Hismones 1/11/25

Life.On.Hold I spent (without specifically timing them) approximately a half day Friday on hold: Insurance, pharmacy, and doctor's office. Still trying to get Orgovyx filled as a 90-day supply. While waiting for responses, I was at least able to paint trim and baseboards in the front entry. The major failing of both insurance and pharmacy was the inability to reach the same person with each call,and there were several calls and online logins that involved them. Added to that was different staff having conflicting information, so that the reason for the delay was difficult to determine. At the end of the day, a pharmacy rep kept me on the line while calling insurance and was able to confirm that my three-year medication approval only applied to one-month supplies from the original pharmacy. This medication requires prior authorization of medical necessity, which means another doctor request for the pharmacy that can fill extended prescriptions. Following my call, the doctor's office hopefully sent clinical documents to the pharmacy...to submit to insurance for approval...to send back to the pharmacy...to call me for payment information...to fill the medication...to send it to me. I have nine days of tablets left, and insurance approval itself can take three days. Thankfully, the end-of-day pharmacy rep gave me her name and extension, and my next call Monday morning is to her to confirm receipt of the doctor's notes and their submission to insurance. Failing that, it's another doctor call. At retirement, coworkers called me a "bulldog" for pursuing tasks to completion, and I'm not planning to quit. My wife and I agree, though, that it would be so easy, especially for patients with limited experience or understanding, to stop the pursuit and work on finding a way to pay the higher cost of short-term prescription fills. Insurance says what I'm asking is available, and I'll do my part to make it so. I'm not sure I could continue the chase if I were working fulltime. So I'll keep calling and pray for more patience.