Tikkabik

Four members of my family, including me, take enough prescription medicine each month to make it a lot more cost-effective for us to buy our drugs from CIGNA, our health insurance company, and their Tel-Drug program rather than using a regular pharmacy. They sell us three times the quantity of the drugs for the same price we'd be charged by CVS, our local drug store. In late May I picked up $300 worth of drugs I need for $100 -- a three month supply.

That doesn't mean we don't give CVS a lot of business, besides. Between the ADHD meds and some meds we're still tweaking dosages of, it makes more sense to get that stuff through CVS than it does through CIGNA Tel-Drug. And when there's a problem, CVS is particularly better.

For one thing, they know me. I showed up yesterday. "Hi Mr. Cohen," said Tori, the tech on duty. "We got the refill on that prescription for Emmeline, it's all set."

Now *THAT'S* astoundingly good service.

For another thing, every so often, CIGNA will screw things up. For example, they sent me the wrong dosages on two of my prescriptions on that last, big order -- enough so that I had to take twice as many of one drug and four times as many of another in order to reach my recommended dosages. And, of course, they're not willing to budge on either refilling me early or adjusting the dosage -- they need new prescriptions from the doctor, which I've mailed away but which they've still not received.

What was I to do in the interim, I asked their phone rep -- after the third time I called, because they were too busy with other customers to help me before that. Go to the local pharmacy with a new 30 day script from the doctor, and have them process it as an override.

When I explained what happened at CVS, they looked in their records, saw that I'd gotten the dosages I'd needed before, gave me enough to get through the weekend and faxed my doctor's office to ask them for a new 30-day script.

Again, THAT'S good service.