My favorite government agency, the GAO, issued a report on the quality of customer service provided by the ten largest companies offering drug coverage to we Medicare subscribers. The quality of that service would, in a just world, cause these companies to go out of business.
The GAO made 900 calls; they were unable to reach customer service in 36 of those calls. Of the remaining 864 calls, one third of the agents gave correct and complete answers to the questions. Twenty-two percent gave wrong answers. Twenty-nine percent gave incomplete answers. Fifteen percent could not answer the questions.
What is the response of Mark McClellan, the top man at Medicare and Scott's brother? One question was "unclear and inaccurate"; two were "not appropriate". Having spent a fair amount of time in customer service, I find it unbelievable that someone would blame the caller for the lousy service. True, there are many people out there who are not the brightest lights in the room. But it is the customer service agent whose job it is to understand the caller's problem and then provide an answer that addresses and resolves that problem.
Not a bad deal for the drug companies: Sell at market. Hire unqualified and low paid people for customer service. Your margins go up.
As Pete Stark said, "If private plans can't meet basic standards for quality service, they should not be in the program."
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