Faxing in the 21st century
It’s alive and well in the medical-insurance-industrial complex
Since late 2021, I’ve had the “opportunity” to gain perspective on bureaucracy in healthcare, specifically as it pertains to forms. Coming from high tech, I will say that the experience has been … interesting. The following has nothing to do with my current condition. More on that later.
If you have dealt with doctors and insurance in the US, you understand how challenging it can be to bring forms together for multiple providers. I appreciate online portals, however, providers are typically an island unto themselves, and I often find myself entering the same information for each one. Getting the providers to communicate with one another is another challenge altogether.
A couple months ago I got to play along in a frustrating and also amusing interaction between two providers: insurance and doctor.
Insurance agent on phone with me: Heads up that we’ll be contacting your doctor to re-evaluate the claim.
Week or so later … Scary voicemail from insurance: We‘ve tried to reach your doctor regarding claim (very long claim number) and they have not responded. This will put your claim at risk of being denied.
Series of calls with doctor and insurance:
Doctor: No record of request.
Insurance agent #1: Fax transmission was successful.
Insurance agent #2: Fax transmission failed. I’ll resubmit.
Time for an in-person visit. We drove to the doctor’s office and asked the benefits person to check. He verified that his office was receiving faxes from the provider and then did several searches for a claim that might belong to me. No dice.
Insurance agent #3: I see that the fax transmission failed. Do you mind staying on the line while I resubmit? Me: Uh, no, please, and thank you!
This last submission worked. Lessons learned: don’t trust automated processes and be persistent. Also: communicating directly with humans is a winning strategy.
What Bun thinks about faxing
Rabbits thump to show displeasure.
Providers choose faxing because it’s considered more secure than email. It’s largely electronic. Except for me, the end user. I might need to print a hard copy of the form. Too bad I don’t have a printer. A PDF version of the form can help, unless it’s not set up to be completed online. I can work around this, but the form is not as pretty. With a completed form, I still need to fax it. Too bad I don’t subscribe to a fax service. Options include printing and faxing at an office supply store.
Don’t you think you should have asked Ella before publishing her pose for the whole world to see?
I assume they also prefer faxing because they don’t mind if the additional friction causes clients to give up.