Zeus Seeks a Pain Specialist

Zeus’ wife was pregnant, and he had been warned that the child may be more powerful than him. So, Zeus did what any jealous and insecure father-to-be would do. He swallowed his wife to prevent the birth. However, as luck would have it, the child was eventually born – fully grown and wearing armor – through Zeus' forehead. This hurt immensely, even for the king of the gods.

He needed to find a pain specialist stat. Ideally one that was in-network.

Zeus quickly went online to access his health plan’s provider directory. He found the filters helpful and was pleased to be able to limit his search to nymphs, mortal women, and goddesses. However, each time he tried to schedule an appointment, the address was incorrect, the provider was no longer contracted with the plan, or the provider was shown as accepting new patients when, in fact, she was not accepting new patients. Infuriated, Zeus destroyed the directory with a lightning bolt, cursing all online provider directories to be inaccurate for all of eternity. Then he fired the entire Provider Data Management department at the health plan.

Zeus then contacted Customer Service. He realized that what should be a very simple task was going to require a lot of unnecessary effort. He went online and tried to find the chat feature for Customer Service, but alas, his plan didn’t have a chat feature. He was going to have to call. Damn it, he thought. I hate calling Customer Service. So he took a deep breath, tried to calm himself, and made the call. Just be kind and patient with them, he thought. These people will help me.

He was greeted by an automated voice and quickly found himself lost in a web of prompts. He pressed 0 to get to a live agent. "You have selected an invalid prompt", the automated voice replied. "Please try again." He was taken back to the beginning of the call tree.

Infuriated, Zeus destroyed the phone with a lightning bolt, but not before getting prompted to participate in a post-call survey. He cursed health plans and promised that every member that ever called their health plan would get lost in a maze of call tree prompts so intricate and confusing that Theseus himself couldn’t escape.

Finally, Zeus resorted to googling pain specialists. Screw it. I’ll just pay cash if they aren’t in my network, he thought. The first specialist he contacted had no availability to see new patients for six months. The second didn’t speak his native language. As he dialed the third specialist, Zeus formed a lightning bolt in his hand, preparing to curse every pain specialist to the fate of Prometheus if this one wouldn’t see him soon. Thankfully, the office answered his call and could see him in two weeks. He exhaled.

Two weeks later, Zeus arrived at his pain specialist’s office. He arrived 15 minutes before his scheduled time, knocked on the window at the receptionist’s desk, and spent 30 minutes completing paperwork that he was positive he had already completed at several other provider offices. When he turned it in, he asked, "Can I see the doctor now?" The person responded by telling him to have a seat as she closed the window. He silently cursed every person who worked at the front desk of a provider office to be born without empathy.

The rest of the visit was mostly pleasant, with the exception of the doctor obviously doubting Zeus' explanation for the pain.

"A fully grown child? Born through your forehead? Uh, ok. Sure." The doctor winked at the nurse.

Zeus left with two prescriptions: one to relieve severe pain and one "to prevent further anti-psychotic episodes". Walking out, he cursed all providers to forever disrespect their patients and make them feel stupid. If he felt it, he wanted everyone else to feel it too. Zeus was the god of many things, but patience was not one of them.

Having seen his specialist and now with a prescription for relief in his hand, he stopped by the pharmacy where he was informed that his plan did not cover the exact pain medication he had been prescribed. The pharmacy switched it to a generic and told him he owed $475. His hand twitched, a lightning bolt starting to form. "Um, why…why do I owe so much? Is my plan not covering any of this?"

"Well, sir, you have a deductible that you must meet before your drug plan kicks in. Oh, and there is a prior auth on your anti-psychotic medication. Your plan will need to reach out to your provider for approval, but your provider is closed. It will probably be tomorrow before it’s approved. Can I help you with anything els…"

Before he could finish, an entire storm of lightning rained down on the pharmacy, leaving only Zeus standing in a cloud of smoke.

"Prior auth that."

As Zeus drove home, he called Hermes, the god known as the trickster.

"Hermes, I need your help. Please do the following."

"Devise a survey that health plans must field to their members to assess how stupidly hard it is to access care. Make the survey meaningful. Tie lots of revenue to the scores. And then make it as confusing af. Achieving high results will not be possible, but health plan leaders will nevertheless be doomed to field the survey every single year."

"Give it a name that no one can spell, and then don’t put that name anywhere on the survey itself so there is eternal confusion over the survey between health plan employees, providers, and patients or members."

"Enchant the members who respond to the survey to misread the questions. Like this..."

Actual Question on the Survey: Using any number from 0 to 10, where 0 is the worst health plan possible and 10 is the best health plan possible, what number would you use to rate your health plan?

• Enchanted Question that Members Read: Using any number from 0 to 10, where 0 is the worst health plan possible and 10 is the best health plan possible, what is a number between 0 and 2?

Actual Question on the Survey: In the last 6 months, how often did you get an appointment to see a specialist as soon as you needed?

• Enchanted Question that Members Read: In the last 6 months, how often did you get an appointment to see a specialist before you even knew you needed it? 

"Of course", said Hermes. "Which department at the health plan would you like to own that survey, sir?"

Zeus thought for a moment and then smiled. "Whichever department Sisyphus works in. I hate that guy. He just THINKS rolling that boulder up that hill is hard. This will finally drive him over the edge."

And to this day, all health plans field the CAHPS survey annually. Each year, the survey is enchanted to yield precisely the same results as the year before, forcing health plan leaders to eternally repeat the same tasks over and over, never achieving better results.