I know I should be thankful to have insurance that covers prescription medications. And I keep telling myself that. Between Migraines, hypertension, arthritis, coronary artery disease, diabetes, and more, our pharmacy bills can be astronomical.
Our prescription coverage "encourages" us to order 90-day supplies of our meds through mail-order giant Medco. I say "encourages" in quotes because we're actually penalized if we use a local pharmacy for prescriptions that we refill on a regular basis. The refills cost more when filled locally.
Over the years, our copayments have gone up and up. Today, for a 90-day supply of a brand name drug, we pay $45 OR 25% of the cost of the prescription, whichever is MORE.
Anyway, all of that's background to this past week spent in Medco hell. I had been filling my Armour thyroid prescription locally because it's very inexpensive. A few months ago, Medco contacted my doctor and got him to transfer the prescription to them. Now, when I tried to fill it for just the second time, there is a shortage of Armour, and they can't fill it. They ask my doctor to switch me to a synthetic thyroid. He refuses. They jerk us around all week, THEN call me and essentially tell me I'm on my own, to get a new prescription and get it filled wherever I can.
Now, I can understand that they're having a supply problem. What I can neither understand nor accept is that it took them all week, several communications with my doctor, three emails and two phone calls from me only to finally dump the problem back in my lap. Had they told me this on Monday, the problem would have been resolved. But, no. They waited until late Friday afternoon when doctor's offices are closed for the weekend.
At times such as these, I do not feel grateful for prescription drug coverage.
Live well,
