Freaking nightmare working with GI's nurses and specialty pharmacy

I am SO over dealing with my GI's incompetent nurses and now dealing with incompetence at the Walgreens specialty pharmacy who is supposed to be getting me started on Remicade. it's now been weeks and the hold-up wasn't just my insurance. It was mostly incompetence and nurses messing up and not listening to me or my messages. Soooo over this. Walgreens promised me last week that I'd be able to get my first infusion this week. Well, then I heard nothing from them, so I called them back last night and they had to re-take down all the co-pay assistance info. I already gave them. Oh, at first my doctor's nurse kept trying to go through CVS, despite me telling her that wasn't my in-network pharmacy. She kept telling me my co-pay would be $1,000! Well, it's really $200, and with the assistance program (that I had to find out about myself; the nurse was zero help), it's only $5. I could go on and on about how rude they've been and how much they've messed up. Just wanted to vent here!

I'm going to call Walgreens again today because I still haven't heard back from them. They said they were just waiting on their financial department to apply the copay assistance program for me. They also told me they had marked it as "urgent." Well, It's been a week now and I was told it would take less than a day. I am starting to go off on people which I know is not helpful, but how incompetent and unhelpful can these medical "professionals" be?

Sara, I’m a little confused. Remicade is given by an IV, dosage is weight based. I’m not sure how Walgreens is involved. It’s administered either by a home health nurse, out patient at a hospital or infusion center.

My infusions were done at the hospital & the pharmacy mixed it up once they got my weight.

WOW, I was actually going to post the same thing today. I am going on 7 weeks of arguing. 1st my GI nurse quit without submitting the paperwork. Then the new girl is about as dumb as a door nail. My doctor also wanted to use CVS, but its out of network so i was forsed to use Walgreens, which he fought me on (now I kinda agree and wonder if paying out of network would be worth it). Ive given my insurance info to Walgreen 3 times along with the Entyvio Connect info. Insurance finally approved it, but then the doc office forgot to submit paper work to the infusion lab for the script to be shipped out. I finally got a supervisor for Walgreens yesterday who promised me she will be calling my doctor and infusion lab to get everything worked out by the end of the week. I am at my wits end with everyone at this point. I pay way to much in insurance to been dealing with this crap. Best of luck, I hope you get everything worked out soon.

So to clear up a little when I say pharmacy it is Walgreens specialty pharmacy (Alliance, i believe, but its easier to remember Walgreens since Ins and doc office use that naming) Keep fighting the good fight Sara, be the squeaky wheel, call everyone, be annoying. Your doctor, the Pharmacy, and your insurance escalate to managers, they will get sick of hearing from you eventually. I hated it, but I finally got someone from Walgreens of all of them, who cared enough to make it happen. I was at 3 - 5 calls a day. As of today my appointments are finally set, but with kids starting school, I have to push them back and cant start until until Aug 9th.

Good luck! There is a light somewhere.

MarkWithIBD said...
I've had a few nice nurses over the years here and there, but on the whole they're not very bright.

I COMPLETELY agree.

straydog and others -- Walgreens specialty pharmacy has to ship the Remicade to an infusion center or hospital. I have Blue Cross Blue Shield Federal insurance and they are my in-network specialty pharmacy, so I had no choice but to go through them if I didn't want a $1,000 co-pay. Perhaps it's different with different insurance but I have no idea on that.

imagardener -- I feel the exact same way as you. I am definitely a squeaky wheel and usually ask to speak to managers. I haven't done the manager thing yet with Walgreens, but will keep that in mind if this goes on more than a few more days. The last lady I spoke to was really nice and apologetic. There is no way this should have stretched out this long. My insurance approved it on July 8 (and I believe it only took that long because my doctor's office dragged their feet on everything).

Dodgegirl -- OMG, I'm sorry you are going through the same situation! I had the same thought at one point, wondering if I should have just stuck with CVS since I'll be using the Remicade co-pay assistance program anyway to lower my co-pay to $5 (which my doctor's office didn't even know about and thankfully Walgreens told me about it when I said I was super confused why my co-pay was so high when last year, it was only going to be $5 when my doctor's office planned to start me on Inflectra...I think the old nurse set everything up for me, including the co-pay assistance program, without me even asking. My old GI's nurse was really on the ball). I hope everything works out for you this week!

Question to anyone on Remicade, if anyone sees this: Is my doctor supposed to be putting me on Imuran or something similar along with the Remicade to help prevent me from developing antibodies? I feel like I've read that here before, but he did not put me on it.

Ok, thank you! I was hoping you'd see this question. I have had almost no discussion with him about Remicade.

Sara, thanks for clearing up the Walgreens thing. What a mess you are having to deal with with. I dealt with the specialty pharmacy when I was put on Humira.

My gi had a standing thing of all patients going on Imuran when Remicade & Humira was involved. Some drs do & some don't.

I had a reaction to Remicade on the 3rd infusion. My dr said that was not uncommon at all. They stopped the infusion immediately & gave me IV Benadryl, Soluable Medrol & slowed the infusion rate down. From then on this was done every 4 weeks & I never had any issues. The only issue was I needed a driver, infusion started at 7:30 & I was finished at 2:30, it was a long day. I slept through the infusion.I didn't care because it worked for me.

Take something to drink, a snack & something to entertain yourself with.

Apparently, the filter changes sh***y to "crapty." Lol.

I understand. "Crapty" just made me chuckle. I figured it would just put asterisks in.

No, the nurses have definitely been at fault for all the incompetent "care" they've been giving me. They kept telling me CVS was the pharmacy for me to go through, despite CVS calling me a month ago after the nurse's apparently put the Remicade order through despite it not even being approved by insurance yet (the nurses told me they never did this but then how did CVS call me to set up my Remicade infusions then...?). CVS informed me on that initial call that they weren't my in-network provider and that Walgreens is. So, I immediately left a voicemail informing the doctor's office of this. I left this information in numerous voicemails and they either weren't paying attention or something because they never addressed this and kept insisting that CVS is "who they always go through" and that my co-pay would be $1,000 and that there is nothing I can do about that. They were rude and incompetent. Then, then also called to tell me they were waiting on insurance because I needed a TB test and that they would ask my doctor to order one. I had already gotten my TB test 2 weeks prior to that message. Do they just not even look at my chart AND not listen to any of my messages or what? After weeks of this crap and them taking days to return my calls, only to have them have all my information messed up when they do call and/or ignoring important facts and questions I had asked when they did call, and them repeatedly calling me on my work cell, which is not the number I ever told them to call me on, that is when I decided to start communicating in writing to them through their office's online portal, which I assumed would go directly to my actual doctor. The nurses I have been dealing with suck. The office manager, when I finally got her on the phone, proceeded to question me and seemed like she was saying I was lying and never received a call from CVS and that I was wrong about actual reality. I felt like i was being gaslighted. Trust me, I don't just blame people who aren't to blame or get angry over nothing. I expect very basic care, like getting my lab results correct, calling me back within a day or two, actually listening to my voicemails, etc... And I already gave them the correct number for the pharmacy. And the pharmacy has called THEM and left their number. I don't know what else I can do and I really shouldn't have had to do any of this. I should be getting paid their salary for the time i spent doing their jobs.

Be a hornet in their ear until they get it settled. You hate to be a pain in their rear-end, but frankly, it's a major pain within YOUR rear-end until you get your meds approved and administered

Left a message yesterday and heard nothing. Called again today and asked when my doctor's next available appointment is and they told me January! (I have an appointment scheduled for mid-November but at this rate, I thought it might be faster to just go in and have them call Walgreens while I'm sitting there!) Then I tried asking the scheduler if she could get a nurse on the phone for me, told her my situation and she said "I don't know anything about that. I'm just a scheduler and can't help you." You work in the same office as them. Walk your butt over there and at least try to get someone on the phone for me. Then she also told me "We are very busy and have a lot of patients." I realize that but this is some of the worst care I've ever received from nurses, and in my 12 years with a chronic illness, I've dealt with A LOT of different doctor's offices and nurses.

Ok, a nurse just called me back and said: "I heard that you called. I don't know what you need." !!! Then I explain it all to her and she says "well it looks like it's been faxed so I don't know what the issue is" and places me on hold. I have no idea what she is even referring to -- I'm guess a fax that was sent to the hospital because I saw they faxed my Remicade instructions to the hospital even though nothing has been shipped. Literally all they need to do is call Walgreens and have it shipped and Walgreens has called them twice and I've told them this at least 4 times now. She says "we don't have any record of them calling." Well, that's funny because Walgreens has records of it and I even have an email record of telling them myself that Walgreens left a voicemail for them. ***. I don't get how they are not understanding or doing it. I explain all of that again, as nicely as I can, and she says "well, this other nurse has been dealing with this and she's out right now; I'll discuss it with her when she gets back." I again tell her that all she has to do is call the pharmacy and I give her the number. She says she will call. I'm not holding my breath. She gave me no apologies or nice words or anything. Maybe they should all get this disease and then they would actually be capable of showing some empathy. I'm over this.