#didn’t prescribe me anything new or even refill that script

[filthforfriends]

Okay wish not granted fine but this is day 4 without my Adderall because:

“Hey I submitted a refill request yesterday and I haven’t received any updates”

“We’re actually waiting on your doctors approval”

“So you sent the request over?”

“Yes”

“Okay thanks. And is there any way around getting a new script every month?”

“No, it’s a controlled substance”

“Is there anyways for me to submit a refill request earlier?”

“Unfortunately not”

☎️

“Hey I had my pharmacy send over a refill request yesterday but haven’t heard anything back”

“I’m not seeing it here. It may have gone straight to the nurses station”

 “okay can you have a nurse practitioner send the prescription back to my pharmacy please?”

“I’m sorry, we can’t do that”

“I’ll call my pharmacy right now and ask for them to resend the refill request. It’ll take less than 10 minutes, I promise. 5 minutes!”

“Unfortunately only psychiatrists can refill controlled substances”

“Then can you please ask my psychiatrist to refill this on his way out?”

“Your psychiatrist isn’t working today.”

“But he was working yesterday when the refill request was sent?”

“Yes, but the front desk didn’t receive it”

“Okay um…mistakes happen so can you have another psychiatrist in your office refill it by any chance? I’ve been a patient for almost 10 years.”

“Our other psychiatrist is actually on vacation unfortunately”

“The Adderall also really helps with my depression and if I don’t get it today I won’t have it all weekend. Unless I can get it refilled over the weekend, which I don’t think you guys do.”

“We’re closed this weekend that’s correct.”

“Is there another way I can do this that’s more effective? I can’t submit for a refill until 2 days before I’m out, but it always takes 4 days to get it refilled and the pharmacy won’t give me an extra 3 day supply because it’s in this special drug class.”

“Right, Adderall is a controlled substance unfortunately”

“And theres no one in your whole psychiatry clinic with the credentials to refill a controlled substance?”

“No.”

“What about the hospital?”

“What?”

“Your clinic is part of a hospital. The ER should have a psychiatrist on call for consults. Even if they’re not physically in the building, they could refill my prescription. I know this is annoying but could you please contact them?”

“Like I said, there are no psychiatrists in office.”

“No, I know that but there would have to – Okay, like at my local hospital for example, they offer triage. Psychiatrists are part of that triage so they have to be available.”

“I guess you could try going there then.”

“Your ER also offers triage. There has to be someone available

“I don’t think so because they send all those consult requests here.”

“So there’s no way for me to get my prescription before this weekend?”

“No but you see your prescriber on Monday”

I WAS SUPPOSED TO HAVE SEVERAL DAYS UNTIL 40 NOTES

I always thought the neurotypicals were batshit when they said "careful, sometimes you get what you wish for" like why the fuck else would I wish for it?????

I am very thankful for all the comments, but I wish for my wish to take longer

[sadlittlestray]

i need to sleep so i can pick up a funny watch tomorrow (today) to prove (again) my sleep is funny. but u will never guess the problem i am having right now

[jenroses]

Fun times on the prescription refill calliope below the cut:

1. Fondaparinux: This medication is the only anticoagulant that a) my insurance covers, b) I am not allergic or otherwise sensitive to, c) that doesn’t cause me great pain administering it and d) doesn’t make my hair fall out. (keep in mind my hair is a half inch long, this is not a major consideration, but given a choice I will choose the thing that does not make my hair fall out.) I’m also stable on it.

2. Therefore almost no doctors have heard of it, I had to fight tooth and nail to get it prescribed and eventually did an end run around the doctors who should have known enough about it to prescribe it but didn’t “feel comfortable” even though they told me the other option literally increased my risk of death (and caused me great pain and made my hair fall out.)

3. I can safely go a day without anticoagulation. I cannot go multiple days without risking a DVT or pulmonary embolism. I’ve had at least 1 dvt and four PEs, so this is important. Because of my general inflammation level and exercise intolerance, I am very high risk for clots and the only reason I’m not fully therapeutic level on anticoagulants is that I have other meds that muck around with how I process anticoagulants and so I need to be a little lower or I bleed. This is a balanced system which requires that I take this drug EVERY DAY or I could stroke out or have an embolism. My last two embolisms were silent other than SOB. They formed in situ, rather than migrating. It’s Not A Good Idea to muck around with this.

4. So I did a lot of research into every alternative and they either contained things I’ve reacted to or they are specifically excluded from my insurance as “too new” or experimental. I’m genetically prone to not handling warfarin well, in a “I go from not anticoagulated to peeing blood with no warning” sort of way. Xarelto caused me so much joint pain that it was probably responsible for the failure of at least six rheumatoid arthritis drugs. Lovenox is fine at 40 mg. They wanted me to take 180 mg twice a day. That shit HURTS. It was not good for my mental health. The fondaparinux is once a day and the same volume as the 40 mg of lovenox, it rarely hurts at all. 

5. Because Fondaparinux is not prescribed very often, hardly any pharmacies carry it. I used to be able to get it at my local Savon, but not walgreens, bimart, costco or any of the other ones I called. 

6. Savon only filled 22 the last time they did it because their distributor stopped carrying it.

7. I called around, a lot, finally resorting to the specialty pharmacy that handled my Humira, and they said, “Oh, the hospital pharmacy will have it.” 

8. The hospital is 100 miles from my house. But they will ship it!

9. I have new secondary insurance, which is good, because my primary took this generic drug and made it tier fucking 4 which is a 50/50 copay on a drug that’s about $1100 per month rather than the $10 per month I paid last year. Secondary insurance will cover it... IF ANY PHARMACY CAN FIGURE OUT TO DO THIS CORRECTLY. It took some doing to get it covered but they finally did it.

10. They filled the script and sent me 30 syringes because it’s dosed by the syringe, one syringe a day.

11. I called for a refill. After not seeing or hearing anything for 5 days, I called and they said, “It’s sitting here ready for pickup, and the copay is $300.”

12. I had them rebill it, and they sent it, and I recieved... 12 syringes. 3 days before I was due to run out. 

13. I called and asked wtf this is not a month’s supply and they said, “Oh, your doctor prescribed it that way.” Then the person I was talking to made some noise about “36 is a 3 month supply so 12 is a 1 month supply” and I said, “That’s not right, you got this right last month, why are you doing this?”

14. I called the doctor’s office, and they said, “We prescribed it the way we were told to prescribe it,” and we tried to figure out how they got 12 and I was like, “Maybe they thought since it was .4 ml per syringe that it was 12 ml total and got confused?” (the math isn’t quite right on this, but anyway.) 

15. I called to get it refilled when I had like, 8 or 9 syringes left, like 5 days after I got it, and they said, “We’ll send the request to the doctor.” I said, “Make sure it’s for 30 syringes per 30 day period.”

16. Nothing happened. So I called the doctor’s office and they sent a note back. Nothing happened. 

17. I called the pharmacy and then the doctor’s office like... 6-8 times in a 4 day period. 

18. Every time the pharmacy said, “We’re waiting on your doctor” and the doctor said, “we don’t have a request.”

19. I finally made everyone talk to each other and then it got REALLY screwy. 

20. I talked to the pharmacy, called the doctor’s office, waited, then the same day, the doctor’s office called me and told me the pharmacy told them that the copay was too high and it should be sent to a different, even harder to deal with pharmacy. 

I called my secondary insurance company to ensure that yes, they would pay for it and they said, “Oh, they never even tried to bill us.”

Reader, I might have lost my shit. I managed to keep it together enough to call my doctor’s office back to say, “Send the prescription back to that pharmacy. I will call them and give them instructions.”

I called the pharmacy back, and said, “You will be getting the refill within minutes. DO NOT let your pharmacist send it back. Bill the first insurance, and then bill my secondary insurance the way you’ve had to for every other script you’ve filled for me. The copay will be zero. Please deliver the medication as soon as possible.”

And then I waited on hold, for the last 20 minutes of a total of 3-4 hours on the phone.  

And when she came back to talk to me, she said, “We have to order it, so it won’t be there until Friday.”

NGL I assumed at first she meant 10 days from now. I said, “This Friday?”

And yes, this Friday. I’ll still have 3-4 syringes on hand when it gets here. 

Anyway, that’s where 100% of my executive function for at least a week has gone. 

Insurance won’t allow a 90 day fill on this drug this year. This drug that I will probably be taking for YEARS. 

[daemonmatthias]

complaints about finding a new obgyn below the cut

SO! Idk how much he paid for it or whatever, but my dad had AMAZING insurance. We never had a problem finding people who took it, the copays were small or non-existent. It was great.

Then I turned 26. I paid $200 out of pocket for birth control for 2 months. Because the insurance offered at my work fucking SUCKS and I was getting married two months after my 26th birthday. 

First I have all sorts of trouble with the pharmacy those months. I would refill the rx on the app, and then never hear from them so I’d go in and... what we eventually determined was happening appears to be that because my insurance wasn’t going to cover it, the system never told them about it?? idk. So they’d be like, “so you want us to release it anyway??” “yes please.” “ok, we don’t have any in stock. we’ll order it and it’ll be ready in two days.” (When I was supposed to start my new pack, y’know THAT NIGHT, already 1-2 days after I tried to refill it.)

After all that trouble... it happened again shortly after I get put on my husband’s insurance. This time “because it says your new insurance doesn’t cover it.” So then I had to call the insurance-  they want prior authorization in order to cover the name brand. (The generic brand does NOT work AT ALL for me. The PMS symptoms were right back to like I wasn’t taking it at all.)

So then I called my doctor’s office. The receptionist takes all my info down and tells me that she’ll give it all to my doctor and she’ll call be back if she needs anything else. Then she tells me, “Ohhh we don’t take you’re new insurance.” (She still gave my info though. I was just going to need to find a new doctor for when the script ran out.)

But then the doctor calls me back to tell me “we don’t do prior authorization for birth control. you need to get a list from your insurance of what they cover and we’ll prescribe you something similar that’s on the list.”

All of this is happening while I’m trying to finish out the school year AND legally change my name, btw.

But I look. And the insurance’s “find a provider” thing is NONSENSE. It had my current doctor on there. It doesn’t let you do ANYTHING in new tabs even if you right-click and click “open in new tab” OR save your place in the list when you go back. I got annoyed and gave up. I didn’t have time for all that bs.

So school wrapped up and I ran out of that pack. I don’t have the money to keep paying $200 for this birth control. I decided... to just not. Give it a month for me to relax and see about finding a new doctor and whatnot.

The pack ran out and it took a full week and a half from when I was supposed to start for my period to finally start. And I remember exactly what drove me to make that first obgyn appointment. God this is awful. And I wasn’t prepared. We had to go buy pads because all I had was tampons and liners, and a tampon was not going to get me through the night. And then we were JUST putting my card into the reader to pay when I realized that I was also out of pamprin too. Robert said he’d stop on his way home today to get it. I told him, “I’ll let you know. Maybe this is the worst of it and I won’t need it tomorrow.” Nope. He’ll be stopping. 

I looked at providers again today. And this time it only shows me one page of results. (Idk I guess they updated the list finally?) But it also tells me that there are 5 results that are female doctors and then won’t show me any more than 2. (The same 2.) So apparently I will have to see a male doctor whether I like it or not because those two are NOWHERE NEAR ME. It says 15 miles but like.... they’re on the OPPOSITE side of the city. It’d take me an hour to get there on a school day... One of them is literally in LAKE WORTH when I live like 1.5 miles from the Arlington city limits sign. Then again... one of the male doctors on the list has the EXACT SAME address only it says “Fort Worth” instead of “Lake Worth” even though the zip and everything is identical so.... idk. I don’t really just this stupid find a provider tool....

So basically I’m annoyed. This whole thing is way more trouble than it needs to be.

[chronicillnessproblems]

List of really fun things my new PCP did today:

Didn’t know that I had EDS when she walked into the room. It was definitely in my chart from when I saw the NP. Like, absolutely no way it wasn’t. She just didn’t read my chart.

Nurse took down my list of questions/concerns/topics at the start of the appointment, the doctor tried to leave without addressing anything but the klonopin script so clearly she didn’t read that either before starting the appointment. Was also pretty dismissive about those other issues.

When she did read the stuff I brought, she pronounced about a dozen medical words wrong when skimming my medical list, including not particularly hard or particularly medical words (like, “fusion.” I forget what she said. Something like fission but that wasn’t it.)

Didn’t get why I see doctors in another state. (Because all you guys here FUCKING SUCK)

Didn’t get why I’m not just on disability? (what, like, it’s hard? Yes, because I DON’T PAY TAXES or even have a permanent address I live at to decide which state I’m supposed to be applying with.) 

I went in in my wheelchair, so when I told her I needed my birth control refilled she asked if I needed it to regulate periods because, hahhaha, obviously, the idea of me being sexually active is ridiculous. (I mean, I’m not sexually active, and if I were I’d probably be dating at least mostly women, but it’s because I’m too fucking sick to go out, not because disabled people are SO unattractive/not sexual. Fuck her.)

Anyway, so since I’m OBVIOUSLY not sexually active the idea of me needing a pap smear was also ridiculous because haha there’s no risk. Not like I have IgA deficiency and chronic infections of multiple sorts due to that, and am at least at risk of minor stuff that an exam that’s DEFINITELY covered is worth having, but that’s not the argument I chose. Hopefully I don’t have anything major or minor.

She says she doesn’t want to prescribe me the benzo that I’ve been on for two years because I’m also very, very occasionally on hydrocodone and if she prescribes me one while I’m on the other we’ll both be “put on a list” because “federal regulations” (or state regulations, I think she said both? I think the truth is NEITHER though) so I have to promise to go off the other first.

She “can’t” prescribe Low Dose Naltrexone. Not like, doesn’t feel comfortable, but “can’t.” Despite me reading to her my geneticist recommendation to try it for fatigue by finding a local prescriber. I swear to god she said to me in the same sentence, “ask XYZ doctor any doctor can write a prescription,” but “I can’t write a prescription, because it’s not a primary care thing.” 

“Idk why you don’t get the flu vaccine, despite you just telling me that your immunologist and geneticists say not to because of your IgA deficiency and potential to not even retain vaccine immunity due to probable CVID, I think you should get the flu vaccine! Get the hypoallergenic one!”