Claims

SHOW NOTES: There are jobs that many of us would prefer not to have and businesses we'd prefer not to own, but they provide valuable services. Someone has to run funeral parlors, cemeteries, cesspool cleaning, mold removal, and junkyards. Personally, I wouldn't like to pick up garbage, but we need the service or the rats would overwhelm us. Then there are jobs that I can't comprehend doing because of their impact on others. I knew a woman who incessantly pointed out that her husband was a doctor. I asked him once for a referral for a client who lived in the area, and he couldn't provide me one. I found out when we had dinner once, and I questioned him, that he sat at a desk all day approving and rejecting medical claims. Even with my excellent health insurance, I'm occasionally informed by a distant "claim administrator" that my claim wasn't covered or only partially covered. There's no coherent explanation, only the small print that some attorney, also sitting at a desk and who's never been inside a courtroom, has conjured up to protect the company which pays his or her salary. We do need some claims adjustors, for property insurance—houses and cars—for example, to protect against fraud and to serve the consumer, as well. But there are too many stories about medicines and procedures, to alleviate chronic suffering and even to save lives, that are denied on very arbitrary grounds, other than saving the insurer money. Remember when Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson sang about not letting your babies grow up to cowboys? Well, who on earth says to their kid, what guidance counselor suggests, what story of success supports, "My child, I can see with your skills and personally, you should go into health insurance claims adjusting! You'd be brilliant at it and I'm sure it would provide huge gratification!" Don't let your babies grow up to be insurance claims adjustors. If they display any such inclination, adjust them away from it.

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