spacenorman
Well-known member
- Joined
- Feb 28, 2015
- Posts
- 259
The company that I worked for provided prescription drug coverage through Express Scripts. Express Scripts does everything in their power to point you towards using their "mail order" pharmacy. My experience with them has been mediocre at best. The biggest issue being that they don't seem to be able maintain a record of the # of remaining refills with any sort of accuracy. Seems like without fail, my doctor would write me prescriptions for a one year supply of my "long term" mediations - written as a script for a 90 day supply with 3 refills. These would go to Express Scripts who would fill the initial script with no problem - however, a subsequent visit to the web site would show one or more of the medications had "no refills available" meaning that it required my doctor to get involved to write "emergency" scripts to ensure I had a steady supply.
I recently left took an buyout - and retired early. Being too young for Medicare - I'm now obtaining my medical / prescription coverage under COBRA. As a result of the administrative change from a "company paid" medical plan - to the same coverage paid by me personally under COBRA - Express Scripts apparently discarded the prescriptions that were on file - meaning that I had ZERO refills available to me. This time I took the time to research the policy - and discovered that I am not required to use the Express Scripts mail order pharmacy - and can use any "participating" pharmacy. While Walmarts (who was my first choice) isn't a "participating" pharmacy for Express Scripts coverage - Walgreen's is. My wife and I both visited our doctors and obtained "hard copy" prescriptions that we in turn took to our local Walgreen's pharmacy. There, we talked with the Walgreen's pharmacist and explained our need to be able obtain prescription refills while traveling from a Walgreen's Pharmacy local to wherever we happen to be. We both opened Walgreen's web accounts - and now have all our prescriptions AND the year's worth of associated refills on record and visible in the Walgreens system. We're keeping our fingers crossed that we've finally gotten our prescription medication needs under control!
This time I took the time to research the details - and found that I under the company's prescription plan - I can
I recently left took an buyout - and retired early. Being too young for Medicare - I'm now obtaining my medical / prescription coverage under COBRA. As a result of the administrative change from a "company paid" medical plan - to the same coverage paid by me personally under COBRA - Express Scripts apparently discarded the prescriptions that were on file - meaning that I had ZERO refills available to me. This time I took the time to research the policy - and discovered that I am not required to use the Express Scripts mail order pharmacy - and can use any "participating" pharmacy. While Walmarts (who was my first choice) isn't a "participating" pharmacy for Express Scripts coverage - Walgreen's is. My wife and I both visited our doctors and obtained "hard copy" prescriptions that we in turn took to our local Walgreen's pharmacy. There, we talked with the Walgreen's pharmacist and explained our need to be able obtain prescription refills while traveling from a Walgreen's Pharmacy local to wherever we happen to be. We both opened Walgreen's web accounts - and now have all our prescriptions AND the year's worth of associated refills on record and visible in the Walgreens system. We're keeping our fingers crossed that we've finally gotten our prescription medication needs under control!
This time I took the time to research the details - and found that I under the company's prescription plan - I can