Not a high mark of care

What was your Monday like yesterday? Mine was spent trying not to go postal dealing with the US (well, Metro DC) health system.

First of all, I had my third conversation in a week with CVS Caremark over authorizing payment for a medication which carries a co-pay of more than $300.

My PCP faxed the prescription to Caremark on 26 May, and in response to one of their robocalls I authorized payment on the 31^st. Then I did it again on the 4^th and got a confirmation email.

But yesterday I got another robocall, in which the automated system makes you jump through a bunch of verification hoops before it intones, “There is a problem with your payment. We cannot process your prescription until you call us.” Because their time is so much more valuable than yours and they couldn’t possibly waste one of their humanoid’s time on calling you—or even connect you with one of their humanoids since you’ve already verified your credentials.

Leaving aside the issue that only about half the time does Caremark seem to recognize my member ID number (the one on my insurance card), so I have to run through extraordinary measures just to keep them on the line, for the third time I once again went through the rigmarole about authorizing the obscene amount of money they demand as a co-pay. (In fairness, it is three months’ worth of the meds.)

I pointed out to their agent Michelle that I was told a week ago that everything was set and asked when I could expect to have my medication actually, you know, ship. (As far as I know, they don’t have to go out and grow anything; they can get supplies from one of several rapacious pharmaceutical companies and add on their own extortionate markup.) She assured me that it’s now settled, and I’ll get a confirmation email. I needed to get to a meeting, so I didn’t point out that their confirmation emails don’t seem to be worth the pixels they’re written on.

Then I got home and had to deal with my primary care provider’s “patient portal”, which of course is their preferred method of keeping their customers at a distance.

But I’ve had enough tsuris for one day. I’ll write about that tomorrow.