Never felt so ashamed and angry

A little background, I am a licensed insurance agent working for a call center contracted with one of the largest Medicare Part D providers in the nation. I help people enroll into Medicare prescription drug plans. For those of you who don’t know, you can typically only enroll into a Medicare plan October 15th through December 7th for the next year, so this is our busy season. Once you enroll, you’re usually stuck with that plan for a full year, so it’s VERY important you get a plan that covers your medications properly.

Two illegal things occur in this call or before this call. Try and guess where they are, answers are in the comments

Caller – a sweet old lady. Absolute angel.

Me – Me

CSR – a customer service representative who I didn’t know was listening in on the call

Me –

Caller – Hi, my name is and I’d like to enroll into one of your prescription drug plans

Me – Great! I’d be happy to help you with that! Which plan were you looking at enrolling into this evening?

Caller – The plan, I believe, with no monthly fee. Do I pay the $300 deductible now?

Me – Ma’am, that’s not quite how our deductibles work, but before we address that, do you receive Medicaid or Extra Help from the state to pay for a Medicare prescription drug plan?

Caller – No, I make too much money for that.

Me – Well, the plan DOES have a monthly premium of $30.20, but the deductible

CSR – Yes, ma’am, I forgot to tell you, this plan does have a fee of a monthly deductible of $290 and

Me – Excuse me, who are you?

CSR – Yes, I am from the customer care team and

Me – This plan DOES NOT have a monthly deductible, it has an ANNUAL deducible, and there IS a monthly premium and YOU need to get off this call

CSR – Yes, the licensed agent is correct and

Me – Sir, please disconnect yourself from this call

CSR –

I proceeded to apologize for the disruption and confusion to my caller, and proceed with the enrollment process, reexplaining things to the caller and correcting false information when…

Me – Would you like me to review any medications and what your copays would be?

Caller – The other man already went over them with me, but I think we should double-check

We go over her medications and when I give her prices

Caller – But the other man said my would be $3 for 90 days, and you’re saying it would be $163?

This repeats for two or three other medications, Caller is crushed and distraught as she realizes her medications are so expensive. Her current plan isn’t available for next year and so she was completely lost as to what to do, especially since our plan was STILL better than the competition. I didn’t push for the sale, the woman thanked me profusely and said that she wished she could give me a pin or a medal for keeping her from enrolling into a plan and getting surprised with hundreds of dollars in medication costs and premiums. Finished up the call, boss said she was going to look into it, but I think that was just to calm me down because I was really pissed off and ready to throw hands if I found that CSR…still am.

Anyway, that was my most interesting call today. Unfortunately, there’s not much recourse as most everyone will be laid off or fired in the next couple days as the enrollment season comes to a close, and I’ll be quitting this job because I’ll be leaving state to head back to school.