How many websites does SilverScript need?

My medigap insurance agent was supposed to have set up my monthly billing for SilverScript PDP, "part" of Aetna.  Or at least that's what I thought, for my coverage which is beginning on January 1.  I had it all arranged in October for peace of mind.

Come December 22, I receive a paper bill for my SilverScript, due January 1.  I emailed my agent and he said I had better set up automatic payments myself "just to be sure."

I planned to take care of this on December 23, but after setting up Christmas Lights I decided not to hassle with it.  Should only take a few minutes on the morning of December 24, I thought.

I didn't get around to looking at it until after dinnter on December 24.  The paper bill instructed me to visit the AetnaMedicare.com website.  Sadly I didn't read the bill more carefully than that.  I just figured I'd set up an account at Aetna/SliverScript, and I could set up bill payments.

So I first tried to register an account.   Without any explanation, Aetna automatically directed me to Caremark.com.  Who is that, I wondered?  Well it seems to be for SilverScript.

So I went through a multi-faceted registration process.  Caremark wanted to text me, but after seeing the long list of things they might text me about I declined that.  I had to confirm my email account with a reasonably sized number that I had to write down (as usual I had not planned for that and had to get up and find a card to write on).  And they automatically selected "paperless," but once again, when I saw the long list of things that somehow I'd have to find out about at the website if at all, I made sure I did NOT select paperless, despite being told how wonderful it would be.

Then finally I got into "my account" at Caremark, and there didn't seem to be anything about billing.  I looked over and over, and finally found something under the "Personal Information" section.  Knowing how important it is to pay these premium bills, I entered my checking account information.  Only after that was confirmed (and thankfully, at least then) it let me know that this was not for premium billing.  For premium billing, I'd have to call some number, which, curiously enough, did not match either of the two numbers on the bill I had received.

By this time, I had finally noticed on the bill, that it said specifically this:

Visit AetnaMedicare.com and click 'Pay Your Premium' or call ...

Which was what I should have done the first time.  So this time I did click on the Pay Your Premium link, and it sent me to, you guessed it, another website!  This time it was InstaMed.com (part of JPMorganChase, it cheerfully told me).  And it let me pay my Silverscript Premium fairly quickly, after entering the PaymentID.  But it was not at all obvious how to set up automatic monthly payments, which was what I wanted to do.  I looked over and over the website.  Finally, on some page where it listed my personal information, payment information, it showed "Automatic Payments - Enabled" and further down on the page, there was a checkmark next to "Automatic Payments."  There wasn't an explanation of this, and I'll have to check in January to be sure the premiums are automatically being paid, but it sort of looks like I have done the right thing.