United Health Care, my insurance carrier is affiliated with Express Scripts for pharmacy benefits. At the Express Scripts website a skin cream, for which I have a prescription, is available for $60. This, for a tube of only 45 grams. At the V. A. virtually all prescriptions are $8:00. Consequently, I contacted the prescribing dermatologist and asked that the prescription be transferred to the V A. This was two weeks ago and a voice at the V. A. assured me that the item would be forth coming.
With two weeks past it was time to act. My only frustration with the V. A. is, phone contact with them is difficult. Most calls go through the general switchboard and a response often takes an hour. Then you're switched to another number and the wait begins again. When I'm at the V. A. for appointments everything goes swimmingly but reaching them otherwise is frustrating.
Knowing the difficulty of phone contact, today I drove to the V. A., which is only a ten minute drive. Wondering what I'd encounter at the outpatient pharmacy I checked in using my handy-dandy Veteran's Card. No more than seated to wait, I was called to the window. The man helping me went into his computer and quickly found the prescription. The hold-up was that my primary care NP hadn't signed off on it. He messaged a request to the primary NP to authorize the prescription. He also provided me with a direct number to pharmacy. Slowly, I'm assembling a list of phone numbers to bypass the general switch board. The trip was worth it, I concluded.. Every V.A. employee I've interacted with has been helpful and courteous.
Takk for alt,
Al
The tent camp on the slopes of Mt. Fuji, where we were stationed for two months of cold weather training. Given the blog post about the V. A., a Marine picture seemed appropriate.
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