     - If that doesn’t work, upload receipt to HealthPartners and ask for reimbursement by going to their web site > Log in > My plan > Overview > Find a Form❮post truncated for length❯

     3/

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 29-Aug-2024 04:43:00 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     @inthehands We have ostriches authoring public policy.

   • Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 29-Aug-2024 04:43:01 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Aral Balkan

     @aral why, in this great year of 2024…