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Mail Order Pharmacy Jan/Feb |  | | By J. Allen Meadows, MD |
Mail Order Pharmacy
In an effort to control rising health care cost, many insurance companies are now requesting their clients to use centralized mail order pharmacy, and no longer use their local pharmacies. Although this seems to be an innocent change, it changes the pharmacist from being a member of your health care team, to being an agent for the insurance company. Unfortunately, in many cases this agent is more interested in the welfare of the insurance company than the welfare of the patients.
Large mail order pharmacies save money in many ways:
1. They have large buying power.
2. They do not have the overhead of a store.
3. Many states where mail order pharmacies are located allow prescriptions to be filled by technicians and not by pharmacists. (We are aware of one mail order house that has one pharmacist supervising twelve technicians.)
4. The technicians filling the prescriptions often call your doctor to question his clinical judgement. Their goal in calling is to convince the doctor to change to a less expensive medication. Many of the callers get a "bonus" for the number of physicians they can convince to change to a cheaper prescription. Often when these calls are made, the caller impersonates a local pharmacist who has a question about the prescription. However, these calls are questioning the doctors judgement, not his handwriting, as is the case oftentimes with local pharmacies. Yet the person recommending a different medication knows nothing about the patient except his insurance plan number.
Although mail order pharmacies save patients and insurance companies money in the short term, other problems often arise. Technicians are under pressures to meet goals and earn bonuses. This prompts them to work rapidly, and makes them more prone to make errors in filling the prescriptions.
Because of the increasing number of mail order pharmacy houses, we have made the following policies for our office:
1. Provided the mail order pharmacy will accept our pre-printed prescriptions, we will be glad to provide you with as many prescriptions as needed. You will assume the added risk of errors that may be made in getting the prescription filled at a distant site.
2. Our office will not talk to mail order pharmacies on the phone. Since they are doing business by mail we require they make their inquiries in writing, preferably by mail. It is a priority in our office that we run on time; time spent on the phone with a mail order pharmacy subtracts from the time we can spend with you, our patient. This is why the phrase "Don't Call" may appear on your prescription.
3. Many mail order pharmacies are no longer accepting our pre-printed prescriptions. For pharmacies requiring a special form to be filled out, or a letter to be written, there will be a minimum $10.00 fee to complete the form or write the letter. We need seven days to process requests for special letters or for special forms to be completed.
As federal government and the insurance industry continues to make changes in our health care system, we want our patients to stay informed about what those changes may mean for them. We regret if our policy causes you to be inconvenienced.
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