On Sunday morning I went to the pharmacy to pick up my prescription only to leave with the upsetting realization that my pharmacy has been costing me money for the past 7 months. If there is anything I hate, it is losing money. Hopefully this post will prevent you from doing the same.
Here is my story, with the assistance of the many faces of Tyra Banks.
The prescription causing so many issues is my birth control. Yep I use birth control. Children are not in my financial plan right not. Any who under the Universal Healthcare Act, certain contraceptives are provided at a $0 co-pay. I enjoyed this perk at my last job and expected it to carry over to my new one.However, to my surprise, the first time I went to get a refill on my prescription, back in November, I was told that I had to pay a $120 deductible and an $80 co-pay for the medication.
Yep.
I didn’t have any other option as I needed to start my pack that day and ended up paying $200 for a prescription that I was previously receiving for free. (That still burns)
The next month I had my doctor put me on another medication. Birth control can be finicky so I opted for one that had the least likelihood of side effects. Turns out this one had a $30 co-pay. I was expecting it to be $0 but I simmered down because after all, it was better than $80.
Fast forward to last week.
I was tired paying of the $30 co-pay so I went online and navigated my insurance companies complicated co-pay tier list in one window, while checking the medications reviews on WebMD in the other. I settled on a generic after discussing it with my doctor and had them call the prescription in.
Sunday I went to pick up my generic medication.
To my dismay, the pharmacy assistant came back, scanned the medication, and told me it would be $60.
I nearly flipped.
Instead of flipping I called my insurance company right then and there. I was tired of being passive. Looking back I feel sorry for the insurance customer service rep. Bless her heart because she had to deal with my surly attitude for the first 15 minutes of the call. I give it to her, she kept her cool. Well it turns out the insurance company’s tier list on their website was not for my particular plan (as I had previously been told by a customer service rep).
I had had enough! This is where I had to advocate for myself.
I made the phone rep pull up my plan list and simultaneously had the pharmacy assistant pull up every single oral contraceptive I had on file. Together we all went down the list, item by item, and I had the phone rep tell me what the co-pay for each medication would be.
Low and behold, my initial prescription from back in November, that I paid $80 for should have been $0 this entire time. The pharmacy was entering the code incorrectly resulting in the excessive co-pay I was paying!! I had unnecessarily spent $210 this year, plus the $80 from back in November!
Exactly Tyra.
The pharmacy will not issue me a refund for their error.
This entire experience was a very very valuable lesson to double check everything when it comes to your money, even if it means inconveniencing a few folks.
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