BlueCross BlueShield of Georgia (BCBSGA) Customer Service

Intuit has been #1 on my personal list of companies with incredibly bad customer service. Now BlueCross BlueShield of Georgia (BCBSGA) has taken Intuit’s crown by topping the list.

There are few companies that I dread calling because I already know it’s going to be a very painful experience. With Intuit, I have quickly realized that calling them for any issues I had with Quicken for Mac was like calling my cat. Sure, the cat would make me feel warm and fuzzy and purr if petted but he has absolutely no clue of what I’m talking about. That pretty much describes Intuit’s offshore customer support team. Consequently, I stopped calling them and decided to just live with their piece of crap software they call Quicken.

BCBSGA is Stealing Intuit’s Crown

Over the past couple of months, BCBSGA has made tremendous efforts to proof that customer care experience can be worse than what I got used to from Intuit. What could be worse than spending hours on the phone talking to a clueless person, you may ask? I’ll tell you! Spending hours on the phone not talking to anybody is actually worse.

BCBSGA’s Customer Care

Nobody Home

When my wife got released from the hospital after our baby-boy was born, I had questions about our co-pay. On January 20th, 2016 I called BCBSGA to ask about the details. After working my way through the automated phone system, I was on hold for 45 minutes before I asked my wife how long she had to wait last time she called in. She responded that she was on hold for an hour and a half last week. I hung up and tweeted my frustration to @AskBCBSGa. They kindly asked me to send them an email with my personal information.

BCBSGA Does Not Want to Talk to Providers Either

About a month ago I went on a business trip to San Francisco. When I arrived at the hotel, I had bad stomach cramps and decided to go to the urgent care facility across the street (note to myself: stay away from any food that has sugar alcohol). I filled out the forms and a nurse told me that they’ll have to check with my insurance, to make sure I was covered. After 30 minutes of waiting, the nurse told me that she was still on hold with my insurance company. When she couldn’t reach anyone at BCBSGA after another fifteen minutes, I said goodbye and left. I would rather deal with stomach cramps than an anger stroke.

The Left Hand Does Not Know What the Right One is Doing

Within thirty days, after our baby-boy was born, we added him to my insurance plan. Shortly after, BCBSGA sent us his insurance card that we passed on to his care providers. When he was released from the NICU, the hospital billed the insurance. A couple of days ago, I got a call from Northside Hospital asking for our nonexistent, secondary insurance. Apparently BCBSGA told the hospital that our baby-boy was never added to our insurance plan. Obviously he was, because otherwise we wouldn’t have gotten his insurance card and a letter confirming that he was added. The gentleman from Northside Hospital apologized and told me that he had already spent hours on the phone trying to explain to them that the baby is on the insurance plan already.

More Chaos

• Despite having signed up for electronic Explanation of Benefits (EOBs), I still get them occasionally in the mail. BCBSGA claims that I have an incorrect email address in my profile, which isn’t true. Besides, when they got breached last year, I got notified via email — duh!
• Their crappy iOS app does not show my medical ID card, only the dental card. My wife sees all three of her cards though.
• On every letter I get in the mail, I can see that my address is misspelled. It is however spelled correctly in my profile.

Bottom Line

SAP’s Chief Executive Officer Bill McDermott recently released a white paper titled “Value Creation in a Digital Economy. Adapt or Die in a Digital World Where the Consumer is in Charge”. I would highly recommend for the BCBSGA leadership to read that and learn from what SAP is doing. At BCBSGA the customer surely isn’t in charge. Instead, inefficiency and missed opportunity seem to be driving their business, at the cost of the consumer. Get your act together BCBSGA!

Have you made a similar experience with BlueCross BlueShield or other insurance companies? Let me know by leaving a comment below!