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When saving a buck is just stupid
Sep. 6th, 2012 10:06 amWork has a new scheme to save themselves some money. Unsurprisingly, the ones impacted the most are the employees.
See, their insurance provider has recently hit on a great new deal. For them. Instead of giving us semi-decent coverage on any medications we purchase, they've decided to make a couple of tweaks. Now, I'll grant you, so far the most detail I've heard about this is via angry rumours from coworkers, but what little official release info I've been given from management backs this up, so until I hear otherwise, I'm going with it.
Previously, we could get our prescriptions written, take them to the nearest pharmacy, have that pharmacy put our insurance info on file, and walk out with our meds 15-30 minutes later. Standard deal. Now, they've decided that pfft, fuck that whole "ease of access" shit, we're going to do it our way!
Now, the idea is that instead of walking out of the doctor's office with a prescription in hand, we get our doctors to fax the scrip to the company's central dispensing agency. Who fills the order, and then sends the medication to us via FedEx within 24 hours.
Where do I start with the logistics problems?
First of all, while people might be able to convince their family doctors to adhere to this scheme, it'll be a royal pain in the ass to convince doctors who work at the local after hours clinic. Or the urgent care department of the hospital. Or the emergency department of the hospital. Those guys have enough to do without the added annoyance of making sure stuff gets faxed on time.
Second, I have to trust that the fax will get from person A, properly through the lines without error, and then that Person B on the other end will do their job. This is all out of sight from me. Doctors get busy and forget stuff, and I'm betting that some scrips will get forgotten when the patient's not right in front of them. And I refuse to be a jerk and stand around until I see them fax it to the correct number, because everyone at the hospital has better things to do.
Third, FedEx packages have to be signed for. I CANNOT SIGN FOR MY PACKAGE WHEN I'M AT WORK AND NOT AT HOME! I can have the package delivered to work, sure, but all they can guarantee me is that it will arrive within 24 hours, and there's no guarantee that I'm going to be at work when the package gets delivered. I can, in theory, set it up so that someone on site can sign for the package, but even aside from the logistics problems of not knowing who the hell's going to be onsite at any given time, with the track record that place has had, I don't trust a single damn one of them to sign for important medications.
No, you see, I much prefer being able to walk 10 minutes to the pharmacy down the street to pick up my medication rather than waiting for it to be shipped from halfway across the country because the company I work for is more concerned with saving a couple of dollars rather than actually providing decent employee coverage. This smacks of a skeezy mail-order med scheme, and I don't trust it, let alone like it.
So I want to know if I can opt out. I'm currently paying a little over $50 a month for coverage, and yes, while that does include vision and dental coverage too, I use those rarely enough that they're not hard to save up for and pay on my own. (Besides, at this rate they're likely to tell me I have to get new glasses shipping from a dispensing company too after my optometrist faxes them the strength details...) Depending on how much coverage I actually get, if I can keep my medical expenses under about $75 a month (hard, but doable, depending on the month), then I'll be just as well off by getting rid of the ridiculous policy than if I kept it. Hell, even if I end up losing $10 a month by opting out, I'll be tempted to anyway, just as a protest to tell them that they can't con people so easily with their bullshit money-saving ideas.
And with that, I'm going to play 15 minutes of Dark Summoner and then go to work. At my supper break today, my week will be half over, and I can look forward to my weekend.
See, their insurance provider has recently hit on a great new deal. For them. Instead of giving us semi-decent coverage on any medications we purchase, they've decided to make a couple of tweaks. Now, I'll grant you, so far the most detail I've heard about this is via angry rumours from coworkers, but what little official release info I've been given from management backs this up, so until I hear otherwise, I'm going with it.
Previously, we could get our prescriptions written, take them to the nearest pharmacy, have that pharmacy put our insurance info on file, and walk out with our meds 15-30 minutes later. Standard deal. Now, they've decided that pfft, fuck that whole "ease of access" shit, we're going to do it our way!
Now, the idea is that instead of walking out of the doctor's office with a prescription in hand, we get our doctors to fax the scrip to the company's central dispensing agency. Who fills the order, and then sends the medication to us via FedEx within 24 hours.
Where do I start with the logistics problems?
First of all, while people might be able to convince their family doctors to adhere to this scheme, it'll be a royal pain in the ass to convince doctors who work at the local after hours clinic. Or the urgent care department of the hospital. Or the emergency department of the hospital. Those guys have enough to do without the added annoyance of making sure stuff gets faxed on time.
Second, I have to trust that the fax will get from person A, properly through the lines without error, and then that Person B on the other end will do their job. This is all out of sight from me. Doctors get busy and forget stuff, and I'm betting that some scrips will get forgotten when the patient's not right in front of them. And I refuse to be a jerk and stand around until I see them fax it to the correct number, because everyone at the hospital has better things to do.
Third, FedEx packages have to be signed for. I CANNOT SIGN FOR MY PACKAGE WHEN I'M AT WORK AND NOT AT HOME! I can have the package delivered to work, sure, but all they can guarantee me is that it will arrive within 24 hours, and there's no guarantee that I'm going to be at work when the package gets delivered. I can, in theory, set it up so that someone on site can sign for the package, but even aside from the logistics problems of not knowing who the hell's going to be onsite at any given time, with the track record that place has had, I don't trust a single damn one of them to sign for important medications.
No, you see, I much prefer being able to walk 10 minutes to the pharmacy down the street to pick up my medication rather than waiting for it to be shipped from halfway across the country because the company I work for is more concerned with saving a couple of dollars rather than actually providing decent employee coverage. This smacks of a skeezy mail-order med scheme, and I don't trust it, let alone like it.
So I want to know if I can opt out. I'm currently paying a little over $50 a month for coverage, and yes, while that does include vision and dental coverage too, I use those rarely enough that they're not hard to save up for and pay on my own. (Besides, at this rate they're likely to tell me I have to get new glasses shipping from a dispensing company too after my optometrist faxes them the strength details...) Depending on how much coverage I actually get, if I can keep my medical expenses under about $75 a month (hard, but doable, depending on the month), then I'll be just as well off by getting rid of the ridiculous policy than if I kept it. Hell, even if I end up losing $10 a month by opting out, I'll be tempted to anyway, just as a protest to tell them that they can't con people so easily with their bullshit money-saving ideas.
And with that, I'm going to play 15 minutes of Dark Summoner and then go to work. At my supper break today, my week will be half over, and I can look forward to my weekend.
