There is a Medicare rule that requires your Part D (which is prescriptions only) provider to now call you before they send out your medications.

Many of these Part D providers also require, or at least push for you, the patient, to purchase your medications through the mail. The insurance provider wants you to have your doctor order these medications directly from them and then the magical pharmacy in the sky sends the medications to your home.

This process has its ups and downs. On the up side, your medications are delivered directly to your door. For many a senior, ill person, or caregiver, this is a blessing. Nothing is more delightful than not having to go to the pharmacy a million times a month for meds that run out at random intervals.

However, often our elder parents, aunts, and friends are frustrated by their inability to have that paper prescription in their hot little hands, take it to Phil, the Pharmacist, and go home knowing they have the correct meds as confirmed by Phil, and they don’t have to wait days or weeks to see the meds they need.

Now that Medicare has added this ‘protective’ provision that your insurance company must call you on the phone and confirm that you or your doctor ordered this medication, that you actually want the medication and that you wish it to be sent to you in a 90 day supply, another fun-filled element has been added to the mix.

So for me, it goes like this.

My brother-in-law struggles a bit with the phone, pays no attention to his meds anyway, and has for 5 years, relinquished any responsibility for anything. So, I leave a message at my brother-in-law’s doctor’s office requesting they order the medication.

I get 2 or 3 emails from the Part D insurance company confirming that a mysterious prescription has been ordered. They can’t put the name of the drug in the email, so I have to go to the Part D website to see if the correct drug has been ordered. My brother-in-law takes 40 pills a day. So I have to wade through the list to make sure all is correct.

Then Part D Insurance Company calls you on the phone. I never know when this call is coming. If I  miss the call, I put the process behind until I can respond. Now, for all of you who may need acting lessons in the future, I was a theater major in college for a bit, and I will be giving lessons. Now.

When the caller asks you if you are your brother-in-law, drop your voice three octaves and mumble a reply that sounds something like, “Yus.” You’re only talking to a machine, never a real person. Every other question, as his Power of Attorney, I have answered a million times, so I have the answers. But remember mumbling and voice alteration are your friends.

You will be pleased with the results when they conclude the call telling you your drugs are on the way! Just in case you don’t remember this conversation, they send you yet another 2 or 3 emails to confirm that the mysterious drugs, whose names shall not be mentioned in an email, will be delivered shortly.

You’re welcome, and remember all my caregiving thespians….

“You just have to Laugh…..” but don’t do it while mumbling and dropping your voice a few octaves.

©2014 Cathy Sikorski