Andy, because he is over 18 has Medicaid in addition to my husbands health insurance. Well he is on a bunch of different medications to help treat his bipolar disorder. These meds keep his mood stable and enable him to have a much more normal life (well as normal as you can get with Autism & Bipolar & Tourettes)
Anyway, recently his risperdal went generic. I was fine with that until 3 weeks in and we discovered that Andy was suddenly off the wall at night. He was miserable, more obsessive, and just plain really cranky. So I called the doctor and although he said he hadn't had anyone have any problems with the generic we decided that putting Andy back on the name brand risperdal was a good idea, with the plan to talk in two weeks.
Well two weeks later Andy was much better and back to his old self. In the mean time though his depakote (used as a mood stabilizer and not for seizures) also went generic!!! The psych nurse who works for the doctor told me that they has contacted Medicaid and filled out the paper work to have both the risperdal and depakote stay brand name, and BECAUSE of the problems it was important NOT to change the depakote to the generic.
Well I go to the pharmacy today and the very sweet guy who works there told me that he had received paperwork from Medicaid that we had been denied ON BOTH!!!!!!
I was so ticked off!!!!!
I don’t mind generic medications. I’ll jump at the chance to lower my bill but when it affects my son’s mental health which the pshyc nurse documented, well it just burns me up to no end!
I will now have to pay $30.00 for each medication per month instead of paying $3.00 with Andy’s Medicaid.
I know some people try to rip off the system but it is awfully sad when someone who is just trying to make sure her son stay stable enough to be happy and actually have some semblance of a normal life gets slapped down like this.
I have already called both the Dr and the nurse to tell them that I want to appeal.
We will see what happens!