All morning I have been on the phone with insurance and prescription drug companies. There is nothing that frustrates me more than wasting hours of my life on the phone waiting and repeating myself, and waiting some more.
Today I went to refill a medication that I have been taking for one year and refilling each month. This medication is crucial to my every day and I cannot simply stop taking it. My prescription drug coverage was covering it for the past year leaving me with only a small co-pay which was great. Upon refilling today, I was charged a lot of money. I called the drug plan today to find out why this sudden change only to speak to what I can assume is a call center in India where two people were reading off scripts and could not help me at all with my question.
After about an hour getting through these two people who were more like robots because they repeated their script over and over, I was finally transferred and transferred once again until I reached someone who could explain to me what was happening. Well I got an explanation, one that is totally ridiculous and unfair. I am beyond upset and now must pay between $400 and $600 per month for my medication going forward. And the joke is that I actually have insurance… so tell me, what is it even for?
My experiences with drug companies and healthcare in general in the US has left me disappointed and feeling like I don’t matter in many instances. Anyone suffering with an illness where they must take medication is dealing with a lot already and to add these stresses into the equation is sometimes too much to take. At this point money doesn’t even seem real to me anymore, it stands between myself and the means to getting me healthy, which is so messed up, and the numbers are laughable. $400- $600 monthly on top of the $600 I already pay per month for the vitamins that are keeping me healthy. Laughable.
Today is one of those days where I want to bury my head in the pillows and stay in bed.
I hope you get better, Lauren. My name is John Westerlund. I live in Montebello, California. I have a terrible chronic fatigue problem. My doctors tell me it is probably from the Diabetes Type 2 that I have. They also say, it could be something they can’t detect. I hope you can get a good heart transplant, or maybe a new heart medication will come out, and greatly improve your life. I will hope the best for you, Lauren. Your friend, John Westerlund.