Mr. Cave

MythBuster

Last night the stars align and the universe shat down on my with all its might. On the upside, I debunked a few myths in the process.

Jeeps are good, reliable vehicles. I’m on my way to work. I stop at the intersectin of Wabash and Veterans Parkway (perhaps the busiest intersection in Springfield). As I’m waiting for the light to change, I see the RPM gauge jumping wildly like I’m slamming up and down on the gas pedal. I check to make sure I’m not pressing the gas, and then watch as the gauge falls to zero. “Uh oh….” I tried to start it, nothing. Stupid Jeep. Not sure what’s wrong with it yet, but it’s not the first thing on this car that has randomly broken. Perfect timing, too, as the warranty just expired 1,000 miles ago. Probably won’t be getting another one of these anytime soon.

Lady police officers are butch. While I’m stuck at the interesection, cars are pulling up behind me even though I’ve got my flashers on and have obviously been sitting there not moving. Every time the light changed a new group of cars would get stuck behind me. Eventually a cop pulled up behind me and I got out to talk to him… but it was a her. And she was young and hot (for a cop anyway). She said she’d chill there until we could get it towed. Definitely changed my perception of women police officers. This was also the first time I’ve ever encountered a cop doing any kind of “civil service” or whatever you want to call it - usually I see them speeding by stranded motorists on the side of the highway (presumably laughing and pointing as they pass).

SIUE properly prepares pharmacy graduates to enter the workplace. I got to work 20 minutes late and braced myself for what I was about to encounter after a new pharmacist (her 3rd day on the job) spent 12 hours at our store. I expected things to be a little messy, but I was not prepared for the devastation I inherited. I’m not sure what this girl did all day but I filled more scripts overnight than she did during the day and she had one of our best techs for 8 hours to help her! She left me almost 30 prescriptions to fill and a mountain of issues to resolve. On top of that she pissed some lady off so bad that the lady felt the need to call in and threaten to get her fired. The customer also told me that when I got laid off I could call and thank the other pharmacist because it was her fault we were losing customers. Not what I wanted to walk into after having my car break down. I’m not upset with the new grad (we’ve all got to start somewhere) but I was definitely not happy about the situation itself.

Note to the irrational inbred bitch who called in and threatened our jobs: Once you start cussing at me, threaten my job, or promise to take your business elsewhere, you’ve already lost my interest in the conversation. I’m still gonna kiss your ass so you don’t feel the need to try and get me fired too, but if you’ve got your head too far up your own ass to take calm down a little after you learn it was only the girl’s third day then you’re not the type of customer I want to deal with in the future anyway.

People understand what insurance is and how it works. There are certain patients, no matter how hard I try, to whom I simply cannot explain the prescription insurance process/system. I couldn’t agree more that often the insurance companies defy all logic, but in the end it’s really simple: We buy the drugs from our suppliers at a certain cost. We bill your insurance for a small percentage over that actual cost of the drug plus a meager dispensing (i.e. labor) fee, which, incidently, isn’t enough to account for the 2 hours a month I’ll spend re-explaining this all to you. The insurance company takes a look at your shitty coverage plan and tells us how much of the total they’re going to cover and how much you’re going to be responsible for (i.e. your copay).

If the price changes significantly from one fill to another, I guarantee you it’s not the pharmacy’s fault. We’re nothing more than a middleman in this process who ensures that all the addicts are just barely getting the correct amount of Vicodin to maintain their boredline liver-damaging blood levels of acetaminophen.

So a price change essentially comes from two places:

• a change in the supplier pricing
• a change in the coverage level/benefit from your insurance company

As most sane people can figure out, the pharmacy itself has little influence over these factors, and certainly an individual pharmacist at a national chain is not trying to screw you over by raising the price. Unless there is some sort of shortage or change in manufacturing/distribution processes, there’s not much of a fluctuation in drug cost from our suppliers either, leaving just one guilty part who you should be cussing out when you have to pay twice your normal copay: the insurance company.

Even then it’s not entirely their fault. Your employer picks and chooses what plans they’ll make available to their employees, and it was in fact you yourself who signed up for the cheapest plan with the least amount of coverage. So in the end you should be blaming yourself and/or your employer for your high copays and recurring deductibles. I know it’s easier to bitch at me, try and make it feel like it’s my fault, and see if I’ll cut you a deal. Trust me though, I’m laughing a little bit on the inside as your tiny brain finally begins to comprehend how this works, and it doesn’t hurt my feelings when you drive away like a retard while I’m in the middle of talking to you.

Here’s one final “take-home” for the insurance-illiterate: I’m not your insurance company liason. I contact your insurance company more often than I should just to get your medicine covered, and it’s certainly not my job to wait on hold and talk to the call center to try and figure out what your deductible is this year/period. If you can’t read the shit they send in the mail (or at least be pleasant about it when I tell you you’re wrong about the copay) then I have no sympathy for you.

A medical card is the same as insurance. You don’t pay monthly premiums on your medical card, and you barely ever have a copay on your prescriptions either, so don’t be surprised when the Medical card gods won’t let you get the most expensive brand name medications. My favorite line is, “Oh but if I had regular insurance it would be just fine for me to get this drug.” Yes if you had “regular insurance” they probably would let you get the drug, but to get “regular insurance” you’d probably have to get a job (check out that link if you’re not sure what this means) and contribute to society. You’d also be paying a premium and a much higher copay. This stuff doesn’t grow on trees, kids.

Disclaimer: Yes I’m generalizing here, I personally know several people who have a job but still need the public aid to make ends meet. These generally aren’t the same people who are being the pain-in-the-ass-give-it-to-me-now types; this isn’t directed at that small group of people who use the public aid legitimately as it was intended.

So, in summary, it was a FML kind of night.