Stupid, stupid insurance company!

[murielm99]

I received a letter today telling me that starting May 1, (which has already passed) I have to get the generic equivalent of my Armour thyroid, or pay the brand co-pay.

My doctor has already written "dispense as written" on her prescription.

I refuse to take the generic equivalent of Armour. It took me the better part of five years to get her to prescribe this for me instead of synthroid, which sucks. It has taken a long time for me to get to anything resembling normal.

I will pay the co-pay.

Isn't Armour fairly inexpensive anyway? How much could they possibly be saving?

[hedgehog]

1. Does the insurance company consider the generic equivalent of synthroid

to be the generic equivalent of Armour? For a while, some companies tried to get people to think one anti-depressant was the same as any other. From what I've read, each person responds differently, so what works for these three people fairly well and that person really well does nothing for this person over here.

[murielm99]

2. I thought about that after I read the letter.

I have a feeling that they wanted to substitute some crappy form of synthroid, which messes me up. I am only taking Armour.

I understand what you mean about anti-depressants and similar drugs.

I had a student in school who was on some pretty heavy duty psych meds. He was okay most of the time.

Then, there was a period of time when he was a problem in school. He was angry and inattentive. There were some days he slept in class.

After a really bad day, I called his mother. She told me that she was keeping him out of school for a few days. He had slammed his fist through a window and cut his hand badly. She felt that his problems were due to his change in medications. Medicaid paid for his drugs, and they had just ruled that they were only going to pay for the generic. I'm not sure what she did, but the kid did even out eventually.

[MedicalAdmin]

3. Thus the problem.

The problem is that evidence based medicine is WAAAYYYY to often applied (at the urging of the insurance overlords) to be applied to everyone equally. The problem is that the statistical medicine model breaks down sometimes on the individual level.

Sad. Insurance companies are without merit or defense.

[elleng]

4. I understand what you're saying but forgive me, please, for picking nits.

You said, 'the statistical medicine model breaks down sometimes on the individual level.'

It does not follow, imo, that 'insurance companies are without merit or defense.'

:hi: