I received a letter from my insurance company last week. Like most of you, I was very excited to read the good news. Would they be raising my rates? Were they covering less? Were they kicking me off altogether? Whatever it was, I was sure it was going to make me happy as is always the case!
It turned out to be a letter in regards to my seizure medication. “Dear Christy Rasmussen,” it started. There was no “Ford” at the end because I haven’t gotten around to legally changing my last name … three years later. I’m still technically a “Rasmussen” other than on Facebook and on my DirecTV account … obviously the two most important name-changing situations.
Anyway, the letter said, “Dear Christy Rasmussen, as you know, we value your business so much that we are going to continue forgoing your wishes and make decisions that benefit us, but make your life more difficult on a daily basis.” OK, that’s not exactly word for word. Word for word, it actually stated that I MUST switch to an online, mail-in pharmacy for my medicinal needs. If I chose to stay with my local pharmacy, I would have to pay more for my medicine.
Being Chinook Pharmacy’s No. 1 fan, I decided that I would just go ahead and pay more, but I wanted to find out exactly how much more. I called my insurance company’s customer service and inquired about this. “Oh, we’re not going to charge extra,” the customer service specialist told me. “We just need you to let us know whether you want to stay with your pharmacy or switch to our preferred mail-in pharmacy.”
“OK, but that’s not what my letter states. It says that I MUST switch or pay more.” I explained, reading the letter to her. “Well, we just want you to pick one and let us know,” she said. We went on and on about the discrepancies between the letter and her version of the facts, but eventually I let it go and made her note my decision, which would be my local pharmacy.
After getting off the phone with her, I researched my insurance company’s preferred online pharmacy … just for curiosity’s sake. Out of approximately 1 million reviews, it seems that NO ONE who has ever dealt with this company has ever had any positive experience with them. I read about 50 reviews in which people claimed to be told their medicine was in the mail, but who didn’t receive said medicine for five or so more weeks.
My seizures don’t play like that. They don’t wait five weeks for medicine to arrive. Chinook understands that. Big companies who concern themselves with dollars only do not understand that. Many of you argue that shopping locally costs more. Maybe so. But our local business owners have consciences and I like people with consciences … even if they charge a bit more.
For questions, comments or to hear the complete list of times that Chinook has saved my life, please carve out a week of time and e-mail me at christyrasmussen@yahoo.com.
Christy Rasmussen
