I’m fortunate. I have access to and participate in medical, dental, and vision insurance through my employer (The Great Spousal Unit is also covered under my plans). It’s not cheap to have this coverage but, for the most part, I’m able to manage the costs. Despite needing to schedule appointments and, you know, actually go to doctor appointments, I’m able to do what I have to do to navigate my way through the healthcare system here in America.
Except when it comes to prescriptions.
Dealing with prescriptions is hard. The reasons for that vary, but they’re mostly related to the number of items I have to keep track of, the fact that they all seem to need to be renewed at different times, and the stupid way my prescription provider operates.
For the record, I get insulin, plus backup insulin, glucagon, a few daily pills I need to take, and test strips through my prescription provider.
Almost all of these, except the glucagon kit and the backup insulin, which I don’t need to renew all the time, are on different rotating 90-day schedules. Meaning, I have to go to my provider’s website and renew my prescription, or my doctor can electronically submit prescriptions to the provider. Though that turned out to be a major hassle with the provider, which I’ll explain farther down the page.
I generally don’t suffer from diabetes burnout, but I do suffer occasionally from prescription burnout. It’s not that I have to renew my prescriptions every 90 days. It’s that I may need to renew one prescription this week, and another in three weeks, and another ten days after that, and another the following week. Keeping track of which script needs to be renewed when takes some doing.
I try to keep track of it on my Outlook calendar at work. That works okay, except when I’m not at work, and as long as the Exchange server doesn’t go down and wipe out everything I carefully scheduled (which happens occasionally).
Then there’s the cost. My provider introduced a huge change in their formulary list this year, which is costing me an additional 1200 dollars during 2014. I don’t even want to go into that.
So there’s the volume of everything that needs to be renewed, and the quirky scheduling of everything, and then there’s this:
When renewing my prescription online, the provider has my credit card information so they can process my order at the time it’s placed. So they have my credit card information on file.
The last time I visited my endocrinologist, she was kind enough to get me new prescriptions for things I had run out of refills for. The best part was (or so I thought), she was able to send the script directly to the provider so they could fill it. Great, right? Ummm, no.
A couple of weeks (or so) goes by, and no prescriptions. Part of the order included my insulin, so I’m starting to worry a bit. I give the provider a call. It turns out they haven’t filled my prescription because they “didn’t get payment yet”.
Me: You have my credit card information on file… what’s the problem?
Prescription provider phone rep: We can’t fill the order without your authorization of payment.
Me: You do it when I renew prescriptions all the time… how is this different?
Prescription provider phone rep: We can’t fill the order without your authorization of payment.
Me: This is a highly inefficient way of doing business. My doctor sends the prescription directly to you, then I have to wait to find out it’s not coming, then I have to call you, then you tell me I have to provide payment when you already have my credit card info on file.
Prescription provider phone rep: We can’t fill the order without your authorization of payment.
Okay, I realize there’s a difference between “providing payment” and “authorization of payment”, but still… why do I have to find this out on my own? Why was I led to believe my prescriptions would be shipped when they weren’t? Why was I not told that they were waiting for my okay before filling my order?
I don’t want to say the provider did this on purpose. I don’t think their purpose was to deny or delay my prescriptions. After all, if they don’t fill a prescription for me, they don’t make money. And that’s where the problem lies.
It’s just my opinion, but it seems to me that prescription providers, more than any other entities providing goods, services, or prescriptions through an insurance plan, are not about the patient at all. Not in any way, shape, or fashion. No… they are purely profit centers, and they operate as such. I don’t think my provider wanted to deny my coverage. I just think they skimped on customer service and expediting orders in an effort to make a few extra bucks. They hired someone to think this all out, but they didn’t pay top dollar, so what they got was a system that doesn’t really work at all.
And they don’t seem to care about it, because, let’s face it… once I’m on their plan, they have me for the entire year. At that point, they don’t have to be nice, or helpful. They just have to squeeze as much money from me as they can. If they have a stupid, inefficient way of doing that, who cares? They know I’ll be back when my next prescription needs to be filled.
I suppose it hasn’t occurred to providers yet that better customer service could help expedite orders, rather than having them sitting in a queue somewhere. More orders, more money, more profit. And I suppose it hasn’t occurred to them yet that a superior level of customer service could have a positive effect on patients, and the plans they’re covered under, which might make their plans more appealing to additional clients in the first place. More orders, more money, more profit. That requires too much forethought, I guess. I wonder if they even know what that word means.
Oh yeah, it’s prescription burnout I’m feeling. Or prescription provider anger. Either way, it’s not healthy. And my provider is perfectly okay with that. As long as I keep coming back for more.
Diabetes Blog - Happy-Medium.net 