California WC patients

[KL Aguilar]

They have been sitting on authorization for Celebrex and a writst brace for me for several weeks; they have done this to me numerous times.

[mmglobal]

I hear stuff like this all the time and I'm completely baffled... how can they do this. If they are putting a block on your medications, why should you have to discover it by having a refill refused before the start of a holiday weekend... why wouldn't they tell you?

These situations are so very frustrating... If there is justice in this world, the people who perpetrate this will have to suffer a huge taste of this themselves.

Mark

[Maria]

What I don't get is how they can block refills (probably en masse) and then not worry about potential damage this might do to a patient should they be entirely out of a med while waiting over a long holiday.

I don't wait until I'm at the last pill before refilling but usually the last week's worth. This time I didn't realize I was down to about 10 pills or roughly 3 days worth. Never had any prob with refillng my Neurontin (Methadone yes as authorization was removed for that cold turkey once by UR but restored by the Risk Manager when I brought it to their attention that I'd end up in detox if they didn't restore the script auth).

Just as a side note, I asked about Methadone OTC in TJ and they said they had it and it would be $8 for 120. That's what I would pay here if I had to pay but I don't. Still it blew me away that it's OTC there.

This block may have been just a computer input error but at least it would have been decent to get an explanation.

I don't like to wish ill upon anyone however one of these days I hope any of the buttheads working for WC that think the patients are losers/users/abusers of the system or any meds have to deal with some sort of related hardship such as this themselves. It's unfortunate but I believe that's the only way anyone would really *feel* what patients actually go thru.

ok, my rant is over. thanks for replies.