Nothing is as simple as it seems

... or at least, not as simple as it should be. Case in point, my recent experiences renewing a prescription.

I take several "maintenance" prescription medications, one of which I am almost out of. I normally get it in 3-month batches by mail order through my prescription plan. The last time I had it filled, I was still on my ex-employer's insurance plan, through COBRA. Since I'm now on my new employer's plan, serviced by a different mail order provider, obviously I couldn't get a refill on the existing prescription. So, I needed a new 3-month prescription from my doctor for the mail order plan, and a one-month prescription called in to my local drugstore to cover me till the mail order gets here.

Monday, I call the doctor's office and ask to speak to a nurse about getting a prescription renewed. The receptionist transfers me to the "refill line," a voice mailbox where I'm supposed to leave my information. I dutifully deposit into the voice mailbox:

1. my name;
2. my work phone number, specifying that it is a new work phone number so please delete my old information;
3. the fact that I need both a 30-day prescription and a 90-day prescription;
4. the fact that I have a new prescription plan and a new drugstore; and
5. a request that they CALL ME to get all of the necessary information.
   

No response on Monday. No response Tuesday morning. Around 1:30 I call the doctor's office and ask for the refill line. The person who answered the phone says she can help me. I give her my name. "Didn't you call yesterday?" she says. Yes, I say, but I haven't gotten any reply, so I'm trying to find out what happened to my request.

She puts me on hold and goes off to check. After several minutes of an overly-loud radio music feed, she comes back and cheerily informs me that it was all taken care of -- that they called in the 30-day prescription yesterday. "Uh, where was it called in to," I ask. "I told you I have a new drugstore, but I didn't give tell you which one. That's why I asked to be called."

A pause. "Let me check on that," she says, and returns me to the radio broadcast. When she comes back, she says, "Where did you want that called in to? I'll take care of it right away," sidestepping the question of just where they did call it in. (I suspect the nice pharmacist at MacArthur Pharmacy may be wondering when I'm going to pick up my prescription.) So I give her the name and phone number of my new local drugstore, and she says she'll call it in.

"So how will I get the 90-day prescription?" I ask. "Oh, that was faxed in yesterday." "Uh, just who did you fax it to? I told you I have a new prescription plan. That's why I asked to be called." (Are we seeing a pattern here?)

Another pause. "Oh. Well, yes, you did say you had a new plan, but we thought we already had your new information." Mentally counting to ten and wondering just why in hell I would have told her I had a new prescription plan if I had already given them the new plan information, I proceed to give her all the ID numbers and group numbers and phone numbers and other crap off my new insurance card. "OK, we'll fax that in right away."

"But I haven't made arrangements for covering the co-payment with them yet. And they don't have my shipping address. This is the first mail-order prescription I have done with this company."

Yet another pause. "Tell you what, I'll call this in, and in about half an hour you can call them and set up your credit card payment."

Eventually I did call the prescription plan, where they did manage to confirm that something had been faxed in for me (but they didn't know what yet), and they took my shipping and credit card info. I forgot to ask how long it was going to take to get here, but I picked up the 30-day supply after work (Yay! They got that much right!) so I've got a bit of a cushion now. Stay tuned for the next exciting installment of my prescription trials and tribble-ations.