Show me the $$$

You know, when my company outsourced some of the basic HR functions, it is to ensure that

1. our staff don't get bogged down with unnecessary paperwork

2. basic reimbursement like medical, dental etc get reimburse to us on a timely basis

3. in short, it is to pass the s**t work to someone else (sorry about that, but I believe that that is what is happening)

So imagine, I had submitted my maternity claim in December 2005. Having attached all the necessary documents like birth certificate of my baby, all my Gyn's receipts, hospital billings and also send in another form informing the outsource company that I had a baby daughter, with her birth cert included.

Come February, no maternity reimbursement. I called up the outsource company to inquire why is it that my reimbursement is not in as yet when the rest of my medical claims are paid this month. The lady checked and got back to me saying that "Sorry but you did not include the birth cert. Can you please refax it to us so that we can process your claim?"

I was really pissed.. why is that so?? I had submitted my claim in late December. Come January, if you were to process the claim. You meant to tell me that you knew that I didn't submit the birth cert but you can't give me a call. I am very sure that I had submitted the birth cert because I had double checked everything before I submitted the forms.

I rechecked my photocopied documents. Everyone of us who had families who need to claim medical or dental always photocopied our bills before we submit them. Everything is in order. So I called them again but this time to check if they had received my form informing them about my new born daughter. This is another lady, she checked and said that "Yes, your daughter's status has been updated." This means that they have a copy of her birth cert. So I asked this lady to faxed the birth cert to the claims dept as they are all in the same building.

Don't make sense to me to go home, bring my child's birth cert, make a copy and fax it to them when they have a copy on hand.

The lady said that she will check to let me know if they can do that. By this time, I was getting really angry. When I was holding on, waiting to be attended, the audio message state that they do things differently, does differently meant that even if you have the document, you can't share it between departments?? To me, it seems that departments are not talking to each other and they don't share information between themselves. Not customer oriented because you need the customer to give you something that you have but don't want to pass on to the other department.

I told the lady that it does not make sense to me that I have to go back, take the cert, make a copy and fax to them when they have a copy with them.

I am getting nasty and I really can't be bothered. It is not the first time that they had omitted one of my reimbursement. If you have omitted it, tell me that you had overlooked my claim and will process it next month. Don't tell me that I have forgotten to include the birth cert when I had.

She then told me that she will get back to me shortly. In the end, she called back to let me know that it will be process and I will get the check next month.

I know that the processing time for claims is about 2 months that is why I made sure that I submit it early with all the documents so that I can get my $$ back early. Do you think that I will give you something that is incomplete?? Now I have to wait another month for them to process.

See if this reimbursement thing is still in charge by the HR department, they will be very busy answering all our queries about our reimbursement but outsource it, no one will go bother them. Any nasty customer like myself, they won't have to bother as we will go straight to the outsource company instead.

Ok, have got it off my chest, can cool down now... *Smile*.....