Thread by @phylogenomics

Dear @UofCalifornia @ucdavis

This is NOT OK.

I just got a notice by letter in mail that my insurance will no longer cover the insulin I have been getting "as of January 1, 2022". Letter was dated in February and was received after March 1, 2022.

This is NOT OK.

Although I do have a grace period to get the insulin at my old price until March 31, 2022. It would have been nice to have been told about this before 3/1.

This is NOT OK either.

I mean - look at this - it is dated feb 14 and I did not get it until past 3/1 and it says changes are coming in January - two months in the past - fucking ridiculous @ucdavis @ucalifornia @UC_Newsroom

It does say some alternative insulin might be covered but very unclear what that will be - as I called them and they said Novolog insulin NOT covered at all ... and that is what I have been using

And now I have been on hold forever on the Navitus call line waiting to find out what insulin they might cover. And they simply say "We are experiencing exceptionally high call volumes" and give no hint when they might answer. WTF @ucdavis

OK got through to a very nice human. Alas, it is correct that my two insulins I have been using - Novolog and Lantus will not longer be covered. I will either have to switch to different insulins or get them to approve exception & process for even requesting that is not simple

And they said "Of course, we may not approve it, but this is how you request it ..."

Fun times.

Since they sent the letter so late, I have very little time to work this out - to either decide to switch from insulin I have been using for 10+ years or to try to get exception granted.

Not the stress I wanted right now.

And as @SethLSanders wrote I am sure many others who we have not heard from also got similar letters and were horribly stressed by them too

https://twitter.com/SethLSanders/status/1500944309268279297

And again, I just want to point out how absolutely ridiculous it is to get a letter after 3/1/22 that was dated 2/14/22 telling me to get ready for something that happened 1/1/22 and offering me a temporary solution that expires 3/31/22.

WTF?

Here is more of the letter

And so I called up the mail order pharmacy (Costco) that Navitus wants us to use to try and get my current insulin Rx filled before the 3/31 deadline. And it seemed like it would work. But alas just got this this morning - so that is going well

And I note - this is what you get when you try to use the online chat system from Costco Pharmacy where I am supposed to get mail order supplies

https://twitter.com/phylogenomics/status/1494811857713971200

And despite being told there is a grace period until 3/31 of being covered for my insulin under the old coverage amount, I have just been told by CostCo pharmacy that Navitus is apparently saying they will not actually cover the Rx - now being transferred to some other person

Got through to a person at CostCo. They were very helpful and they will try to contact Navitus to get approval for something Navitus said previously they would approve. He did warn "It has been hard to get in touch with Navitus recently ..." Yay. Fun.

And another thing to note. At the beginning of the year, I had to transfer prescriptions to a new mail order pharmacy provider, Costco. When doing this, they said "Looks like your Navitus will only cover generic versions of Novolog".

And they said I needed to get my doc to write new Rxs since mine was specific for "Novolog" and not the actual drug name and thus could not be used for the generic versions.

Now, I had never heard of generic versions of Novolog but asked around and it seemed like from what I could tell it did exist and was literally the same thing, made by the company behind Novolog. So I was fine with that and asked my doc to do a new Rx. And he did.

But I had not tried to fill this Rx yet as I had been getting 3 month supplies and did not need it yet. Alas, when I got the letter referenced way way above here, I first checked to see if the generic was covered and it turns out Costco was wrong, and it is not covered.

So I had wasted my doctor's office's time and some of my time digging into generic Novolog when it turns out they do not cover that either ...