Bureaucracy

My father's employer provides an option for him to set aside pre-tax money at the beginning of the year to use for medical expenses for himself and dependents (which includes me even though this year I am not his dependent for tax purposes). This year they are doing that through a service called PayFlex. We use the PayFlex card like a credit card to pay for medical expenses. In February, I used the card to purchase Dexcom sensors. I authorized a payment of $232.30 on the card, and then I believe I reimbursed my parents.

My father handed me a letter yesterday. It was addressed to him, from PayFlex. It said that they were questioning a particular transaction and that they wanted to see an EOB or itemized receipt or else reimburse the fund or have the rest of the funds in the account restricted. My father told me to handle it.

First I looked for the receipt, but I'd probably thrown in away in my passover cleaning. Then I got Dexcom to email me another receipt. It was for $52.30. I was about to write them and say that was the wrong receipt when I reread the PayFlex letter and saw that I needed the EOB and not the Dexcom receipt if insurance had paid part of the cost.
So, I sorted through the EOBs that my mother had in her room (insurance sends EOBs with my stuff on one side of a piece of paper and another family member's stuff on the other side of the page- very annoying). I sorted and sorted and sorted and found only one applicable EOB about a Dexcom purchase in February- and it said we'd owed $52.30, which we'd paid.
So I got on the phone with BCBS-IL. The extremely wonderful customer service person was very thorough looking through my records and she found only the $52.30. She said if we'd paid $232.30, then Dexcom owed us $180.
So I got on the phone and called Dexcom. They said that we had indeed paid $232.50, but that they'd refunded $180. How did you refund it? I asked. To the credit card! Which means that they'd refunded the $180 to PayFlex!
So I got on the phone and called PayFlex. And they said they couldn't talk to me because I wasn't the account holder.

I handed that off to my father when he got home from work, and he called PayFlex, and they acknowledged that they'd got the refund and said they still wanted the EOB for $52.30.

I spent, in total, roughly three hours working on this. Three hours! I took up the time of three people at Dexcom and two at the insurance company- my phone call to insurance took 1 hour and 12 minutes- for a bureaucratic mistake! How I would have handled this if I hadn't had the day off of work (my next weekday off of work will be May 30th) I don't know.

While I was on the phone with insurance, I figured I might well ask for a replacement medical insurance card, which I'm getting, and I asked about if I could get the Jet Injector covered, which we didn't find the answer to.