Wednesday, November 8, 2006

House call

I'm sitting here waiting for my neurologist's office to return a call.

I called about 24 hours ago. I called again this morning. "Sometimes it takes up to 72 hours to return a call..." the woman who answers my call tells me.

It's been over a month since my insurance company refused to cover the off label prescription for migraines my doctor gave me. My doctor's office's solution to this problem? That I should come in for another visit. Nothing in my condition has changed since my last visit, except that now I have migraines so often I can barely find a day when I don't have one to drive the substantial distance to my doctor's office.

The only problem which necessitates my needing to get into the office is that my doctor and my insurance company have different opinions on how I can and should take this drug. Meanwhile I have insurance which covers prescriptions and no migraine medication. To me, this sort of defines the term "clusterf*ck".

So what do you do to remedy this kind of situation as quickly and cost effectively as possible? If I were to judge my options by my doctor's office staff's unwillingness or inability to work with me on this issue over the phone, it seems I have no choice but wait a month for an appointment, line up a ride in case it's a bad day, do the 50 mile round trip to his office, pay a copay that is 1.5 times my normal copay (since he's a specialist), and rack up charges for my insurance company to pay.

Doesn't it seem like there should be a simpler, cheaper solution to this?

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