"Mary S" or "Sharon D" at healthcare companies

[Anonymous]

Anyone notice when receiving correspondence, whether mail or messaging, from the healthcare bureaucracy it is always signed as Mary S or Sharon D, with no full last name? I noticed this with my last healthcare company and now with the current one. I never see this strange reluctance to provide you with real full names anywhere else and I deal with plenty of government bureaucracies both on state and federal levels in my job. At the same time they know your full name and all your details. Are these real people or AI bots the healthcare companies use, even if a phone number is provided?

[Anonymous]

Healthcare companies are trying to provide a bit more protection for employees who have to deal with the public.

Exhibit A - Luigi

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Healthcare companies are trying to provide a bit more protection for employees who have to deal with the public.

Exhibit A - Luigi

Plenty of companies deal with the public. But don't behave like this. This long predated Luigi. Is there really a pattern of people stalking healthcare officials?

[Anonymous]

I feel like almost every big company has done this for a long time. Pardon me being un-pc but have you ever called in to a large call center? You get a human with a sharp accent who says “Hello, my name is Jennifer”.. when clearly it isn’t.

[Anonymous]

This begs the question, why do you want to know the last name of the person who emails you to say your claim was denied by the company she works for?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This begs the question, why do you want to know the last name of the person who emails you to say your claim was denied by the company she works for?

Because of the hostility it implies by suggesting it doesn't trust the people it's supposed to serve by hiding its employees behind a firewall that is often difficult to penetrate?

I don't see this in any other major bureaucracy. Even the Fed doesn't do this. I've also noticed there's a strange reluctance to provide you with email addresses or even paper addresses. They want you to call the "Sharon S" rather than admit anything in writing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This begs the question, why do you want to know the last name of the person who emails you to say your claim was denied by the company she works for?

Because of the hostility it implies by suggesting it doesn't trust the people it's supposed to serve by hiding its employees behind a firewall that is often difficult to penetrate?

I don't see this in any other major bureaucracy. Even the Fed doesn't do this. I've also noticed there's a strange reluctance to provide you with email addresses or even paper addresses. They want you to call the "Sharon S" rather than admit anything in writing.

So again- why do you want to know the secretary/ paper pushers last name? How does that help? Unless you want to contact that person outside of their work, or find where they live, or post on their social media? Surely you can see why someone whose job it is to mail out bad news to people would want to stay somewhat protected.

[Anonymous]

I worked at a call center in graduate school that enforced a very unpopular policy of my company. Basically fielding calls from people who had broken copyright laws and assisting police who had warrants with providing information about who had accessed our services for what.

We used our first name only but had a code we gave out that identified us uniquely in the department.

The office building location was not published online as we had frequent threats of violence.

[Anonymous]

I worked in a call center during the recession in credit card collections - so yes, people were really mad who were calling in. We used phone names - most people used something like their own middle name and then their mother’s or grandmother’s maiden name. It seems shady to only give out a last initial, you’d think they’d just use a fake name entirely.