CarelonRx Mail Order Pharmacy can’t/won’t provide actual receipts for paid-for medications
Warning – rant ahead.
This post is something of an addendum to a previous complaints. I've dealt with their delays in sending my insulin and other maintenance medications, and my issues with the mail-order portion of this 'business' billing me for medications they did not send (Humalog) that I paid for and did not receive, refunding a copay for a medication that was sent (and then rebilled for the medication once they realized they'd issued a refund for the wrong medication), and NOW, when I request an ACTUAL receipt for the medications that I've paid for, starting with anything sent after the first of the year, I'm told that they won't provide me with proof of payment. I'll only get a 'statement of cost', which lists what the mailed prescription costs, in dollars, but without a statement saying 'this medication was paid for using (X) method of payment (usually a listing of whatever credit card was used, showing only the last four numbers) and indication that the payment was successful. Now, if you've ever used an FSA account to defray the costs of copays, doctor's visits and so on, you'll know that the FSA issuer REQUIRES something that says 'yes, the bill was paid, here's the proof, please reimburse the credit card so that we aren't charged a stupid amount of money in interest'.
Today, I spent hours on the phone today trying to get actual receipts from CarelonRx Mail Order Pharmacy, being transferred over five times, to several different departments. I finally got to the PBM billing department, tried to expain what I needed over a very bad connection, and was told explicitly that they would not provide me with the sort of receipts that I need to prove to our FSA that we've made our payments. In fact, the woman on the other end of the line basically had a 'fu' attitude, telling me that all I needed to do was log into our HSA (an HSA is not the same as an FSA, and I do not have access to either the card or the account – my husband does, and he insists that for every expense attached to anything I need (doctor's visit, prescriptions, insulin pump supplies and hard medical goods, etc.), that I give him a paper receipt with the method of payment and a 'Paid' indication on it, proving to the FSA managers that yes, we did make a real payment. Ever since the first of the year, instead of sending a receipt with the medications they mail to us, like they used to, they send a 'Statement of Cost', which won't work for the purposes of reimbursement. No proof of payment = no reimbursement.
There's a hackneyed workaround if one is using the payment portal on Anthem BCBS's website. One has to print out the actual webpage (don't bother with trying to use a mobile device – so far I've only been able to get this to work with a desktop), in simplified mode and a 65-70% scale to fit any record of actual payment with a credit card on the requisite sheet of paper. Unfortunately, when I went to pay the bill for a shipment of insulin (one they did send – Lispro, but the 'thank you for your payment' page did not contain the usual printable info, and assigned the payment as one for 'HUM', short for Humalog, which I'd ordered at the beginning of the year, paid for, and never received the meds), the info wasn't there. Just a 'thanks for the payment', which isn't enough as far as our FSA is concerned. I had asked for receipts for everything we'd paid for since January 1st, so that we could go back and make certain that this most recent payment, and everything else, was properly submitted. Instead, we get the transfer shuffle, ending up with someone's supervisor who said it wasn't possible to give me what I needed, over a bad connection. I gave up and hung up on her.
I'm so very sick of this 'company', its incompetence, the long wait times on the phone, the poor customer interface, the perpetually incorrect billing department run like a someone threw a crate full of ferrets into a room full of tin foil… I'm tired. It's bad enough dealing with the hour-by-hour shitshow that is long-term Type 1 diabetes, and the never-ending fire hose of costs involved with the process of staying alive in the U.S. while afflicted with said shitshow… but NOW, my mail-order pharmacy refuses to help me at least get receipts to provide proof to our FSA of the money we've shelled out to them, so we can be reimbursed for part of the shitshow's yearly financial outlay. This company was able to provide actual receipts last year, prior to Jan. 1st. I don't buy the garbage that they can't do it any longer.
submitted by /u/T1_LongHauler
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