Posted by 8 Miles on January 17, 2004, at 17:15:44
In reply to Pharmacy rant, posted by Eddie Sylvano on January 15, 2004, at 8:22:57
SOME of the problem is not just your pharmacy. State laws regulate the dispensing of controlled substances, and of course, that varies by state. The BIGGEST hinderance, I think, is the insurance companies. Mine will not let me get certain meds (not just controlled substances, but meds like Bextra and Ambien (C-IV))until the doc calls them directly to give them my DX, and that he has tried all other reasonable alternatives to the *expensive* meds. It used to be that I could call in a refill once I had used 80% of the prior script. Now, they go as far as to say 29 days out a 30 day script before a refill. There is the problem of the pharmacy either not having the med in stock (because of when their shippments come in)or the delay in getting it filled so that you won't miss a dose. I have had this happen like 6 times in the past 3 months. I blame the insurance companies most, but since they are in business to make money, it's not an unusual practice. I also think the problems were exacerbated when the FDA allowed TV advertising of meds. For example, I used to take Ambien 9 or 10 years ago, before it was on every TV show, and I had no problems whatsoever. Of course, now that some 100 million adults see how wonderful it would be to get this nice pill to help them sleep, they have gone to their docs by the millions. So what happens? Well, Ambien is fairly expensive, and there is not (yet) a gerneric version on the market. So the insurance companies are getting hit for 10's of millions of dollars because every Tom, Dick and Harry wants to get the Ambien. The pharmaceutical companies are all giddy from all their profits, and the pharmacies cannot be upset with the increase sales. So, who suffers? The ones of us who have or had been using the med legitimately for years because we HAD to have it for ANY sleep. And Jane and John Doe can have a nice bottle of pills in their medicine cabinet just in case they might have a problem sleeping one night. There's no justice in this world, only greed and self-gratification. Well, that's my feeling on the subject.
8
poster:8 Miles
thread:301059
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040114/msgs/302083.html