Premera Blue Cross reimbursement

Premera email: In review of your account, I do show that check 1234 in the amount of $150.00 was issued on 07/22/2023. The payment was sent as a paper check to your address on file and will be included in the same envelope as the claim Explanation of Benefits (EOB). If you do not receive your check within 15 business days of being issued, please let us know and we will be happy to request a replacement. At this time Premera does not have the option to reimburse members via direct deposit. I do apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused. (my bold)

We are in 2023 and they still issue checks !

Premera website: As the largest health plan in the Pacific Northwest, Premera serves more than 2 million people

IRS website: Direct deposit also saves you money. It costs the nation’s taxpayers more than $1 for every paper refund check issued, but only a dime for each direct deposit made.

ChatGPT: According to data available up to 2019, the National Health Expenditure Accounts (NHEA) by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) reported that in the United States, the average number of health insurance claims per person was around 3.4 to 3.8 claims per year.

Let's say if Premera handles 3 claims per person per year, they prefer to spend $6 mil. instead of $600k !

Premera website: Premera Blue Cross is a not-for-profit Blue Cross Blue Shield licensed healthcare company that offers health plans in Washington state and Alaska.

Yes, not for profit but that money could be better spent :).

Amazon packaging

Instead of the ubiquitous Amazon boxes I started to receive deliveries in plastic bags. This must be a good deal for Amazon, lighter and less volume so the vans can carry more. They are recyclable, but not curb-side, they need to be dropped of at the store, usually large grocery stores. 

I liked the boxes as I could put all my recyclable content there and get rid of it serving a useful purpose as well, but this plastic bag is a hassle. I wonder how many of the plastic bags end up in garbage as people cannot be bothered to carry them to the store. That would be interesting to measure.

Also, a delivery label is affixed to the bag. Can it be left there? Anyway I remove it, but it does not come off cleanly like off a box so a part of the bag unfortunately ends up in the garbage.

American Express explanation for denial of credit limit increase

 Reason(s) for Our Decision 

We reviewed several pieces of information when making this decision, including your history with us. 

We made this decision for the following reason(s):  We were unable to get your consumer credit score from the agency(ies) listed at the end of this letter. 

The problem is there were no agencies listed at the end of the letter! 

I contacted them by chat but they did not know and told me to contact the Credit department via phone. I did and again they could not explain why no agencies were listed. 

However, they told me the reason I had been denied is that I had had a credit card with them for fewer than 6 months. 

So why did the website let me apply and waste my time and yours now? Could they have not said this? As I was logged in the system already knew how long for I had been a customer for!

The agent did not know what to say in fact they said something like "the site is a machine" ?! or something along this line, that did not make sense, one more reason to have not let me apply in the first place. After all the check was done by "machines" also, as I got the rejection letter via email only a couple of minutes later. Hard to believe there was a human who did this on a week-end evening.

TD Bank App - 'Try again in 30 minutes'

 

Of course, I have tried and the same message was displayed (wanted to transfer some money). It turned out that the full balance was not available, and I had to wait a couple more days not only 30 minutes!

Could have they not said this in the message?

"Request cannot be processed due to insufficient funds. $... are available now, $... will be available on ..." or something along these lines.

Is it so difficult to provide a relevant message? This way I wasted time inquiring at the bank, and they wasted time responding.

Greyhound Survey

We'd like to get your thoughts on that trip to help us improve the experience. Please take a few minutes and answer a short 8 minute survey.

TAKE THE SURVEY

8 minute does not seem "short" :). However, they had free water and snacks in the bus so I spent the time to answer the questions.

Key Worn Out at Ticket Machine

You are supposed to enter your car's licence plate, pay and get the ticket. At this location (state park in an island) most cars have a licence plate that starts with K (I think there are very few cars out of state). And of course the letter K is worn out :).

This posed an interesting question. Could anything be done to prevent this? Should the manufacturer use a more resistant material for this key for the machines delivered to this state? 

Too expensive and after all: 

- people know that K is there

- it should not be expensive to replace the key

Starbucks Survey

 

The survey should not have had the question "My food tasted great". 

They knew what I ordered, as I had used my Starbucks rewards card, hence the survey, and I did not order food :).