This piece by Aaron Carroll detailing his personal experiences with the healthcare system for what should be an easy and simple activity represents the frustration and challenges everyone faces on a daily basis including myself
I have the exactly the same challenges with renewal of what is a long standing formulation
I know this is not good for anyone and as pointed out it is not good for personal health – in my case as my wife and family will attest it definitely raises my blood pressure as I spend countless hours on the phone fighting with systems.
Everyone’s story will be different and in my case I don’t love the drug company who have taken long standing medication mixed them in a standard way and patented this to make it extraordinarily expensive for a formulation that contains one over the counter medication (OTC) and one generic prescription medication. And because of the artificial limits placed on supplies (90 days supplies with a maximum 1 year) behavior is modified attempting to reduce unnecessary costs. Ultimately everyone is behaving in the way the system incents.
Imagine that experience in the store – CostCo refusing to allow you to buy your supplies in bulk limiting your purchase to 3 months supply of toilet paper
and having to keep going back to an external party to require approval for purchasing when CostCo offers a special deal to purchase 12 units that might cover you for a year. Costco want you to purchase more and if you have the space and storage and will use it you want to buy in volume because it saves you money and the manufacturer wants purchasing their product. Costco is focused on making the process and cost as efficient as possible.
Before the deluge of complaints that buying drugs is not the same as buying toilet paper – true but take many maintenance drugs with excellent efficacy and safety. Even if it does require regular blood tests forcing the workflow to link the two in an sequence that tortures everyone in the process makes no sense. Engaged patients want an efficient process, will follow sensible and safe treatment guidelines and don’t need to be squeezed into a sequential process that includes steps that are linked for clinical reasons but remain disconnected in real life and difficult and expensive to follow for everyone concerned
As the costs shift to the individual the frustrations rise with the process and the necessary costs and waste – expect a rising voice of complaints and frustrations that might hopefully start to effect change
