For medications I take regularly, United Healthcare will only cover medications for a limited time before you have to start getting them from their mail order pharmacy, OptumRx. Wouldn’t be a big deal if Optum could get their shit together long enough to get my meds to me without gaps in my supply.
I’ve had repeated calls with them and even discussions with my HR at work - which it’s fucking ridiculous that I should have to discuss any part of my healthcare with my non-medical-field employer, but that’s a whole rant on its own… I just get fed some bullshit about how using a mandatory Rx provider saves money. Told HR I know our company had ~$20 billion in revenue last year so we aren’t hurting, and I didn’t give two shits about saving money for an insurance company, so they’d need to find a different justification. Basically the only option I had to go with if I wanted to use my own pharmacist (that I can literally see across the street from my bedroom window) and didn’t want gaps in my prescription supplies was to pay out of pocket for my meds, so I guess that’s what I’m stuck with for now.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk. Just needed to vent somewhere.
PS - anyone hiring for Network Operations Techs?
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Healthcare in the United States is astronomically expensive and not very good (lots of neglected care and adverse outcomes) for several reasons. But if we eliminated PBMs like OptumRx (PBM = pharmacy benefit manager - think insurance middle-men for pharmacies) then costs would go down a very significant amount overnight. I can’t put an exact figure on it, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it saved everyone 50% or more.
PBMs add no value to the system, they are 100% rent-seekers (or bloodsuckers as OP accurately put it). PBMs add tremendous cost to the system because they wan their “cut” of the action, even though they add nothing of value. They are far worse than passive friction in the system, they are highly active intelligent parasites.
Of course you seldom hear about this stuff because if you want to get away with evil, hide it inside of something large, complicated, and boring. And few things are more large, complicated, and boring than the way a PBM conducts its business. We’re talking fee structures and contracts that make sense to nobody, clawbacks, lack of respect for PHI, all kinds of shenanigans. PBMs simply should not exist.
Instead what do they do? They punch down, of course. They tell you to wear a smartwatch. They tell you to lose weight. They give you an HSA card and act like it’s god’s gift when you’re just spending your own money with a slight tax benefit.
I once wrote a letter to my representative (a Democrat) about how evil PBMs are and how they need to be eliminated. I got a generic “corporations create jobs, tho” type of response. Very disappointing.
Fortunately there are some efforts underway and a champion has emerged, Lina Khan of the FTC. She has launched a probe into the matter and it’s getting some attention. Finally.
Have you looked at Cost Plus Drugs? I have been using them for a while and have no complaints. If the have your meds, it’s the cheapest option available.
Will give them a look. Thanks for the suggestion!
Be very careful with bomb stuff because tos is very strict about that here. Thank you
Contact your state health/medical ombudsman and or AG. States come down hard on companies that have patterns of behavior like this.
I’d like to respectfully suggest that sending a chat to a customer service representative with a physical threat to a building (with your real name attached, no less) might not have been the best tactic to get your concerns addressed. Yes, we all know you are frustrated and were joking about it, but I don’t think the FBI will be as amused as we are. At least you’ll get your meds on time while in custody.
While I wouldn’t have an ounce of sympathy for UHC and the execs in the healthcare industry if this happened, I agree that threats, no matter where they are sent, are not a smart move. While the people who work there are a bunch of Judas traitors against their fellow Americans, they’re probably just trying to feed their kids. Hope those sheckles will buy their own kiddos some non-UHC insurance. The real devils are the corporate types, the lobbyists, the politicians who take their bribes, and the ones moving money in a way that perpetuates this system.
There are much more creative ways to wish them ill. I will pray every night that everything they eat tastes like moldy rotten meat left in a car in the Phoenix summer for a week straight. I hope their CEO breaks the world record for most hemeroids on a single person and can’t get any pain meds because he has to go through Optums mail order pharmacy. I hope ants swarm them in their sleep and eat off their limbs until they wake up screaming as a disembodied head and torsoe. I hope they fall asleep on the top deck of the yacht they bought with our healthcare premiums and get so sunburnt their skin wins a baking competition for flakiest croissant.
This system is absolutely inhumane. I can’t imagine the kind of mental gymnastics a non-narcessist, non-sociopath would have to do to run this kind of business.
I didn’t send them a threat. Mistr isn’t associated with United Healthcare/Optum. I was making an expression of frustration to someone who would likely understand since I’m sure I’m not the first person they’ve had to help with this insurance provider.
Doesn’t matter if it was a threat to them or not, it’s still a threat. I’m sure it’s been reported. Sorry.
If anything, a single isolated threat meant in jest may fuck your life up more than being a legit asshole. If you have a pattern of threats like this, the authorities will be forced to charge you with something, and you will at least know they are paying attention. But a single threat probably just places you on some list, and you’ll never know you were placed on it. Who knows where being on that list will fuck you over.
Well as long as we’re taking obviously figurative language and interpreting it literally, I didn’t say I was going to send one, I said someone should. So report away.
I’m in the United States. Way back in the day, I worked as a bill collector. A customer made a similar comment to me while my supervisor was recording the call, just coincidentally for quality. They reported him to the police and I was later asked to testify at his trial. He was sentenced to six months in jail for making terroristic threats.
For context, this was shortly after 9/11 so people were on high alert. I doubt anyone at Lemmy is going to report you, we’re just concerned that sort of behavior is going to cause an amount of trouble that later cost/benefit analyses would lead you to regret.
Certainly understandable, and I’ve edited the main post to acknowledge the shitty nature of that part of my comments. I think I was just less receptive to @dhork@lemmy.world because of their condescending way of putting it.
Ok, so you’re thinking of bureaucratic and corporate entities as if they were human. They are not human. You need to think of them as primal animals.
Take a silverback gorilla. Something you should never ever do is stare one in the eyes. They take it as a challenge and are very likely to attack you. They don’t really understand or care if you were actually staring at a fly that was near their face, or if you were just “figuratively” staring, or if you meant it as a joke. Do you understand? The gorilla will still Fuck. You. Up. Because, regardless of your intentions, you stared a gorilla in the face.
The pharmacy company also doesn’t care about your intentions. You said that an act of violence should happen. You gave a method, a target, and clearly have a motive. They will report that to the authorities. Think about how much shit they’d be in if they didn’t and there was someone just a little more unhinged than you who actually went through with it.
Lastly, it’s just a really dumb and immature thing to say. Wishing death on others because of a mild annoyance is going to make people you’re talking to uncomfortable, because that is not a normal reaction. It sends up a lot of red flags that you are an unstable and dangerous person incapable of controlling their emotions.
Yes, you are right. And I have already expressed my mea culpas and understanding it was a shitty thing to say. I’m not really sure what else to say.
It sends up a lot of red flags that you are an unstable and dangerous person incapable of controlling their emotions.
All the more reason I would like my meds to not be interrupted by some company’s profit margins.
Dude you’re acting like a child. Grow up.
That’s the internet way, though! When provided with criticism, double down on whatever you’re doing in the most melodramatic way possible. Do so doubly if the criticism is well meaning.
The acting like a child part I’m referring to isn’t their behavior here. Writing that comment about the pipe bomb is the sort of thing a teenager does.
That was still pretty stupid and you might very well end up in trouble for making a threat like that. Not a great way to communicate frustration. If you don’t get in trouble, consider yourself lucky and find a better way to express yourself in the future, things like that can be taken very seriously and ruin your life.
You’re absolutely right. Having moved past the feelings of frustration, I see that was stupid.
Clearly he should have just sent the fucking pipe bomb.
Eh they said someone needs to. (But yeah, I wouldn’t personally recommend it.)
I went to America for the wealth and riches 25 years ago; but I came back about 20 years ago, for reasons entirely related to healthcare and filled with issues that in this country we don’t understand actually exist.
To restate: the problems of in-network/out-of-network are so alien to us that you’d need to convince my peers it’s real, because they almost believe it’s made up.
My Indian boss, raised in Tanzania, had a certain bias. “People who can leave India,” he said, “do.” I’m thinking soon people who can leave America, despite the promise of riches and because of the healthcare, do.
UHC has always been fucking awful.
Sounds like something that should be illegal, if it isn’t already.
It is, but only in some states. Probably not where OP lives
I wouldn’t doubt that mailing pipe bombs is illegal
I understand your frustrations. The company I work for was recently acquired and with that came a new health insurance policy. We went from a REALLY good insurance plan to UHC for health insurance and optum rx for prescriptions. It’s utter dog shit. Everything is exceptionally more expensive. Just last week I opted to pay the cash price for my prescription because the insurance covered price INCREASED the bill by $50.
They’ve killed so many trees sending me letters to convince me how great their mail order pharmacy is. I don’t even fill any fucking meds other than the occasional antibiotic or something if I get sick. I bet they would have sent me some Paxlovid when I got covid too. It probably would have arrived just in time for me to be all better. Thankfully I haven’t been forced to use them…yet.
Decoupling work and health insurance is one of the absolute biggest wins we could have as Americans right now. What’s it gonna take? I’m happy for the entire economy to crash if they lose power. That’s a nonpartisan statement too. Even though they’re not equally bad, its like ball cancer vs lung cancer. I want to lecture these nitwits while metaphorically shaking them until they get a concussion. This is not how you treat human beings. We are truly a third world shithole in a crappy disguise.
Health insurance is a scam. American healthcare is atrocious. Stochastic terrorism is never okay. Don’t you dare claim that it is.
Yes, that comment was over the line. No I do not endorse terrorism.
Yep. I’ve got a different insurance, but yeah I have a very expensive med , where I can only use their pharmacy-by-mail. So I have to deal with this same shit.
Hey Kansas City, your image is not properly censored!
Kansas City comes up a number of times in my post history, so I’m not too worried about it. And I’ve got one of those names that don’t really help you in Google unless you’ve already got some fairly specific info on me. But thanks for looking out!
I have the same thing with Express Scripts. Thankfully, if there’s ever a predicted gap, I can call and they’ll send a short term prescription approval to my local pharmacy to cover that gap.
Optum does that, too. I’ve had to do it on a number of occasions. The source of my frustration there is if I’m having to call in and go through that process on a regular basis, I should just be able to get my meds from the pharmacy they end up sending it to, anyway. But that would make too much sense, so of course it’s the last thing they’d allow me to do.
Yeah, all the insurers are pushing for vertical integration of pharmacies and using their mail order pharmacy. Check out Dr.Glaucomflecken on Youtube, he does short, witty, educational dives into this bullshit. We tried using the mail order pharmacy for my kids’ ADHD meds and it was fucking terrible. Federal law prohibits filling refills until we’re out or very nearly out, and they have one distribution center on the opposite coast from us, and they’re having standard shipping to ship these meds. You do the math on that one.
Like much of big corporate America, they want the fat payouts without putting in the legwork to actually make a better product that people will choose on their own, so they just hamper competition and make shit worse for everyone to make line go up a little faster.
At least you have insurance.
Yeah. I’m in favor of universal healthcare, but at this point I think it’d be more likely that California wraps up High Speed Rail construction next year. I have no idea why so many people are so willing to defend our completely broken-ass system; dealing with the insurance company is arguably worse than dealing with the DMV. At least you know the DMV aren’t trying to fuck you to pay for a new mega yacht, they’re just fucking you because those are the rules.
