Opinion

It Is I, Rebecca, Your Medicaid Caseworker, and I Can’t Get to the Phone Right Now

Hi, you've reached the voicemail inbox for Rebecca at State Medicaid Support Services. Please leave your full name and phone number, and I'll do my best to call you back at my earliest convenience. I swear I don't intend to delay your urgent needs, but this job is impossible and my kid is sick and all of my colleagues are on a cruise right now to Bermuda.

If you're calling about your enrollment status, please use the HappyHealth web portal. It will prompt you to enter your email address and authentication PIN. Make sure you hold down the space bar when you click submit, and try it two or three more times until it works. Our new web portal was built in 1879, and it's just a li'l funky like that sometimes.

If you're calling about an address change — just kidding; I know you're stuck in that shithole apartment forever.

If this is a medical emergency, why are you calling me? Call 911 for that, dude! I'm merely a humble employee, underpaid and overworked, and I am in no way licensed to give medical advice. I can, however, send you some TikToks I saw about the healing powers of sea moss facials. My eyebrows have never been so moist. Though that might just be from all of the crying.

If you're calling from an international number, I know it's you, Carly, and you should have invited me on that cruise. You know how long I've been saying I want to go on a cruise. They look so cool.

If you are a vendor or medical professional calling on behalf of a patient … are you hiring? Let me make these calls for you and save you some time. Time is precious, honey! Literally offer me any job that pays a living wage and I will up and quit right now on this prerecorded voicemail inbox message.

Thanks again for choosing State Medicaid Support Services, and please, please help me.

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