Who else are they telling about my drugs?

[Career Prole]

I have Blue Cross/Blue Shield through work. Prescriptions are covered with a co-pay. A couple of years ago they came up with a mail-order deal which they touted in the benefits booklet and linked to from the Blue Cross site thru AdvanceRX.com which was quite a savings on long-term prescriptions. My daughter has to take penicillin until she's 21 because she had rheumatic fever a few years ago. Getting the pills a month at a time cost $30 for 90 days, but a 90 day supply by mail order was $18, so I started getting them that way for her. For about a year and a half, when I'd log in at AdvanceRX and click on "Refill Your Prescription", the only one listed was the penicillin I was purchasing through them. Last weekend I was reordering and they had an announcement that they'd been purchased by Caremark, but everything would remain the same. Not quite the same. :grr:
When I clicked on Refill, up popped a list of every prescription ever written for her under Blue Cross, only one of which was ordered thru AdvanceRX. It didn't matter if it was the pediatrician, the shrink, the orthopedist, the neurosurgeon...every stinking one was listed there.
Freakin' Blue Cross. Who else are they telling this shit too without asking me first? Is it legal?

[sendero]

1. Most people are unaware of this...

... but the insurance companies and the drug companies are collaborating heavily to share data about prescription use.

Marketing directly to prescription consumers is right around the corner.

I know a lot of you have all kinds of wild ideas about "medical privacy". Trust me, they are nothing but ideas.

[Career Prole]

3. I'm worried...I don't want my kid red-flagged in some

secretive mental health bureaucracy by Bushco because she took anti-depressants.
:scared:

[xchrom]

2. i'm hooked into the medical/pharmeceutical universe

there is so little privacy.
while the dr.'s office might be careful -- they still have to disseminate info out into the universe in order to get what they need to treat me.
they shouldn't have to but it's true.

[Career Prole]

5. I know at the smalltown pharmacy I use the y made me sign a paper

saying they were sworn to secrecy or something, and then Blue Cross gives this information to one corporation which is then sold to another corporation...I could post that stuff on a sign in my front yard and have fewer people know about it. :(
She's ten years old for pete's sake. She was on anti-depressants because she had a tumor and missed half a year of school. She's fine now in every way...I don't want this stuff following her. People reading it won't know why she was on psychotropics...they'll just know she was and make the usual biased assumptions.

[classof56]

7. What a sorry situation for all of us.

I know this isn't what you want to hear, but one of my great fears, based on what I know to be true, is that any illness or condition we have could be the reason for insurance companies to deny any coverage in the future. Rheumatic fever in childhood can lead to heart problems in adulthood (happened to a family member of mine) and the insurance co. could conclude that resulting medical costs would be too costly to them, and thus they refuse to insure. I could give examples, but suffice it to say this is just one of the myriad of reasons I remain cynical about all our futures.

You and your daughter have all my good wishes. Keep the faith!

[Career Prole]

8. Thank you, Class!

And welcome to DU! :hi:
This insurance thing...my buddy at work was treated for problems with his liver by his family doctor then shortly after, his life insurance policy through work was canceled. We have no secrets, do we? That's a rhetorical question, of course. :(

[classof56]

12. And thank you!

For the welcome to DU. You are exactly right--we have no secrets. Let me tell you, the world/our country is a VERY different place than I would ever have imagined back in 1956, when I got my high school diploma. And I'm not talking about that walk on the moon, a truly amazing and inspirational event. Then Viet Nam happened...well, that's all in the past, of course. My fear now is that being active on DU might elicit a knock on the door from Big Brother's crowd. No secrets, indeed. I hope your buddy with liver problems is doing better. Awhile back, it would have been hard to believe his life insurance would be cancelled...but then, they are betting that we live while we bet with each premium they're going to be wrong.

Crazy world indeed. Keep the faith!

[kerry-is-my-prez]

11. If one loses their job - it's almost impossible to get private insurance

when you have a history of taking anti-depressants. That's why I often pay cash for my Prescriptions.

[hlthe2b]

4. Can anyone tell me (authoritatively) how this impacts insurance coverage

when you change jobs. Are all previous prescriptions refused as per a "preexisting condition?" Anyone?

[Career Prole]

9. Sorry. I couldn't tell you the answer to that one...

authoritatively or not. :shrug:

[bleedingheart]

6. I had an echocardiogram to rule out an embolism during a bad

asthma attack and the insurance company turned my name over to some company that is supposed to help people with "chronic" illnesses like heart disease...

When the nurse called me to find out how I was doing she was shocked to find out that I wasn't a cardiac patient after all...

[Tamiati]

10. Share more than Rx info

They share more than just the prescriptions, they share all information with many persons......that's why a kid who is diagnosed with ADHD say has such a time later as an adult getting into certain careers....

This has been occurring for quite some time, without most persons ever being aware of it....with the advent of the computer technology in our homes, we are now just seeing the big picture.

T