Yes, I cannot say the name of the company but I can tell you how they profit, help me most of the time and hurt me some of the time because I am forced to work with them, and they are nothing but a monopoly.
It is my mail order pharmacy that I have to use unless I want to pay full retail price for prescriptions. I do have a lot of prescriptions and I need them filled on certain dates, not before and not after, especially the scheduled medications.
When I choose a Health care Insurance provider at the end of the year we have about 5 choices but this one Mail Order pharmacy is always included with every package/choice of health insurances.
The way they work is good if they were not so sloppy about their end of it but they are and it peeves me to "have to" work with them. I get many prescriptions. After the initial prescription fill and one refill, the medication is now called maintanance medication. All maintanance medications have to be ordered through their mail order pharmacy. (They pay for the retail pharmacy/the first 2 prescriptions also). I have to mail my prescriptions to a company that will fill up to 3 months supply of the medication at the same price as getting one month retail. The physician can also write on the prescription up to 3 refills. Sounds nice, huh.
The problem is, once I send my prescriptions off in the mail, there is always a problem. The prescriptions never make it to my home, which is my problem not theirs and they refuse to send the medications with a signature required. Some of my medications are schedule II medications and any person can shake a plastic bag and hear pills rattlinig around. They also take anywhere from 1 month to 2 1/2 months to never to receive the medications. If the physician that wrote the medication does not answer a phone call from them, I will not be informed but I will receive the prescriptions returned in the mail with a letter that they could not get in touch with my physician. They have not sent me a large order of medications and billed me twice in the past. I called them and they stated that they would send me the prescriptions but they never do, it is lip service. I asked them for a rufund of the hundreds of dollars where they double billed me, they never refunded the $$. When I fought it for over a year, I had other battles to fight so I gave up. I lost 3 months worth of my medications, (for some prescriptions, I could not ask for another prescription from my physician period), they never reimbursed me of the double billing nor the initial bill of the medications that I did not receive.
We are forced to use this company that we are not happy with at all, unless we want to pay cash at a retail pharmacy and I cannot afford that. Just one of my prescriptions costs over $3,000.00 a month. It would come to at least $7,000.00 a month easy for all of my medications, hence, I have to work with the mail order company. If I use them after my $250 yearly deductible, prescriptions are free. It sounds nice but we do not have a choice in the matter, when we are choosing our healthcare nor when we are getting our prescriptions filled. They are even owned by a well-known retail pharmacy and they will not allow me to get some of the maintanance prescriptions filled at their retail location. We HAVE TO use mail order, no exceptions, or pay full price. There are no exceptions to this rule either.
Ex; my ex-GP, was trying to make my life miserable and one of the things he did is refuse to write mail order prescriptions,(for me only). I have written the company asking if I can get them filled at the retail location of the place that owns the mail order pharmacy and they denied me. He knows how they work and he knows that I have NO choice but to use this mail order pharmacy or pay full retail price for my prescriptions.
Is this a good answer to your question?
Kendra
