When dropping off my son's prescriptions at our neighborhood
Walgreens last weekend, I was surprised to see a yellow notice taped to the counter. Active duty military members, their families and veterans might not be allowed to access Walgreen's in the future, the card warned.
Huh?
We have copays. We've been using Walgreens for years and are quite happy for the service. Was Tricare cancelling their contract with Walgreens and perhaps asking its members to use another, cheaper pharmacy?
Big pharma wants the military to go to mail order only. More after the jump.
I spoke with the pharmacist on duty. She explained that the government was trying to save money. By not allowing military and their families to use Walgreens and other pharmacies but requiring them to do mail order, they could keep costs down.
I was given a phone number for more explanation but little else.
Back home, I went to the computer to research the situation further.
The Hill newspaper's online edition had an article
http://www.hillnews.com/...
Basically, drug costs are rising and big pharma is resisting
cutting a deal for discounting drugs for Tricare members.
"The Department of Defense in the past six years has had to contend with the rising cost of drugs sold by the drug stores as part of the military's healthcare system, Tricare.
Some manufacturers of brand-name drugs have declined to give discounts for medicine sold in drug stores, even though critics argue that the so-called 1992 Veterans Healthcare Act extends the discounts to retail pharmacies for the Department of Defense, Veterans Administration, the Coast Guard and the Public Health Service. The manufacturers allow discounts for medication sold by mail order.
Lawyers for the Department of Defense and the Veterans Administration are at odds with big pharmaceutical companies, which last year filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Federal Court of Appeals arguing that the rebates do not apply to the retail program under Tricare.
Without a legislative proposal from the Pentagon, congressional defense authorizers stepped in with their solutions to ease the costs. The Senate passed legislation that would mandate the use of mail order for those in the Tricare system.
The Senate version of the 2007 defense authorization bill also seeks to clarify the 1992 Veterans Healthcare Act to make sure that discounts are extended to retail pharmacies and not only to the mail-order providers."
Many problems would arise from mail order access to prescriptions. Based on our personal experience, it's important to have all medications at one location. Our son suffers from mental illness and arthritis. There can be drug interactions. Walgreens has caught a few before filling a scrip. Would a mail order service know what drugs our son is on? I doubt it. What about getting medications on short notice? In a crisis? And what would families do if they needed to travel or move (something military folks are quite familiar with) during the time the medications came due? With Walgreens, one can go to any store in the country and obtain a refill with no interruptions in drug therapy.
I'm particularly indebted to our pharmacist. We relocated last year and a new physician was prone to mistakes (we've since switched). The MD urged us to place our son on a new medication. "It's a low dose. This is the med you want to start with. Call me in a month."
The pharmacist read the prescription and pulled me aside.
"Ma'am, this medication 'sustained release' and is only used after blood levels are established. It also interacts with the medication he's already on. I'm sorry, I can't fill this."
He may have saved our son's life. Would a mail order pharmacy have caught the error? We switched doctors but the one constant in our lives has been our pharmacy records.
I won't risk our health for cost cutting measures.
Here's the phone number to the Tricare Community Pharmacy Legislative Alert Hotline. After the recording, it will connect the caller to his or her state senators and congresspeople, urging them to support Senate Section 721 of the DOD bill to keep military member's ability to chose their pharmacies.
I think of all the deployed service people. The last thing they need to have their families stressing out over lousy drug plans.