August 10, 2026
My uncle has health insurance through Healthfirst. Healthfirst has outsourced the administration of many medical authorizations, including for some of the medical supplies my uncle needs shipped to him monthly, to Integra Partners. Integra Partners has delegated delivery of my uncle’s medical supplies to Edgepark. Healthfirst, Integra, and Edgepark all suck. Today I’m going to tell you (the most recent example of) why.
Edgepark was supposed to ship my uncle’s monthly supplies order on July 30. Today, August 10, I discovered they still had not shipped, because Edgepark is (supposedly) still waiting for insurance authorization. This is the second month in a row Edgepark has claimed authorization was missing. The same authorization which finally got them to ship last month is still in effect; it hasn’t expired. There is no justification for Edgepark to claim that authorization is missing. And even if there were, it’s there job to get the problem straightened out, which they still haven’t done after 11 days. And if they couldn’t get the problem straightened out, it’s their job to contact my uncle or me to notify us that there’s a problem we need to resolve. They haven’t done that either.
This is at least the third time Edgepark has delayed an order. Before this started happening they were quite reliable about shipping orders on time. But something has changed. I don’t know what it is; all I know is that they are no longer capable of shipping orders on time, or of resolving insurance problems in a timely fashion, or of notifying patients when there are problems with their orders. None of this is OK (massive understatement).
After discovering today that Edgepark had yet again failed to ship my uncle’s order, I decided I was all done with this nonsense and it was time to switch to a new supplier. So I logged into the Healthfirst website, initiated a live chat with a member service representative, and asked how to switch suppliers. They said my uncle has the right to ask for his supply orders to be switched to a new supplier. To make that happen, I would have to find a new supplier in the Integra network, and then have the doctor send new prescriptions for my uncle’s supplies to the new supplier. Supposedly once that’s done, the new supplier will submit the new prescriptions to Integra, then Integra will approve switching the monthly shipments to the new supplier and notify the old supplier to stop shipping.
I asked, is there a directory of Integra suppliers I can search to find a new supplier? Nope, I have to call Integra and ask them to do it. I asked, can we just use the prescriptions that Integra already has on file from when these supplies were initially approved? Nope, new prescriptions are required. It’s almost like they erect time-consuming bureaucratic hoops which they offer no help with on purpose! Oh, wait, that’s exactly what it is.
So, OK, I call Integra. Miraculously, I am able to navigate their automated phone menu system and reach a human being relatively quickly. She asks for my name and a call-back number, and then before our conversation can go any further, we are disconnected. Lovely! So I call back again.
On the second call I am able to have a real conversation with a member service representative. When I tell her why I’m calling, she says, “I don’t see any record of the supplies you’re calling about in my system. You’re going to have to deal with Healthfirst directly.” I explain that I had just spoken to Healthfirst and explained how Healthfirst said this was supposed to work. She said, “Well, I guess we can try doing it that way and we’ll see what happens.” Lovely.
So she starts going through suppliers in Integra’s network, based on my uncle’s ZIP code. Apparently even the supplier network directory that the rep has access to doesn’t say which health insurance their suppliers accept or what kinds of supplies they are able to fill orders for, so for each supplier we consider, the rep has to put me on hold, call the supplier, and find out whether they can provide for my uncle’s needs.
Supplier #1 makes the rep wait on hold for a while and then transfers her to voicemail; she’s not allowed to leave messages, so she hangs up and comes back on the line with me to move on to supplier #2.
She gives me the name of supplier #2, and I ask her to skip them because I look them up on Google and their reviews are bad. I don’t want to switch from one bad supplier to another.
Supplier #3 answers the phone and says they don’t sell the supplies my uncle needs.
Supplier #4, appears from their address to be run out of an apartment. It has only one review in Google, which is obviously fake. I’m skeptical, but she tries to call them, and the call goes to voicemail again.
Then she informs me that Integra reps are only allowed to make three of these supplier calls per member per day, so either she can give me the names and numbers of some suppliers for me to try myself (including the ones we already tried that went to voicemail), or I can call back Integra tomorrow and ask whoever answers to try to call another three suppliers.
At some point during all this I asked the rep to check if my uncle’s fabulous local pharmacy whose staff knows and cares about my uncle and always does the best they can to help him, is in Integra’s network. Of course they aren’t, because why would Integra’s network have good suppliers in it?
Rarely does a week go by without me spending many hours (when I should be doing my actual job that I get paid for) dealing with problems like this on my uncle’s behalf. If it’s not this supplier and these supplies, it’s another supplier and other supplies. If it’s not supplies, then it’s prescriptions. If it’s not prescriptions, then it’s getting his electric wheelchair repaired. The problems never end. They almost always involve multiple phone calls to multiple entities, and they frequently involve the various entities disavowing responsibility and telling me that I need to deal with the others, if they even return my calls at all.
There was a time when my uncle was able to advocate for himself. That time has passed, which is why I deal with these things for him. If he didn’t have me advocating for him, he wouldn’t be able to get the care he needs and is legally entitled to.
I don’t know how people in the United States who aren’t rich and have cognitive deficits navigate the American healthcare system. Maybe they just end up in massively understaffed nursing homes that accept Medicaid, where they live in squalor briefly and then die? Given what I’ve seen from the multiple nursing homes my uncle has done rehab in, and from the nursing home my mom was in before she passed away, that seems like the most plausible outcome.
The American healthcare system, especially for elderly people, is terrible. It’s getting worse every day, and it’s going to get a lot worse before it starts to get better. If, indeed, it ever gets better.
August 11, 2026
Chapter 1
I get a call out of the blue from someone at Healthfirst asking if there are any problems with my uncle’s care that he can help resolve. He claims this is a call they make regularly to all of their members.
I give him an earful about Edgepark repeatedly failing to ship my uncle’s supplies on time. He says he will look into it and get back to me. We’ll see.
[An aside: Since I was focused above on my attempt to change from Edgepark to a different supplier, I didn’t mention that I sent a fax to Edgepark yesterday in which I included the authorization letters from Healthfirst and told Edgepark to get their heads out of their asses and ship my uncle his supplies (I didn’t use exactly those words, but it was close). I also told them to call me upon receipt of my fax to confirm that they had received it and were dealing with the problem. A day later, they haven’t called me, and the orders on the Edgepark portal still show “In progress”, i.e., the supplies still have not been shipped.]
Chapter 2
Later in the day, the Healthfirst rep does call back, but of course he manages to do it during one of only two half-hour slots I had meetings on throughout the day, so the call goes to voicemail. He leaves a message saying to call the Healthfirst member service number and give them the case number he provided to find out details about what he had learned.
I call Healthfirst as instructed, navigate their automated phone menu system, reach a human being relatively quickly, and (as instructed) tell the rep that I am calling in reference to an existing case and have the case number in front of me. He says, “What is this regarding?” I say, “As I said, I have a case reference number. I am not going to explain the whole thing again, the whole point of the reference number is so I don’t have to. If you can’t look up the reference number, please transfer me to someone who can.” He says, “I’ll transfer you if that’s what you want, but they’re just going to ask you the same thing again.”
He transfers me back into the automated menu system, I navigate it again, I wait on hold for another ten minutes, then I’m finally connected to another rep. When I tell him I have a case reference number, he doesn’t ask me what the call is regarding; instead, he looks up the case number, which is what the first rep I spoke with should have done but refused to do because he’s either incompetent or an asshole.
Anyway, the second rep reviewsd the case notes and then inform me that Edgepark has resolved the problem and the required supplies will ship today and arrive in one to two days. I say, please stay on the line while I log into the Edgepark portal and confirm what you’re telling me. I logg into the Edgepark portal and, of course, the order still shows up there as “Prior authorization from your doctor and/or health insurance is required.”
I tell the Healthfirst rep this. He says he can call Edgepark with me on the phone so we can find out what’s going on. I say no, I’ve already spent too many hours on this, I need to actually do my job. He says he will call Edgepark himself and then call me back after speaking with them to let me know what he’d learned.
Chapter 3
The Healthfirst rep calls back. He has Edgepark on the phone with him. The Edgepark rep assures me that all of my uncle’s supplies have been approved and will be shipped today. I log into the Edgepark portal and that’s not what it says there. The rep says it may take a while for the portal to update but she assures me that the products will ship today.
I ask what Edgepark is doing to ensure that this doesn’t keep happening. Are they going to promptly request new authorizations from the insurance company and continue following up if the authorizations aren’t received promptly? She says there is a team at Edgepark responsible for handling authorizations. I say yes, I know that, but they haven’t been doing that which is why my uncle’s supplies have been delayed three months in a row. Has anyone at Edgepark actually figured out what the problem is and fixed it? I’ve been asking this for three months and no one has answered me. I tell her what I want is for someone in a position of authority at Edgepark to call me on the phone explain to me what the problem has been and what they’ve done to resolve it, because if they don’t do that I’m going to switch to another supplier. She says she will pass on my feedback but, of course, does not commit to someone from Edgepark calling me back about it.
August 12, 2026
Edgepark did not ship my uncle’s supplies yesterday as I was told they would. They supposedly shipped today, though FedEx doesn’t actually have the packages in their possession yet, so who knows, perhaps there will be another delay.
August 26, 2026
My uncle’s supplies did finally arrive a little over a week ago.
Someone from Edgepark’s “patient advocacy” team called me today to discuss the repeated delays in my uncle’s orders.
She said as far as she can tell the last two orders have shipped on time (this is wrong). She also identified circumstances which may have been responsible for earlier delays in my uncle’s orders but she couldn’t say for certain:
- When my uncle’s supplies orders were moved to Edgepark by the insurance company at the beginning of the year, some of the paperwork that should have been moved with them were not, which caused delays in filling orders when Edgepark had to deal with getting the missing paperwork. This has supposedly been resolved by now.
- Somehow my uncle had two different accounts in Edgepark’s computer systems, which may have resulted in some paperwork being attached to the wrong account and therefore unlocateable when it was time to ship new orders. This has supposedly been resolved by merging the two accounts into one.
The woman I spoke with said that if I wanted, each month after confirming my uncle’s order I could email the patient advocacy team and ask them to confirm there weren’t going to be any problems shipping it on time, and if there were problems, do what they could to get them resolved before the scheduled ship date.
I told her I was going to do one better than that, and moving forward each month I am going to email patient advocacy team and ask them to confirm that there were not going to be any problems (prescription expiring, insurance authorization expiring) either with this month’s or next month’s order, so that if something was indeed scheduled to expire before next month’s order, I would have a whole month to work on getting that resolved in advance of the scheduled ship date.
As I told the patient advocacy rep, I shouldn’t have to do any of this, but here we are.
As I noted above, I had already started the process of attempting to switch from Edgepark to a different supplier, which has itself been repeatedly delayed by bureaucratic snafus and people not doing their jobs. At this point I’m going to deprioritize that and give the plan above time to see if it works, but if the ball for switching to a different supplier ends up back in my court through no further action on my part, I will move forward with it.
