I finally understand what "CVS Caremark" is-- (it's not CVS stores) basically it's a service used by a number of huge healthcare plans to manage approved drugs and secure prices. It has its own network of pharmacies that goes way beyond just CVS.
This is why no one at your health insurance knows anything about why X drug wasn't approved.
I thought it was CVS stalking me trying to get me to go there for years, but my charmingly dysfunctional pharmacy is a "caremark" pharmacy.
Anyone who says that "government health care would mean bureaucracy" hasn't dealt w/ CVS caremark-- then there is the way that my doctor calls my insurance by one name, my work uses another, the pharmacy yet another & the insurance itself uses none of those.
Doctor "Do you have Earl Fiefdom Plus?"
Pharmacy "Is this ABC NYC XYZ Insurance?"
Insurance Co. "Thank you for calling HealthClub Go, the RTFM Plan. Please hold. [abominable music][audio cracks] Thank you for ..."
Feel like its on purpose.
@futurebird It's absolutely on purpose, since if things were easy to connect it would be easier to actually approve things, which means more expense to the companies.
I honestly don't understand how anyone who's ever dealt with large private companies can complain about government bureaucracy being somehow atypically horrible. It's often *typically* horrible, sure, but nobody does bureaucracy better and more extensively than the paying-out-money part of private companies.
myrmepropagandist
Dan Sugalski