An ugly win is still a win.

Well, that wasn't easy!

After my last post on Tuesday, the one where I thought I was all set getting my Ibrance, it turned out I was not set at all.

Tuesday after work I called Walgreens Specialty Pharmacy, the specialty pharmacy that I was told would fill it, and was told, "No, sorry, we ran your insurance and it kicked back. We aren't filling it."

That was not good. 

I told them what I'd been told by my insurance company.  The woman on the phone transferred me to another Walgreens insurance specialist, not the same one who had told me it was all set and would be filled.

Definitely not a good development.

I explained the problem and how I had been told it was all set.  She repeated that it wasn't.  I told her what I'd been told.  I was holding back tears at this point, still polite, but very frustrated.  She put me on hold saying she would call my insurance and talk to them but that they'd already transferred the prescription to [Pharmacy C] and weren't going to fill it.  Couldn't fill it if they wanted to because, you know, they already transferred it.

Well, she did put me on hold, that much is true.  After being on hold for over 30 minutes the line  went dead.  I'm pretty sure she put me on hold to shut me up and just left me there on hold so she wouldn't have to work with me. Nice. (And, in case you're wondering, Walgreens Specialty Pharmacy, that is a really, really crappy way to treat someone. Anyone. I have cancer.  I need this drug.  I've been told that the continued growth of my cancer is likely caused by extended time off of this drug. Being treated this way is by your "experts" is, I feel confident in saying, not an example of good customer service.)

Ok.  This was really not good.


I called my medical insurance again.  It was now nearing 8:00 at night so I left a message for the person who had told me it was resolved asking for her help when she got in the next day.  I called the general line to get a live person and talked to one of the customer service people on duty. She confirmed that under my insurance it had to be filled by Walgreens and not [Pharmacy C], but also, after looking over the notes, told me they were still working on it and not to worry, they would resolve this.

Ok then.


The next day, I went to work.  My husband was home for the day which worked out well because he was home when [Pharmacy C] called to arrange delivery.  Should it have been filled by [Pharmacy C]?  Well, that's not what I was told.  My husband, on the other hand, was looking at a wife with growing cancer, a drug that could help if we didn't continue to have these long breaks from it, and a pharmacy who's telling him it's all set and they want to fill the prescription.  I don't think it took him too long to tell them to send it on over.

The pharmacy then told him it had to come to them from the manufacturer and they'd have it here by Friday or Monday.  My husband, who can be pushy when he needs to be, somehow convinced them to send it by courier on Thursday, the day I need to restart it.

He called to tell me the good news.  I called [Pharmacy C] (from work) to ask about the insurance.  They told me they had approval.  I said, "Great!" and left it at that (at this point, I was in no mood to ask if they were sure).


That's better.

Later on, my husband called me again to tell me my medical insurance company called and he spoke to the representative I'd been working with (I have permission on file for people to talk to him so it's not a HIPAA violation).  She was very, very apologetic and explained that as she dug into it, she found out that my Ibrance would actually be covered by my prescription coverage company, the one that now requires it to be filled by [Pharmacy C], and not my medical that requires Walgreens Specialty Pharmacy.  She also messaged me on the secure message interface to apologize there, too. Apparently they're now fixing their customer service information so things don't go this way for anyone again.  

Ok.  I appreciate that.

So, as it turns out, Walgreens reps were technically correct. Or at least correct some of the time. At least correct when they weren't telling me it was all set and they were filling it, which was in between them telling me it wasn't all set and they weren't filling it. And before leaving me on hold for half an hour and hanging up on me.

Yeah, I'm just as happy to be working with the new pharmacy and not to have to deal with them again.  That were pretty much a nightmare.

But, probably the best news of all out of this long and crazy saga?  There is absolutely no more opportunity at all this month for this to go south again and me not to get my drugs because, look what a courier dropped off at my house today:

Pretty, isn't it?




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I debated whether or not to name Walgreens by name, but I thought maybe at this point it was fair enough.  I'm not doing business with them anymore so I'm not concerned about strangers knowing where my drugs come from. And also, they really ticked me off.  A lot.

You know what else?  Now that I think about it, I have no idea why the new pharmacy was able to fill it less than a week after getting the prescription while Walgreens and [Pharmacy B] took over a week.  Did Walgreens fax over everything they needed?  Did their connection to my prescription insurance company make things faster?  Are they just that good?  No idea, but I'm not complaining!