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November 27, 2006

Why Do They Make It So Hard?

I wasn't going to rant about this here. I've spent too much time today ranting about it already. But the more I've thought about it the more I thought writing about it might be therapeutic. Like many people my age I take a couple of pills every day that treat symptoms that the doctor and his tests tell me I have but for which I have no other symptoms that I can feel or that affect my day to day activity. I don't particularly like taking these pills. They are easy enough to take. But taking them does remind me that there is or maybe something wrong with me and I don't like that thought very much.

Up to about six months ago, buying the pills was easy. The way it should be. On the day I needed them or sometimes the day before, I'd call and place an order on the automatic system at my pharmacy and then go in and pick them up a few hours later, pay the co-payment and be on my way. The whole transaction took no more than five minutes each month. But something happened. Six months ago, two events conspired to make this easy transaction a monthly nightmare. First, the pharmacy I was using was sold to another nationwide pharmacy. Second, a generic version of one of the medications came on the market.

The results of this second event are so weird that it is almost unbelievable. Under my health plan, I pay a $25.00 co-payment for most drugs. That goes down to $10.00 if a generic is available. So in the first month of the new ownership of my pharmacy, I placed my order as usual. When I went in to pick up the prescription, I was told that the generic has been substituted for the brand named drug. At that point, I had no problem. But when I was told what I owed I did have a problem but didn't know it at the time. The total co-pay was $60.00 instead of my usual $50.00. I'm not very good at remembering these things but when I got home I realized (perhaps Shirley, who is good at remember these things, told me) that I had been had. So I went back to the pharmacy where they checked their computer several times and informed me that the co-payment for the generic was $35.00 not $25.00 and certainly not $10.00. The pharmacist told me that I would have to take it up with my insurance company. So I went back home, called the insurance company and after 45 minutes on hold I was politely informed that the generic was not an approved drug and that was why my co-pay was $35.00. I asked about their generic drug policy and was reassured that co-pay for approved generics was $10.00. The only problem was that this was not an approved generic. So now, I call the pharmacy. They indicate a very reluctant willingness to do an exchange for the brand name but could not completely fill my order. I could come in for part of the exchange and then would have to come back a few days later to get the remainder. They did tell me, believe it or not, that the co-payment for the brand name was now $10.00 because there was a generic even if it wasn't approved. In addition, I would have to "work with my insurance company to get a refund" on the co-payment I had already paid. All this sounded like a hassle that I would gladly pay $15.00 to avoid. So, with the advice of the pharmacist, I decided to just ask for the brand name the next month and let it go with only a small increase in one of the conditions that these pills are supposed to control.

The next month I phoned in my order, not to the machine but to a real person so that I could make sure that I would get the brand name. When I got to the pharmacy a few hours later, I was informed that they could only partially fill my order and I would have to come back in two days to get the rest. This did not please me. Remember, I don't much like going there in the first place. The next month, I called in the order and when I got there, they had no record that I had called and it would take them a couple of hours to fill the order. "So sorry." In the meantime, we had had some problems with a prescription for Shirley and I had had it.

So I took my order to another company's pharmacy. One that was about 400 ft, on the same parking lot, from the one I had been using. They gladly took my order and filled it without error in the agreed upon time. There were no problems with co-payments. The next month, shortly after I placed the order, they called to tell me that they could not completely fill the order for the same brand name drug I had been having problems with but I could pick up a partial and get the remainder in a day or two. I was not happy. But, it was their first error and I am actually fairly patient about these things. Everyone makes mistakes.

This brings us to today. This morning the new pharmacy's phone system did not work. It just kept on ringing. So after several attempts, I went in to see if the place had burnt down and, if not, to place the order. They apologized for the phone problem that they said was now corrected and took my order. I reminded them of the co-pay issue and said I didn't care which I got as long as the co-pay was $10.00. They indicated it would take some time to check and asked me to call in before I came back to make sure they had it correct. When I called two hours later, I was told that they couldn't fill one part of the order at all. They were out of the drug, but they arranged, after some prompting, for me to pick it up at a less convenient, but still near by, branch. "Please give them one hour." Well, I gave them two hours. And when I got to the other branch of my new pharmacy, they hadn't even started filling the order. They did work fairly fast and did apologize but we were a little later getting to dinner than we would normally like. Rather than the five minutes that all this once took, I spent over an hour between being on the phone several times and going to the two branch pharmacies. And it chopped up the day so that cold start time on other things was multiplied by the number of times I had to work on the pill problem.

What is going on here? It appears to me that there is a pervasive systemic system failure that involves a considerable part of the industry. I have purchased custom built computers with less hassle than it takes to buy two small bottles of pills.

Now I feel better. Thank you.

Posted by Duane Smith at November 27, 2006 9:52 PM | Read more on Odds and Ends |

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Comments

Posted by: Gary Hurd at November 28, 2006 10:10 AM

Posted by: Jim at November 28, 2006 10:31 AM

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