MRI and Medication Refill
While I was on my trip I gave myself permission to not deal with some medical stuff that needs to get sorted. I was supposed to have an MRI a couple of days before I left town but my appointment was canceled by the clinic the day of, less than two hours before my appointment time, due to “authorization.” When I called the clinic back the person I was talking to told me that I shouldn’t have even been able to make the appointment because the paperwork wasn’t all in. Which was confusing to me because they called me to make the appointment, I didn’t call them. When I spoke with my insurance company they told me that they hadn’t received the paperwork from my neurologist. I called my neurologist's office and they were able to tell me the date the paperwork was sent to the insurance company. I called the insurance company back and told them that the neurologist had sent them the paperwork on that date. The woman on the phone with me from the insurance company said she was going to search by fax date but at first couldn’t do the search, she figured something out with the system and was able to search by date. Then I hear her say “oh wow, can I put you on hold so I can talk to someone about how to sort this out?.”
So turns out the insurance company had received the fax but no one did anything about it. I lost a whole day of productivity dealing with that. Had I been working a 9-5 job I would have had to take the day off and lost a whole day of wages, though I guess technically I would end up losing two days of wages because I would also have to take the day off for the rescheduled date. What is really frustrating to me is that there’s no way to hold the insurance company accountable for this. No way for me to be compensated for lost wages or to get back the time that I spent on the phone with the various institutions to sort out the issue. I still haven’t heard from the MRI clinic about rescheduling.
I’m also in the process of sorting out getting a prescription filled for adderall. There is a national shortage so I’m not the only one that has been struggling to get their prescription filled. First I tried to get it filled at the last pharmacy I got it filled at in December. Turns out my insurance company did not renew their contract with Fred Meyer so I was no longer able to get my prescriptions filled at their pharmacies. I spent a day calling other pharmacies in the area to see if they took my insurance and if they had the medication in stock. All of the pharmacies I called did take my insurance but none of them had the medication in stock. When I messaged with someone at the neurology clinic through MyChart about this they suggested I call my insurance company about getting the prescription filled by mail.
Since I had just recently spent a day making calls with various institutions I wasn’t up for a phone call to my insurance company so I spent a few minutes digging around their website to see if I could find any information. I was able to find out that my insurance company uses Costco Pharmacy to fill their mail orders and I sent a message back on MyChart stating that I had found this information on the insurance companies' website. I got a message back saying that I must have misunderstood the last message and should call my insurance company to find out what pharmacy they use to fill mail orders. I went back to the insurance companies' website to copy and paste the text that says they use Costco Pharmacy to fill mail order prescriptions, when I replied to the message I stated that I wanted to avoid a phone call with the insurance company since I have already spent too much of my time on the phone/on hold with them. I included the text from the website and they were finally able to transfer my prescription.
Then I had to deal with Costco Pharmacy and set up a patient profile online. A couple days later I get an email from Costco saying that because the prescription is for a controlled substance they needed a copy of my photo ID. Thankfully I was able to email that to them within the 2 day timeframe they gave me before canceling my request. But they are also out of this medication and want me to call to “discuss alternative ways to proceed with [my] order.” So I’m going to be making that call today and we’ll see what happens. Unfortunately I have lost faith in this medical system so I don’t have any expectations for this to get resolved any time soon. In the meantime I’m left dealing with executive dysfunction and fatigue without my medication that helps.
