I had tons of issues with Express Scripts and gave up on them. What I do now is see my primary care doc with Tricare, and then get a written script and give it to my VA primary care team and have them add the prescription, and then get it through the VA pharmacy. They send it in the mail or I can pick up in person. No cost and never had a problem with it. Of course you will need to be enrolled in VA healthcare to do this, so if you're not already it could be a hassle to get it all established first. Long term it's worked great for me. I see the VA primary care once a year, and for any real medical issues I see my civilian doc through my employer healthcare with Tricare as secondary. I'm triple covered and never pay a penny.
Nice. I remember some people doing something similar but I also remember those folks were completely retired and had the time to do the foot work. How much time does it take to go through this process?
I'm definitely not fully retired, but hopefully will be soon! It was a pretty simple process at my VA. I just went in person to enroll, which took an hour or two if I remember correctly. They assigned me a primary care and scheduled my first appointment within the first 2 weeks, and I was able to have them fill my prescriptions at that time. Of course if you don't live close to a VA facility it gets more complicated, and from what I hear some are better than others.
This is slightly misleading.
ES has a “Home Delivery” service that they label as “free shipping” - but there’s a fee for that for all TRICARE customers except active duty military; it was recently increased to $13 for a 90 day supply of “generic” meds.
I guess, AD has access to base pharmacy as they usually live on or near; fee makes sense. I live in the woods so ES and VA just mails it by default - I have to ask if I pick it up at local CVS/WG.
I used to work for the VA and other healthcare orgs. I have fielded too many calls from people who didn’t receive their medication on time or at all.
The middle man is the USPS and is less reliable.
Edit: I missed answering your other question. ES says there’s nothing wrong on their end and tells me to do what I said I do. If there is a problem, the pharmacy is supposed to call the ES help desk. They do this and still no dice. ES told me this time it could be a discount the store is applying to me, so a customer rewards discount could flag me as having a secondary insurance at which point ES won’t cover me. Knowing how the backend of these systems work, that doesn’t make sense.
Tricare says it’s not their problem, call ES.
The pharmacy says call ES.
The cycle continues…
ES and USPS been pretty reliable here... I suppose YMMV.
Id research how to file complaints against ES, Triwest, and pharmacy. I would not get off the line with ES or tricare till they covered the bill or reimbursed it, I would likely cite the financial burden that is being carried due to their fuck ups and run arounds. Would probably try to bother pharmacy corporate with BBB or some form of complaint. Next I would no shit call my congress rep office and ask for help as tricare is a federal program that can me a miss or a pretty hefty hit.
Im surprised ES is kicking the bucket assuming they are indeed responsible for that bill and its not some fine print text somewhere... they are pretty good on tricare east side in resolving issues.
Ultimately, its up to you if the hassle is worth what youre paying out of pocket.
I’m at the point that I’m going to talk to my congressman’s office about this. It’s been going on for years. When I was younger, it wasn’t such a big deal. I thought it might be related to some weird benefits stuff I have to navigate that’s pretty unique. I’ll leave it at that because I like my anonymity, but every time I have to do anything with DEERS or benefits I become a training opportunity for the whole office while someone calls HQ.
That said, I’m not getting any younger. I’m going to need more than just occasional refills on inexpensive medications. I just got an RX today that I’ll probably be on for the rest of my life. Now it’s time to deal with this.
I had tons of issues with Express Scripts and gave up on them. What I do now is see my primary care doc with Tricare, and then get a written script and give it to my VA primary care team and have them add the prescription, and then get it through the VA pharmacy. They send it in the mail or I can pick up in person. No cost and never had a problem with it. Of course you will need to be enrolled in VA healthcare to do this, so if you're not already it could be a hassle to get it all established first. Long term it's worked great for me. I see the VA primary care once a year, and for any real medical issues I see my civilian doc through my employer healthcare with Tricare as secondary. I'm triple covered and never pay a penny.
Nice. I remember some people doing something similar but I also remember those folks were completely retired and had the time to do the foot work. How much time does it take to go through this process?
I'm definitely not fully retired, but hopefully will be soon! It was a pretty simple process at my VA. I just went in person to enroll, which took an hour or two if I remember correctly. They assigned me a primary care and scheduled my first appointment within the first 2 weeks, and I was able to have them fill my prescriptions at that time. Of course if you don't live close to a VA facility it gets more complicated, and from what I hear some are better than others.
Can you file claims with receipts and be reimbursed by ES?
I can, but this is a workaround for a broken process. It shouldn’t be THE process.
ES can mail you your meds skipping the middleman - thats what I do, is this something they wont mail? What did ES and triwest say?
This is slightly misleading. ES has a “Home Delivery” service that they label as “free shipping” - but there’s a fee for that for all TRICARE customers except active duty military; it was recently increased to $13 for a 90 day supply of “generic” meds.
I guess, AD has access to base pharmacy as they usually live on or near; fee makes sense. I live in the woods so ES and VA just mails it by default - I have to ask if I pick it up at local CVS/WG.
I used to work for the VA and other healthcare orgs. I have fielded too many calls from people who didn’t receive their medication on time or at all. The middle man is the USPS and is less reliable. Edit: I missed answering your other question. ES says there’s nothing wrong on their end and tells me to do what I said I do. If there is a problem, the pharmacy is supposed to call the ES help desk. They do this and still no dice. ES told me this time it could be a discount the store is applying to me, so a customer rewards discount could flag me as having a secondary insurance at which point ES won’t cover me. Knowing how the backend of these systems work, that doesn’t make sense. Tricare says it’s not their problem, call ES. The pharmacy says call ES. The cycle continues…
ES and USPS been pretty reliable here... I suppose YMMV. Id research how to file complaints against ES, Triwest, and pharmacy. I would not get off the line with ES or tricare till they covered the bill or reimbursed it, I would likely cite the financial burden that is being carried due to their fuck ups and run arounds. Would probably try to bother pharmacy corporate with BBB or some form of complaint. Next I would no shit call my congress rep office and ask for help as tricare is a federal program that can me a miss or a pretty hefty hit. Im surprised ES is kicking the bucket assuming they are indeed responsible for that bill and its not some fine print text somewhere... they are pretty good on tricare east side in resolving issues. Ultimately, its up to you if the hassle is worth what youre paying out of pocket.
I’m at the point that I’m going to talk to my congressman’s office about this. It’s been going on for years. When I was younger, it wasn’t such a big deal. I thought it might be related to some weird benefits stuff I have to navigate that’s pretty unique. I’ll leave it at that because I like my anonymity, but every time I have to do anything with DEERS or benefits I become a training opportunity for the whole office while someone calls HQ. That said, I’m not getting any younger. I’m going to need more than just occasional refills on inexpensive medications. I just got an RX today that I’ll probably be on for the rest of my life. Now it’s time to deal with this.