Root Canal, Hurricanes and Undeliverable Mail

My root canal was successfully executed this morning by the talented Dr. Sheila Chandrahasa of Venice, Florida, and her very able assistant. As anticipated, it was the best event in a summer that has included back-to-back hurricanes, one tropical storm that dropped twenty inches of rain on Sarasota, gall bladder surgery, and the post-Milton return of red tide.

You know that times are challenging when a root canal doesn’t seem all that bad.

Despite all the depressing news from Florida lately, I have discovered it’s not the big things like storms and surgeries that send me over the edge but the small ones. So it was with great trepidation that I handed the orthodontist my healthcare debit card. I was sure I had enough left on there to pay for my procedure, but equally confident that it would be declined because nothing these days is easy. No surprise; the card didn’t work.

I had last used the card in November 2022 when I had a crown replaced on the same tooth that today needed a root canal. I love my dentist, so I’m not even going to mention the coincidence to him. Sometimes stuff happens.

As I was paying for today’s root canal with my personal credit card, I examined my options. I could contact my former employer and try to figure out why the debit card didn’t work. Or I could swallow hard and pay for the procedure myself.

I won’t name my former employer because I enjoyed working there, and they treated me very nicely. Let’s just say they have always done a better job manufacturing engines than taking care of human resources issues.

Case in point. For a year now I have been trying with no luck to get them to change the mailing address for my benefit plan earnings statement.  I sent them at least three letters and made sure the address was correct online, which it was. Even though my statement clearly said that any correspondence should be sent to a post office box in Lincolnshire, IL, the mail was returned to me because the post office said it was undeliverable as addressed.

I was so frustrated that I posted a photo of the returned mail on Facebook. Former employees were quick to respond with humorous comments. Several said that I had errored by writing the address in cursive. Fair enough. When I printed the Lincolnshire address on an envelope, it also was returned to me as undeliverable.

So now I’m trying to straighten out a debit card issue with a company that doesn’t even know its own mailing address. Yikes was all that came to mind.

My first stop was to the company benefits website. It was alive with AI assistants ready to tell me they didn’t know what I was talking about.

Why didn’t you call, you might ask?  I’d been down that road before with the address change and been transferred from one prompt to another only to be hung up on.

As a last resort, I flipped to the back of the debit card and discovered a phone number. Based on my past experiences, I was reticent. It rang, asked me my birthday five times and then transferred me to—hold on to your hat—a real person.

Annette was her name, and she was delightful. She spoke clearly and distinctly and didn’t ask me questions I couldn’t answer, like what was my pin number from 2002. She found my account and even knew about my crown. She did express surprise that it was the same tooth, but when I told here I wasn’t going there, we both laughed.

She finally was able to give me the news that the documentation I had mailed about my crown reimbursement two years ago never made it to the people that handle my former company’s benefits. So they put my debit card on hold.

“I swear to you Annette that I mailed it, but I have no proof,” I whined.

“No problem. It isn’t too late,” she said, and it wasn’t. Within a few minutes she had provided me with a fax number and my ID, which I gave to my dentist’s office to handle. They also were prompt in sending in the missing document.

Life is so much easier when you are dealing with real people.

I told Annette she’d be hearing from me again so that I could claim the reimbursement for today’s root canal. She said that in the meantime she would try to straighten out my address issue. What a gem.

Like I said. It was a good day, root canal and all.

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