Taking care of medical business

One of the problems that I've had over the years is keeping my prescriptions straight.  No, I'm not talking about which drug to take and when to take it.  Instead, it's getting the orders in sync enough, so that I can expect all of my prescriptions at the same time when I am ready to reorder them.  This is not usually something that can easily be done, as none of the processes in place are geared to sync up prescriptions A, B, C, and D that are prescribed at different times, so that they can be delivered in one periodic shipment.

As much as I have to live with the headaches of a system not designed for patient convenience, I am most annoyed by a system that relies on inefficient mechanisms to confirm that a doctor wants to renew his/her patients' prescriptions.  When a recent drug (noted above) needed physician approval for refill (my 3 x 30 day orders were up), the system depended on me to contact the physician instead of providing him/her with a list of patients/drugs up for refill, and an easy way of checking off everything needed for the approvals. (This is how I see it.  It may be much easier from my doctor's point of view.)  So I had to chase down my doctor, and have his office send in the renewal.  To make things worse, is that there is no way for me to switch a prescription to go to the mail order pharmacy - I must go through the doctor.  (Even this is reasonable, but inconvenient for people like me.)  But what happens when a prescription is lost in limbo, like the one above?

Last Friday, I noticed a problem with the above prescription.  Unfortunately, my doctor was off for the weekend.  So I had to make a phone call on Monday morning.  The problem wasn't fixed on Monday (a slip up by the doctor's office), and I had to supply even more information to the office, so that they could get things straight.  Luckily, after my call back, things finally got fixed.  With only 7 pills left in the old prescription, I'm glad things are moving forward again.

There has to be a much better way.  Is this a problem in other countries?  The American medical system is extremely inefficient, and I wish I had access to something better.  We aren't getting our money's worth.  Doctors, Nurses, and other medical staff are not getting their fair share of monies being spent on health care.  The only people making out in our system are the big players: the major hospital chains and big pharma.  Hopefully, market pressures will eventually force our system to provide better value for monies being spent on it.  But I don't see that happening in my lifetime.
 

Finally! We've made it to 2021!

 

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Yay!  2020 is finally over, and we've made it to 2021.  The first thing I want to say is that I hope that one ailing reader of this blog is still able to read it.  If anything happens to this reader, I hope that the spouse will drop me a line to let me know about things.

Last year was a very strange year.  I've written about the dispute with my ex.  But I have avoided mentioning that we've occasionally exchanged emails with each other.  My Facebook page has nothing worthwhile for her to read, and a mutual friend of ours would say that I have said nothing that references the ex there.  What I'll never tell her is that there will always be a part of me that will care for her, as both of us have likely put way too much between us to erase much of the pain from 2020.

Some of the strangeness of 2020 has to do with politics.  We've seen a president virtually go crazy, and no one from his cabinet or his political party bother to do anything about it.  We've been very lucky to see our election system hold, and that we will have a transfer of power on January 20th.  Since I'm writing this a little before Christmas, none of us have any idea whether our current president will be present at our new president's inauguration.  Will he be absent because he's to embarrassed to be present at an event that shows he's a loser?  Will he be absent because the inauguration will be both quiet and private because of the pandemic?  If I were the incoming president, I wouldn't bother with the usual pomp and circumstance, and would choose a private ceremony - to avoid creating a super spreader event.

I find it amazing how quickly "Big Pharma" developed vaccines for Covid-19.  And it's just in time.  America has gotten "pandemic tired" and needs to return to "normalcy".  Last spring, none of us would even think of taking planes to see family on the other side of the country. Today, Thanksgiving and Christmas have both become a sort of super spreader event.  I don't know how much longer we can take of not living "normal" lives.  And I think many people will be emotionally scarred due to life changes necessitated by the pandemic.  

2021 will bring a lot of changes with it.  And I look forward to most of them.  Hopefully, all of our lives will be a bit better this year....