We always filled our prescription at a local CVS store. However, when we tried to fill the prescription the other day, we were told they could not have our prescription filled with our medical insurance card only; we need to present both our medical insurance card and CVS/CareMark card starting this year.
What company is CareMark? Why all of a sudden are we required to use their card in addition to the usual medical insurance card (it is BCBS)? When I asked a few of our colleagues, none of them had received the CareMark card yet - but these young colleagues who just graduated from college a couple years ago do not care because, according to what they told me, they have never needed any prescription drugs yet (The industry I am in has a lot of 20 something young men and few young/old women.) I could not locate any of our benefit/HR personnel today to ask what this card is all about, and why we need such a card this year but not last year.
Does anybody here use the CareMark card to fill prescription? I was on the phone with “CareMark” for more than half an hour and finally they gave me a link so that I could log in to print a temporary card. It was aggravating! (Why should I “waste” my time to talk to them?!)
Caremark is the mail order business ‘affiliated’ with CVS.
Some prescription plans require you to fill ongoing prescriptions (for chronic conditions, i.e. thyroid, cholesterol, high blood pressure, etc.) for 90 days at a time. You can do this by either going through Caremark, or through your local CVS retail location. I used to use Caremark, but in the end, wasn’t comfortable with having 90 days of a med sitting in my mailbox until I got home to get it. Obviously you can’t use Caremark mail order for urgent matters, such as antibiotic needs, oral steroid dose paks, pain killers (for short-term) because it would be ridiculous for you to have to wait 3-5 days for them to come in the mail - you need those kinds of meds ASAP. Some people don’t want to take the time to refill through their local CVS and prefer to have them delivered to their mailbox, so they use Caremark. It’s a personal preference. Also, CareMark won’t send through the mail certain medications, so you’ll always have to get those filled at your local CVS store.
Whether you use CVS or Caremark, the card is the same, so you will need one. I have a hard plastic one I carry around, but no one ask for it at the CVS anymore because they have all the information they need from it entered into their system.
Prescription drug plans are often handled and processed separately from your medical insurance plan - thus the reason your regular BCBS card would not work for getting prescriptions filled.
All these changes that obviously took place with your plans effective as of 1/1/16 would have been spelled out in your re-enrollment forms when you had open enrollment. You need to pay attention to those details every year so you know what is different the coming year. Plans change from year to year.
We have CVS/Caremark program with our health insurance plan and it is marked on our insurance card. We haven’t received any new cards for the new year yet. We did receive a notice that we can no longer get “specialty” medications (whatever those are) in 90 day supplies. We used to have Medco/Express Scripts and I liked that system better. I am going to look in the letter I received about a month or so ago to see if it mentions anything about new card.
We’ve had CVS/caremark for years, as our Rx insurance plan separate from our medical plan. I can’t remember ever having a physical card. Our plan covers retail as well as mail order.
We have BCBS insurance and all of our prescriptions filled at our local CVS. We are able to get a 90 day supply and I don’t remember ever having to show any card.
@NorthernMom61 - we also used to have Medco/Express Scripts and were switched to CVS/Caremark a few years ago. My son takes a specialty medication and it is a pain as we now have to order it every month and cannot get the 3 month supply like we used to, Specialty medications need to be ordered at CVS specialty pharmacy - can’t just walk into any CVS store and get them.
We have BCBS and the CVS/CareMark card. As others have said, Caremark is the mail order company of CVS. I always prefer a “live” pharmacist in a store looking at my prescriptions but you will be forced to go with the mail order if you show a pattern of a particular drug being a daily drug for you longer than like six months.
It’s been easy so far. I have the app on my phone and with a few swipes can have my Rx mailed to my home. It is a lot cheaper for me. $17.00 for three months of Rx vs. $28 a month.
I get one drug from CVS/Caremark every six months and they have managed to screw it up every time. I spend hours on the phone with them. I have asked them outright to they are simply incompetent so I don’t get aggrievated every time. Of course they never admit it, but they are.
I had another company before my ins. switched to CVS/CM and there was never a problem ever. I’m seriously considering switching back to the once a month pill which is a regular prescription. Google CVS/CareMark complaints - there are thousands of pages of them,
There is no card - they have the info from your ins. co.
Check drug prices online before you fill. I have a couple of prescriptions that are cheaper to fill at Costco and pay cash than use my insurance at a drug store.
our bc/bc is for medical and DME and the cvs/caremark is the RX benefit. I typically just give the card to my pharm once a year and they put it on file-I don’t need to show it each time.
I also don’t have to specifically use a CVS for my routine rx’s but I do have to use the caremark portion for any specialty meds. knock on wood, I haven’t had any issues with the caremark part, but I have it set up so that they call me each month to see if I want the refill.
That’s what I thought, too. I am on several medications long term, and have the option of getting them through the brick and mortar store as opposed to online. CVS would prefer online, but you can get them at the store, as long as it’s a 90-day supply. I’ve actually had CVS reject to pay for a medication when mistakenly the doctor wrote it for 30-day supply with refills. So then I, or the pharmacy had to call the doctor’s office and have the prescription changed to a 90-day supply. Now when I see my various doctors throughout the year to get my med refills, I always tell them I need a 90-day supply. They all seem much more familiar with this than they did five years ago and sometimes even ask me up front if I need it written in 90-day supplies. Really, once you learn to play the game, it’s very easy. And I now MUCH prefer to get 90-day supplies as opposed to having to go back to the pharmacy several times a month to get another 30-day supply for each med I’m on.
Also, for those who don’t have a card, chances are, at some point you registered your information with your pharmacy and they no longer require a card to prove benefits. I have a card, but haven’t shown it in years.
We have United health care and CVS/Caremark. We have had CVS/Caremark for years. They have not made us go to the mail order system for our maintenance daily drugs. Sure they call and send letters giving us some line of bull that it’s going to be save us a bunch of money but when I look at the difference in costs it’s really not much of a savings for us. Sure it is for them because right now we get all our drugs at Kroger (I hate CVS) and if we went to the mail order it would be CVS… Also they do not make us do a 90 day supply We always fill 30 days at a time and yes these are drugs that we have been taking for years.
We do have plastic cards. They send us new ones every year.
Surely you must have a card. How else would the pharmacist know to whom to submit the claim? Mine hasn’t changed in years but I guarantee you I showed it to them in the beginning and I still have it in my wallet in case I’d need it while traveling.
Whether you’re forced to go mail order, or can get 90 day supplies of maintenance drugs at your pharmacy, depends on your employer’s plan. We just switched to United Health & CVS/Caremark from BC/BS and ExpressScripts. I have cards for both. Our plan specifically says we can do mail order or pharmacy for maintenance drugs, and it’s actually a little cheaper to do it at the pharmacy!
I’ve never had a separate prescription drug card. I have one card for all my insurance. I showed it to regular CVS years ago and never had to show it again. When the state switched to CVS Caremark all our insurance info was transferred to them from other company. We are also supposed to have a dedicated team at CVS/CM to take care of all NYS employees but only once in awhile do I get a customer service agent who gets that and I end up being transferred and transferred again and again.
I have a list of supervisor and every time I have to call I ask for the last one and get silence from customer service. I have even complained to the State’s human resources dept. but they don’t care because the premium they pay CVS/Caremark must be a better deal then the old online pharmacy or they wouldn’t have switched.
Most of my prescriptions I can fill at regular pharmacy but I use CVS because there are stores in y town and near my moms in Florida so I don’t have to rush around and fill scripts before go to visit her,
After we had talked to Caremark, they sent us a link in an email. Clicking the link enabled us to create an account. (which we were unable to do without using the link in the email before. Our company’s benefit office seems to be not helpful due to a high turnover rate – I am even not sure whether they are still on-site or have been merged with another site.) My wife said she could print a “temporary card.”
It is a maintenance drug that she has been taking. In the past, they have tried to make her use the mail order, which she has resisted successfully. Not sure whether she will be forced to use the mail order this time.
We are still not sure whether they will send us a plastic card. They did ask us our home address when we called them yesterday.
Also, we are not sure whether we are allowed to switch to Cosco. (i.e., whether our insurance company allows us to do that.) We still prefer NOT to use mail order, as far as we can.
With regards to Caremark, many times you can call and complain about the mail order requirement and it will be waived. They don’t tell you that. We would run their claims and it would say have patient call this phone number. We knew that they were going to make it seem like you had to use their pharmacies. We would tell our patients to just refuse and eventually the hold would be removed from their profile. However, I believe, the waiver is only good for a year and you will have to repeat the process again.
CVS/Caremark is seen as a bad company to work for. They have the worst reputation of all the major pharmacies.
“With regards to Caremark, many times you can call and complain about the mail order requirement and it will be waived.”
I’m not forced to use Caremark for my specialty drug but if I don’t it would cost me $1000 every 6 months instead of $90. My insurance won’t cover this drug if I get it at a regular pharmacy.
We were forced into this due to an insurance change at my work, and it’s mostly been ok … except for the kid who lives out of state and her doctor there refused to do fax or email and wouldn’t even talk to the pharmacy on the phone. Needless to say, she’s changed doctors. Our interactions with the Caremark people, while stressful due to the need for D’s meds to be continued, were positive. We were able to print off a card from the website.
[Rant about other health insurance issues deleted. But I feel better having vented now.]
