Probably should wait a bit before posting...I will sound a whiner.

Still, I cannot help but wonder why people, especially professionals, find it impossible to follow the simplest instructions.

My care provider will not answer the phone. You have to go to the practice portal and message them. Refills, appointments, advice...it all goes thru the portal.

I sent them a text: “ please forward prescription for; free style lite lances, a meter, and free style test scripts. My pharmacy is Express Scripts.”

Simple. A week later I get messages from Walgreens to come pick up my prescription...

So, today I sit in line to pick up my items. All they have is a prescription for the lances. Stabbers if you will. No meter, no test strips.

There probably are some folks who derive pleasure from jabbing needles into their skin. I am not such a person.

Gonna try to see if I can find another care provider...

After dealing with AT&T/Directv on the phone the past few days they set the high mark for utter frustration and ineptitude. It’s amazing how ATT messed up the once great customer service company Directv. It’s an epic cluster

I find the patient portals simple to navigate and easy to use plus with the message feature there is a record. Added to that all your test results can be accessed thru the portal. Also you will get an e-mail with a link every time you have a message on the portal.

Seems heaps more efficient that calling them...

Did they charge you a “convenience fee”?

I hate phone calls and paying bills over the phone. My son was always late (well....he was in time to sign the paperwork at the dealership.....but that was the ONLY time) with his car payment. They would call me after it was one week late. I’d give them my debit card number and they’d take the $250, plus a “one time convenience fee” of $40, plus a late fee of $10. Making his payment I’d pay $300. This went on for a year. I then wanted to just pay off the car, since I didn’t want this late [censored] on my credit. There was a convenience fee for that. I asked how can I avoid the convenience fee? They said I could mail in the payment. I told them mail me a payoff, and I’d mail them a paper check.


It wasn’t convenient for them, but it didn’t cost me $40 more.


Medical “portals” are stupid too.

Spectrum is the worst

I thank the Lord every day for my wife and her ability to "guide" me through the medical world for the rare times I need anything in that area.

Without her I would be frustrated and by BP would need even more attention LOL

AT&T/ Direct TV is the worst I've ever dealt with but all customer disservice with their automated answering machines suck.

I had to go to the doctor recently and they use a portal to fill out the initial forms. The girl typed in my DOB wrong. Apparently it's impossible to change it in the system and they have no idea why. So while trying to clear that up I had to leave messages, get messages back, misunderstandings about whether I was going to keep or cancel appointments, text messages with dead links - it went on forever just because of a single mistyped digit. Ridiculous.

Same here.

get on the va biden plan and you will be surprised how fast you can get stuff.

being serious, I get all my meter stuff within 2 days of each other, maybe 10 days to 2 weeks to get them in the mail.

When I moved out to weatherford in 98 we had a landline with Verizon, some where around 2012 the phone service switched to Frontier, didn't think it was a big deal, but about 3 years ago we finally decided to drop the land line. It was impossible to drop the service because we didn't have a password. We tried to tell them we didn't have a password, it went round and round for weeks arguing with them. Another terrible experience was droping the news paper, they just kept sending it, and kept sending the bill this went on for 9 months. I hear you though on the medical portal, my dr retired last year, the new group that he chose to turn everything over to has 2 offices, one in Keller and one in Azle which is near me, but they keep setting me up to come to Keller for my visits on their portal I have to get real ugly with them so I'm sure they will drop me soon.

Here too guys-

And pilot hawk, I share your dislike of sticking myself, 6 years and I still am not used to it, I just accept that I must.

Yep, since electronic health records came about at the end of 2003, I have noticed a sharp decline of provider to patient face-to-face interaction. As a nurse it seems like I spend more time clicking than communicating. I don't know what the answer is.