Today wasn’t the first time, but it might be the last.
Last month, Brian needed his BP med refilled. The prescription had run out. I called the doctor’s office and was told “oh, you don’t need to call us, go ahead and call the pharmacy to get pills and they’ll contact us for renewal okay. There’s no need to call us in the future”. Okay, fine.
Now, the first lie they told us was when we first started getting the pills. They’d only give us a month at a time. Thirty. But if we got four months worth (the entire prescription) all at once, it was only a few bucks more. We’re talking ten bucks for thirty or twelve bucks for a hundred and twenty. Which is the better deal, right? No brainer. When I expressed displeasure with this I was told “that’s all your doctor will let you have at a time”. Huh?
So, next visit to the doctor, I ask. “Huh? Why would we do that, we don’t care how many you get at a time.” Grrr….
Next refill, I get the same runaround from the pharmacy. I tell them I expressly asked the doctor about this and his reply. Oh, wait, it’s not the doctor, it’s the insurance company. Well, the cost is so low on these that the insurance company doesn’t contribute squat to the payment process, we don’t get a break on the cost because of the insurance company, so let’s just not involve the insurance company, okay? Give me the one hundred and twenty pills and STFU about it.
Well, when Brian went in to pick up the prescription from last month, there were only thirty pills. Instead of a hundred and twenty. They told him “okay, it’s in the system now, you won’t have to go through this again”, to which he replied “that’s what you told me last time”. He was given a pager and had to hang around until the rest of his pills were ready.
Okay, it’s my turn. Last Tuesday, I called the number on the bottle, placed the order (getting a message that the prescription had run out, but no biggie, they’d contact the doctor and get it taken care of). We went in this morning to pick it up along with the omeprazole I’m getting for this gawdawful bile reflux I’ve got because of the surgery last month. My body is still adjusting.
I wait in line, it’s my turn, I hand her my CostCo card. She goes into the back, she’s there for a while, comes back out “the lisinopril was denied, we can’t refill it, we’re working on the omeprazole, here’s a pager”. WTF? What do you mean “denied”? She said “well, we can put another call into your doctor” I said “please do”.
So, a half hour to forty-five minutes later, the pager goes off. I have to wait in line again. Brian took the milk and yogurt back to the refrigerated section and came back up to wait with me. It’s finally my turn. “Oh, we haven’t heard back from your doctor”. I said “if I had their number, I’d call them”. She gave me his number. I call. “We got a message from them at 11:30, the doctor is with a patient now, he’ll probably take care of this on his lunch break”. I told her thanks, settled up the omeprazole and we checked out and left.
They lied. They NEVER called the doctor last week. They NEVER checked up on getting the prescription refilled. My doctor’s office NEVER denied the refill. You know how I know?
Because my doctor is a HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONAL. He CARES about my health. If there had been a denial for ANY reason, I’d have gotten a phone call from them, telling me why. Need bloodwork, you need a checkup, whatever, they’d have called me. I know they would have.
Two and a half hours after being at home, I call the pharmacy. I ask if my prescription is ready. “Let me check. Yes, we’ve got the prescription, let me see if I’ve got the medication here” (they send some of their stuff out to be filled), “yes, it’s here, give me an hour to fill it”.
If they only give me thirty pills and we have to argue to get the additional ninety, you can bet this will be the last time we go there.
Oh, and about fifteen minutes after I called the CostCo pharmacy? The phone rang. It was my doctor’s office, wanting to make sure that it was all taken care of.
And after a little discussion I find out we’re not the only ones who have problems with this pharmacy. I wasn’t surprised.
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