Carl,
The principle may be the same, but you were still dealing with a private
medical office. Roger was no longer dealing with a private pharmacy. United
Health Care outsourced calls. I think they've stopped, at least for AARP
members, because those foreign customer service people truly don't understand
what anyone is talking about. When I first bought audio books from Audible,
calling customer service was helpful. Then Amazon bought Audible, and the whole
experience changed. A lot of the reps were in Costa Rica. The doctor I used to
use when I lived in Westbury, was part of a local family practice with 5
doctors. I had to call the office about something after I moved. The practice
had joined this monolithic NYU corporation which has swallowed up so many
private practices out here. When you call now, you reach a call center. It's in
the US, but I had to beg and plead to be directly connected to the actual
office.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Monday, July 01, 2019 10:54 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Did Amazon do this?
Roger,
It means that there are fewer well paid pharmacists on call. The woman was
supposed to run interference...for far less pay than the professional.
When I was a member of Group Health, I would call my doctor's office with a
question. His receptionist would connect me with his nurse, who could usually
satisfy my question. Then one fine day I called and learned that my doctor no
longer had his own nurse. He had his receptionist, a woman trained to be a
receptionist, who now attempted to answer my question, without troubling the
doctor. If the question was more than she could handle, she referred me to the
"consulting nurse". This was one nurse who spent her days fielding calls for
the entire group of doctors in that clinic. She was not trained in good
manners or patience. We began referring to her as, "the Insulting Nurse".
Such changes are always billed as, "Streamlining", or, "Trimming the fat". But
in fact they are simply cost savings...at the expense of the customer. I say
customer because I no longer felt like a patient.
And there are still those who believe capitalism and democracy can coexist.
Carl Jarvis
On 7/1/19, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I'm in a complaining mood, so I hope you guys will indulge me.
Remember that recently we were talking about how Amazon seems to be
taking over everything? Well, I happened to mention that one thing
they took over was my pharmacy. I use Pillpack in Manchester, New
Hampshire because they ship my drugs directly to my door and some time
back Amazon bought them out. I said that I had not noticed any changes
that Amazon had made. Well, I think I have now noticed some changes
just this morning. I just called them with a question about the
expiration dates on one of my medications. When I have called them
before I was connected directly to a pharmacist. In fact, they even
advertised that when you had a question you would be talking to a
pharmacist. This time I was on hold for a long time and when my call
was finally answered I found myself talking to a woman with an accent
heavy enough that I had to concentrate to understand her. I couldn't
tell what kind of accent it was, so she could have been almost
anywhere in the world. I think she had a difficult time understanding
me too because she had to ask me to repeat myself several times. But I
was able to ask her my question and then she had to put me on hold
while she spoke to a pharmacist. After another long wait she got back
to me and told me what the pharmacist said. She offered to connect me
to a pharmacist, but I declined because the important part of my
question was answered, but, in retrospect, I think I should have asked
to be connected to that pharmacist because I am still wondering why
there are two expiration dates on my medication. In fact, I just might
call back tomorrow and ask immediately to talk to someone who knows
what they are talking about. Now, if I called the pharmacy before and
actually got the pharmacy and now I call the pharmacy and get someone
in who knows what country who doesn't have a clue about drugs then I
can only guess that this must be something that Amazon came up with.
What was the point of this relay calling? If she didn't know the
answer to my question she should have connected me with someone who
did on the spot instead of relaying my question and then relaying the answer
back to me because there was definitely something lost in the relay.
--
---
Carl Sagan
??? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. ???
??? Carl Sagan
