DONNIE WRITES:
Medco is a company based in Washington state that administers mail-order prescriptions for my insurance plan. I regularly get mail from them urging me to sign up for mail order drugs. But I have only one prescription, and I fill that a local pharmacy once a month. A few weeks ago I received a call from Medco, asking to confirm my mailing address in order to send a three-month supply of Lipitor that my doctor had ordered for me. I was unaware that the cardiologist had placed such an order; from the beginning of my treatment, he has simply renewed my local pharmacy prescription every six months. So I called the doctor, and spoke to his nurse. She confirmed the doctor had placed such an order, because, according to the nurse, Medco had informed him that the patient requested it. I had not.
This appeared to be an unethical ploy by Medco to get me on mail-order prescriptions: they told me "the doctor did it," and told the doctor "the patient did it.". I imagine they have a financial reason for wanting to get me on mail-order, though the cost to me at the pharmacy is virtually no different from the mail order cost. So I informed the doctor I would continue to fill locally, and I told Medco to cancel the mail order. Today, several weeks later, I receive a Medco e-mail "confirming my order," a second order that no one has requested. I fired off a rather sharper e-mail telling Medco this story. I will tell you their reply, if/when it comes."
DOUG SAYS:
If you go to Wikipedia and look up Medco, you will find that this company was sued for millions of dollars, and agreed to pay the government, back in 2004, for pulling this same scam.
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