I’ve been recollecting today about all the dysfunction I’ve had with the medical community since being diagnosed with diabetes… and it occurred to me that one theme has been largely common—- the disconnect between the medical assistant and the provider.
I had an endo for years who actually became a personal friend of mine… thought I was lucky to have such an expert as a provider, but still stumbled and fell face flat on simple things like renewing routine prescriptions… all because he just truly believed his MA was on top of that stuff
Since moving to another state I’ve had MAs tell me, incorrectly, that my incorrectly prescribed medications were actually correct without even consulting with the prescribing physician.
And at this moment I am frustrated because I’m waiting for an MA, who has told me twice now that it would be done yesterday (and in my 20 years of experience it’s always been done real time at the visit) that my paperwork for my work physical would be done.
I guess the point of my rant is that these people are critical to the process… and we either need to raise the bar and raise the pay to the point where we get some people who aren’t so prone to not giving a s*it or we need to reduce their role in the process… because at this point they juggle way too much, way too poorly, and I’m not sure much more can really be expected from entry level low wage employees
Can’t they do away with a lot of this paperwork? Diabetes-related routine prescriptions should simply not expire. Is there any good argument for the requirement to have a physician renew these every 90 days or so? It really can’t be for safety purposes, so if it’s due to FDA regulations, the FDA should change that and allow indefinite insulin prescriptions. In other countries that works fine too.
I agree with you @Sam! MAs or office staff are either overworked, don’t care, or not trained properly at my clinic, too. They often enter the wrong test results into the portal. I notice and have to ask them to correct it.
I also agree that diabetes-related routine prescriptions should simply not expire. Fortunately, I generally do not have a problem in this area, as my insurance will request a renewal directly from the Dr who does eventually renew them unless the insurance requires an authorization. Then it can be a nuisance to document the reason the medication is required.
I know it’s not always possible, but one option is to find a new endo, maybe even one without a medical assistant.
The endo I see works with RN who is a CDE and also a type 1 diabetic. The only other staff that I’m aware of is just for scheduling. I work mostly with the RN but prescriptions still come from the MD. It’s a pretty good situation.
My previous endo was a professor at a medical school and had an assistant for scheduling and billing but no other staff so I got direct access all the time. The phone answering system had an option to page him and he said I should feel free to page him if I had an urgent issue such as if my pump failed and I need a prescription for some long acting insulin.
I’ve definitely had endos with a much less convenient setup. I’m glad I was eventually able to find these two endos.
I’ve had much better results since my office now has an online portal. All my prescritptions are in there and I simply select what needs refilled and they process.
The biggest issue now is with pump supply prescriptions. Those are never smooth,because Tandemn faxes the script request to the office and they never recieve.
So anyway for me the use of modern technology has helped.
Do people have to renew them every 90 days?? My endo usually puts in 12 refills for anything prescribes unless it’s something new/kind of experimental that he wants to touch base about before I keep using indefinitely (I think the only thing in that category has been Invokana, which I stopped after a few months or so anyway).
I asked my husband about this (he’s a retired physician) and he said in general it’s to make sure people get follow-up care and that medications are changed up or dosages adjusted as needed. He thought about this some more and said the insurance programs and rules contribute to this as well. Then he thinks some more and goes on to say that for PWDs on insulin that all makes no sense whatsoever: it’s not like we can live without the stuff!
Prescriptions are good for a year (assuming they’re written as such). on all but certain controlled substances I believe.
A lot of Rx plans will only dispense either 30 or 90 days worth of a med at a time, but refills should allow the same rx to continue for a year without the prescribers renewal… assuming they wrote for refills
Yeah, I know all that, more just wondering if some folks have endos who don’t write scripts that allow them to have refills etc. That seems very controlling. I’d get a new endo if I had the option if mine did that.
Maybe I got confused with the 90 day refills some people write about here. Anyway, here in Holland I never have to ask my physician to renew my prescription for insulin or pump supplies.
It’s rarely necessary here in USA unless changes need to be made once they’re established… the pharmacy generally just sends the doc a refill request and they rubber stamp it behind the scenes here… assuming your docs office isn’t a dysfunctional mess, which isn’t always the case
I think a whole lot of diabetics out there don’t… I’ve talked to an awful lot that simply just take X amount with meals, or even just with one meal a day and take basal, or who take one shot of 70/30 a day etc…
Tight control active management is incomprehensible to some people… part of the docs job is to determine who’s who.
That was me once upon a time. Thank goodness I started looking online, too bad it took me decades though to reach that point. I think that doctors do a disservice by not empowering the PWD. I wasn’t aware that it was even possible for a T1D to maintain an A1c under 7, or had even heard of tight control.
I truly really wish things were more seamless here! When I moved from Chicago to Dallas in 2018, it took a while to be able to get an appointment with a new Endo. In the interim, one of my annual insulin prescriptions needed to be renewed … unfortunately it was not a simple/easy task.
Is that because prescriptions in Holland don’t have a cut-off date? Or because your pharmacy (like mine in Canada) automatically contacts the physician for more refills when needed and I never know about it?
