Is that Goliath in your Pocket?

During the whole healthcare debate, I never once stepped into a doctor's office. I do have this vague feeling of unease knowing my future access to medicine is through a for profit corporation but really mostly, I don't think about that set of issues. Until today.

Oh, I hear ominous music. It's not. But in the course of an hour I came face to face with some of the health insurance stupidity and I'm amazed this much can exist at the simple fringe. If it's like this for the simple stuff, what happens if I have a baby. Or a car accident. Or cancer.

Yesterday I gave the receptionist my ID number. The one I got from my online account with BlueCross. Today I got a call saying that they tried to process my claim but it didn't work. The number wasn't right. I realized that this was a good time to order a new card. So I went to the form. But that form requires a 3 letter code before your ID number. The three letters the receptionist said she needed. Three letters that I can't find in any of my secure online information. It gives you a number but no letters. So I clicked on the help chat and asked Patrick. Patrick told me the letters easily enough and then here's how the following went [please ignore that Patrick sounds like he might be part robot]:

Patrick: Kelly, I'm noticing something while in your policy. Do you have a moment to answer a few quick questions?
 KELLY: Yes
Patrick: I notice we are looking for information from you. I'd like to take care of it right now. We are curious if you have other insurance coverage. Do you have, or have you had in the last 12 months, any other Medical, Vision or Prescription coverage?
 KELLY: I have absolutely no idea. Is this something I can fill out on the site once I know?
Patrick: Sure. At this point, until the response is received from you, no claims will be processed or paid. You can answer this question via our online form found here: [website blah blah blah]
 KELLY: Why not? Isn't my plan active? Am I behind on payments?
Patrick: No ma'am. Per your agreement with us we will periodically ask if there is any other insurance. We need this update from time to time in order to ensure we are coordinating benefits correctly under state regulations.

So I filled it out as soon as I stopped chatting with Patrick, but let's review:
1. My online account only gives me partially useful information, which equals totally useless information.

2. Even though I am current on my payments, they wouldn't have covered me until I answered questions on a form about past coverage. A form I would have known nothing about accept I happened to ask an online help guy about something separate.

Really? That's the kind of operation we have running us?  That's some basic system flaws. And there is one thing I've learned about basic system flaws, they just get exponentially worse the more complex the system becomes.

Time to go eat a lot of broccoli.