Argh! So the latest battle has been with the Healthwell Foundation. Now, I know I should be more patient with people that are basically giving me money, but the paperwork has been just incredible!
I was thrilled a few months back when I got the news that I qualified for 100% assistance with my copay for Humira. Great! Since I was using Drugstore.com to get the medication, however, they weren't able to set up direct billing with that online pharmacy. OK, well, that just meant that I had to fill out a form each month and wait four weeks for the refund of my copay. Annoying, but again, they're giving me money, so how can I complain, right?
So I filled out the paperwork, faxed in copies of my pharmacy receipt and credit card receipt and waited. For a month. Nothing. So I called in again, and they said they'd just sent a letter saying that they couldn't read the fax I'd sent.
They sent a letter. After four weeks. To say they couldn't read a fax.
Call me crazy, but don't most people call when they can't read a fax?
So I faxed it in again. I called two weeks later to see if they could read that one and was told that there was no way to tell that at this point unless I knew exactly what time the fax had been sent. They also said that one piece of information was missing (it wasn't, but whatever), so I faxed it again.
So I waited another week and called in again. I was told I could mail in the required materials, which I did. Again, I'm incredibly grateful that this foundation exists to help with the substantial copay, but it is a bit upsetting to know that every month, I will have to spend several hours faxing, calling, faxing, calling, copying and mailing, just to get them some basic information. At this point, after three faxes, one mail, and at least four phone calls, I am hoping to get the nearly $400 copay reimbursement before Christmas.
At this point, I'd decided that the substantial price savings on Drugstore.com wasn't worth it, so I'd just transfer the prescription to a local pharmacy that they could bill directly. When I did, the Walgreen's pharmacist told me the prescription was rejected--Unicare was now requiring paperwork from my doctor to prove I needed this expensive medication!
So I called the Unicare, then the doctor. And the pharmacy. I heard nothing, so I called this week. Walgreen's said that the Humira prescription had been filled, but I never picked it up, so they sent it back. Hmmm. Funny how they never called to tell me that it was ready or that the paperwork had been completed successfully.
So I actually physically went to the local Walgreen's to take them the Healthwell Foundation form for direct billing. This confused the very nice substitute pharmacist quite a bit, since their form is lacking some basic information Walgreen's needs for direct billing. [sigh] So I call HealthWell again, then Walgreen's. Finally, today, I got the call back from Walgreen's saying that they're willing to waive the copay this time, see if they get reimbursed properly, and from there see if they can indeed set up direct billing.
Wow. Getting a simple medication is really, really complicated when you don't have $1,500 a month to pay out of pocket!!
This sounds a lot like the Fiasco I went through to get Humira, and I have Unicare as well. I'm in the same boat as you, so I'm looking to see what I can do when the copay assistance runs out. I'm 25, and I have to walk with a cane some days, and I don't make enough to pay the copays. Unicare lists Enbrel and remmicaid as prefered. I was on remicaid for over a year, and I grew resistant to it. It was free for me, but It stopped working. Enbrel might be free as well because It's prefered. Food For thought.
Posted by: Mike P. | March 26, 2007 at 07:47 AM