How can I figure out if I will need Dr. Forster to write a prescription for me? Don’t refills happen automatically? I set them to refill automatically on Walgreens.. Why does Dr. Forster say I have a prescription approved when the pharmacist says I don’t have any refills? Prescription labels contain a great deal of information, but navigating the intricacies …
Walgreens Doesn’t Care – Why I Don’t Approve Refills Automatically
Today one of my patients had a simple request – “Doc, I don’t know if you need to write new prescriptions, but my pharmacy will ask for a refill if I do.” I said that I it is my policy to always write refills in session so that I can make sure that I and my patients understand what medications …
Pharmacy Apps
One of the most perplexing things about our healthcare system is how complicated it can make even simple tasks. This is particularly true when the issue involves sharing information among providers of care. Elsewhere we have talked about the “silo” problem and why it has motivated us to develop a clinic that tries to provide integrated care. Here I want …
Pharmacy Issues
Yesterday was a typical day with regard to pharmacy issues. Four of my patients received incorrect information from their pharmacy (Walgreens and CVS seem to be the most common ones) and asked me to call their pharmacy to solve a problem that the pharmacy claimed was my fault, in each case I had to sit on hold for 10 to …
Medication Home Delivery
Gateway Psychiatric is happy to make medication home delivery available to its patients in the Bay Area through a partnership with Alto Pharmacy. Alto Pharmacy is dedicated to improving the pharmacy experience for doctors and patients. Alto takes all major insurance and guarantees the lowest price. In addition, Alto will automatically apply any manufacturer coupons available to reduce out of …
Medication Cost Savings – Update 2017
Last year the New York Times reviewed two websites that offered significant medication cost savings, for those without adequate insurance and, even for those with good insurance who are getting expensive medications. Since then we have had a lot more experience working with patients to help reduce medication costs and we can definitely say that these sites can help reduce …
Prescription Savings
We have just updated the “links” page on this site with information about prescription medication savings and costs based on online research and an online discussion on the Psychopharmacology listserve. Pharmacist Stephen Saklad summarized information about local pharmacies – “Many of the Pharmacy Benefits Managers that are used by the insurers forbid the pharmacy to charge the lowest price, but …
Lowering Medication Costs – Update
The New York Times recently reviewed two websites that offered to substantially reduce the cost of psychiatric medications for those without adequate insurance coverage. We’ve updated the section of this website that provides links to information about lowering the costs of medications and that mentions the option of purchasing medications from Canada as well as information about these two sites. …
Refills
“Why do you only give me a month’s supply of medication when you approve refills?” This is a pretty common question and I thought a blog post might be a good way of discussing the issues. After all a refill is a quick thing to handle, right? You call a number and press a few numbers, go onto your iPhone …