No offense to anyone who works for the industry here, but.........

INSURANCE COMPANIES SUCK!!!

Prime Theraputics of North Dakota has announced that they are reducing their reimbursement rates to pharmacists in the area. This has caused almost all of the pharmacies to stop taking Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota because they can't afford to fill the prescriptions. (They won't be reimbursed enough to cover their cost). So what is Prime Theraputics' answer for it's customers.......simple.........use this certain mail order pharmacy that they provide the number for. But when I call this number and do a little research, I find a couple things out.

First, Prime Theraputics is OWNED by Blue Cross, Blue Shield and so is the mail order pharmacy. Oh, how fucking quaint.

Second, Blue Cross is not going to pass along any of these reimbursement gains to the customer. Policy premiums will stay the same.

Third, the fees charged by the mail order pharmacy make it so that it's marginal as to your gains from using it.

Therefore, what do we have? We can either 1) pay full price for our prescriptions through Blue Cross, and do a paper reimbursement with Blue Cross directly. This isn't an option because my diabetic supplies cost WAY more than I'm able to shell out and wait for every month OR 2) We can pay go to the mail order pharmacy and discontinue using our regular pharmacist. This I refuse to do. How do they know what I'm taking and what's best for me? And my pharmacist now has 24 hour assistance for me when I need medicine ASAP. Mail order won't give me this. PLus, I'm not going to pay a fee to have it mailed when I could get it in 15 minutes at the pharmacy.

Neither of these options is worth a damn. Insurance is a fucking joke. The drug companies have conspired with them to screw us out of EVERY dollar we have and have brideb the lawmakers into making sure that there is no recourse. I'm so fuckin' pissed off right now. Time to call PERS of North Dakota and tell them to go suck an egg. I'm not going to pay money for this shit.

END. OF. RANT.

Preach on!!

Do not get me started....




























<backing away from the soapbox>


:hide:

This sounds like something the public has a right to know. Not that I'd expect it to make page 1 when they could be covering Saddam's underwear size.

Are you proposing some commie socialist thing like Hitlery Clinton did back 10 years ago with the NATIONALIZED health care that is going to be way too complicated for anyone to understand and all big brothery with the go anywhere ID card and stuff. Boy no wonder big business supported that plan over 10 years ago we all know how much they loves them some communism.

:sarcasm: if you didn't know

I guarantee it. They won't know how, and won't be able to get their medicine.

But what do the legislators care right? This is capitalism. Their hands are bound.

shut the fuck up and die.
I really am sorry, there are just so many injustices now in every area it is impossible to even track them all. Did you ever imagine they could fuck everything up so badly in such a short time?

The Book of Neocon.

contribute nothing, they make nothing, they just suck up $ that is desperately needed elsewhere, and ships it out of the country.

Its not insurance at all and has not been since traditional indemnity plans died out in the mid-80s. Managed Care and HMOs are pre-paid healthcare. You pay a monthly fee and get the care you pay for. It is not insurance, is not run like insurance and in many states is not even regulated by the insurance commissioner's office.

That said, I understand your pain. HMOs have caused significant difficulties in obtaining drugs. We now use the mail in plan an dI hated it for many of the reasons you laid out. It sucks, but it is the way it works, until I win the lotto and go back to fee for service.