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October 18, 2004
Express Scripts/Capital Blue Cross- liars, cheaters, theives, money grubbing scum
I wanna let you in on a secret, insurance companies are out to make money on you. And if you find yourself in a position where the insurance company can not make money on you, they will figure out a way to get rid of you.
Went over to my mom's house today(cause our house smells of glue) she was on the phone with her prescription drug company(Express Scripts). She has one of those companies that you pay $20 a month and mail your prescription to them and they send you a month or 3 month supply. Well mom has tons of pain and is on ACTIQ a fairly expensive narcotic lollipop. She sucks on 3 of them every few hours 24/7/365. She goes through hundreds of them a month. They arrive at her house (when they arrive) in 54 cases of 30 lollipops each, this shipment costs my mom's drug company $9,000 she pays $20.
Obviously this is a huge loss for Express Scripts(not recommending them). I am sure the company doesn't pay full retail of $9,000 for the lollipops but I bet they still loose a good bit of money. So how does the company deal with there loss & my mom's prescriptions.
They are out to screw her over. There is not a single order that has gone through the express scripts system that they haven't messed with her. They have slowed her order down, lost her order, forgot to pre-authorize her, made her take one prescription and break it into two prescriptions, lost one of the two prescriptions. Every time they mess up they require my mother to go back to her doctor make him write a new prescription and mail it in, they then do not expedite her order, they start over from the beginning every time. They have managed to slow down her delivery, have made her run out of medication for weeks before refilling, leaving my mother in pain.
I have two guesses as to why this is happening: 1) Express Scripts is incompetent, in which case they should not be in charge of filling prescriptions. 2) Express Scripts is out to stall my mother from getting her medication on time. For every day they can prolong my mother from getting her meds they save money. It is much cheaper to pay a telephone operator $6 an hour to listen to my mother complain than fill her $9,000 order.
I am recommending my mother, who has been documenting all this in a journal to get a lawyer. I figure the only way she can get any satisfaction out of Express Scripts is to take them to court for false representation. This way the insurance company will have to weigh the cost of a lawsuit vs. filling my mother's prescription, this may or may not motivate them more. I wish it wouldn't come down to this, but i wonder what our other choices are.
Others complaining online about Express Scripts : Consumer Affairs
Posted by smitty at October 18, 2004 12:20 PM
Comments
Yeah! Your right! I am so upset with them! I hope mom contacts the Better Business Bureau!
Hear are some links I found on them.
New York Officials Sue Express Scripts (phillyBurbs.com)
... New York authorities sued Express Scripts Inc., one of the nation's largest pharmacy benefit managers, for fraud ... "Express Scripts has saved the state of New York more than ...
www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/24-08042004-342741.html
Hinrichsen Family Site - The Big "Express Scripts" Rip-Off
JLC, Dan, Isabelle and Ethan from Nebraska. Picture Gallery, news and information. ... got to complain about this company Express Scripts (http://www.express-scripts.com/). It is a mail ... ordered a prescription birth control through Express Scripts. Well, I didn't talk ...
jadiepoo.com/pics/article.php?story=20030813134713902
Posted by: Cindy at October 18, 2004 11:04 PM
I know this is months later but I read your blog months ago and I just kept thinking about it the past week or so.
The 2 guesses you put down as to why your Mother isn't receiving her prescriptions from Express Scripts are correct on both counts....except they aren't directly after your Mother; they're screwing up everyone's prescription.
I take a little Zocor to keep the blood flowing. I made the mistake of sending in my brand-new-just-written prescription a couple weeks ago to express scripts. No phone call from the tape machine saying the pills were sent, no call saying they aren't being sent...nothing! I called today and it turns out my prescription had arrived a week too early to refill. I was told it had been "destroyed" because it arrived early and I was to return to my doctor to start the process over again. Sound familiar? Where do they get the authority to just discard and throw away prescriptions for the valuable medicine people need and are depending on them to provide?
They also routinely substitute generic drugs for other than what the prescription are written for. I don't want generic I want to pay for what is being prescribed.
I've been fighting with these people for years. They're horrible.
Posted by: OldMrDave at March 4, 2005 9:14 PM
Let me tell you a little about Express Scripts. First, they don't pay the person who answers the phone, 6/hr. Try double to triple that. Second, the city of New York was actually sueing a company that Express Scripts bought out. (When you buy a company, you gain their positives and their problems.) Express Scripts just had to deal with the problem. Third, ALWAYS call before just sending in a prescription if you are concerned. It is not Express Scripts fault that you needed a prior authorization or were refilling too early. That is the patients responsibility. I am a patient of Express Scripts and I always call and then everything is fine. The people on the other end of the line when you call, are nice, respectful, and care about your problems, and will do everything in their power to help you. Express Scripts services 1 out of 5 people in the USA. They receive millions of prescriptions and always fix the problem. Stop being pety and blaming your problems with Express Scripts. When patients lose Express Scripts for their prescription benefit plan, they always come back crying that all the other companies are much worse.
Posted by: Blueblood at March 16, 2006 10:42 PM
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