{"id":1283,"date":"2012-09-24T10:32:08","date_gmt":"2012-09-24T17:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/?p=1283"},"modified":"2021-08-26T18:39:41","modified_gmt":"2021-08-27T01:39:41","slug":"the-evil-of-express-scripts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/2012\/09\/24\/the-evil-of-express-scripts\/","title":{"rendered":"The Evil of Express Scripts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!--[if gte mso 9]&gt;--><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float: right\" src=\"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/images-12.jpeg\" alt=\"Images 1\" width=\"225\" height=\"225\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I&rsquo;ve written before about some of my travails with Express Scripts.<\/p>\n<p>The latest dealings with them is simply too annoying for me to let pass without comment.<\/p>\n<p>Two weeks ago, I noticed it was time for me to order the single medication that I use daily.<\/p>\n<p>I went to the Express Scripts web site, placed an order , got a confirmation number and then heard nothing else.<\/p>\n<p>I didn&rsquo;t get their usual string of annoying emails;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&ldquo;<em>We&rsquo;re processing your order&rdquo;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&ldquo;We&rsquo;re really processing your order&rdquo;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&ldquo;We&rsquo;re putting your order in a box&rdquo;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>,&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve put the stamp on your order&rdquo;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&ldquo;Do you want to schedule automatic home delivery?&rdquo;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&ldquo;We put your order on the shelf&rdquo;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&ldquo;Are you really sure you don&rsquo;t want to schedule automatic home delivery?&rdquo;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve moved the box containing your order to another shelf&rdquo;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&ldquo;Why don&rsquo;t you want to schedule automatic delivery?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&ldquo;The post man picked up your order&rdquo;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&ldquo;Your tracking number is&#8230;&rdquo;<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Normally, I&rsquo;d get the tracking number a couple of days after I had the package in hand.<\/p>\n<p>I didn&rsquo;t think too much of their new terseness, I actually thought, &ldquo;Great, I&rsquo;m not being spammed to death with irrelevant B.S.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Then I forgot about it&#8230; It&rsquo;s not uncommon for them to take as long as 10 day to get my stuff to me. That&rsquo;s rare but it&rsquo;s happened in the past.<\/p>\n<p>On the 10th day I log into the Express Scripts website, to see where my order is. I find that it shipped on September 11. I check the supplied tracking number and discover that the order was apparently delivered via a post office in Calimesa, CA. Apparently someone received the order&#8230; it&rsquo;s listed as delivered by the Calimesa Post Office.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Whoa!<\/strong>, First, Calimesa is about 65 miles from me. <span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">Second I didn&rsquo;t pick up the order.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>I call Express Scripts and get this really snotty little bitch.<\/p>\n<p>I wasn&rsquo;t particularly upset when I started the call, I just needed to know what was going on.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">But after speaking with little miss bitch I was angry!<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Turns out Express Script policy is not to worry about it until 12 days after a package has gone missing.<\/p>\n<p>OK fine what then? According to Ms. Bitch then they&rsquo;ll send me another order but in the mean time I&rsquo;m the one that has to follow up with the Postal Service.<\/p>\n<p><strong>WHAT?<\/strong> I&rsquo;m <span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">not the one that shipped something<\/span> only to have it go missing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Every other<\/strong>&nbsp;vendor who ships something will initiate a trace in the event that a package goes missing. But not Express Scripts.<\/p>\n<p>Which caused me to ask the question &ldquo;<em>What would have happened if this prescription was an opiate? Vicodin, Darvon, Demerol, Percodan? Those are heavy duty controlled substances, would Express Scripts be so cavalier about a package of that going missing?<\/em>&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Little Ms Bitch interrupted me 5 times while I was asking that question, then bitched at me for talking over <strong>HER<\/strong>!<\/p>\n<p>Her response was &ldquo;<em>my hands are tied, our policy is clear<\/em>&rdquo; which I thought was a pretty defensive and pat answer.<\/p>\n<p>I asked another question and little Ms bitch talked over me AGAIN. &ldquo;<em>What happens if I run out of my RX?&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;<em>If the patient runs out of their medication,<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The patient has to contact their physician to get an new RX to have filled at a local pharmacy. <\/em>&ldquo;<\/p>\n<p>Which is seriously annoying because Express Scripts has the RX and could <strong>easily<\/strong> arrange with the local pharmacy to provide a small supply while the shipping issue is being sorted out.<\/p>\n<p>Needless to say a stronger letter will follow to the fine dumb asses at Express Scripts.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float: left\" src=\"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/images3.jpeg\" alt=\"Images\" width=\"226\" height=\"223\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Saturday I couldn&rsquo;t do anything, since I needed normal business hours to speak with supervisors.<\/p>\n<p>I will be sending a letter to the FDA, the DEA (<em>Both of whom are involved with the regulation of online pharmacies<\/em>) Another letter sent to the California &ldquo;Board of Pharmacy&rdquo;. All of which will be CCd to Express Scripts Corporate offices.<\/p>\n<p>Oh, By the way, you have to Google for Express Scripts corporate office address because it&#8217;s not on their damn web site!<\/p>\n<p><strong>It&rsquo;s not just that I&rsquo;m missing a single package.<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>I can&rsquo;t be the first or only person to have a package go missing.<\/p>\n<p>As a customer it shouldn&rsquo;t be MY responsibility to track down that package.<\/p>\n<p>There is the whole can of worms about what happens if the drugs being shipped are Schedule 1 drugs (<em>Highly addictive or subject to abuse<\/em>) and those go missing?<\/p>\n<p>There&rsquo;s the issue that if I&rsquo;m out of the drug I need now I have to take my Doctors time un-necessarily to clean up Express Scripts mess.<\/p>\n<p>Then there&rsquo;s the problem that what my Doctor prescribes and what Express Scripts actually sends are two different things. Express Scripts has no problem taking a patient off a perfectly good medication that works effectively and predictably to put the patient on a &ldquo;Generic&rdquo; medication.<\/p>\n<p>I don&rsquo;t care what the hype says&#8230; A generic medication has a slightly different chemical makeup therefore It&rsquo;s <strong>NOT<\/strong> the same as the prescribed drug.&nbsp;(<em>I can produce proof that Generics aren&#8217;t as effective as the &#8220;real&#8221; drug I was prescribed. That proof is of course strictly about my own body and your milage will vary. But the ineffectiveness isn&#8217;t pronounced enough to&nbsp;<strong>FORCE<\/strong>&nbsp;Express Scripts to give me the &#8220;REAL&#8221; drug again.)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>What the hell is Express Scripts doing prescribing medications without having ever personally seen the patient in question?&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>If I have the RX filled at the local pharmacy, I&rsquo;m going to get what the Doctor prescribed, which means I get to go through an uncomfortable re-adjustment to the &ldquo;REAL&rdquo; drug, and guess what? I get to go through that painful re-adjustment AGAIN when Express Scripts gets their shit together and sends me my damn order.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><strong><span><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">Express Scripts is Evil&#8230;&nbsp;They&#8217;re the Wal-Mart of the pharmacy world.<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Most shopping plazas have a grocery store and a pharmacy. There&rsquo;s a reason that became the norm, we all buy groceries and it&rsquo;s no big deal to drop by the pharmacy when we&rsquo;re picking up the weekly supplies.<\/p>\n<p>That is, by the way exactly what I used to do. I&rsquo;d call the pharmacy, place the order and schedule to pick it up on whatever evening after work when I was getting groceries. Simple, efficient, and it was good for the economy.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">Yeah, think about that&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>How often have you gone into the pharmacy to pick up a prescription and realized you&rsquo;d forgotten vitamins, or shampoo, condoms or whatever?<\/p>\n<p>Now, because of Express Scripts and companies like them, you don&rsquo;t go into the pharmacy nearly as often.<\/p>\n<p>This translates to a loss of sales on all those little incidental items, or seasonal items that you&rsquo;d have purchased in the past. Now, you&rsquo;re not likely to even see them.<\/p>\n<p>Guess what? That means that local jobs in your community are at risk. Stockers, cashiers, and the staff of your local drug store won&#8217;t be as necessary because the drug store loses business.<\/p>\n<p>Highly trained individuals like Pharmacists will not be in demand so their jobs are at risk too. Overall that degrades the quality of the local community.<\/p>\n<p><em>I miss going to the pharmacy and picking up my prescription. I miss talking with the pharmacist and the human touch. I miss the confidence I had in my local pharmacist. They not only had my prescription records, but that they checked them for drug interactions.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I get <span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">NONE<\/span> of that using Express Scripts. <strong><span><em><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">What I get from Express Scripts is inconvenience,<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/strong>&nbsp;and a snotty little <strong>Bitch<\/strong> that has no courtesy, and reads a script instead of being actually helpful.<\/p>\n<p>I&rsquo;ve said it before, <strong>RESIST<\/strong>! <strong>REBEL!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>It&#8217;s your health and your body that these people are arbitrarily playing with. You don&#8217;t have to accept the B.S. they&#8217;re peddling.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t agree to an insurance plan that includes Express Scripts, choose other insurance options if at all possible.<\/p>\n<p>If your company has already bought into the Express Scripts kool-aid, You can try to force your company insurance programs to stop using Express Scripts.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">Complain to your HR people every single time<\/span> Express Scripts screws up, or swaps your working prescriptions for a generic without bothering to tell you.<\/p>\n<p>Eventually, your company insurance administrators will get tired of hearing the complaints and fielding phone calls. When they do&#8230; you can be sure they&#8217;ll drop Express Scripts&#8230; because dealing with Express Scripts is too much trouble.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><strong>Check your prescriptions carefully<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>When Express Scripts substitutes a generic for the drug you were taking <span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">make sure they spoke with your physician<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>Even though they claim in their letters that they speak with your Doctor about sending you the generics&#8230; <strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">They apparently don&rsquo;t<\/span><\/strong>. My doctor has no record of them ever speaking with him.<\/p>\n<p>Stop buying into this concept of cheaper is always better!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sometimes cheaper is just another word for shitty.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&rsquo;ve written before about some of my travails with Express Scripts. The latest dealings with them is simply too annoying for me to let pass without comment. Two weeks ago, I noticed it was time for me to order the single medication that I use daily. I went to the Express Scripts web site, placed &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/2012\/09\/24\/the-evil-of-express-scripts\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;The Evil of Express Scripts&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,10,6],"tags":[175],"class_list":["post-1283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mens-health","category-modern-problems","category-rants","tag-male"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1283"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1295,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1283\/revisions\/1295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}