Caremark Should Change Its Name to Careless

I have Leukemia (CML) a rare blood cancer.

I have also had many issues with Caremark Specialty Pharmacy,
including the worst cutomer service I ever experienced, late
shipments, wrong dosages, and problems with scripts.

I wrote a letter to my company's HR department and they forwarded it
to Caremark. It was elevated and I received a call a short time
later.

They did acknowledge the issues they were having and tried to do the
best they could to help me. Now I periodically even get a proactive
call to get my chemotherapy reordered.

They did improve the service since, but I still hate using mail order
to reduce health care costs- there is no accountability. It is very
interesting to see others have also had problems.

I agree 100%! I had similar problems with asthma/copd medications. If
you can't breathe. . . nothing else matters.
Jackie R. in New Jersey

I handled my mothers 90-day mail in prescriptions with Caremark for 5
years. I had LOTS of problems. I had to stay on top of her orders
online and by phone constantly. I would order as soon as possible and
STILL have problems getting the refill in time. They took FOREVER to
process new prescriptions and refills OFTEN were not processed
timely.

My mom is deceased now and I no longer have to deal with Caremark. My
90-day mail in prescriptions are covered through Medco. I have been
dealing with them for over a year and they have been ABSOLUTELY
flawless, timely, correct, etc.

It is wonder NOT to have to bang my head against the wall, cross my
fingers and hope I will receive my drugs on time, spend time on hold
waiting for someone to figure out WHO dropped the ball, etc.

This sounds like a terrible situation. I can see easily losing trust
in this company after they continue to lose your important documents,
even with receipts for the fax. I sure hope they straighten this thing
out. Good luck to you.

I have had Caremark Rx coverage for 8 years and they have never missed
a 3 mo delivery supply of my meds.

You should also file a complaint with your insurance company, or if
you have an employer health group plan with them. They choose the Rx
vendor for your coverage and if Caremark is lax with filling your
prescriptions then others in your group plan may be having the same
problem.

Let us know what happens please.

They really are handling this poorly. I hate faxing anything because
it's just too easy for the receipient to say they didn't get it.

We use Medco and I've never had a problem with them. They have a
great feature if you have no renewals. You click "contact my doctor"
and they do the work for you.

I would definitely bring this matter to the attention of your
insurance carrier.

I know from experience (that was my fault) that it is not pleasant to
take less than the prescribed dose of most of them. I'll do it for
tapering down if that's ever something I'm doing, but I don't want to
do it because my meds didn't show up.

There just seems to me to be too much that can go wrong with Caremark
and similar setups.

I'm assuming you've double-checked the phone number (or some fax has
gone through and gotten a response). Kaiser had someone in the
appeals department who gave out the fax number of the retail store
where I worked to claimants, and we used to come in in the morning to
a bunch of medical records. I tried to call whoever had sent them
when I opened, but not everyone did.

But yeah, unless you've made an error with the number or something (I
absolutely blame Kaiser for giving out the wrong number), this really
shouldn't be going on. It's a business that supplies things that some
people (and not just diabetics) need in order to stay alive, and that
means they need fast turnaround in a way that, say, Amazon.com does
not.

Good luck. I really hope that this is a temporary problem.

Tehr eis ZERO excuse for this sort of thing. I certainly hope your
wife suffers no ill affects due to alck of someone walking to a fax
machine and picking up the paperwork.

Hi Thomas: I'm going through a similar situation with Express Scripts
- - my doctor faxed a prescription and they claim they never received
it. Here's a tip for you - - these companies will only accept a faxed
prescription that comes from the doctor's office. Good luck to both
of us!

Is it possible for you to email it to Nanette? That way you can get
an electronic notification that she received it. Not that it helps
now, but you might want to consider registered mail in the future.
Then at least you know it got there.
Good luck.