I work for a hospital, and I think all of my readers know that. With that being the case, our employee insurance requires us to use the hospital’s mail in pharmacy to fill all prescriptions. That pharmacy is run by corporate, and they suck royal donkey balls.
I am a diabetic and have been taking Mounjaro for the past year. In order to get the drug, you need to get approval. To get that approval, you need to prove that you have tried other remedies for at least a year, and that those remedies failed. I met that requirement, as I have been a diabetic for over 15 years, have taken those other medications, and they no longer work. So it was approved, but it took weeks.
This pharmacy sends prescriptions 90 days at a time. When it is time to refill that prescription, it’s always a hassle. You would think that a pharmacy owned by a hospital would be decent, but it isn’t. I suspect that this is because they are trying to control costs at the expense of their employees. Let me explain:
Now, every time I go to refill, there is always an issue. They claim that they are out of Mounjaro, and try to convince me to switch to being an insulin dependent diabetic. I know how fragile diabetics are once they go on insulin, so I always have to fight them on it. The first time, they blamed it on a supply shortage caused by people using it as a weight loss drug. So this time, I ordered the refill a month ago.
It wasn’t filled because they had an issue with my credit card over the $25 copay. I corrected that, and now they are saying that the medication is out of stock. I just took my last dose, and my next one is due in six days. Since it must be shipped to me, it has to ship by Friday. Any bets on whether or not they make it? Assholes.
It’s complete bullshit. My last hospital required us to use the in hospital lab for all of our lab work, and I suspected that they were doing that so the bosses could see your medical history.
If you have a problem with modern healthcare, it shouldn’t be with the actual workers. The administrative bean counters are the problem.
10 Comments
Michael · April 23, 2024 at 9:05 am
I hate to be the one to tell you, but the administrative bean counters are actual workers too. The problems is they think they know how to do health care. They don’t. They know profits and losses and their philosophy of profits over product drive good health care into the ground. The bean counters don’t care. They have a large portion of their health market cornered and what else are people going to do, not go to the hospital? Look into homeopathy and herbal medicine. It’s been around a whole lot longer than western medicine and billions of people use it to great effect.
Divemedic · April 23, 2024 at 9:56 am
In every workplace that I have ever been at, the admin people seem to think that the workers who actually produce something are there to support administration, rather than the other way around. It’s the tail wagging the dog.
I am not saying that the admin people aren’t working, but the work that they are doing isn’t supporting the mission. What you are doing is semantics. Let me guess- you work in admin?
Michael · April 23, 2024 at 12:57 pm
Nope. I’m now joyfully retired. 30 years in public safety and damned glad to be out of the system. I was a line officer on a fire rig for 17 of my 30 years. I was an Engine man. You know, the thinking ones in the fire service. No size 12 boots with a size 3 hat on my rigs. Anyway…
I do have a degree in Business Administration. I thought it might be handy someday. I was wrong. While pursuing my degree, I realized how messed up the business mindset really is. It’s driven by profits and loses and nothing more. A bean counter looks at Capital, assets, debits, losses, how to minimize a companies tax burden and things like depreciation of said assets. People don’t figure into the mix. It’s sad, for as you stated, it’s the people that make the business. It’s also the same people, the ones on the front lines, that can make or break a business.
Divemedic · April 23, 2024 at 1:34 pm
So you understand. Far too often, Fire Admin acted like we were there to support them.
Michael · April 23, 2024 at 1:54 pm
Not much has changed since you left the fire service. There are those of us that do the job for the love of the work and the satisfaction of being there to help a person in their worst moments. Then, there are those that do the job so they can thump their chest and show off their pretty medals and dirty bunking gear. I always aspired to be the quiet professional. Competent, ready to work, ready to train. No fanfare, no parade. Just the satisfaction of knowing my crew did a good job safely and efficiently. I truly believe in the philosophy of “Everyone goes home” and tried to instill that same mindset in my crew.
ModernDayJeremiah · April 26, 2024 at 6:16 pm
Another way of looking at it is Dr. Jerry Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy:
“Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people”:
First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration.
Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc.
The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization.”
https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html
Greg · April 23, 2024 at 10:47 am
I did not know that you were T2D. I just finished reading Gary Taube’s latest Rethinking Diabetes. It is without a doubt must reading for anyone with weight issues, metabolic syndrome, or T2D. There is a somewhat suppressed revolution going on–mainstream press won’t touch it, but it is gaining attention by the thousands every day.
I still say that Taube’s Good Calories, Bad Calories is one of the most important books I’ve ever read, and Rethinking Diabetes continues his meticulous, documented research into exposing the prejudice and total lack of real science behind much of the status quo thinking on nutrition. I have followed Taube’s book with some of his references, and Dr. Sarah Hallberg’s book Status Quo Thinking is Harming Your Health makes a powerful case that T2D can be REVERSED.
IcyReaper · April 23, 2024 at 12:41 pm
Didn’t know about the T2D also. But that brings up a good question. What do people do if they have T2D and the collapse comes? Is there anything they can do to survive or not. Whats your plan in case?
I would be curious about your comment about your meds vs using insulin?
Might be a good topic as you continue the prepared series…
Noway2 · April 23, 2024 at 9:23 pm
“If you have a problem with modern healthcare, it shouldn’t be with the actual workers. The administrative bean counters are the problem.”
Ok, to be fair, I’ve encountered some real shit practitioners whose license shudders revoked, and I have encountered some great ones. Having been through major surgery, and having watched my father go through emergency surgery, “crash” and wind up in the cardiac ICU (during Covid), I’ve encountered some honest to god saints.
The administration sucks. I used to go to a corporate based practice and it was terrible. I now go to a state subsidized one, where a lot of the employees are state employees. It’s better and no, I’m not a librul or a communist, but there isn’t as much focus on profit so they schedule 45 minute visits rather than 15 minutes. I am also lucky to have the rare “conservative” for a PCP and his primary nurse in an admittedly librul organization.
I absolutely blame the administration, and I think Obamacare was designed to break the system.
Paulb · April 25, 2024 at 8:43 pm
I don’t think that it is ironic that a medical professional working for a hospital has crappy insurance. I think it’s a carefully planned F-you from the hospital to the employee.
I’ve been a merchant mariner for 25 years. I sail anywhere from 28 to 180 days at a shot. Civilian federal mariners work 270-400 days on a single voyage. Every single maritime employer has an employee health plan that limits medication to 30 and 90-day supplies. There is no such thing as employee insurance plan that provides employees enough medication to complete a voyage. Guys die all the time from complications related likely to rationing medication.
It’s absolutely intentional. My doctor has tried every iteration possible to get me medication to complete a long voyage and failed every time. The type 1 diabetics have their own suppliers of black-market insulin. They’re the ones who die when the .gov does things like refuse to let you break articles or get prescriptions by mail internationally because your meds arrived one days after the monthly personal mailbag got sent out to the ship.
I have a good friend who is a nurse practioner. She just left a clinical job at a world-class hospital because they wanted her to go on Obamacare rather than provide her with health insurance.
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