<p>Call your old pharmacy!!!</p>
<p>I can try, but the clinic knows I switched pharmacies. And the old pharmacy (CVS) would tell the clinic that anyway; CVS was always pretty well-organized. I suspect I’m just going to have to end up doing without until at least Tuesday, when I see my doctor. Unless I collapse into a puddle of anxiety first. Although the klonipin is helping a little. I thought maybe I had a few old lexapro tablets still around from when I used to take it a couple of years ago, but no such luck.</p>
<p>I had one heck of a time getting my son’s Accutane prescription filled while he was away at school … I had to make many calls to get everything set. It was a pain for me, but it all worked out in the end. While it can be annoying to make more calls than one might think should have to be made, that’s how it is sometimes. I didn’t worry about being a pain, since I knew it needed to be handled in a timely manner. It took some work, but it was worth the hassle.</p>
<p>I realize it’s a bit more difficult to have patience when your anxiety is already creeping in, but hang in there DonnaL. Call the clinic first thing Monday & insist firmly but nicely on getting your needs properly met.</p>
<p>Donna- If you are feeling that fragile- go to an ER. They will take care of you and give your your RX.</p>
<p>I never put myself in a position to call in a refill because I know my doc has a very busy practice. I have to see the doctor quarterly and everytime I go in I get new prescriptions for meds and labs because I can’t go without medications for even a day. So I always have a prescription on hand pinned to my bulletin board!</p>
<p>But, seriously, people. I am insanely jealous because you all sound like you are insured and have a reasonably high quality of care. I can’t get affordable insurance because of a medical condition. So I am self-pay with regards to exams, tests, and meds. I feel grateful to have a physician willing to see me even without insurance!</p>
<p>yorky, I am insured, but is NOT NOT NOT affordable. We are self employed and we can barely hang onto this coverage. Our rates have gone up another 4,000 for this year. We ended up trading down to an inferior plan to cut that into that 4,000 increase. I thought that Obama care is helping those with previous health conditions, no? When does that kick in nationally?</p>
<p>Be aware that for some medications one cannot get RXs on a quarterly basis because they are tightly controlled substances.</p>
<p>DonnaL, in my office, needing refills called in usually means that an appointment was missed. I wonder if that’s the case with you? Sometimes we stop refilling meds for safety reasons. But, usually we let the patient know why.</p>
<p>“I am insured, but is NOT NOT NOT affordable”</p>
<p>As being self-employed myself, I hear you. We know the true cost of health care insurance and it is so not affordable. As far as health care reform, we’ll see. There won’t be any real change in premiums until more people are paying into the system which is a gradual process. In the meantime, there are some tax breaks going into effect this year for small businesses who provide some insurance coverage for employees. Of course, if the health care system is over-burdened now, just wait until more people have coverage. We don’t have medical reform, just insurance reform. </p>
<p>Good luck on your tests today NEM!</p>
<p>GTalum, thanks for the good wishes.</p>
<p>I’ll add my good wishes too.</p>
<p>GTalum, just fyi, I generally see this doctor only a couple of times a year (assuming I’m feeling reasonably OK), and for whatever reason she almost never puts down enough refills of the medications she prescribes to last from one appointment to the next. In between, the pharmacy just calls for refill authorization and, until now, there’s never been a delay of more than a day or two. I only see my gastroenterologist once a year (again, barring any problems, which there usually are!), but he never authorizes more than one or two refills for any of the medications he prescribes. For him too, it’s necessary for the pharmacy to call in for refill authorizations in between appointments. (All together, I have seven different prescriptions, not including the one for klonipin since I don’t take that very often, and take approximately 18 pills a day, the majority first thing in the morning. No wonder I feel sick to my stomach almost every morning!)</p>
<p>In any event, after more pleading, I was finally connected to a live person at my doctor’s office this morning instead of being transferred to voicemail again. They finally called in the refill to my pharmacy, which is delivering it to my building today so I’ll have it tonight. A good thing, since I’m still feeling very iffy. To put it mildly.</p>
<p>As for what happened, well, it seems somebody screwed up, somehow. Because the refill department told me that they always log voicemails when they’re picked up, but that they have no record of any of the ones that were made about this – not the three made by the pharmacy, not the one I made. So their first claim was that it must be that nobody ever called, because they didn’t hear about any other vanished calls last week. After I insisted that yes, not only do I believe what the pharmacy told me, but I know for a fact that I left the voicemail I left (!), and know it was to the right place because of the outgoing message, they had no explanation, and transferred me to the head of the department, at my request. I told him that I understand the possiblity of one message getting accidentally lost or not logged in, but four different ones in one week? He will look into it, and agreed with me that something went wrong, and that I definitely should not have been left without the medicine and forced to go without it, cold turkey, for the last four days.</p>
<p>So, this clearly had nothing to do with insurance issues; my instinct that something went wrong at the clinic (based, as I said, on 8 years experience there, in which nothing like this has ever happened) seems to have been correct.</p>
<p>On the “when it rains it pours” theory, it also turns out, according to the head pharmacist I spoke to today, that the pharmacist I spoke to yesterday who refused my plaintive requests for a couple of pills to tide me over should not have done that; she’s new and doesn’t know the rules for that. It did surprise me, because CVS was always willing to help that way if necessary, and it’s good to know for the future if anything like this ever happens again. Not that that helped this weekend or today.</p>
<p>Plus, I got yelled at at work for stuff not getting done. I didn’t bother explaining why I haven’t been that functional since Friday, because they’ve heard so many medical “excuses” from me over the years that I doubt they really believe them anymore. Even though every last one has been true. It’s all so embarrassing sometimes. I wish I could just leave now and go get the cymbalta, but it looks like I’ll be here extremely late tonight. Hopefully I’ll be home before 1 am, because that’s when the last doorman goes home and locks up all the packages until morning.</p>
<p>I am done with my testing already, and the doctor is supposed to call me in a week. I think that he will, but if he doesn’t I’ll just call him!</p>
<p>I’m glad things got straightened out Donna. You certainly should not have gone without Cymbalta. The withdrawal symptoms can certainly make you non-functional. I wonder if on your next visit, you can ask for enough refills to tide you over until your next visit. It would save not only you time, but the clinic’s as well. It’s been estimated that every phone to a medical office costs $30, and that was a while ago. I suspect your provider is just automatically refilling a med with not enough refills and not noticing it. This is especially likely to happen with E-prescribing.</p>
<p>I’ve been working through some challenges we’ve been having with the billing department of lab that one of our providers uses. Always get a voice mail system- never a human. And wait a day or 2 for a return call. Discovered that the trick is to choose the “make an appointment” option on the voicemail-- it will route to a human being who can then direct the call to where it needs to go. You can ask then to be sure to transfer the call to a person, and to stay on the line till the person picks up.</p>