Battling for medicine refill
 

I am so bummed out now. We are working six days through December and I am out of my Vyvanse, my fatigue meds. My new doctor's nurse didn't start the preauthorization two weeks ago when I dropped it off. I've been out of meds for four days now. This is my one day off and we have the family here on Sunday for our Christmas dinner. I should be cleaning and doing laundry but I'm spending the day on the phone with Express Scripts trying to get my meds.

They've given me this med all year, and even with insurance it's $60 a month. I can't work without it. I even took the more expensive insurance this year. I'm so disappointed over the whole thing. :(

I have to use all of my time to play their game to get this approved. :(

Frustrating!!! and woe to the person who tells you "I understand..." No, they don't because they aren't us

I just called again for the umpteenth time and they hung up on me. My doctor's office said I need to handle it. :eek: I don't know what to do!

Nice Doc/Nurse...:mad:..Not.

There are sites online where you can review/rate your doctor's office. I suggest you make use of them while you are at home waiting.

is there any way you could ask to have the call elevated to a supervisor.
there's no excuse for someone to hang up on you.

could you call the company that makes the drug and see if they could give you a month free of charge?

i vaguely remember yrs a ago dealing with express scripts and it wasn't the best.

can you drink caffeine?

I called Express Scripts and Medco about a dozen times in three days. It still isn't fixed. My doctor's nurse thinks I'm a pest. I wonder if my local pharmacy is messing it up? I switched to them a few months ago. What a mess! You would not believe the things I was told by Express Scripts. Nobody there seems to know how to get anything done. The guy I spoke to last night faxed my doctor's office and said I am no longer covered by them. Then when I called today someone else there said they don't know why he would do that. :confused::eek:

I hope my insurance replaces Express Scripts for the new year. They are useless! :( :mad:

I asked for a supervisor twice and I was disconnected both times. :confused:

Wiz, you should have the ability to change specialty pharmacies on your own. I do, anyway. Currently I'm using, and recommend both, USBioservices and Walgreens SP. Walgreens SP has no connection with the stores.

I hope you get the problem solved soon. In the meantime, you might buy a small bottle of oil of oregano. If I don't take my two each morning, I'm sleepy by early afternoon. If it works for you you'll know right away. It's a cheap experiment.

I finally got my medicine this morning. The nurse called them one last time and they said it didn't need preauthorization, just RE-authorization. The woman on the phone asked questions, typed in the answers and then said ok it's good, approved. :eek: :eek: :eek:

The nurse gave the exact same answers she had given before but apparently nobody there was smart enough to put it into the system and get it to go through. :mad:

Now I could see how maybe one, or even two people had missed that detail, but between me, the nurses and the pharmacy, there had to be at least 20 phone calls and communications!

I told both the nurse and the pharmacy rep that I wish we could have a different mail in pharmacy but both of them said that it doesn't matter, they are all bad. :eek: And they deal with them on a daily basis!

Why such incompetence would be acceptable when dealing with patients medications is unbelievable and I can only conclude that it is deliberate so they won't have to pay for expensive medications.

And that is how they make money, if they can keep taking yours without giving you what you deserve in return.

I could never work for a company like this, I'd feel like I'd sold my soul to the devil.

You said it about right Wiz. I used to work for express scripts, it wasn't always so bad. But then they didn't have call times...at first... So the reps were able to take their time, go through everything, answer any and all questions, conference calls with Drs and pharmacists. Sure I'd still get the odd "WTF?" Calls where a previous rep was... Well to put it nicely... A complete imbecile... But it was like maybe one a week or less.

Then, even though I was in a position to tell them my thoughts on the matter, they decided they'd increase productivity by having call times and holding reps responsible for maintaining an average call time. Last I heard it was down to 5 minutes. It started out at fifteen minutes, then there was an instant increase in callbacks and screwed up notes from previous calls, I quit. I couldn't deal with it, I was livid when my supervisor urged me to 'get them off the phone' when someone called wanting to know what to do with the medication after their son committed suicide earlier that day, mostly because she was still in shock and honestly just needed someone to listen to her pain for a bit. It was a twenty minute call, my average for that day was 3.2 minutes... Basically my supervisor could kiss my... You know what.

Excuse me?! They're the ones who gave us the moniker of "customer care advocate" but don't advocate the patients, don't care about them, 15 minutes is what your average needs to be, but we're going to start hounding you to hang up if it surpasses 5. Like it's not stressful enough dealing with terminally ill patients, children who can only function if they have their meds, the little old ladies with their laundry list of medication who now doesn't know what her nitro pills look like because the pharmacy changed their appearance. But let's get threatened with termination, because an eighty year old feels the need to describe every pill she is taking so she can figure out which one is the new one when to her all of them look the same.

And yes, most all mail-order pharmacies are the same way, likely to all be outsourced to foreign countries soon too, won't that be fun.. NOT, well unless you're well versed in foreign languages I guess. About the only thing you can do is skip long questions or background, keep it simple 'why wasn't x filled,' always start with why, 'what needs to be done to fix this', 'who needs to contact you', 'how long will this take.' If at any point you don't like the answers ask for supervisor. If you get disconnected call right back and say nothing more than "supervisor"... Oh they'll try to get you to confirm your information, verify your acct and any number of things to avoid calling their supervisor over. Don't give them the information, "Supervisor... I hear you, I understand what you are saying, now hear me and understand, I will only speak with a supervisor." Yeah, they'll hate you for it, but if they're good little people and get their supervisor it looks good for their call time.