Drugstore IV: Drugstore in Space
Mar. 9th, 2009 11:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
substituteBecause I am in the coils of COBRA, and this has not yet started up, my medical coverage is in a very high-rent limbo. In order to get my prescriptions refilled this month I have to pay cash. I take four head pills long-term. Can you guess what the total bill per month is for these four, cash over the counter, no insurance?
Six hundred forty-four dollars.
Since I have a week's worth of three of them, I decided to fill only the one now and see if things have got better in a week in the nest of the COBRA. "Hold those other three," I said, "and I'll be back at 8 pm to get the Adderall."
I returned and picked up the one scrip, paid my $140, and went to to my car. Funny, I thought, that is lower than I thought it would be for this one. Should be around $200! I opened the package and boing! It wasn't Adderall. In fact, it was a drug I'd never heard of, and the pills were a color and shape unfamiliar to me.
I marched back into the pharmacy and said "I need to see the pharmacist. I was given the wrong drug."
Fifteen confused minutes later I learned that they'd given me the generic for one of the drugs I do take. So not only was it not Adderall, but it was a new number and a new appearance. Not something I shouldn't take, but something I didn't want to refill. Plus, if I'd found myself 400 miles away the next day with the wrong pills, it would have been "great" trying to straighten that up. I'd probably have had a subpar vacation with a lot of ADD symptoms, and I'd be out $140 that I didn't need to spend.
To sum up: my formerly reliable pharmacy is spinning out of control, we have no medical plan in any sense in my country, and my brain sorta sucks.
Fortunately, a week in San Francisco awaits, and I ain't never had nothin' but a good time there.
Six hundred forty-four dollars.
Since I have a week's worth of three of them, I decided to fill only the one now and see if things have got better in a week in the nest of the COBRA. "Hold those other three," I said, "and I'll be back at 8 pm to get the Adderall."
I returned and picked up the one scrip, paid my $140, and went to to my car. Funny, I thought, that is lower than I thought it would be for this one. Should be around $200! I opened the package and boing! It wasn't Adderall. In fact, it was a drug I'd never heard of, and the pills were a color and shape unfamiliar to me.
I marched back into the pharmacy and said "I need to see the pharmacist. I was given the wrong drug."
Fifteen confused minutes later I learned that they'd given me the generic for one of the drugs I do take. So not only was it not Adderall, but it was a new number and a new appearance. Not something I shouldn't take, but something I didn't want to refill. Plus, if I'd found myself 400 miles away the next day with the wrong pills, it would have been "great" trying to straighten that up. I'd probably have had a subpar vacation with a lot of ADD symptoms, and I'd be out $140 that I didn't need to spend.
To sum up: my formerly reliable pharmacy is spinning out of control, we have no medical plan in any sense in my country, and my brain sorta sucks.
Fortunately, a week in San Francisco awaits, and I ain't never had nothin' but a good time there.
