Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Wuthering Blights: Medicare & It's PECOS Adminstrative System

"Will no one rid me of this troublesome PECOS System associated with administrating Medicare" (sorry: mixing authors' voices to a maddening degree):

BUT NOT AS MADDENING AS PECOS IS RELATED TO THE MANAGEMENT OF MEDICARE.

PECOS: Welcome to he Medicare Provider Enrollment, Chain-PECOS (welcome to hell)

For the past two months I have been attempting to simply LOG ON to PECOS in order to change some basic information associated with my Medicare Provider information.  For instance, they have the wrong fax number.  Think you can change that? NAH. They have a 12 yr old address listed (which is part of why I am stuck in this nightmare of revalidating my 12 year old Medicare provider application: they sent it to a 12 yr old address) Since July 21, 2015, I have not been paid.  Why? Because Medicare (CMS: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services ) utilizes an administrative system undoubtedly created by some private, blood-sucking entity sucking off the government tit, PECOS. Taking a deep breath in today, I said to myself: OK, self, you can do this.  You can spend however long it takes to try and log-on to PECOS and figure out WHEN THE HELL IS MY REVALIDATION AS A MEDICARE PROVIDER GOING TO BE IN SOME OTHER CATEGORY OTHER THAN "BEING PROCESSED" by Palmetto GBA in Columbia, SC, which processed NC Medicare claims. I pulled over to the Ingles Grocery Store in Waynesville, NC, drug up the
internet connection associated with the in-store Starbucks, and ran up
against yet another barrier: an endless loop of "I accept"

So, I went across the street to McDonald's to use their internet connection
whereupon I YET AGAIN called CMS's EUS (External User Services)
telephone number to happen upon some young sounding upstart who
suspected me of being an interloper because what "doctor" would be working
at a McDonald's? Ssssshhh, he said: don't tell me your password: someone may
be listening.

I found this terribly amusing given that no one has the ability or inclination
to flop around in the PECOS system.

And so I got my ID and password straight, as I figured he was only trouble,
plugged into my car charger, and tried to understand the non-drop down
PECOS boxes which would give no answers.

Later on this day, I went to a different computer to find that my password,
 "medicaresux3" no longer worked.

Sigh: I wrote to EUS asking them if they had an issue with my password and
maintaining that I wished to file a grievance against the young man who
demanded my NPI (online for everyone to see: 1194700591).  Erstwhile saver of
PECOS/ Medicare passwords had earlier run
away from the phone to consult with some freaking person as to why
would a "doctor" be at a McDonald's.

I'm following up on this.

Bernie Sanders: please give us a well managed one payer system. Rid us of this
troublesome beast.