Let's kick things off by introducing you to the first of our rogues gallery. Actually our team is taking a page from the Iraq war and we have set up our own high value targets list. To be on this list you have to have participated in some obviously incompetent or unsavory way in our claim. Once we catch you in our net, your every move is scrutinized throughout the rest of this action.Anyone who has dealt with Cigna has had days like poor Luke above. They may tell themselves that they don't treat people badly but those of us on the receiving end of Cigna's love feel the beating shown above on a completely different level.
With that out of the way, let us introduce you to what was presented to us as a "Consumer Advocacy Specialist". To protect what little dignity this poor fellow has left, we will disguise his photo and real name. Heaven forbid his privacy was invaded...oh wait a minute, that is what they have done to us....still, we are not them so we will just call him Dick Puddle for now:
In our pursuit of information to prove our claim, we were faxing Cigna (here after it will be CDIC) requests for information every few days for a while which were largely ignored until we grew tired of being ignored and raised the pain by being more direct with what we were proving. Within a few hours we got a call from (and a fax request of their own) from a "Consumer Advocacy Specialist", Mr. Dick Puddle.
Dick is not our biggest source of pain, just a little prick. No, Dick is just our most recent rogue and since this blog chronicles the lunacy that is dealing with Cigna, we are off to the races. We played phone tag some but eventually got it worked out. We did our homework (well, our team did) before the call and everything that came after. Too bad Dick didn't or he could have come out of this unscathed or better yet, actually having done his job.
Before we tell you what happened, we need to tell the reader this: due to our respective disabilities, memory is a serious and intractable problem so when dealing with doctors, lawyers, anyone of serious import to our lives, we have to record the visit or phone-call if not in person. This is going to happen with CDIC if we are to play on a level playing field. Not a negotiable item. Its just that damned simple.
However since one of our cardinal rules is:
Cigna War Journal tip #1: Always play on a level playing field. If the enemy forces you into a position of disadvantage, turn the tables and force them into a worse position before opening any "negotiations".
In this case, how many times have you called Big Company X and heard the plaintive recording "This call may be recorded for (training/quality assurance/cover our butt) purposes." In such cases you have no practical choice but to consent. Well guess what? They don't like it one bit either. *Note: Cigna has changed their way of informing you about the call being recorded. Now they say, "this call may be monitored or recorded". That's it.
This gets us back to our newest friend, Dick Puddle.
His first mistake which seats him in the insulting if not idiot section involves the purpose of his call. It stemmed from a list of problems we had with the way CDIC was handling the claim, he had it in-hand yet had the cheek to ask "What seems to be the problem?" Dick, did you not read anything before opening your mouth or are you being intentionally dense? We are supposed to trust our future to...you?
The call lasted only minutes because when we informed Dick that "this call may be recorded for quality assurance and informational purposes" he sounded like he had a stroke and said he had to ask management for permission to continue. He called back and told us he could no longer continue the conversation, even after being reminded of memory issues, etc. He could not hang up fast enough. We begged him for some other contact person, some way to more directly contact them than just a fax that went out into the ether. We asked for an email address to write to and this is where Dick steps in it again:
"We don't have email. Use the fax number or postal mail."
I wonder what Dick would have thought if he knew that I was staring at his email address at that moment. This leads us to a second Cigna War Journal tip:
Cigna War Journal tip #2: Any time you are negotiating with the enemy, learn what lawyers already know: never ask a question that you don't already know the answer to. Ask them a bunch of questions that you don't already know and all that you really have is a handful of "I Don't Know". Ask them a bunch of questions that you already have the answers to and you will learn far more than they think they are revealing. If they lie, you will immediately know and have to decide if it was stupidity or malice on their part. If they tell the truth, then you know you can work with them. If you run into the latter, let the owner of this website know, they are like Bigfoot sightings...
So after Dick limits us to mail, we ask who is our contact person, is it him? If so, how to spell his last name? He has hidden it in all communications to us so before his call we ran a trace on him and had his name, etc. See Cigna War Journal tip #2.
Dick basically hangs up on us. I call him back just to ask for a name of a contact person but only get voice mail and never get a callback. No problem, we had the call recorded (both). The really funny part of this is that if Dick had a problem with being recorded, he probably would have had a stroke if he had let us utter about two more sentences. You see we could have told him that he was also on a conference call with some of our team of volunteers.
Thus ends our first call with a CDIC "Consumer Advocacy Specialist". Given the events, who is he an advocate for really?
If it had ended there that would have been it for Dick but when we (using the only method open to us) faxed him back, asking if he was still our contact person etc, he sent us a fax back with some really sad but informative things, both about what was going on and Dick in particular:
* In the face of the problems we listed with the claim, he reiterates the summary saying poor CDIC did all that it could (this story is to be eviscerated shortly). After everything we warned and asked about, he actually had the stones to say this. As such Mr. Dick Puddle is part of the process that operates apart from logic and reason, only self-interest. If Dick had a brain and had read the file, he would have know better. By not doing so even when warned to, Dick is making choices he has to live with.
* CDIC has the right to demand records and test as long as they like. Since in theory if they approve the LTD (again) they are saying they are allowed to screw with us until age 65. Wow. It would be bad enough but when you realize this also includes tracking all of your online activity, that starts to get a bit scary. Still as bad as this is, there are remedies for it too ;)
* All future contact is to be through a claims appeal specialist (everyone there is special it seems) and he passes on her full name, phone number and extension. WTF? The same hero that won't speak on a recorded call (because of company policy) is directing us to call and record someone else? Talk about just passing the hot potato...bad form Dick, seriously.
* Dick then tries to comply with about 1% of our information requests by claiming the policy information and the curriculum vitae of the medical director who screwed this up was attached to the fax. Of course nothing was attached, but this points us to another helpful tip from CWJ:
Cigna War Journal tip #3: One of the enemies' favored deceptions is to present incomplete proof as actual proof of a statement. One key method is to make a statement that relies on some document or publication that you do not have access to. For example to say that even though you have medical evidence to back up your claim, they might say "according to our medical director, you are not disabled in any way according to the DMS Expert Medical Guidelines."
In Dick's defense, an envelope came from Cigna a few days later with the policy information in it but the medical director's resume was conspicuously MIA. It didn't really matter because our team had long turned up the goods on the good doctor. Remember, asking a question that you know the answer to is powerful.Aside from the obvious lunacy of that statement, unless you have those same guidelines in your hand (and they have verified them as accurate through at least a notary), this is no truth at all. Watch every statement they make for this simple trick....
More on Doctor McGoo soon ;)
Anyways Dick, since you practiced the art of "Consumer Advocacy Specialist" by hanging up on us even though we were exceedingly polite, and then threw the hot potato back at someone who didn't deserve it, you are on our high value targets list. Some people can't or are unwilling to learn...
Conclusion:
The moral of the story boys and girls: If you have to be a consumer advocate, don't be a Dick.
As the veterans on our team say,
Keep the faith, baby!
Soon,
Mom Cobb
CignaWarJournal at Gmail dot com
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