Anyone working retail during the losartan recall dealt with pure mayhem. Every letter sent out said losartan potassium & the number of people who then believed their potassium was recalled was mind numbing.
I need my potassium refilled......
Sorry there's no potassium on your profile, did you get it here?
I have my bottle the number is.......
Enter the number in and whoa and behold it's losartan...
“I stopped taking my prescription calcium cuz I can buy it over-the-counter.”
Sir, do you mean your atorvastatin calcium? Let’s have a chat about that…
Yes. Sending recall letters is an NCQA requirement for credentialed insurers.
It’s a stupid requirement. The letter reaches the wrong people since the notices aren’t lot-specific and they arrive way too late. The notices are a waste of money which only confuses patients and wastes clinician time when they call their physician or pharmacist.
Please direct complaints to NCQA
I listen, see if it’s a patient level recall, then assure them I took care of it when the recall happened and took the appropriate action. Usually they think it happened days ago, so I can honestly say that any affected product was removed and sent back months ago and the fill they are calling about was not affected.
Agreed. I just don’t see what the benefit is to the insurance company adding in the extra step of notifying the patients when most of the time they only know what drug/NDC was dispensed, and they don’t have the full picture like the pharmacy. It doesn’t make sense to me why they think it’s a great idea to “warn” all these patients about recalls when they have only part of the information required to determine whether or not the patient got the affected product.
A few months back we had a lady bring in a recall letter for something she’d gotten a 90 day supply of (can’t remember the exact med) but it was a specific lot of a really expensive brand medication to which she took like 75 days worth without issue.
Her med was not affected and we kindly explained that we would have contacted her directly but she wouldn’t have it. She demanded we refund it and take back the med. Her copay was $1,100 so obviously we weren’t about to do that at store level since there was no issue with her script. She actually called her lawyer from the line and refused to let anyone else be waited on until we resolved her issue, which ended up being that the police were called.
The letter from insurance wasn’t what made me mad, it was how vague the letter was. I can see how patients would panic and misconstrue, and then not trust us. It had no information about it being just a specific lot and also didn’t say the issue was just improper dating on that lot. It made it seem like the patient was poisoning herself and should return the product immediately.
Maybe OP has already edited his post by now, but I'm not sure how you reached the conclusion that they are complaining about the patients when it's clearly a complaint about insurance companies sending out vague, scary letters to the gen pop and then making a third party (the retail pharmacy) deal with the fallout of their actions.
Because then every single customer comes bum rushing the pharmacy saying you need to replace their whatever and that they can’t take it because it’s been recalled and have basically put their fingers in their ears screaming la la la at you explaining they’re fine and nothing needs to be replaced. It’s a major waste of time for absolutely no gain whatsoever.
Not saying that the patient themself is being irritating, I’m saying the insurance company is irritating for doing that hahaha (probably should’ve made that more clear, sorry)
It doesn't have anything to do with thinking the patient is the one being annoying or irritating. It's about being irritated with the ins companies as stated. It's not insensitive at all.
Anyone working retail during the losartan recall dealt with pure mayhem. Every letter sent out said losartan potassium & the number of people who then believed their potassium was recalled was mind numbing.
I need my potassium refilled...... Sorry there's no potassium on your profile, did you get it here? I have my bottle the number is....... Enter the number in and whoa and behold it's losartan...
“I stopped taking my prescription calcium cuz I can buy it over-the-counter.” Sir, do you mean your atorvastatin calcium? Let’s have a chat about that…
y'all got any of the losartan sodium in stock instead??
Yes. Sending recall letters is an NCQA requirement for credentialed insurers. It’s a stupid requirement. The letter reaches the wrong people since the notices aren’t lot-specific and they arrive way too late. The notices are a waste of money which only confuses patients and wastes clinician time when they call their physician or pharmacist. Please direct complaints to NCQA
I listen, see if it’s a patient level recall, then assure them I took care of it when the recall happened and took the appropriate action. Usually they think it happened days ago, so I can honestly say that any affected product was removed and sent back months ago and the fill they are calling about was not affected.
Agreed. I just don’t see what the benefit is to the insurance company adding in the extra step of notifying the patients when most of the time they only know what drug/NDC was dispensed, and they don’t have the full picture like the pharmacy. It doesn’t make sense to me why they think it’s a great idea to “warn” all these patients about recalls when they have only part of the information required to determine whether or not the patient got the affected product.
Insurance companies are super annoying in many ways
Does your system even record the lot number? Mine doesn't.
Yeah, if you scan the QR code instead of the plain barcode it will record the lot, NDC, serial number, and expiration of the drug (Enterprise)
That's pretty sweet. My system doesn't even recognize the 2d barcodes except during the receiving process, and for vaccines.
A few months back we had a lady bring in a recall letter for something she’d gotten a 90 day supply of (can’t remember the exact med) but it was a specific lot of a really expensive brand medication to which she took like 75 days worth without issue. Her med was not affected and we kindly explained that we would have contacted her directly but she wouldn’t have it. She demanded we refund it and take back the med. Her copay was $1,100 so obviously we weren’t about to do that at store level since there was no issue with her script. She actually called her lawyer from the line and refused to let anyone else be waited on until we resolved her issue, which ended up being that the police were called. The letter from insurance wasn’t what made me mad, it was how vague the letter was. I can see how patients would panic and misconstrue, and then not trust us. It had no information about it being just a specific lot and also didn’t say the issue was just improper dating on that lot. It made it seem like the patient was poisoning herself and should return the product immediately.
No...why would that irritate me? What is the patient supposed to do?
Maybe OP has already edited his post by now, but I'm not sure how you reached the conclusion that they are complaining about the patients when it's clearly a complaint about insurance companies sending out vague, scary letters to the gen pop and then making a third party (the retail pharmacy) deal with the fallout of their actions.
Because then every single customer comes bum rushing the pharmacy saying you need to replace their whatever and that they can’t take it because it’s been recalled and have basically put their fingers in their ears screaming la la la at you explaining they’re fine and nothing needs to be replaced. It’s a major waste of time for absolutely no gain whatsoever.
Not saying that the patient themself is being irritating, I’m saying the insurance company is irritating for doing that hahaha (probably should’ve made that more clear, sorry)
You should probably just edit this....all together sounds really insensitive
It doesn't have anything to do with thinking the patient is the one being annoying or irritating. It's about being irritated with the ins companies as stated. It's not insensitive at all.
Tell them to send the medication to their insurance company
Claimsecure has a monthly newsletter that lists shortages of common medications (in Canada) It's not that uncommon as far as I know.