Won’t forget you: UnitedHealthCare

I tried to log into the UnitedHealthCare website when I got my member card in the mail on Friday (note: Friday was December 31st). Nothing worked. I got irritated. Then decided to give the company a break because I knew that my account wouldn’t be active – or accessible – until the turn of the year. So I waited.

A couple days later, I got an email asking me to join their fitness or some kind of wellness tracking program. Tracking being the key here. They all want to track you and you’ll give them your data in exchange for a couple hundred bucks.

But the topic of tracking is a tangent and I’m not going there right now. I’m still hung up on the basic usability – or lack thereof – of the online tools provided by a multi-billion dollar company. Even the usability of the email sucked. But that didn’t prevent me from trying to click on something to get into the details of my health insurance coverage.

The fact that I couldn’t log in on 12/31 wasn’t shocking to me. It’s sad that not one person thought to provide log in access to the site prior to the changing of the calendar but I knew that was why I couldn’t log in so I decided to try again during the morning on the 4th of January.

My coverage is supposed to be active now. Plus, I’d just received an email with the following subject line: Ready for an easier way to access your health plan details?

Yes! I’m ready for an easier way to access my health plan details. I clicked on the logo thinking it’d take me to the website. It did not. Then I clicked on a link called see what’s covered.

Was I able to log into the website?

No.

So I decided I’d reset my password. Being human, I thought it was my error, and I decided I’d try to fix that before getting even more irritated. Password reset. Easy enough, right?

No.

After entering my username and password, I waited and when I saw the screen flicker I thought, phew, finally. Then, nothing.

When I say nothing I mean nothing loaded on the screen except for a chatbot type image at the bottom right side of the screen and a feedback widget at the bottom left. (Yes, I clicked the red sad face and gave them feedback.)

Once again, I thought, welp, I’m using Firefox, it’s my issue. I’ll try Safari (yes, I’m using a Mac).

The same thing occurred there. I suspected it has something to do with my account. If I had UHC coverage in the past, it’s likely that – even though the coverage is inactive – it’s still associated with the username I’ve been trying to use as my login credentials. Should that be my problem? No. But it is.

This is when the rant starts…it’s not too bad today. But it’s still a rant.

This is not a rhetorical question: How is it that a company that’s gathering up billions in profit on a quarterly basis can’t actually check (it’s a basic function called Quality Assurance or Quality Control) to make sure issues like this don’t happen on a regular basis? It’s supposed to be a basic business function. After all, we’re in 2022 and this stuff has been around for decades.

Every day I encounter broken stuff, unusable stuff, poorly designed and horribly implemented stuff on every device. All the crap we’re saddled with. The things that are supposed to make life easier. Well that ship has sailed. Not much is easy when it comes to being a human who is trying to use the tech and services that surround most of us.

I’ve posted stuff like this into the interwebs in the past. Some folks call me negative but if I’m frustrated, how do people two decades older deal? I – for better or worse – understand the complexity of what’s going on behind the scenes so I have more patience and tolerance for this kind of stuff but I’m done simply grabbing screen shots that never go beyond my devices.

Maybe shame is what companies need but even then, I’m not confident that they will care at all. Even money doesn’t shame them. Fines, fees, legal settlements are all the cost of doing business. Customer experience? Not all that important as long as the shareholders are satisfied.