I'm a technician at my pharmacy I work at (its a retail chain) and I often find myself being the only person actually trying to help a customer out with a prescription cost. Mainly with name brand prescription drugs like crestor, tradjenta, viagra, lunesta, azor, etc..... Most of the people who take these are older and have medicare or some sort of HMO from medicare and for the most part their prescriptions are covered for a good amount of the cost, but then they fall into the dreaded donut hole. "Oh hi sir, coming to get you Tradjenta? Ok it will be $265. Patient: WHATTTT? I paid $15 for the last 6 months?"
This happens all the time around this time of year. My store has a decent size retired population clientele. So I often try to help them out by getting some manufacture coupons for them since most require you to sign up online or call which most retired people in their late 60s (not trying to discriminate) do not know how to access the internet. So I often let them know I will try to take care of it for them. Usually at work I will be Googling or registering them as I am doing my other tasks. I've been addressed several times by the lead tech and a Pharmacist that I should stop wasting time on re-billing and just move on to the next thing. I'm never doing it in front of any other customers, only when I'm fixing any insurance issues with other scripts, on the phone with insurances or waiting for a customer on the phone to stop rambling on about how they need there Adderall 5 days early cause they are going to Europe tomorrow and during some downtime in the graveyard shifts.
I find that helping a customer to save as much money on a medication as possible goes a lot farther to help keep them coming back to your store than just smiling and addressing them by their name lol. I have noticed recently that some of our customers have asked for me on my days off to help them with their prescriptions and would come by another day when I was working or heard from a family or friend that they were paying X amount for a medication before but are now only paying Z amount because I took some time to help them out. Made me feel a bit more appreciated at work by the customers.
Recently I had a regular customer that I often see each month come to our drive-thru. First time ringing him up, got his prescriptions, saw they were his 4th fills of those medications and saw the prices for each. Crestor was $165 billed to only the manufacturer card, Nexium $118 billed to insurance but with no discount card on it, and Jamunet was $273 billed to RX discount card with no discount card on it. I addressed him about these issues and he was shocked. He thought each one was being billed to his insurance and that he just hasn't met his deductible yet. I check the history for the 3 prescriptions and since January he was paying these prices! That's about $2600 that didn't go towards his deductible. He was extremely mad about finding this out and that no one ever mentioned it to him and wanted the corporates number. I gave it to him and also said I will apply his insurance and the coupons to those scripts. I ran his crestor through and was rejected and required a prior authorization on it. I told him that and again he was shocked no one told him that it was needed. I billed it temporarily to a RX discount card and the manufactures coupon and brought it down to $131, applied the nexium card and got it to $68 and got him a free month of Janumet with the online coupon and he will be saving $100 each month on that as well with the voucher and being billed to his insurance brings it down to $48 a month. He was very thankful that I caught that and told him about it and the coupons. He said he would call the corporate line and complain about this issue but would also tell them my name and that I was the only person to notify and help him with this situation.
I don't mind taking sometime to help someone save a few bucks especially when they are on a limited budget and I enjoy seeing their reaction when they see the difference in prices. I just get annoyed that I'm being yelled at for doing my job which is to help the customer.
Well that's my rant for the day. Anyone else feel the same about this as I do?
This happens all the time around this time of year. My store has a decent size retired population clientele. So I often try to help them out by getting some manufacture coupons for them since most require you to sign up online or call which most retired people in their late 60s (not trying to discriminate) do not know how to access the internet. So I often let them know I will try to take care of it for them. Usually at work I will be Googling or registering them as I am doing my other tasks. I've been addressed several times by the lead tech and a Pharmacist that I should stop wasting time on re-billing and just move on to the next thing. I'm never doing it in front of any other customers, only when I'm fixing any insurance issues with other scripts, on the phone with insurances or waiting for a customer on the phone to stop rambling on about how they need there Adderall 5 days early cause they are going to Europe tomorrow and during some downtime in the graveyard shifts.
I find that helping a customer to save as much money on a medication as possible goes a lot farther to help keep them coming back to your store than just smiling and addressing them by their name lol. I have noticed recently that some of our customers have asked for me on my days off to help them with their prescriptions and would come by another day when I was working or heard from a family or friend that they were paying X amount for a medication before but are now only paying Z amount because I took some time to help them out. Made me feel a bit more appreciated at work by the customers.
Recently I had a regular customer that I often see each month come to our drive-thru. First time ringing him up, got his prescriptions, saw they were his 4th fills of those medications and saw the prices for each. Crestor was $165 billed to only the manufacturer card, Nexium $118 billed to insurance but with no discount card on it, and Jamunet was $273 billed to RX discount card with no discount card on it. I addressed him about these issues and he was shocked. He thought each one was being billed to his insurance and that he just hasn't met his deductible yet. I check the history for the 3 prescriptions and since January he was paying these prices! That's about $2600 that didn't go towards his deductible. He was extremely mad about finding this out and that no one ever mentioned it to him and wanted the corporates number. I gave it to him and also said I will apply his insurance and the coupons to those scripts. I ran his crestor through and was rejected and required a prior authorization on it. I told him that and again he was shocked no one told him that it was needed. I billed it temporarily to a RX discount card and the manufactures coupon and brought it down to $131, applied the nexium card and got it to $68 and got him a free month of Janumet with the online coupon and he will be saving $100 each month on that as well with the voucher and being billed to his insurance brings it down to $48 a month. He was very thankful that I caught that and told him about it and the coupons. He said he would call the corporate line and complain about this issue but would also tell them my name and that I was the only person to notify and help him with this situation.
I don't mind taking sometime to help someone save a few bucks especially when they are on a limited budget and I enjoy seeing their reaction when they see the difference in prices. I just get annoyed that I'm being yelled at for doing my job which is to help the customer.
Well that's my rant for the day. Anyone else feel the same about this as I do?
