Anyone else here been hit with the mail order prescription strong arming?

I'll make this short-
Several months ago I began getting notifications that one of my prescriptions,
a blood pressure medication, would now be available to me only through their mail order
service.

Hmmm, thought I.
What fresh hell is this?

Turns out, a medication I HAVE to take, hyper-tension is genetic in my case,
is suddenly going to be available to me through one source ONLY.

I took the pages of goobly-gook they sent to my local pharmacist, who I adore.
She has confirmed that I have NO choice but to go along with their program.

The kicker?
It's going to cost me MORE and I have no choice as a consumer
about who I pay or how much I pay for a necessary prescription.
My only option is to not go through my insurance and pay twenty times more
out of pocket.

Healthcare reform MY ASS.
Corporate strong arming is more like it.
Where is the consumer choice in this madness and
which representatives allowed this shit to happen?
What about free markets and consumer choices?

FURIOUS,
BHN

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

My situation is different from yours-- my insurance company (Anthem Blue Cross) contracted with Medco as the "pharmacy of choice" for filling covered prescriptions. Costs are significantly lower. They doubled and tripled the co-pay for filling prescriptions from my local pharmacist, who I've done business with for years.

Unfortunately, Medco will only fill prescriptions faxed by the physicians office, and my doc's practice refuses to do this, so I still take my paper script to the pharmacist, and pay the double or triple co-pay.

On their stupid paperwork I am supposed to find my doctor
in their doctor bank. He isn't there.

Must mean that I now also have to use one of THEIR enrolled doctors?

I need to call his office and find what to do.

These corporate monsters are OUT OF CONTROL.

BHN

I was told that if I didn't go through Medco for maintenance medication, that my prescriptions benefits would not be paid. I don't see where it is saving money, and I don't know where their version of generic is coming from.

I will be paying more and unless I agree to, I will have
to pay out of pocket which will be GREATLY more than
their forced delivery.

FUCK these bastards to HELL!

BHN

just to a different pharmacy. In once case it is cheaper for me to purchase it out of pocket for $4 than to pay the $10 dollar co-pay.

Mr Pip is retired military and has their health insurance, which is a good insurance...I certainly can't complain about it.

BUT....

he can only get his diabetic and other meds online.

Which wouldn't be all that bad. It's convenient. We don't have to run 20 miles each way to the pharmacy to renew them.

The shitty part about it is the weebies who can't do it right.

There are twelve prescriptions. A few times some dope at the online place LOST his prescriptions, which meant that he had to call his (very busy) Primary Care Physician and have her rewrite them and fax them AGAIN to the pharmacy.

Oh, and there was one time when they sent mislabeled insulin. He takes a quick acting one for mealtimes, a slower acting one for overnight. Well one of them was mislabeled so that had he taken the dose he would have taken for the other type, he would have sent himself into hypoglycemic coma or death.

So with us, it's not the cost, it's the incompetence...

The incompetence concerns me too.
If I miss a daily dose of my medication, my BP sky rockets.
What are you supposed to do if the prescription doesn't come?

And the forced cost increase REALLY pisses me off...

BHN

Thanks in advance to all who share their experiences on this thread regarding this situation.
BHN

and found that they won't ship injected forms of 2 of my meds. I get to go to the local pharma for those.

must be absolute fools... and look as such in their protests. Jerks and clueless! Any having health ins now that think it's going to be just fine in the coming years if we do the minimal are either on the take or complete moronic fools, and in many cases both!

Maybe your Dr. could prescribe something else that's cheaper?

I don't know if your insurance plan provides for this, but if Medco can't get my scrips on time they have to get my local pharmacy to give me a free 2 week supply to allow for travel time. This is accomplished by a good deal of argument and my liberal use of shaming mechanisms on their representatives. I managed to convince one young man that by working for Merck which contributed to Bush, he was partly responsible for the war in Iraq. He kind of blubbered around for a few minutes, but I got my damn prescription.

What they are doing to us now is simply ignoring their contract. The contract provides for refills after 20 days. The last time we went to get refills the customer service rep told us that the medications were supposed to last for a month, not 20 days. I reminded them of contract law and told them that this is when I had the money to pay for it, so fill it or cut bait. They reluctantly filled it, but I anticipate more in the future.

I suggest, BHN that you see if your health insurance company has a liaison with Merck and then see what if anything the liaison will do for you. Our insurance company did and the liaison got so tired of hearing from us that she finally helped us. This is not the way it should be, but it is the way it has gone. That's why I call my health insurance company the Combat Insurance Company.

The company name is actually GEHA and it is one of those federal plans that Obama is always touting as the "very best" type of insurance. He's lucky he doesn't have to depend on it, because it is not all that good, and I don't expect it to get any better.

I plan on spending yet MORE phone time to investigate what the hell
this company is up to.

Called my doctor's office about the situation-
He's great, I'm sure if he has any samples, he'll load me up
while I try to figure out another way.

He is not enrolled with my provider and that is looking
like I may have to go back to the shitty doctor my provider
originally set me up with.

She is a bitch and a racist, so I don't particularly want to go
back to her just so I can get my medication...

BHN

My husband had MRSA last year. Te bacteria attacked his bone marrow leaving both his red and white counts dangerously low. We had to wear protective garments when he was in the hospital to protect us from the bacteria, and later masks to protect him from anything we might have had.

When they sent him home from the hospital he needed a medication called Procrit which was to help restore his blood values. It had to be injected into his stomach and was around $2000 per month. He needed it desperately. At first Medco refused to prescribe it under any circumstances. One of my husband's doctors, a hematologist wrote them a really savage letter and told them that if they did not provide the medication promptly, he would put my husband back into the acute hospital and they could tell GEHA why. I also called them and asked why they wanted to kill my husband. I told them I would have my congressman investigate this if they did not provide the medication, as they were servicing a federal plan and vulnerable to a congressional. In about 48 hours they caved.

Then came the bicker about how it was to be delivered. It had to be kept cold, and they wanted to mail it. I refused and told them the local pharmacy, one of their providers could deliver it. Otherwise it was back to square one. After a few more minutes of arguing and me asking why they wanted to kill my husband they had the local pharmacy deliver it. GEHA came through for them though. The medication should have been injected by a nurse, and my husband had home health coverage, but they flatly refused to send a nurse, or allow any of the home health benefits he was eligible for. We wound up injecting him ourselves. He read me the directions and I did the injecting terrified that I would harm him somehow. Fortunately I didn't, but it was so comforting to know that we had insurance that would help us. I could hardly stand it.:wtf:

If you can ask your doctor to fax them a strong letter telling them that you need this medicine and only this medicine, and that they are not qualified to make medical decisions for you. That is between you and your doctor. There should be an appeal process. Our doctors and the hospital helped us appeal many issues and we won. They want you to give up. Don't. Keep trying and try to reach out through your insurance company and your doctor. They might be more sensitive now in the present climate. Offer to go public. Write to Michael Moore. He can be very helpful cutting th4rough the crap. His website is www.michaelmoore.com

Good luck and here's hoping for a single payer one day, so we'll only have to look back at this and retch, instead of retching constantly the way we do now.

I do use a mail order service for drugs, which fortunately I've had better luck with. I started after two local pharmacies (at large drug stores) messed up scripts for me, twice. Nothing life threatening, but a freaking nuisance, because they were oddly sized, less often prescribed topical medications and the pharmacists filled them wrongly. (NYC has a very large need for pharmacists between the population and the # of hospitals, so I think less competent ones don't get booted too easily from drug stores, because they can be hard to replace.) I pay $10 for 3 months supply of a generic drug, which would cost me $15 a month at the drug store, so it's $140 less a year for the copayment. I can re-order six weeks before the medication runs out, online, and they ship for free, unless I want to pay for 2 day delivery.

Did they explain why it is going to cost you more?

and yes, you are lucky that the mail order works for you.,
Half the time our postman doesn't deliver our mail.
We have to watch it like a hawk to avoid late charges on bills.

BHN