An Excuse Of An Antiquated System

I called my IPA today to check on the status of the out-of-network referral request that was sent to them exactly two weeks ago today. The ever so helpful people there claim they never received the fax/info I was referring to and they had no knowledge of the request. 

I know, I should have known, I should have called earlier, but here I go again giving people the benefit of the doubt. When will I ever learn?

So, I had to call my PCPs office and left a message for the referral department. A very nice gentle man (this is really true, not sarcasm) called me back to let me know that yes it's true the IPA says they never received the fax, so he had resubmitted it to them today and would keep a close eye on it. I asked him if he could please call the IPA tomorrow to ensure they received the fax, he agreed.

Ok, couple of things here. How is it possible that so many faxes get lost, I mean I must have heard this a million time thus far after waiting a week and a half and then following up on "lost" referral requests. So now I ask, if the fax is so unreliable and antiquated, why aren't these people getting up with the times and starting an email submittal process. They all have computers, and the internet and email addresses. This seems a much more efficient process, not to mention it will save millions of trees. But then they couldn't use the excuse that they "lost" something and then they would actually have to do their jobs well. And we wouldn't want that now would we?

Gosh, I'm just so pissed. I had a stupid anxiety attack over all of this. Hopefully we will really have the referral approved this time next week and can finally get the appt scheduled. But that most likely means that my goal of having the meeting with the SD dr is probably NOT going to happen before we leave on the cruise. BLAH.