What Does It Take? Five Minute Freewrite

Not everyone has the opportunity to make other people feel the love on the end of a phone line but sometimes customer service can communicate care and concern for another human being. My vocation as customer advocate for a major health insurance provider does at times permit me to help a stranger by advocating and assisting them through a daunting process to obtain needed medical care. It's not always a good outcome, but when it is, I feel a day well spent. I was on both sides of this maze today.

I received a phone call from a member who was struggling to get a procedure approved and spent an hour researching and making phone calls on her behalf to get two yearly MRIs done for maintenance of her serious medical condition. The problem was one perceived by the imaging center she uses who told her authorization or not it can't be scheduled. I spent an hour working this out and obtained the needed permission for scheduling. I was getting frustrated just like she was until I had a breakthrough and spoke to an office manager who agreed to go ahead and schedule it based on the authorization that was received on file. Calling back this number and hearing her gratitude after spending so much time and frustration on this procedure made me very happy. I cannot always give a member what they are hoping to hear, but when I do I am definitely rewarded by appreciation from a customer who is lost trying to navigate the Healthcare System.

This part of the post is the story about my own need for advocacy.I came into work today after a week of being on vacation hoping for an approval for a work accommodation for a standing desk to help me manage an ongoing painful condition related to sciatica.
When I opened the service desk ticket and saw that it was closed and that the name of the member that was being addressed was not even my name I was very frustrated and angry and begin making phone calls to our HR department. I keep hitting walls with this particular request which I have worked on for over a month. The ability to stand when I need to is necessary for me to heal appropriately and I've been in physical therapy now for over 2 weeks and each time I go into work the day after physical therapy and have to sit for eight straight hours it pushes me back to where I was before.

I'm still waiting to hear back from HR that the denial, even though it was addressed to a woman named Barbara, was an actual denial from my request. I have still not heard back from the original person who was handling my request. It's like talking to God when you have unconfessed sins to get through to HR, it seems. HR does not work in the city that I work and we communicate through service desk tickets, and if you're lucky a call gets returned. I wasn't lucky today again but I'm going on the denial as being true regardless of the employee name on the ticket and it just so happened that my orthopedic doctor's office called regarding my appointment to see my doctor on the 12th of September. I let them know the issue that I'm dealing with because the approval paperwork was initially submitted to my HR by my doctor's office. I told them that there was not enough information for the approval and I got a denial and what I was hoping to accomplish. The young woman on the other end of the line was nice enough to take responsibility for my need and reach out to my provider. She called me back and let me know that she was able to get the additional paperwork and fax it over to my HR department.

I am crossing my fingers and hoping that now this request will be fulfilled. I let her know that she made my day; she definitely made me feel the love from their office.

Now I'm going to sit back and wait for a little bit to see if this new paperwork is going to accomplish the goal intended.

Have you done anything lately to make another person feel the love? It does not take much time, and even if it does many times reaching out and helping someone else who you have the power to help is a very rewarding experience.

Here is something small we can do as a community.This Steemit member is in need of as much help as we can provide for needed surgery. Venezuela is in a desperate place and her surgery is expensive. Please upvote and help if possible to fund her needed surgery. Her name is @cefalelo. This link is her post on this need:
https://steemit.com/castellano/@cefralelo/agradecimiento

This is my 5 minute freewrite.
Here is the link for today.
feel the love

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art and flair courtesy of @PegasusPhysics

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