So first a little background: I used to have health insurance with Kaiser Permanente. I was laid off but paid my COBRA payments to continue the health insurance. I last saw the gynecologist last February to get my yearly check up and a refill on my birth control pills. I have a skin condition called seborrheic dermatitis that flares up every time I have a period so the gynecologist prescribed me a regimen where I would only get my period 4 times a year in order to help me maintain my skin health. She suggested a generic drug where I just throw out the sugar pills instead of a new high priced drug that doesn’t have the sugar pills like Seasonale. I have no problems at all with my insurance company wanting to save money, especially when the two drugs are pretty much identical.
I ended up finding a new job and now have insurance with Anthem, which started 7/1/2009. 36 days into my new insurance I got kidney stones and I got to spend a fun filled night in the emergency room. I was told the best part is when I got a MRI scan and my husband got to see all the cool gadgets and computers that do the MRI. I on the other hand would like to permanently forget it ever happened. Anthem is currently trying to dispute my insurance claim with the emergency room on a pre existing condition. I find this ridiculous and insulting. I had kidney stones. I have never had such pain in my entire life. I can’t imagine going weeks with that kind of pain. I’m sure this will eventually get resolved, but not without a ton of time, hassle, or money.
This last week I needed to refill my birth control prescription from Kaiser. Since I no longer have Kaiser Insurance I took it to a local Rite Aid to be refilled. They only gave me a single month worth, when my prescription was for 4 months worth every 3 months. I asked them whey they didn’t give me what my doctor prescribed me. They replied that Anthem refused to let me have that many pills at one time. Of course this got me angry and upset. I tried hard not to take it out on the pharmacists at Rite Aid and I did start to cry some. I was told to call the insurance company to sort it all out.
The next day I called the insurance company. They stated that they only allowed 3 month prescriptions through their mail pharmacy and gave me a number to call there. I called the mail order pharmacy. I told them the whole ordeal that I had to go through. They then told me I would have to revisit my doctor and get a new prescription. I asked them if they could just transfer my current prescription. They said no. That’s right, every pharmacy in the nation from Walgreens, Target, Save-On, Rite-Aid, Wal-Mart, Costco, ect, except Anthem has the ability to call the previous pharmacy and transfer a prescription. Now I know the people at Anthem Pharmacy have telephones, because I called them on one, so I’m not sure why they can’t transfer a prescription. It’s pretty pathetic really.
I told the lady at Anthem Pharmacy that I could not go to my previous doctor as I no longer have Kaiser Insurance. I told her that I would have to see a new doctor, which is completely unnecessary as I last so the doctor in February. This was going to cost Anthem money that they don’t need to spend. She just repeated that all I had to do was see my previous doctor. Again I told her that I couldn’t see my previous doctor as I no longer had Kaiser health insurance. She really didn’t seem to understand this; it was like a scene in Idiocracy where Brando has the electrolytes that plants crave.
So in the end I have to set up an appointment to go see a new doctor and get a new prescription. I’m honestly just going to get the more expensive brand of birth control as I can’t trust Anthem to give me four months of generic pills for every three months.
So this is one of the things wrong with health insurance in this country. Here is my insurance company wasting money on extra unnecessary doctors visits and over priced prescription drugs due to their own bureaucratic idiocy. Oh and they spend money disputing claims on things like kidney stones where it is practically impossible to move let alone carry on with the pain for any length of time. I really hope the government pulls through and lets everyone get the insurance that they have, then I might actually have some choices in where I get my insurance from.
I know I could just buy my own insurance, but it turns out that regardless of how healthy I am (I eat right, I exercise, and rarely get sick) my seborrheic dermatitis disqualifies me from privately getting health insurance. That’s right my skin condition that requires me to maybe see a dermatologist 1 to 2 times a year and get topical creams that cost roughly $5 a tube prevent me from qualifying with many insurance companies for basic health insurance.