DENIED

DENIED

Let me just say here and now that I am just about fed up with insurance companies ruling the roost.  By that, I mean telling physicians what they can and should prescribe to their patients and if they don't agree then they must write a dissertation on the reason why the said patient needs what the doctor has ordered.  The doctors must hire employees who do nothing all day except to call insurance companies to get approval for the care they know their patients need.  After all, they did go to four years of college and then another five to seven years of medical school, so what would they know?  

Who the hell do these insurance companies think they are?  First of all they always have charged exorbitant premiums to where employers have had to continually cut back to bare bones of what they can offer in benefit packages.  We pay more and more and receive less and less, not to mention the aggravation of some little so and so sitting in his office denying a patient what their doctor has prescribed.  Let me give you some examples of what I personally have been put through.  

• The doctor wrote a prescription for an acne medicine due to hormones going a bit crazy.  All of a sudden I had a slight case of acne going on. Before it got out of hand, my doctor wrote an RX. I waited and waited at the drug store until finally the pharmacist called me over to tell me quietly (he was quite embarrassed)  that the insurance company had denied this drug due to the fact that I was too 'old' for acne. The pharmacist did advise me to call my doctor and tell him so that he could call and validate what he prescribed for me. Why should he have to take his valuable time to do what he has gone to medical school to do?
• Yet another time, a specialist for thyroid disorders said that generic brands of synthroid do not work nearly as well as the real thing.  She said that normally, most generics are just as good.  In this case it was not.  She had to call and prove her point.  Even though this is a known fact in the pharmaceutical world.    
• Have you ever needed a refill on a prescription a couple of days before it is apparently legitimate to refill due to going out of town?  And just to be clear, I am not talking a narcotic type drug.  Just a water pill, blood pressure medicine or synthroid. Not something to overdose on for goodness sakes. 
• Just recently going through breast cancer, which involved surgery, radiation and medications with lab work, I found out that everything the doctor wanted to do to care for me, had to be called in and approved by someone who does not know me, who has not seen me, and who does not have my records in front of him.  The physicians had to do this for each and every time.  

The sad fact is that my misfortune with insurance companies is not unique.  It occurs over and over, and is badly in need of some radical reform.  

So I am now stepping off my soap box and I will return to my more humorous blogs next week.