A Hard Lesson

Sometimes we learn things the hard way. Rob and I learned something this week the very hard way. For all of you that have a Medicare health plan out there; here is a heads up in case you don’t know like we didn’t. Your medications are covered under an amount of money for the year. Once you use up your yearly amount you pay for the rest of your medications out of pocket. OUCH!

Bob has never had this problem because he has never been on many medications before and the ones that he has been on have not cost much. So imagine my surprise when I went to pick up his prescription and find that the bill is $208.00. I quickly asked the girl to recheck for me since we had always paid a very low amount in the past. She checked and told me I needed to call Humana.

I did call Humana and talked with a very nice lady for about twenty minutes. Yep, you guessed right, I had to pay the $208.00. I couldn’t get the medication from the VA without first seeing his primary care Doctor, there wasn’t a generic drug available in the United States, and he couldn’t go without this drug for more than 24 hours without major side effects.

We found the same medication outside of the United States for yep, you guess right again, about $35.00. Problem is we have to wait three weeks for delivery. We ordered it for the next month. The new allotment kicks back in staring in January, so we only have to worry about the month of December.

I asked the girl at the pharmacy if she had a bow to put on the bottle for me since that was my Christmas present. Rob and I of course were upset that night. Who ever heard of paying $200.00 for a bottle of pills? Sigh! Live and learn. We know now, the hard way, and will be prepared next year. I will either have the VA ready for the medications, or we will be prepared to get them from another source with enough time for the medication to arrive.

Since I am sharing about medications I have to tell you that I opened Bob’s capsule in some chocolate pudding. It wasn’t a powder, but small glandules. He picked all of them out and laid them off to the side. I asked him what he was doing and he said he was taking out the plastic. I told him I thought they were sprinkles. He ignored my comments. The next night I mixed the chocolate pudding up and added real sprinkles on top. When I gave him the pudding he said, “Hey, that is the same as what was in the pudding last night, but these are colorful.” I told him yeah, and asked if he was going to pick them out also. He said no, he would try them. He ate them and told me he liked the sprinkles they tasted good. Thank goodness. They cost just pennies compared to the medication.

So class what did we learn this week? We learned that Medicare Health plans don’t always cover medications so always have a backup plan, and we learned that sprinkles in chocolate pudding are very good.

More importantly, I personally learned to put my trust in the Lord and look toward him for not just understanding, but guidance. Of course Rob and I were both very upset with the cost of things. Rob told me he felt like our family was being attacked. I had to agree with him. It does feel like that sometimes. And if we allow ourselves to be consumed with that attack then we lose.