How Much was That?

Does it irritate you when your medical insurance drug plan is nice and gouging you at the same time?

I'm pretty darned irritated.  As a person with a chronic "issue" (or several) I have numerous meds that keep me somewhat glued together.  It was with annoying interest when I realized, "Wait a minute here-why is our son getting a 90-day supply and my husband (who has the "3" biggies of middle-aged men: high cholesterol, high blood pressure and thyroid) getting a 90 day supply, but I'm only getting a month?"

With my medical cards in hand, I called up our health insurance member phone number and asked, "Hey, what gives here?"

The lady on the phone (there's another really sore point that needs a rant because this company has the most aggravating answering robot ever) nicely said she understood my plight.  She looked up the names and dosages and said that I, indeed, was eligible but that they'd have to go through the "specialty mail order" and gave me their number.  Before hanging up she informed me that putting myself on the mail list would probably NOT save me more than a couple of dollars.

Great-took me 20 minutes of repeating "representative" to reach her.  Anyway, let's just say it was a repeat performance until another nice woman who would understand my frustration answered the phone.

I gave her the list of drugs and politely asked for the pricing difference before I'd trust the U.S. Post Office to get them to me in safe condition.  

Please, postal personnel, don't take offense-I'm sorry for that remark but I sent a check to my sister and a week later I received an envelope with no explanation or apology with what were the remains of both it and the envelope I mailed it in, only our address hadn't been shredded.

Now it's true, one person's trash is another's treasure-but the first woman who claimed it wouldn't really save me any money, just time was just plain WRONG!

It turns out that once the doctors all fax the prescriptions back to them and I officially get the 90 day supplies, we will be saving 50%!!!  And the 4 mile round trip several times of the month.

What also peeves me is that if my husband hadn't encouraged me to call and find out what the reasoning behind not "allowing maintenance drugs to get a 90 re-fill", I would never have known that you had to call the specialty number and request this little money saver.

We didn't read every word in our welcome material, but we scanned it and we don't recall there being any info on this fact.

Here's just one of the savings so you can judge for yourselves if I'm good and miffed for a reason:

Leucovorin calcium-1 pill a week.  One month supply in store is $20.00. Mail order for 90 days (12 pills)?
Hold on-it's $11.83.  

Really?  Now I'm no math whiz, but that's a savings of $48.17!  

Does this get you thinking?  Let me know, I'm curious!
And my "Need a Ride" blog-my husband read it and informed me that my "S" stands for "SPORT".