I'd give up, but what good would that do?

Oh my goodness, people, has this been a hellish three days!

As you may recall, I was trying to figure out if I could really get Neulasta, the Wonder Drug, sent to me at home from the mail-order pharmacy used by FEPBlue. The answer appeared to be "yes," and the co-pay appeared to be $0.00 -- a truly amazing and even a bit concerning difference from the original price of $1961.00 that I was given by the healthplan pharmacy.

So. First I had to go through getting a pre-authorization done again, which meant getting the telephone number from the insurance company's Customer Service Rep and passing it to the doctor's office. And then I had to get the prescription sent to the pharmacy, which meant getting another number to the doctor's office. And then I had to get the original submission to the healthplan pharmacy stopped, so they don't bill me (this is still incomplete).

This is where we should all heave a sigh of pity for doctors who don't have the totally awesome staff that the Dana-Farber doctors have. Because when I tell you that eventually today there was a THREE-WAY CONFERENCE CALL between the insurance company, the pharmacy, and the doctor's office in order to get the pharmacy to agree that yes, they had the prescription, and yes, they had the pre-approval authorization, and yes, the co-pay was indeed $0.00 and yes, they could arrange delivery -- all of that is only a faint shadow of what we have all been through trying to get this done.

Because first we had to get the insurance company to agree that even though they had paid the claim to the healthcare plan, I could still have a different prescription pre-approved.

And then we had to get the insurance company to fax a copy of the pre-approval to the doctor, so there was proof somewhere else other than their computer that this was so.

And then we had to get the pharmacy to agree that even though their computer wasn't showing the pre-approval, the fax from the insurance company PLUS the verbal confirmation from the insurance company on the phone was evidence that, in fact, the pre-approval was a real pre-approval.

And when I say "we" here, I mean that there were multiple rounds of me being told by Person A that "It's all set," only to call Number B and be told, "I'm sorry ma'am, I'm not seeing that in our System." and then calling the doctor's office and wailing and gnashing my teeth.

Between this and work and catering funerals and all, my stress bucket is so full that when they plug me into the chemo IV I will probably just fall asleep. The floor is tear-stained around my nice new recliner from all my horribly frustrating phone calls.

And all of this is because there's no part of the System at Enormous Giant Insurance Company Blue Cross that says, "Waaaaaaitaminute, don't we have a less expensive way to meet this patient's needs?"

I'm telling you, one and all -- while computers are wonderful things, software has to be constantly reviewed and adjusted to get the most out of any System. If you don't spend money on the perpetual improvement process as part of your commitment to The System, what happens is crap like this and like the multiple billing problem at Brigham & Women's and the anesthesia practise billing breast cancer patients for shoulder surgery services.

It's stupid, wasteful, and most importantly, it adds enormously to the frustration patients experience at what's already a sufficiently difficult time. It makes We the Patients feel certain that someone is taking advantage of us somewhere, makes us resent the bureaucracy that surrounds the healing process. And if more and more of a hospital's or insurance company's or a doctor's funding is going to come out of the public pocket, resentful taxpayer patients are not a good thing.

Right now, though, I'm leaning towards finding out where the servers for Partners Healthcare and Blue Cross of Massachusetts live and strolling through the premises with a very potent magnet. If I can manage to destroy their software, maybe they'd have to build a better system from scratch.