A Major Vent.

I am sorry I haven't posted on the blog today. I would have posted earlier if I hadn't been getting the run around from the following company:

Atria Healthcare

Billing address:

PO Box 31001-1157
Pasadena, CA 91110-1157

National toll free number:

1-866-505-6365

Local Portland, Oregon number:

503-258-2200

If you ever come across this company in your dealings with your elderly parents, or with your own medical or insurance issues I have some advise for you. RUN. RUN AS FAR AWAY FROM THEM AS YOU CAN. That is unless you want to deal with a company that doesn't talk to other branches within their company. Then when they can't get the information they need from fellow employees (information they have been given already by Medicare, the Doctor, your parent) they will make your elderly parent suffer and threaten to take away her wheelchair. If that is the type of company you want to deal with then give them a call.

My Mom needs a wheelchair. She can't walk long distances. The doctor advised Mom to use the wheelchair whenever she can. Dr. J wrote Mom a prescription for a wheelchair and ordered it from Atria Healthcare. Medicare and the company approved it. For just barely over five bucks a month Mom had a wheelchair. They delivered the wheelchair. Then the problems started.

First there was a call a week ago from someone that said he was based in Texas. He told Mom they were going to pickup her wheelchair because the doctor hadn't approved it. He was told yes she had approved it. He said they were getting no cooperation form our doctor. Of course that wasn't the truth we had a copy of the letter the doctor sent the company. Then he said well we have the approval but our branch doesn't have it, they have it at the Portland office. He said they need it at their branch to complete the paper work. He in addition said the Portland office wasn't returning his calls and he would try again. If he didn't get the branch office's cooperation then he would need our help. I said OK, let us know and we would do what we could to help him. He must have missed that part.

Today I was at Mom's checking up on her. Sis and her husband are in Utah helping my niece move to her own house. My niece separated from her husband. While sis is gone I am back in the main caregiver game. While at Mom's we got a call. Guess from who? They said we want to know when we can pickup the wheelchair. I responded politely that my Mom had paid all of her bills on time and had paid the account up to date. I informed them that nobody in this household had requested the chair to be picked up. She said OK. After she hung up Mom and I looked through her account. The bill is due next Monday but she hadn't received her statement yet. I thought this is an easy task, I will just call them, mention that they mistakenly had scheduled a wheelchair pickup and could they send the March statement.

I called the local number and of course got their voice mail. Push one if you only want to get a little bit annoyed, push two if you want your blood pressure to rise a little, push three if you want to get a little more angry, and push four if you really want to get pissed off.

I pushed four. The wait was about five minutes and a woman came on the line. Well, since I couldn't really understand a word she said it could have been a man or a robot but it sounded kind of like a woman. OK, I am a liberal dude and I don't really care if I deal with someone new to our language. The problem is that in their native tongue they are used to talking extremely fast and when they talk that fast in English you are lucky if you catch two words. I kept saying we don't want the wheelchair picked up and she kept asking when they could pickup the wheelchair. OK, I finally asked if I could talk to her supervisor. She said yes and put me on hold. While on hold I cleaned Mom's house, fixed dinner, and read War And Peace. The supervisor came on. She tried. At least I think she tried. I would have known she had tried if I could have understood her. She kept telling me all they were going to do for me but I was going to have to talk to someone else to cancel the pickup and get the statement. Great I said transfer me to that department. She gave me the phone number to call in case she lost me into outer space during the transfer process. The phone number she gave me? The one that I had called!! The transfer was successful and I reached their customer service department. A lady that I could completely understand came one the line. I gave her Mom's name and account number. She asked if it was OK if she put me on hold. Sure. I wanted the problem solved so I was willing to hold. OK, while on hold since I already had read War and Peace, this time I finished Gone With The Wind. The customer service lady never came back. Know what happened? It transferred me back to voicemail and I got the message I got when I first dialed the phone number. I was to annoyed to push any number, so I just took a deep breath and stayed on the line. Eventually a man came on the line, "your account number and the reason you are calling." I have a lot of patience but it went out the window with that question. I basically told him, that I had never dealt with a worst company, that no he couldn't have the account number and the reason I was calling because I had already given that information to half of their staff. Then I hung up.

I've decided that I don't need the aggravation. Within the next week I am going to buy Mom a nice wheelchair. Then I am going to take the wheelchair she has now to the local office of the medical equipment company from hell and shove it up the nether regions of the first employee of theirs that I see.

At least it gave me something to write about today. I'm done.