OK, I'm gonna name names here.
I just got a fax at work from an HMO for Medicaid patients that the majority of the patients in my store are covered by, detailing the changes to the prescription drug formulary that were published today.
They go into effect in three days. That's right, published April 24, 2012, effective April 27, 2012. Three fing days to give doctors a chance to evaluate them, determine which of their patients need to have their therapy changed because they won't be able to afford to pay out of pocket for these drugs, and try to arrange for exceptions if in their professional opinion the therapy they're already on has been optimized and they don't want them changing. This despite their own literature stating that they will give 60 days notice of such changes.
Not only this, but their own damned website only has the last formulary from October 2011 on it. The new one isn't available for download anywhere that I can see; if you didn't get the fax, you're screwed.
But that's just the usual idiocy. That's not what I'm pissed off about. (Well, not so much.)
No, what's got me steamed is that one of the changes is that Albenza and two other anthelmintics have been removed from the formulary. The only anthelmintic remaining on the formulary is mebendazole.
Which was discontinued last September and is no longer available in the United States from any manufacturer!
Bad enough that the freaking doctors haven't got the message yet and still insist on prescribing this shit that we haven't been able to get in months and likely won't any time soon, but this totally unavailable medication is the only one that these imbeciles at Fidelis will pay for.
It makes you wonder sometimes. It really does.
I just got a fax at work from an HMO for Medicaid patients that the majority of the patients in my store are covered by, detailing the changes to the prescription drug formulary that were published today.
They go into effect in three days. That's right, published April 24, 2012, effective April 27, 2012. Three fing days to give doctors a chance to evaluate them, determine which of their patients need to have their therapy changed because they won't be able to afford to pay out of pocket for these drugs, and try to arrange for exceptions if in their professional opinion the therapy they're already on has been optimized and they don't want them changing. This despite their own literature stating that they will give 60 days notice of such changes.
Not only this, but their own damned website only has the last formulary from October 2011 on it. The new one isn't available for download anywhere that I can see; if you didn't get the fax, you're screwed.
But that's just the usual idiocy. That's not what I'm pissed off about. (Well, not so much.)
No, what's got me steamed is that one of the changes is that Albenza and two other anthelmintics have been removed from the formulary. The only anthelmintic remaining on the formulary is mebendazole.
Which was discontinued last September and is no longer available in the United States from any manufacturer!
Bad enough that the freaking doctors haven't got the message yet and still insist on prescribing this shit that we haven't been able to get in months and likely won't any time soon, but this totally unavailable medication is the only one that these imbeciles at Fidelis will pay for.
It makes you wonder sometimes. It really does.
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