Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.
I work at the pharmacy level, and I can testify to the amount of time and effort required to communicate with PCP's when a PA is demanded by insurance. The most recent development that particularly irritates me is one major insurance company that now orders a PA if the patient is switched within a therapeutic class from one GENERIC to another GENERIC!
As an aside for those of you looking for a COVID booster, most pharmacies are requiring an appointment. The demand is overwhelming as many of those patients seeking boosters originally had their first shot(s) at mass administration public sites that are not doing the additional dose--so they are all funneling into the pharmacies. Many locations are enduring the same staffing issues as the economy at large--open positions with few if any qualified applicants. Generally, boosters alone absorb all the time of one technician and/or pharmacist which consequently increases the backlog of our regular responsibility of monitoring and filling prescriptions.
@Crash-in the above comment, "to be held harmless" means that your SS benefit (net of Medicare deduction) will be the same as the prior year, that is no change. Probably most will not be affected by this, since their SS increase will be more than the $21.60 increase in Medicare each month, considering that 5.9 % is a rather large SS increase.
"In this game, I find I'm more on the side of the providers. Especially PCPs, where as @sma3 noted, margins are razor thin. Which is not to say that I haven't seen gross abuses of the system by providers. But I haven't seen nearly the level of nickel and diming that the insurers do that drives up administrative costs. Just MHO." +1
As an aside for those of you looking for a COVID booster, most pharmacies are requiring an appointment. The demand is overwhelming as many of those patients seeking boosters originally had their first shot(s) at mass administration public sites that are not doing the additional dose--so they are all funneling into the pharmacies. Many locations are enduring the same staffing issues as the economy at large--open positions with few if any qualified applicants.
I tried to setup an appointment for a Covid-19 booster shot last Thursday. I used an app to search national/regional/local drugstores, supermarkets, and hospitals. Since I assumed there was ample supply, I was surprised most available appointments were two or more weeks out. After a lot of searching, I was fortunate to get one of the few available appointments at a local primary care practice the next day.
I felt a sense of civic pride when we got our first two shots. The county health department organized the announcements and appointments online, commandeered a university convocation center to give the shots, and pulled it off splendidly. The appointments were on schedule, the personnel helpful and well trained, much information was provided and everybody I saw adhered to the guidelines and followed procedures strictly. People were grateful and said so.
The booster shot experience resembled what others have written here. While the local hyper market pharmacy did well making appointments online, once we arrived at the store it was clear that this was no exercise in civic cooperation. The single technician assigned to giving shots could not keep up with the schedule and by the time we got our vaccinations an hour and a quarter had elapsed. I don’t know why the booster shots were turned over to the private sector. Those who have commented on the weirdness of coverage and prices on their Part D prescription plans are old enough to remember that Bush the Younger’s accomplishment in this realm was to turn Medicare prescriptions over to the private sector. I recall some pablum (a rationale) touting the benefits of « competition » among the drug manufacturers. I’m sure the lobbyists benefited, the consumers not so much.
We got our boosters at our local CVS. They schedule appts 15 minutes apart and their process went flawlessly for us who happened to get ours on two different days, so we saw it happen twice there. That said, the pharmacist who we've known for years did express a lot of angst though over how taxing the process is on their staffing.
Comments
As an aside for those of you looking for a COVID booster, most pharmacies are requiring an appointment. The demand is overwhelming as many of those patients seeking boosters originally had their first shot(s) at mass administration public sites that are not doing the additional dose--so they are all funneling into the pharmacies. Many locations are enduring the same staffing issues as the economy at large--open positions with few if any qualified applicants. Generally, boosters alone absorb all the time of one technician and/or pharmacist which consequently increases the backlog of our regular responsibility of monitoring and filling prescriptions.
+1
I tried to setup an appointment for a Covid-19 booster shot last Thursday.
I used an app to search national/regional/local drugstores, supermarkets, and hospitals.
Since I assumed there was ample supply, I was surprised most available appointments were two or more weeks out. After a lot of searching, I was fortunate to get one of the few available appointments at a local primary care practice the next day.
The booster shot experience resembled what others have written here. While the local hyper market pharmacy did well making appointments online, once we arrived at the store it was clear that this was no exercise in civic cooperation. The single technician assigned to giving shots could not keep up with the schedule and by the time we got our vaccinations an hour and a quarter had elapsed. I don’t know why the booster shots were turned over to the private sector. Those who have commented on the weirdness of coverage and prices on their Part D prescription plans are old enough to remember that Bush the Younger’s accomplishment in this realm was to turn Medicare prescriptions over to the private sector. I recall some pablum (a rationale) touting the benefits of « competition » among the drug manufacturers. I’m sure the lobbyists benefited, the consumers not so much.