Which is funny, my drive thru pharmacy logic, always went there for the drive thru yet when I shop anywhere I park far away and walk for the exercise and so no one can ding my car. Cause people love to hit your car with carts and their doors when you park close to a store, but that's a rant for another day. So, yeah. I found out at the last minute.
But at this point I had already started switching my prescriptions and my daughter's inhaler prescription before that phone call, a couple weeks before as a matter of fact, which brings me to my daughter's inhaler. She's been on the Flovent inhaler for about three years now. And the interesting story to her inhaler goes like this...
Back in 2017, the end of winter that year, we all got a "cold" that for everyone else was a cold but within just TWO DAYS went straight to her lungs. One minute she was fine, went to school on Friday fine, then the next she had cough, sneezing, fever, and she's wheezing in a matter of two days by Sunday. Sound familiar? Hmm.
So anyhow, she was almost hospitalized but the hospital sent her home to use a nebulizer and take a steroid and an antibiotic. She got better, then was fine. Never had breathing issues before nor after till the following winter of 2018 when she got again, a cold, that went straight to her lungs. Again for everyone else in the home it was just a little cold. Her twin barely got sick and she was sick first.
But for this poor girl it went straight to her lungs, so her pediatrician decided to put her on an inhaler as prevention and diagnosed her with asthma triggered by upper respiratory infections. She's been doing great on this inhaler and she has albuterol as backup which she rarely needs, only if she's sick, which isn't often.
So we found out around the same time that Fidelis was no longer covering her inhaler too. Oh, I take that back. We found that out FIRST. That's when I started to make my switch over to CVS with her inhaler. So that was first and it was a slap in the face. I went into Walgreens to pick up her inhaler after receiving a text notification that it was ready for pickup, and then found out it wasn't covered and the lady was rude about it acting like I hadn't been in there every month before that for the same script.
So I went home and made phone calls and found out what had happened. They stopped covering it WITH NO WARNING to people who used the inhaler. So I contacted her doctor to see what their thoughts were on the new inhaler they did cover and felt reassured that we could make the switch to the other inhaler they were now covering. Make the switch and she immediately notices a difference in the way it tastes after and how it makes her feel.
But her doctor and the pharmacy assured me it was just as good. So now it's been two months and I'm just gonna start paying out of pocket every month for her Flovent because I'd rather pay for something that helps her then have her on something that doesn't help her that the insurance covers.
How sad? But it's okay, I hear goodrx.com has coupons and my daughter is worth it . . . Just wanted to vent about that. So dirty to do to people especially people with asthma during COVID. And there's a lot of elderly people that go to Walgreens for their scripts. I wonder how many of them found out at the last minute too that they no longer accepted Fidelis.
Oh, and I had literally just switched from Empire Blue Cross to Fidelis for myself effective . . . January 1st BECAUSE more people in my area accept that than the Empire. Can I win here? Oh well. Am I surprised? Not even close. And I know a picture of candy for a post about pharmacies and health insurance is silly, but I just liked it better than the boring RX picture I found for free. 🧐😂
With Love,
Carmen
