Boring and Depressing Job Working for an Insurance Company

[Celerity]

I work for a company that offers insurance and also runs its own hospital and clinic network. I register new patients, get them scheduled for appointments, refer out, and check insurance eligibility when needed.

Nothing is more depressing than working the psychiatry referrals.

My company doesn't have psychiatrists or therapists outside the hospitals, and the pitiful area I am in has a severe shortage of both besides. So I got to spend part of today giving a stupidly short list of specialists to a distraught mother. Her daughter is 23 but has the mental age of a 12 year old. The mom has been struggling for the past 2-3 weeks to find somebody to help her. I did what I could, and she thanked me profusely, but I know what she's facing is a dead end.

Also worked on the file of a woman my age who is severely disabled. I looked at her list of symptoms and, maybe I'm an asshole, but I couldn't help but think that she'd be better off dead. Her mother should have aborted her. No use of the limbs. Can hardly talk. Distorted thinking. Easily chokes on food. Looks like a poorly drawn cartoon character of a creature instead of a person. The list goes on. I almost cried just trying to put her referral together to get her scheduled.

 

[FuneralCry]

That job does sound so hard. It's a constant reminder that this life is such a cruel thing and there is so much suffering people are going through. It does upset me that people are alive with all sorts of extreme disabilities with no right to die. Some people just cannot be helped with therapy and that is the reality of it. It's a sad world.

 

[GenesAndEnvironment]

No use of the limbs. Can hardly talk. Distorted thinking. Easily chokes on food. Looks like a poorly drawn cartoon character of a creature instead of a person. The list goes on. I almost cried just trying to put her referral together to get her scheduled.

Inhumane shit society.

 

[Celerity]

Inhumane shit society.

At one point in time, I was interested in becoming a genetic counselor. In addition to the new area of precision medicine, the larger part of the job is advising couples on whether they should have children. You are obligated (and maybe required legally) not to steer your clients in any direction but to only offer as objective a perspective as you can. I listened to a podcast from a woman who had worked over a decade in the field. She described a case where she advised a couple that their daughter had an incurable and painful medical condition that would make daily life an agony and shorten her life considerably. They went through with it anyway because they had always wanted a baby. After hearing that, I knew I couldn't work that job.