From Everyday Needs to Emergency Care, Members Count on the Concierge Team
Richie Miller and wife Laura share their experience
Richie Miller and wife Laura share their experience
Once Qualcomm IT analyst Richie Miller and his wife Laura discovered how incredibly helpful their Qualcomm Premier Plan concierge benefit could be, they used it almost monthly. The concierge team helped with everything from scheduling appointments and resolving billing issues to getting COVID-19 information and advice through the 24/7 Nurse Line.
Laura never imagined, however, that she’d be calling them when — just 21 weeks into her third pregnancy — her water broke in the middle of the night in a rural Colorado town.
“Suddenly, my life turned upside down,” says Laura. “We were visiting family for Christmas and had just arrived in Colorado on December 21. My grandmother had passed away a few months earlier, and we thought this might be my last chance to see my grandfather.”
Two nights later, Laura woke up at 4 am to discover her water had broken. Knowing a nurse would be available to advise her, she called the concierge line. The nurse instructed Laura to immediately go the nearest hospital. In the small rural town, there was only one option. Using her MyScripps app, she downloaded her medical records for the doctors.
Arranging specialty care in a crisis
Typically, when a woman’s water breaks early, delivery follows within two days. When that didn’t happen, the doctors and Laura’s obstetrician at Scripps in San Diego agreed she needed more specialized care than the small hospital could provide.
“By this time the concierge was regularly checking in without me even calling them,” she recalls. “We really wanted to go back home to my doctors and to Scripps, and the concierge team researched different travel options, but because of blizzards were advised not to drive or fly. We were just stuck.”
When the decision was made to transfer Laura to a major hospital in Denver via a LifeFlight helicopter, the concierge team handled every detail.
“I had so many questions about what would be covered and what all of this would cost, and the concierge told me to just get to Denver and they would work out everything else,” Laura says. “They even saw that we had planned to switch to a different health plan for 2022, but with everything happening, it made more sense to stay with the plan we had. They took care of switching us back to our original plan before the deadline.”
In Denver, Laura was on bed rest for 10 weeks. Her main concierge contacts, Teggan Miccio and Felicia Vega, checked in with daily calls and emails to make sure Laura and her family had everything they needed. In addition to helping Laura navigate her care away from home and complete all the necessary paperwork, they researched and obtained breast pumps, oxygen supplies and other care Laura and her baby would need after delivery.
They also helped find care for Laura’s family while they were in Colorado. Her son, who was still with her parents in the mountains, developed an ear infection. Her husband, Richie, also needed a doctor while in Denver. The concierge team helped them find the right care while Laura waited for her baby to arrive.
Ongoing assistance with every need
Concierge team member Teggan Miccio
Ongoing assistance with every need
On March 5, 2022, Laura gave birth to her third son. “We named him Liam, which means courageous warrior, because we knew he was a fighter even at 21 weeks,” she explains. “I should have gone into labor once my water broke, but he just kept defeating the odds. He made it to 31 weeks, which far surpassed anyone’s expectations.”
Liam, Laura and Richie remained in Denver for another seven weeks before returning home to San Diego at the end of April. Teggan and Felicia continued to help navigate their care every step of the way — adding Liam to their health plan, ensuring he had oxygen for the trip home, finding specialists for him at Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego and finding community resources to support his needs.
“It would have been insurmountable to try to navigate this without their help,” says Laura. “There were all these complexities that I didn’t know how to manage by myself and they proactively kept reaching out to ask what I needed and took care of it. They gave us some peace of mind through a very traumatizing experience.”
Laura and her family are grateful to be back home with their newest addition. Liam is at risk for developmental disorders, and Laura knows the concierge team will be there to help when she needs it.
“They would have helped us with anything and everything we asked for, but I want people to know that you don’t have to have an extreme situation like we did to reach out to them,” Laura says. “Just make one phone call and you can talk to a nurse, schedule an appointment, get an answer to an insurance question without having to wait on the phone for answers. People don’t realize how useful it is when life gets busy.”