Now that I'm less ragey... (Long, as always)

[MelodiousBubbles]

Alright. It's been a while since I've had a story to post because honestly... My customers at the pharmacy are mostly regulars that I love to death. Yesterday was an exception.

So since yesterday was the first day of the new year that all of the insurance companies were actually OPEN, I guess they were doing a lot of updates. The medicare plans in particular were down all fricken day. Annoying, but no one got really pissed off because they saw that we were very VERY busy and just went, "Okay, well we'll see you tomorrow, then!" and left.

Not this guy. This guy had a $20 copay on whatever med he was getting. He looked at me and went, "Twenty? Are you serious? I've NEVER had a copay on that medication before!"

My next course of action is to poke around his profile to see what he paid last night. Yup, there it is. Zero copays all around on all fills of this particular med. Huh. Odd, but it's his first prescription of the new year, so I figure that his plan changed, and he just didn't understand what his insurance company had sent him. He really didn't like me saying that, so I finally asked, "Would you like me to call them and see what's going on? There really isn't anything I can do to change the copay since what they tell us to charge is what we have to charge, but I can maybe at least get a reason for why you suddenly have a copay..."

"Fine!" Was all he said before shoving his card at me and walking toward the waiting area.

I take the card, call the number on the back and... Spend the next fifteen minutes on hold, never getting a real person. After that initial fifteen minutes, I hang up and try again only to get a "Your call cannot be completed as dialed" message after pressing the option I needed with the automated system. WTF?? I try several more times only to get either the same message or a busy signal.

Alright, this is officially annoying. After about a half hour of trying to even get back to the hold music, I had far too much to do to spend that amount of time on something so stupid. I go back to him, and him his card and explain everything that just happened. The pharmacist is there in case I need to hand the guy off to him, and the guy's face is turning twenty different shades of red.

He gets all blustery and demands to know why I can't just charge him the zero copay since it's his insurance company's mistake and "bluh bluh, bitch bluh, I'm an asshole who's going to take this out on you, bluh!!!"

"Because I can't, sir. I have to charge you what the insurance company tells me to charge you. There is nothing more I can do but suggest that you call them yourself because there is obviously something wrong with their phone systems at this time. We can call them again tomorrow when they are less busy, but right now I have to get back to work. Have a good day, and I'll hopefully see you tomorrow after I sort this mess out."

I go back in, he starts to say something so I turn back to him and he goes, "... NEVERMIND!" and leaves. Good thing, too, because calling an insurance company annoys me more than anything and having NO results to show for a thirty minute call just pisses me off, so I was close to just biting the guy's head off and being done with it.

It's not MY fault that you don't read the paperwork your insurance sends you, and if they DIDN'T send you something saying your plan was changing, that's their fault not mine. Don't get pissy at me for it.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. Hopefully the pharmacist doesn't ask me to call the insurance again today because I will be very grumpy.

[BeenThereDoneThat]

Typical...I bet he can't get through to his insurance company on the phone either (though it doesn't sound like he tried before he came to you today) and you're just a convenient target for his rage. I love my pharmacy, every once in a while they annoy me but at least they TRY to help me and I know it....

[emax4]

Was his medication for anger management by chance? (ba dum CHING!)

[Shalom]

Believe me, I know where the OP's coming from. I also spent quite a long time on hold with what we usually refer to as insurance companies (they're actually third party billers, but go explain the arcana of medical billing to the average customer and their eyes glaze over). My tech/store manager also reported that he was having trouble getting through, and when he finally did, half the time they hung up on him. Happened to me too; I was trying to get a compound through and the system was balking, and she wasn't having much luck; finally she said she'd transfer me to a supervisor and just hung up.

I told the boss, next time make sure you write down the name and ID of the person you spoke to.

(WHen you call Caremark, they rattle off their name and ID and immediately proceed to "May I have your pharmacy NPI?" By the time you're done reciting that ten-digit number, you've forgotten their five-digit ID. I am convinced they do this on purpose.)

[dakhur]

It could just be I'm too cynical, but how much do you want to bet that has happened every time? And every time, the console operator just got fed up and changed it so they didn't have to deal?

Sometimes an angry customer is really a sneaky customer in heavy disguise.

I must tell the Boozle story here one day. It's a perfect example of this.

[MelodiousBubbles]

(WHen you call Caremark, they rattle off their name and ID and immediately proceed to "May I have your pharmacy NPI?" By the time you're done reciting that ten-digit number, you've forgotten their five-digit ID. I am convinced they do this on purpose.)

ALL of my hate for Caremark. All of it. Caremark and Wellcare (Wellcare was who I had to call yesterday). I've actually been all but flat-out called an idiot by someone I was on the phone with at Caremark one day. Even better was that after two and a half days on the phone with these people, I got the copay down to $1.10 and the guy never fucking showed up for it.

I wanted to choke him the day I had to put it back into stock.

[An Haddock]

Not to defend the actions of the asshole... but I wonder if the insurance company had a glitch in their system that ended up charging people something they shouldn't have been charged... and then when ten thousand surly old people all called them at the same time to complain, it could have overloaded their phone system.

I don't know why it's so hard for people to accept that a corporate-run business has little to no control over policies and pricing.

Would it do any good to reply to their asshattery with something like "Why are you yelling at me, sir? If I don't follow corporate policy I lose my job." - they probably wouldn't care... and yet they'd be the same kind of person who complains there's too many unemployed people.

[CrazedClerkthe2nd]

how much do you want to bet that has happened every time? And every time, the console operator just got fed up and changed it so they didn't have to deal?

I would think overriding a required insurance co-pay (if the system even allows it) would be a serious if not fireable offense.

[Catwoman2965]

Not to defend the actions of the asshole... but I wonder if the insurance company had a glitch in their system that ended up charging people something they shouldn't have been charged... and then when ten thousand surly old people all called them at the same time to complain, it could have overloaded their phone system.

Entirely possible, but if that happened to me, and I needed my meds, I would simply pay it, and then call the ins. co and try and get it straightened out - NOT take it out on the pharmacy staff as I know they charge what the system and ins. co say to. So while it might be a PITA, I don't hold it against them. As my mom alwasy says "shit happens"

But I also am pretty good about looking over my ins stuff, and noting any changes, so I'm prepared when I go to the dr. or pharmacy. But I am amazed at how many of my friends have absolutely NO clue how their insurance works or even what type of plan they ahve.

[earl colby pottinger]

Or else

Not to defend the actions of the asshole... but I wonder if the insurance company had a glitch in their system that ended up charging people something they shouldn't have been charged... and then when ten thousand surly old people all called them at the same time to complain, it could have overloaded their phone system.

There is no glitch and the co-pay increase is real. You will still get ten thousand surly old people all calling them at the same time to complain. And yes, that would overload most phone systems.

[MelodiousBubbles]

Not to defend the actions of the asshole... but I wonder if the insurance company had a glitch in their system that ended up charging people something they shouldn't have been charged... and then when ten thousand surly old people all called them at the same time to complain, it could have overloaded their phone system.

In which case, he shouldn't be screaming at me. Period. There's no defending that.

[Aethian]

I hate Caremark, I have a card hooked up to my account but they never tell me they dont charge my meds to the card until it's too late to fix it and I have to pay out of pocket and NOT get reimbured out of my pre funded account. So then I loose that money come the new year.

[AccountingDrone]

Entirely possible, but if that happened to me, and I needed my meds, I would simply pay it, and then call the ins. co and try and get it straightened out.

Nope, one of my meds is around $800 for a 30 day supply if I don't use a copay. I do that, in the amount of time it takes to get TriCare to reimburse, our mortgage goes unpaid. That is *not* happening.

[MelodiousBubbles]

Nope, one of my meds is around $800 for a 30 day supply if I don't use a copay. I do that, in the amount of time it takes to get TriCare to reimburse, our mortgage goes unpaid. That is *not* happening.

But you also wouldn't be screeching like a fricken banshee at the tech who can't even get an actual person on the line, let alone try to figure out where things went wrong.

[Ree]

Just a reminder that MelodiousBubbles is venting about a bad day and a sucky customer.

There may be many valid reasons why the situation with the insurance company was happening, and it's quite understandable that some prescriptions are very expensive and suddenly having an unexpected co-pay when there was none previously can be frustrating and costly, or even create a financial hardship, but the main point here is that none of that is the OP's fault, and Melodious did not deserve the rudeness and verbal abuse of the customer.

Let's keep that in mind.