This so much.
But also, the tetrad of insurance, provider, pharmacy benefit manager, and pharmacy.
Try and shop healthcare. I dare you.
Try to find the cheapest place to buy a drug that isn’t for blood pressure, cholesterol, an SSRI, hair loss, or a wonky dick. If Mark Cuban ain’t selling it. Good Effin’ luck.
Daughter needs ADHD meds…. Or so the wife says. Idk. But whatever.
Ive got a high deductible HSA. So I have to shop. No problem I think. Costco prices are badass usually.
Attempt 1.) With insurance- $300. Yeah fuck no.
Attempt 2.) Costco and Costco discount price - $79…. Ok whatever I’ll pay that know and find something cheaper later. I’m cheap and I’m kind of irritated so here we go:
My Journey:
1.) Call insurance for prices around town. They can’t give it. Huh? Why not? Diff pharmacies / diff manufacturers all diff. Only can give a ‘estimate’. Is that the real price? Is it close? All they can say is it’s an estimate and they can’t even say if it’s good for the today or if it’s within 10%. Total useless BS. Told to Call the pharmacies. They should help me look up prices.
2.) Call pharmacies. They can’t. They need a script. Huh? Just look it up right? Nope. Can’t. Have to have a script. Don’t want to even try to run it through insurance. Why not? Because they could be investigated by the insurance for … get this…. Fraud. Why would the insurance company tell me to ask you to commit fraud? Pharmacy says tough titty. Go away and talk to your doctor. Huh? Have your doctor write the scripts to the medicine you want us to look up the price for then we can do it. Now go away.
3.) call doctor. We aren’t writing you 5 scripts for a controlled substance. Nice try buddy. Me: I need to shop it. Doc says to call insurance. 🤦♂️ I explain the whole story. Doc is on board. Doc: So which pills did you want me to write a script for? Me: uhhh. All the kinds just like hers? Him: well IDK all the kinds. I just write usually for that one. Me: let me ask Chat gpt. Yep. That happened. Calls in the scripts.Hurray!
4.) Call back to Costco. So how much are they? Costco: we don’t have any of those meds in stock. Me: NP. She’s got a months supply anyway. But how much if they were so I can tell my doc which is the cheapest. Costco: we can’t say. Me: what? Why?
Costco: it’s out of stock so we don’t have a price.
Me: But what WAS the price.
Costco: there’s no way to know sir.