Pharmacy Nightmare

Hubby has sciatica. It's excruciating and he's miserable. Of course, he's a man too and that adds to my misery ... but I digress (ahem, sorry)

Anyway, he's went to a chiropractor Wednesday who wanted to put him on a 24 visit program (visit 3x a week for 8 weeks AND $30 each time he walk in the door --no thanks). But the chiropractor did take some x-rays and it apparently showed that Hubby has a worn down L5. The chiroquackerpractor placed Hubby on a machine that massaged him for a little while and also did a little bit of acupuncture. By Wednesday afternoon, Hubby was close to insane with pain so he called his regular doctor to fit him in so at the very least, he could get something for pain relief (he was taking an incredible amount of Motrin and it wasn't even touching the pain). The doc wrote him a prescription for Prednisone (to reduce the inflammation and thus, reduce the pain) and Vicodin (to manage the pain in the meantime).

After leaving the doctor's office, I proceeded to the pharmacy to drop off the prescriptions and the pharmacy tech asked me what time I wanted to pick them up. Silently, I factored how long it would take me to drive to the daycare, get the boys, drive back and stop at the grocery store then get back to the pharmacy. I told him 6:15 and he looked at me like I was nuts. He said, "We're really busy so it'll probably be 6:30." Pardon me?! "You asked me what time I wanted to pick them up and I want to pick them up at 6:15!!!" was the reply I wanted to give but instead, I simply told him that whatever he could do to have it ready at 6:15 would be greatly appreciated.

I went to pick up the kids and went by the store. I pulled up to the drive-thru window at precisely 6:15 and pushed the little "I'm here, come wait on me" button and was greeted with a very quick "I'll be with you as soon as I can." A mere 10 minutes later (with 2 very hungry boys in the back seat), the weary looking pharmacy tech came to the window, asked for the patient's name then proceeded to look for the medicines. He came back to the window and asked me if I had received a new insurance card and I blankly stared at him and said, "Yes, why?" He unapologetically told me they had to have that before the prescriptions could be filled. Then he dug the knife deeper when he said it was going to be at least 15 more minutes. I rambled something about how my husband was at home in excruciating pain and something or other and the guy looks at me and says, "Ma'am, I'm just giving you the reality of the situation." All of a sudden, I felt my face start to turn red and a little bit of steam escaped from my ears and all I could get out of my mouth was, "Reality? Really?!" From the far reaches of the back seat, my rather discerning 9 year old pipes up, "Uh oh, mom's getting ready to blow." I threw handed my insurance card to the tech and pulled away. As I parked to wait out the 15 minutes, I called Hubby to let him know that I was going to be a little later than I thought and I explained what had transpired. Hubby tells me that my insurance card isn't going to make a bit of difference because he was holding my PRESCRIPTION CARD!!!!

I drove back up to the window 15 minutes later and the same poor tech greeted me. This time, his whole face was screaming, "I'm so sorry!!!" Or maybe he was trying to hide the fact that he thought I was getting ready to crawl through the window and firmly place my hands around his neck. Either way, he stood back from the window and started out with, "I'm sorry but ..." and I stopped him. I told him that I knew he needed the prescription card and asked if I could call my husband to get the information over the phone. About that time, another tech called my last name. Puzzled, the tech who was helping me asked me to hold on and came back looking even more confused. He told me that the prescriptions were $10.99 each.

Now, with my insurance, my minimum copay would be $20 but more than likely, I would've had to pay $30 each just because of what the prescriptions were. Curiously, I asked him how much I would've paid if he would've had my insurance card and he answered that I would pay at least whatever my minimum copay was. I asked him if they ever looked at the actual cost of the prescription versus the copay and charge the least amount and he said that they didn't.

So, folks ... the lesson here is this: Always find out how much the prescription is before having them bill the insurance. You may be getting ripped off!!!