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Fuckin' Medicare Prescription Plan
8/19/10 04:45 pmWhy in the name of all that's unholy some better, simpler, more effective Medicare prescription plan couldn't be thought up by the "brains" in Washington is beyond me. I have SilverScript through Caremark, which owns CVS drug stores. That's handy, because there's CVS's all over the place here, and one is right down the street from me.
But dammit, they keep removing MY drugs from the formulary, so they don't pay for them. And it's always the really expensive ones that I really need that they decide to remove.
First they didn't want to pay for my Dexilant, but I got a waiver for that, and now I just have to jump through a hoop once a year to get it. Then they decided not to pay for my Effexor XR, so I had to go to the non-XR generic venlafaxine. Now they aren't paying for my Axert, my wonderful miracle migraine drug.
I called in a refill last week, and the pharmacy called me to see if I was aware the insurance wouldn't cover it. I figured it'd be $100 tops, so told them that's ok. The pharm tech said "Are you sure? It's $450..."
That's right, o my droogies. $450 for 12 fuckin' measley pills. Thank you, but no. That's absolutely insane.
So I've had to go hunting through the formulary to find something they will cover. Generic sumatriptan, Maxalt (rizatriptan), Zomig (zolmatriptan), and Treximet (sumatriptan and naproxen). I've been on Axert for years, so I don't know all that much about these other guys. They're all basically the same class of drugs, selective serotonin 5-HT1B/1D receptor agonists.
So I called my doctor to ask her to call me in one of these drugs instead. Of course she's not in today, but hopefully she'll call it in tomorrow. Meanwhile I still have one lonely Axert left, which I think I'll take shortly because I have a head stuffed full of steel wool... that's my aura, which is something that lets you know a migraine is on the way.
Feh, I say. Feh.
But dammit, they keep removing MY drugs from the formulary, so they don't pay for them. And it's always the really expensive ones that I really need that they decide to remove.
First they didn't want to pay for my Dexilant, but I got a waiver for that, and now I just have to jump through a hoop once a year to get it. Then they decided not to pay for my Effexor XR, so I had to go to the non-XR generic venlafaxine. Now they aren't paying for my Axert, my wonderful miracle migraine drug.
I called in a refill last week, and the pharmacy called me to see if I was aware the insurance wouldn't cover it. I figured it'd be $100 tops, so told them that's ok. The pharm tech said "Are you sure? It's $450..."
That's right, o my droogies. $450 for 12 fuckin' measley pills. Thank you, but no. That's absolutely insane.
So I've had to go hunting through the formulary to find something they will cover. Generic sumatriptan, Maxalt (rizatriptan), Zomig (zolmatriptan), and Treximet (sumatriptan and naproxen). I've been on Axert for years, so I don't know all that much about these other guys. They're all basically the same class of drugs, selective serotonin 5-HT1B/1D receptor agonists.
So I called my doctor to ask her to call me in one of these drugs instead. Of course she's not in today, but hopefully she'll call it in tomorrow. Meanwhile I still have one lonely Axert left, which I think I'll take shortly because I have a head stuffed full of steel wool... that's my aura, which is something that lets you know a migraine is on the way.
Feh, I say. Feh.
