Here's where the midget circus clown rodeo began. Yesterday I called RE to set appt for CD 3 and Rx for meds. Previously Dr A mentioned Clomid if we needed O assistance. Nurse called me back, but I was busy at work, so she quickly told me to pick up Rx and set up appt for CD 12 US. This US will make sure my follies are OK size and that we don't overstimulate and have multiples.
I called the pharmacy where I expecting to hear that my Clomid should cost $9 but instead I learned that Dr A prescribed me Femara instead, a $69 drug that's not covered by insurance and needs pre-approval.
Pre approval for what and by whom, I asked the pharmacy tech?
She said your doctor doesn't do pre approvals. And the insurance won't cover it. So I can't wrap my mind around why it needs approval. For the 85th time in a day, I called the RE office back. It's about 4 seconds past 4 pm. The phones are rolled over to the answering service.
FLUBBEGARRRRGHHGITYYY!
I begged the lady to have a nurse call back. I know they return calls after 4. I KNOW they are in the office. I pleaded and pulled at her heart vessels because my Rx is not what we originally talked about.
45 minutes later...nurse Mary calls and explains Femara. Yes, it's different. Dr A thinks this is better for me. They see more success from it. The side effects are minimal compared to Clomid. Approval was needed because it is used to treat breast cancer patients. Since I'm not using it for that, then insurance wont cover it.
OK. Good. At least my brain wraps around that and I can understand the pre approval thing now. Based on Nurse Mary's words, she loves Femara. She sees a lot more pregnancies from it because many women don't respond to Clomid. Rumors of birth defects have been proven wrong. Femara has a shorter half life and it gets out of your system within hours if taking it instead of days in the system like Clomid.
Although I am not looking forward to taking drugs, I will do what is needed.
But the constant back and forth of phone calls and confusion is more frustrating than anything else.
In many ways, though, I am blessed. I like my RE. The nurses are awesome. I've never had a bad experience with them, and the only problems have been with scheduling conflicts that are beyond the offices control. Their job has to be tough. It can't be easy to want to help people get their ultimate goal of expanding a family but be limited to only as much as medicine and science can provide. I hope they get to experience the happy moments too. I hope they know how happy the patients are who graduate and start their family. I'm not to that point yet, but when I get there I hope they know how much their appreciated.
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