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After waiting all day for someone from my local CVS Pharmacy to get back to me regarding the problem I was having in getting my prescription filled….and, of course, no one did call me….I called them. All I said was my name and that I’d called earlier in the day. I got a very bitchy reply of one word; “Six hundred dollars.”

I stopped a second before asking “How can that be?” and reminding the bitchy woman on the other end of the phone that I had spent a good deal of time on the phone with AstraZeneca and CVS Caremark neither of which could understand why I was having this problem with CVS. All I got in return was the exact same snotty answer, nothing more and nothing less;

“Six hundred dollars.”

I was pissed! I was livid. I’d bet next month’s mortgage that no one at CVS ever made the phone call they were supposed to. They just couldn’t be bothered. They certainly couldn’t understand that they were making a major mistake somewhere along the line. It makes me wonder just how many other people they’re doing this too and how much those people are overpaying and doing without just so they can….live.

I called Walgreens and had my prescription transferred to them. Ya know, just to see if there would be any price difference. What the hell? They’re right down the street from CVS–I mean, like, literally. One can see the Walgreens when one is at CVS. The Walgreens had the added bonuses of being cleaner, bigger, and possessing a better parking lot than CVS.

I made the call and asked how I would go about transferring my prescriptions to them. They asked me my name and my date of birth. Then they told me what prescriptions I have. Sidebar: I find that terrifying, I really do. I fear that people coming up today will never truly understand the meaning of the word ‘privacy’ as us old folk do. It’s something I cherish and am coming to miss…greatly. OK, End Sidebar.

They put my stuff through and told me they’d call when it was ready.

I waited a day. I got the phone call; Five hundred dollars!

Well, it’s a hundred dollar savings…LOL

I was depressed and sick on top of it, I had the flu. I hung my head. Hubby and I looked around for different insurance plans through his job to no avail we even started looking for prescription drug insurance/discounts/groups. Geez, if you’re not looking for a Medicare Part D supplement on that one, these things are out there, but Google doesn’t understand what you’re looking for. I thought Google was Mighty but even the American Health “Care” System has it saying; Eh, I don’t really know, sorry.

Finally I bit the bullet and returned Walgreens phone call, during the conversation I was told I was again listed as ‘uninsured’. I was pissed all over again. That’s the exact same problem I was having with CVS who told me they weren’t doing anything wrong. I told them I have insurance and a discount card for the Bevespi. They told me to bring them in and they’d run it through their computer.

I waited….days. I really did. I wasn’t up for hearing something like; Sorry, Charlie, no air for you.

Today, I promised Miss Rebecca I’d take her out to Target (we ended up going to WalMart!) and get some baby stuff. So I figured what the hell, I’ll stop at Walgreens, go in, and get the bad news.

BUT…….

DAMN! Ain’t that a pretty picture????

Yep, first try at Walgreens. The very nice gentleman behind the counter put in my CVS Caremark information and discount card for the Bevespi and I was right back to the Zero Dollar co-pay I’ve had for the last year and a half! First try! I swear….I almost kissed him! I told him that I hope someone does something very nice for him tonight because he was angel and then told him my Sad Tale of CVS Woe. He couldn’t believe it.

I did have to pay $63.00 for the ProAir but even that was cheaper than what CVS was trying to charge me. I got BOTH of them! WOOT! For $63.00! That’s a far cry from $600.00. AND I got to go to WalMart and buy goodies for my coming granddaughter, I even got a new blanket for my bed, socks, and underwear along with some food. The grand total of everything I bought today was HALF the price of the prescription overcharge at CVS.

The nice gentleman at Walgreens didn’t treat me as though I were stupid or in his way or as though he had better things to do than help me out. The guy behind the counter at CVS, at one point, actually told me that he did have other things to do as I was trying to straighten this out and there was no one in line behind me. He should have been smart enough to know he was making an error somewhere because hubby’s prescription had just gone through, with the same insurance, and a discount card from Janssen and he got the $10.00 co-pay he was supposed to receive even though that guy didn’t even want to read the letter from Janssen and, at first, insisted that ‘the co-pay will be whatever the insurance says it is’.

Ya know, I almost…almost….oh so close…..took those bags right up the street to CVS, walked in, and did my best “Pretty Woman” impression. I wanted to do that so badly. I still do. Just waltz up to the prescription counter and say; “Do you remember me? I was in here the other day and you tried to charge me six hundred dollars for two prescriptions, you couldn’t be bothered to find out what mistake you were making, then you were totally rude to me on the phone.” Wave the Walgreens bags in their faces, smile, and say; “Big mistake! Huge! I have to go shopping with my daughter now.” LOL

I think I’ll write a nice email to CVS Corporate describing my ‘customer service experience’ with their staff.

My advice to you, Dear Reader is this; If you use CVS double-check the price you’re paying especially if you know its way too high don’t just take their word for it and suffer. If you’re using CVS at 817 Bank Street in New London, CT….switch to Walgreens on Bank Street.

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Yes, I’m here to rant today.

Sorry about that.

I don’t know which dumbass President I should ‘thank’ for my current predicament; Obama or Trump. Maybe I’ll send both of them a basket of rotten fruit. Seems fair. Obamacare is BS and “TrumpDon’tCare” is even worse. I wish we could have a President and a Congress that actually had the Good of the People in mind, they might see that Obamacare is nothing but a band-aid on a gaping wound and “TrumpDon’tCare” is simply an injection of botulism into the butt of the entire country. But….well…I can dream. That is still free!

Unlike prescription drugs.

Once Upon a Time no one had a ‘deductible’ on the prescription drug coverage. No one. You simply had whatever co-pay the company assigned you. Enter my most hated ‘pharmacy’ CVS who decided they could run the health “care” industry better by being 1-the drug store 2-the company that owned the prescription drug coverage and 3-the company that owned one of the biggest health “care” companies in the US. What does that mean for li’l ol me? It means I have a $3,000 deductible that now applies across the board.

Have you seen the price of prescription drugs lately?????

I hope you’ve met your deductible here on January 7th or, if you have CVS “Care”mark and/or Aetna insurance you’re about to pay out the ass.

I digress….here….let me back up a few steps.

Hubby got ‘laid off’ not too long ago. No, he didn’t actually get ‘laid off’ his contract changed hands and it took quite a while for the new company to take the reigns. So hubby had a few weeks off. A few weeks I mistakenly thought we were without health “care”. My bad. Damnit! But, in my defense, I was just happy that we had been able to lay in a large enough supply for his Xarelto to get him through this spell.

Oh yeah, that’s right. I’m on Bevespi and Albuterol.

Damn.

I was out of the Bevespi (long acting inhaler) by the end of the first week of his being ‘laid off’ so I was absolutely thrilled when, in going through some shit, I came across a real true full inhaler of Albuterol (rescue inhaler) which I’ve been using to keep me, ya know…breathing easy.

About a week ago we got a letter from the maker of Xarelto saying he’d been accepted into their program for another year.

WOOT!

You seriously do not want to know what the “co-pay” was on that one drug without the ‘discount manufacturer’s coupon’. Ok, it was $100.00/month! Through the OLD prescription drug plan (the one without a ‘deductible’) which is why I researched and got the ‘discount card’ to bring that asinine “co-pay” down to $10.00 a month. I seriously don’t even want to know what the actual cost is, before meeting the ‘deductible’ under the good old CVS plan.

The new ‘insurance’ cards came in on Saturday and I’m home today with the flu. I need my Bevespi. Hubby just took the last of his Xarelto. So hauled my tired, achy, sick ass, out of the house and down to CVS to give them the new ‘prescription coverage’ cards and the nifty letter hubby received. I got a little bullshit at first from the guy behind the counter with the gauged ear and nose ring. Such a professional look. He tried to tell me, as he looked at the letter, that ‘the cost is the cost before you meet your deductible’.

At first that word slid by me. As I said; Read it!

(dipshit)

So he did. He typed on his keyboard inputting the the new prescription drug ‘coverage’ information and numbers from the letter. Like a charm it worked. $10.00/month co-pay.

Woot!

I don’t have a nifty coupon for the Albuterol so he told me the ‘co-pay’ on that was $63.20! Holy shit! I thought the $25.00 co-pay I was being charged before was steep.

I said; Nah, forget that. Give me the Bevespi instead.

He said; $106.00!

I said; WTF?

Then I said; Is that with my coupon?

He said; It expired.

Then I said; Forgetaboutit

So I went and sat down waiting for hubby’s prescription to be filled and while doing so, thanks to my nifty cellphone, I went online and got a new discount coupon for my Bevespi. When hubby’s prescription was ready and I paid the $30.00 co-pay for a three month supply I went back to him and said: I got a new coupon, here try this.

Well it seems I hadn’t hit ‘ok’ or some crap like that. So I went through that and text messages from the manufactured flooded in to me with the information.

He typed it in.

He typed it in again.

He typed it in AGAIN and then came back and said; 106.00

I said; No, look, this coupon should take care of the whole co-pay just like it’s done for the last year and a half. I shouldn’t pay anything for it.

Well he typed and typed and typed and then said; $300.00

HOLY FUCKING GOD! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

One more time he said; You haven’t met your deductible.

I stopped. I looked around. I looked at the card I’d handed him and literally had to hold myself back from screaming out; MOTHERFUCKER…in my best Sam Jackson voice, of course. I was standing in CVS. The very place that owns my prescription drug company. The very place that owns my health “care” company and I thought; DAMN, what a racket! I’m telling you THAT should be illegal. No ’bout a doubt it. No pharmacy should be allowed to own a prescription drug company (bit of conflict of interest there, don’cha think?) never mind to be allowed to own a health “care” insurance company!

He called his ‘supervisor’ over and the same thing happened.

I said; Fuck it, I don’t need to breathe, that’s fine. And I left.

I went home. I looked at my phone again. The text messages told me exactly what I would be paying and even told me that I had ‘six refills left’.

WHOA!

I called the maker of Bevespi to find out why my discount coupon wasn’t working. I spent a half hour on the phone with them as they told me ALL the mistakes CVS had made in processing the card.

I called CVS and told them ALL the mistakes they made in processing the discount card including the fact that even though I handed them the new prescription card AND hubby’s prescription passed though with no problem at all, they had, somehow, listed me as ‘uninsured’. CVS sighed and told me it was, I kid you not, ‘a long phone call’ and ‘someone’ would make it at ‘some time today and get back to me’.

No shit Sherlock, I just spent 20 minutes on the phone with them!

I said; Fine. And I hung up.

Then I called CVS Caremark to see if Bevespi is even a ‘covered’ drug through them.

And DAMN! They didn’t ask me for any information at all. Seems the new form of ‘caller id’ is more than enough for some places to suddenly know everything about YOU.

Eventually, I found out that, yes Bevespi is a ‘covered’ drug through them BUT the people at the pharmacy were putting in the dosage amount wrong, it’s not ‘1’ as in 1 inhaler it’s whatever milligrams of crap are in the inhaler. Then the nice woman informed me I hadn’t met my ‘deductible’ yet.

I said; A deductible? On prescription drugs?

Again, I remembered who I was dealing with.

Yes, she said then back peddled a bit as she said, but it applies to everything; doctor visits, drugs, tests….blahdefuckingblahblahblah

That was the first time in my entire life I became aware that in the USA today you can now have a ‘deductible’ on prescription drugs and not just a simple co-pay.

I hate them. I really do. I stopped shopping at CVS (a store I loved and frequented for decades for everything from prescription drugs to shampoo and OTC meds) when they stopped selling cigarettes. To me that was a huge sign that read; We Want To CONTROL YOUR LIFE.

I got confirmation of that today.

I was happy when the little locally owned pharmacy opened at the top of the street. I never had a problem with them. All of my ‘discount drug coupons’ went through without a problem. Then they closed and like ‘gave’ or worse yet ‘sold’ all of their customers prescriptions to CVS….didn’t even ask us. Didn’t even tell us they were closing!

So now I’m sitting here waiting for some gauged ear moron to make a phone call to the maker of Bevespi to find out how to input the information correctly into his computer. I’ll either end up paying just over $200.00 as a ‘co-pay’ or right around $8.00. Can’t wait to find out which one it is.

Can you?