More pain med hassle

Time to refill my mom's meds. Weeks ago during mom's doctor visit I had him write prescriptions for all of mom's meds and his nurse said she would call them in to mom's pharmacist. I figure this would leave plenty of time before mom's meds needed to be refilled.

Well... time passed quickly and it wasn't until this past Friday that I went to pick up from the pharmacy a number of the meds before they ran out on Monday. Time passed Friday and I didn't get to the pharmacy until 5 pm. I know... let's see... Friday after 5 pm. Not the best time in case something goes wrong!

Yup, you guessed it, no prescription was available for mom's two pain meds. The pharmacist said since they are a narcotic the doctor cannot call the prescription in to the pharmacist. A prescription has to be hand written and then handed to the pharmacist. Great. Just great. Why hasn't someone mentioned this to me before?

I don't know who dropped the ball. Did the nurse call or fax all the prescriptions to the pharmacist and he neglected to tell either the nurse or call my mom to explain the pain med prescriptions had to be hand delivered? Or did he tell the nurse who then neglected to tell us to come pick up the written pain med prescriptions?

At any rate I couldn't get mom's pain meds filled. I had the pharmacist call the doctor's clinic office but he got no answer. I drove across town to the clinic and found no one there except for the cleaning crew and people in the clinic's pharmacy. *argh!*

Mom's percacet pain med will last through Monday but her oxycodone med lasted only through Saturday.

I don't think these pain meds are all that great anyway, but the pharmacist claims people on the street will pay lots of money for these meds in order to get high. I think they are idiots. Unfortunately the government then places all these restrictions on the meds and innocent people in pain have to suffer.

On Monday I also need to talk with the doctor in an effort to get generic versions of some of the meds. The Medicare Drug prescription plan mom has categorized meds into three tiers:

1. generic
2. preferred
3. non-preferred

I am not sure the difference between preferred and non-preferred except non-preferred meds must be newer and therefore more expensive. The higher the tier the less the drug plan pays and the more you pay. Generics you pay $4. Preferred: $25 and Non-Preferred: $54.

Naturally one wants to pay less money and use generics. But generics are not available for all meds. So for the meds without a generic equivalent, why should the drug plan make a person pay more than the generic price? It's not like mom has a choice of what to take. I can understand later placing the med in a higher tier when a cheaper generic becomes available as this would be an incentive for everyone to use the cheaper med. Then the patient can choose to pay for for the med they want.

I found there are different meds for the same symptom and one version has a generic equivalent and another doesn't. Some of mom's meds fall into this category. While the meds seem to be the same, only a doctor can change them. The pharmacist can say Crestor and Zocor are used for the same thing and while Zocor has a generic, mom needs the doctor to change the prescription from Crestor to Zocor.

More work for me on Monday.