It also matters whether they are actually reachable at your convenience. A lot of business are virtually impossible to actually talk to unless you answer their call. They say to call back at your convenience, but you will only get their voicemail or an infinite waiting queue.

Why? They presumably have recordings so it's unlikely to going to devolve to a "he said she said" situation, and I'm not sure how else you would rephrase "at your convenience" so the doctor wouldn't scrub out. Does every interaction need a 1 paragraph disclaimer to guard against a social media shitstorm?

The fact that a Doctor has to be worried about this shit at all is damning. The fact that a patient doesn't even pick their insurance (mostly tied to employer HR) is damning. The fact that a group can own the whole vertical is damning. The whole mechanism is a knot and anything less than untying it is going to have scary consequences I think.

The call center employee said 'at your convivence' knowing full well that they'd never be available at a convenient time.

It was 2024, it should not hinge on that at all. We have asynchronous communications, a timestamped email should be all the proof required.

If UNH requires others to communicate with them via complicated phone trees that waste callers' time, then that means UNH is automatically at fault.

Agree.

You have pesky PHI in the middle. Funny how of all things, PHI hasn't done a thing to prevent data leaks in healthcare, but it has done fairly well in hindering all async communications with payors.

That’s not an excuse. There are messaging systems inside electronic medical record software they can use. If my healthcare provider can communicate to me via a website and show me all my labs and results and even synchronize with the Apple health app on my phone, surely, a doctor should be able to message an employee of the managed care organization.

Right. Specifically all modern EHR applications now support DirectTrust Direct Secure Messaging. This is basically just regular email with standardized encryption and other added security features necessary to make it HIPAA compliant.

https://directtrust.org/what-we-do/direct-secure-messaging

its not an excuse, it is an observation based on fact

Precisely!