My To Do List and a Pharmacy Snafu

My to do list has like fifty things on it.  I am crossing them off one by one but it seems like for every one I cross off I add two more.  Like today when I sent my mom copies of our passports and travel plans.  "Don't forget to get an updated power of attorney signed before you leave," she tells me.  Sure mom, let me just add that to the list, print one off and run by a notary so I can get it signed for you.  That's just kind of the story of my life right now.  It would be ok I guess if things could just work out without a hitch, but of course, they just never do.

That today at the pharmacy.  When I went to my gynecologist this week for my yearly and to get a new prescription for my birth control I mentioned to her that I'd like to get the stacked birth control to try and avoid my period while on the trip.  We have been warned that you have to bring your own toiletries since tampons are really hard to come by and almost all of the toilets in country are squatters.  My doctor said no problem and wrote my script out for my normal pill but 4 pill packs at a time, 4 times a year.  I dropped off the prescription on my way home.  Today when I went by to pick it up the girl handed me one pack.  "Um, I'm going to need all four of those packs," I told her.  "Well your insurance company will only pay for you to have one at a time."  "Well then I'm going to have to pay out of pocket because I'm not going to be in the country to pick three of those up."  So there you have it.  Even though my insurance completely covers birth control free of cost thanks to the affordable care act, they do it in a completely inconvenient way.  At least inconvenient if you aren't going to be around.  So I got to take one pack for free and then they asked me to come back a half hour later to pick up the three packs I'll have to pay out of pocket for.  Does this even make sense?  What is cheaper insurance, making sure I have my pill or paying for the baby I'm going to have because I can't get my hands on enough packs? 

Seriously this is the third thing that has happened in a week where I just have to shake my head at the insurance company.  The first was the travel shot fiasco.  The kids and I all had to get travel shots before we left.  The experience left me 1450 poorer and sore, Peach head-butted me in the face after running away three times, having to be dragged back into the office, and kicking the doctor twice.  Luckily we didn't have to pay for an office visit since the travel clinic just gives you the shorts for the price of the immunization but some of these shots it annoys me that I had to pick up.  For example my polio booster, my hep A shot, and the meningococcal vaccinations.  Under normal circumstances the polio shot and hep A shots are covered and the meningococcal shots the kids would get anyway in a few years, but because we are doing them now all at once for travel.  No dice.  Thanks insurance company.  I'm sure me getting yellow fever would cost you a heck of a lot less than paying for this shot...oh wait it wouldn't.  Shot.

Then there is our Mefloquine.  Kenya has malaria so besides staying covered up, sleeping with socks, sleeping under mosquito nets, covering ourselves constantly in bug spray we also have to take anti malaria meds.  We are going to be gone nine weeks, you start a week before you leave, and you take them for a month after.  That means we need 3 1/2 pills a week.  We called around and found that we could get the 50 pills we need for $236 from CVS using a coupon we found online.  When Dr. J went down to the pharmacy they told him he should submit through insurance.  But here is the thing.  In order to submit through insurance he'd have to write a separate script for each person for every thirty days, and because of the way insurance works we'd have to pay a separate co-pay for each prescription.  The grand total, $240.  Needless to say we stuck with the 1 script and the coupon.