Medtronic Pulled a Fast One On Me (Again)

So a few months ago while being on the phone w/ Medtronic to order insulin pump supplies, the rep told me that my blood sugar strips were now being covered by my insurance, to which I said, "Really? Cool. Add them to my order."

Apparantly, the rep was wrong, though, because Medtronic just billed me for them - 2 orders to the tune of $612. Keep in mind, I could've run these things through my mail order Rx program for $120! But since the rep said they were covered, I believed them, expecting them to be paid at 100% along with my pump supplies.

Like most medical supply houses, the bill comes on on Saturday, when there's no one there to talk to.

But you can bet we'll be talking Monday and the first thing I'm going to ask about is that little voice that says, "Some calls are recorded," because I've ordered a lot of diabetic crap over the years and I know exactly what they said.

UPDATE: Check the comments for how this one is continuing.

Comments

  1. Al2:39 AM

    What was Medtronic's reponse about the strips. I ordered pump supplies yesterday and the sales rep gave me the same story. I opted to stay with ordering test strips direct from Medco.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Unknown5:30 AM

    Thanks for the question, Al. Here's what happened:

    1) I called the collections department of Medtronic and they confirmed what I was being billed for were the strips.

    2) I told the finance guy that was strange because Medtronic was the ones who told me my insurance would pay.

    3) The finance guy seemed a bit more annoyed at the Medtronic rep than me. He told me that he would send me a sales order for a strips, which I could forward to my mail order RX company and said they'd pay me for them.

    4) I told them I found that a bit strange, since mail order pharmacies usually give me drugs for money and not the other way around. Still, he said this will work. So, I'm waiting for Medtronic to send me the sales order. In the meantime, I'm not paying them, either.

    5) The finance guy transferred me to my sales rep so I could get the blood sugar strips off of the auto-ship plan. Strangely, the rep said she'd do it, but said the computer was showing her the same thing: that my strips should be covered. However, I removed them from my auto order.

    6) I decided to go one step further and call my insurance company to ask if they knew why the strips were showing up that way. They were polite enough but - in typical health insurance company fashion - while they had me on hold researching it, they hung up on me. Thus ended my desire to help them run their business better. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous7:39 PM

    Just as an FYI, strips are covered by Medicare to a certain degree. They are not covered by Commercial Insurance. Those are to go through your RX plan.

    Believe me I know....I worked for Medtronic in Patient Financial Services. Notice how the active verb here is workED. A whole lotta hurtin' going on there

    ReplyDelete

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