With that whole "getting married" thing comes the "changing health insurance" thing. For a normal person, probably not a big deal. For a Type 1 Diabetic, painful, and, at times, completely ridiculous.
"Awesome, my supplies showed up today!" [always a good sign]
"That's weird, there are only 5 boxes of test strips in here, the prescription was written for 6." [maybe the pill counter can't accommodate large test strip boxes?]
"Nope, it says, 'quantity: 5 on this invoice." [crap, time to call up the pharmacy]
Thankfully, through Vanderbilt's online patient system I can quickly access any prescriptions they send out to verify that indeed they had requested 600 test strips for the 90 day supply! This is honestly truly amazing to me!
"Yes, ma'am, since they wrote the prescription for 6 times a day and we can't break up test strip boxes, they have sent you an 83-day supply."
"Ha" [my gut response to the complete ridiculousness of insurance companies]
"So now you will have to re-order these specific supplies every 83 days instead of every 90. Do you understand, ma'am?"
"But you are still charging me for a 90-day supply every 83-days?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Thanks." [click]
New strategy: have the Dr. write the script for "the patient tests 6.67 times a day". [stop being a smartass, April]
Sometimes I just don't understand why taking care of yourself has to be so difficult.
So sorry. It's a shame you have to play their game to get what you need. I know I became pretty good at doing that when I had to order stuff for you. Love ya! Mom
ReplyDeleteHmmph... these games are truly ridiculous. In addition to insulin and other "mandatory" D-stuff, I take Synthroid for an underactive thyroid. After paying a large copay for the brand name, I convinced my doctor to write an Rx to allow generics. Three months later, the mail-order pharmacy's site wouldn't allow me to refill the generic online. When I called to ask about it, the guy agreed to process, and bill me, for the generic, though they only stock the name-brand and I'd get that anyway. So I saved $20 for a reason I still can't quite understand.
ReplyDelete(Maybe you can convince your insurance co. that you only get 24, not 25 usable strips per vial because of the mandatory "glucose control solution" test!)
I am just glad my endo is on my side in this insurance nonsense. It is nice to have a buffer quantity on test strips and insulin to "defeat" those insurance companies.
ReplyDelete