Our health plan at work is good for some things and lousy for others. I had a Major Life Event strike back in 2017 and by all accounts the insurance company was exceptionally good about covering what they promised. Jen hasn’t given me any of the details—I’m sure if I saw any of the numbers my head would explode and I’d wind up right back in the hospital. But they are lousy for other things. Theoretically we enjoy dental and vision insurance but I’ve never been able to get details on exactly how the vision insurance works or where to get a card to hand someone. Given that my lenses have now tripled in price—I ordered a set of progressives a couple of weeks ago—I figured I’d put my shoulder to the wheel and try to unravel the mystery.

My first logical stop was the company intranet, which was built on top of Microsoft Sharepoint by the lowest bidding vendor, and as a result sucks worse than a trip to the DMV. Search results are comically bad; by bad I mean no search results. after digging around I found a Word document from 2019 listing benefits which gave the barest of information and referenced a table further along in the file that did not exist. You read that right: we have a website where they post unsearchable Word documents that immediately go out of date, instead of using HTML. The veteran digital strategist in me has ground my teeth to nubs over this.

I then looked on my insurance card, and figured I’d call them; hell, they employ people who are supposed to help. After sitting through the automated menu, which couldn’t identify me by the Member ID printed on my card, I talked to a cheerful CSR who sounded like she was working in the bottom of a mine shaft. She informed me that I needed to call the parent company who runs my insurance and talk to them.

Miraculously the phone transfer worked and I talked with another lady who helped me identify myself and then explained that I would have to write a letter, with paper and a pen and a stamped envelope, and send in a copy of the receipt to a post office box in Utah. I guess this is their way of making the barrier to entry high to avoid reimbursement; who writes letters and buys stamps anymore? Still, we’re talking about $400 in total so I dug out the required stationary and got it done. I expect a prompt reply by spring of 2027.

She also told me that it should be easy for any vendor to look up my vision insurance, but when I explained their repeated failures and pressed her, she gave me my Member ID. Was that so hard? 

Meanwhile, I’ve been wearing my safety glasses at my desk more and more in order to see what I’m doing; I must look pretty stupid during Zoom calls. The new readers should be here next week, and I surely hope they work for me.

I called my window vendor yesterday to get a quote on the basement windows, and for kicks I threw the measurements in for the window halfway up our stairwell, figuring it was a good place to start replacing stuff on the second floor. The numbers for each basement window came back about $20 higher than what I paid for a full-size window three years ago, and the full size window is now double that amount.

After picking myself back up off the floor, I kicked myself for not having replaced them all three years ago before the world went completely to hell.