Saturday, January 3, 2009

Reason Number 152,710 Why I Hate Anthem Blue Cross

How can one of the biggest pharmacy benefits managers in the United States be offline for nearly 6 hours on the first business day of the year? Do you know how much that completely fucked up our day in the pharmacy? As if it wasn't bad enough that everyone's insurance cards suddenly stopped working (with 90% of those customers having no idea why), we had to wait 6 hours before we could put a single script through under Anthem. By the time some claims started going through, we had over 30 prescriptions (new ones and refills) just sitting there waiting to be processed.

We filled over 500 prescriptions while dealing with the shit storm of new insurance cards and customer questions. Do you know what it's like to be going crazy and suddenly find over 30 extra prescriptions to fill? It fucking sucks.

The occasional computer glitch is forgivable, even one at such an inopportune time. However, this is the second year in a row that Anthem went down for an extended period of time on the first business day of the new year. Can't they get their shit together before January 2nd? How come Caremark or Express Scripts didn't have this problem?

I could rant all day about this, but I'm too tired at the moment. Anthem, consider yourself lucky that you didn't get the full force of my wrath.

3 comments:

Cody said...

Haha, Caremark sure did have problems in our part of the country yesterday. We'd call, and an AUTOMATED MESSAGE would come up saying something to the effect of "We know there's a problem, we're working on it, leave us alone!" then *click* as it disconnected the call.

Strangely enough, customers don't like that story. They truly thought we were lying and were just lazy.

Anonymous said...

When I called Anthem on the 2nd regarding their completely fucked up timing, they had the nerve to tell me it would be fixed in "a couple of days."

I told the customer that and they laughed in my face and told me I was a liar. I called back, put that shit on speakerphone, and had the customer listen to the conversation.

Customer is seriously considering changing their insurance company now. They asked for a recommendation...I told them they were all about the same from my experience.

All pretty much FUBAR.

Happy Pharming.

PharmerGirl said...

Glad I happend on this sight tonight. I have never blogged in my life, but I guess tonight was the night I needed to find another RPh who understands the madness of what we do. Thanks for putting a smile on my face after putting in 14.5hrs today, 8+filling Rxs and another 5+being taking inventory.

All the prior-auths, claim rejections, customer has no idea what a deductible is and why they are paying more!!!!, techs who can't explain a simple thing as copays and deductibles. And what do they have to come to me for EVERYTHING. As the pharmacist in charge, I have to fix cash register problems, computer gliches, counselling for staff who do not know why the pharmacist can wear black pants and they have to wear Khaki....maybe I need a vacation?

Anyway thanks.