Today I went to se my GP who has been treating me for sacroiliitis and depression. I walked in there with a bill to pay which showed that I had been billed twice for something. Earlier this year I had been billed $750 for 2 ultrasound procedures I had never even had. I got that straightened out and they took it off my bill and said they would refund medicare. I learnde the hard way to go over ever single oc bill I get with a fine tooth comb after my husband blindly paid every bill that came in after my surgery 7 years ago. Once I could see straight I started going through them and found ove $5000 worth of errors and it took me a year and many many phone calls to get that money refunded.
I was supposed to talk to my GP about the new anti-depressant I am on and get a refill for my xanex. I don't take a lot of xanex, but I really need it when the wonky head kicks in hard--nausea, verigo, dizziness, hyperacussis, headache. This usually happens after driving in a car more than an hour or two.
, and being around my two unruly grandkids at about 7:00 PM when the start screaming that they don't wanna eat dinner or go to bed and they get major whiney. The acoustics in my sons house are horrendous and all that noise gives me a major headache.
So I get my prescription for my xanax and my anti-depressant from not my regular doc, but a partner of his who knows nothing about my case. When I go up to the window I see that there are no refills on the prescription and that I will have to come back in a month to get the refills. Federal Law, they say. Well I know this is bull****, because I get 2 or 3 refill on meds that my neurologist gives me. I believe this is just a scam to charge my insurance company $175 every month that I have to come in for a refill. My regular doc in this practice is no longer allowed to write prscriptions because he got in some trouble writing them to a woman he was seeing..
So he passes his prescriptions to be written by a doc who doesn't even know my case, or that I had brain damage and chronic headaches. I asked for some pain medication because my back was absolutely killing me and I could not sleep and he gave me tramadol, which didn;t even touch the pain I was in. I am really peeved because I should have been sent to a specialist months ago. When I asked for a referral, I had to call back twice and finally a week later I got one set up.
So anyway, when I see there are no refills on my meds, I just lost it! Why should I have to fork over $50 every month for a simple med refill? I told them I was never coming back again and they could send me a bill and walked out. I was so upset I could hardly drive home.
When I got home I called Medicare and asked if that $750 bill had ever been refunded to them and they said no, so I asked to file a fraud charge. I also think lying to a patient and telling them they would have to come in every month to refill their meds constitued fraud, too.
I have called a couple other GPs in my town and very few of them are taking new patients. November was the soonest I could get in to see the GP that I wanted to see. So I guess I'll be off my anti-depressants and my anti-anxiety meds till then. I just wish one of those bastards could live inside my head for just a day and see what I go through.
Wheeew--that felt better!
Thanks for listening,
Capt Deb
