Comcast - Big Company, Stupid Rules

I live in an area that is considered “rural”.  It isn’t by comparison to lots of areas, but large corporations use that term for service designations.  That way they can deny certain types of service.  Over many years, I have gotten somewhat used to it.  One disadvantage is that there is no way to threaten to leave a certain provider, because there is no other business that does the same thing in the area. 

Case in point:  We only have one cable provider.  Because I have been dealing with the same issue for the last two years without resolution, I will even use their name.  COMCAST has decided that they can only send my electronic bills to a comcast.net address.  I have been using one of those free provider addresses since before my children were born.  They are now getting ready to graduate from high school.  Comcast used to send the bills to that address.  Then I made the mistake of moving my office.  Don’t ever do that.

Now they send the bill to (drlasermed) @comcast.net.  I told the nice man that I talked to forever last Friday that I don’t have a comcast.net address.  He said that I did.  I told him I have been using the other one for about 20 years, I get all my mail there, and I don’t understand why I can’t get his bill there.  He says it’s a “security issue”.  They won’t send bills to anything but a comcast.net address.  It’s funny, because I finally got the office bill to come to the other address. 

I can’t even pay the home bill on the internet.  Comcast billing (or Xfinity to be exact) won’t accept my account for anything other than my office bill.  It won’t accept my home account payment.  If I want to pay over the phone, it will cost an extra $5.00. 

I finally gave up.  I had argued with several different people.  I did get the bill paid.  But they can’t fix the billing issue.  So, [insert shudder here] they are going to kill a tree every month and send me the bill in the mail.  I will kill a tree [insert another shudder] and send them a check in the mail back.  I’m not paying $5 to pay the bill over the phone [until postage goes up that much]. 

Why can’t business be reasonable?  What is so unsecure about sending an e-bill to yahoo or gmail or hotmail or any other internet address?  If you work for Comcast or know the answer, please let me know. 

Soap Opera - Doctoring in a Small Town

This week we have been dealing with another patient / family “issue”.  Princess got a phone call yesterday from a fellow who demanded to speak to me.  It always amazes the both of us how many people think you can call a doctor’s office and get put through directly to the doctor.  But that’s another post.  Anyway, the caller (TC) wanted to report that the grandson of one of our patient’s (OP) saw her trying to sell her prescription medications.  He stated he was the boy’s father.

Our protocol when we get a report like this is to call the patient.  We have them come to the office with all their pills within 24 hours.  If the count is correct, we don’t get terribly concerned, though we do monitor them more closely.  When Princess finally got through to OP’s mother (PM), PM said that she had been expecting our call. 

The family was “in court for nine hours” yesterday.  The boy in question lives with his grandmother (OP).  His deadbeat mother (DB) has been getting his assistance check and keeping it for herself.  DB does not support the child. She does not work.  DB evidently has multiple schemes to obtain controlled substances, money that she does not have to work for, etc.  DB has an apartment with her boyfriend and her sister.  TC was her boyfriend, not the boy’s father.

This same group (DB, TC and the sister) had created problems for another patient (P2) we have because she refused to sell them her medication.  P2 had to move and has quit two jobs so far to get away from their harassment.  She has a protective order keeping the whole group away from her.  It doesn’t work very well.  P2 says she feels like she needs to go into the witness protection program. 

I don’t write soap operas, but I feel like I could feed ideas to a few of them.  Both these patients travel over 30 miles to come here because the “group” has caused problems with so many doctors in the town they live in that no doctor there will see them.  I wish I had known that before they came here. 

I’m not sure how big a town you have to be in to not have to deal with this kind of stuff.