Private insurance doesn't have its basic shit together.

From my latest insurer:

1) From back in January, a doctor had tests done but didn't send my new insurance number to the corporate lab place, who then billed my old insurer, so I had to call them up again to change my number...  Only to get a bill from them this month, saying my insurance number with my latest insurer doesn't exist.

I then call up my new insurer, and it turns out that my new insurance number on all my documents actually *isn't* my real insurance number used for the forms that matter, you have to add an "01" on the end.

I mean, what the fuck?  How is anyone supposed to know that?

2) I get assigned a primary care doctor automatically, but it turns out she's an Ob-gyn doctor, and the number for her office they give me is actually the anesthesiology department at a hospital where she occasionally does care.

So, I call them up, and they assign me a new doctor, and then right after I hang up I call his clinic for an appointment...  Only to find out that he doesn't work there anymore.

So, I have to call them back again to make sure it's okay that I have a doctor they didn't assign at the same clinic, which still accepts the insurance, but would just have me see a different doctor (I was worried about random charges, though they said it was okay).

I mean, what the fuck?  They didn't know he left?  Is their system listings that out-of-date?

. . .

I really don't know what "value added" these places give to healthcare.  They just seem like a big bunch of incompetent leaches driving up costs.  With government, at least there's direct oversight.  I can't wait until the day I can buy into Medicare and have some consistency and sanity with the process.