Good Evening Fellow Prescription Drug Customers

My Insurance company has hit a new low in putting up unnecessary red tape and killer stupidity:

3 weeks ago called them to refill my diabetic test strips.

2 weeks ago nothing in the mail, called them again. They said that the refill had to go to the approvals committee due to the number of strips on the Rx. Fine, why wasn't that done a week ago? Silence.
"Can you send me out a partial fill of the order of an amount of strips that I can have?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"It's not what the Rx is for."
"Well yes, but you can always get a partial fill on a Rx at the pharmacy, why can't mail order send me a reduced number of boxes of the strips so that I don't run out?"
"We don't do that."
Fine. Send the request out to my Doctor.

This past Thursday late in the afternoon, my Dr.'s office called and said that I'd have to change my meter, as the request for test strips had been disapproved. This didn't make sense, Insurance Co. only griping about the number of strips ordered. Nurse without a clue that handles Rx's for my Dr.'s office finally said he'd have to check into it on Monday when he got back to work.

So, Today, Tuesday, I get a call from Ins. Co. telling me that the approvals department had disapproved the order, too many strips ordered and they never heard back from my Dr. "OK, tell me how many strips I CAN have and I'll get my Doc to send in a new request for that amount."

"I don't know what amount you can have, I'm in the approvals review department, not the Pharmacy." WTF! You are doing reviews of the Pharmacy Orders but you don't know how the Pharmacy works?! You've denied the order due to the amount of strips, without knowing how many I CAN have?! Ya gotta be Sh!++ing me!

After a time she calls the Pharmacy Department and finds out that I can have 150 strips for 30 days supply. (That's more than I need...) "Great, so 450 strips for a 90 day supply."
"No, has to be 30 day supplies with refills."
"But Mail Order has to be 90 day supplies, they don't do 30 day supplies." She really doesn't have any idea how the pharmacy works!
She tells me that they told her 30 days with refills. OK. Whatever.

Off to My Dr.'s office. Have to go in person as the phone only connects to the central office and central prescriptions refills, who didn't respond to the paperwork the first time... Get to the Clueless Nurse, who hadn't done anything on Monday... ... He called the Rx into the mail order pharmacy while I waited. 90 day supply, 300 strips, (the 3-a-day I use), no problem.

Yeah, We'll See... :-)