For the past five years I have been getting 200 Contour Next Strips per month including from the current pharmacy I use now. I recently switched from one branch of CVS to another within 2 miles distance of each other. Starting five months ago, the CVS I was using in Yonkers, NY started filling only 100 test strips a month and they were giving me phony excuses why I was only receiving 100 test strips. I got so frustrated that I moved my pharmacy business from Yonkers to Riverdale. Guess what, the Riverdale, NY CVS is pulling the same stunts as the Yonkers NY CVS. Has anyone out there ever experienced this? Would you consider this a form of discrimination? And the diabetologist writes 8 strips a day for 30 days.
Hi @gzelnik welcome to TypeOneNation. My old script said “test 4-8 times per day” and that script was filled by the pharmacy at 4 X 30 = 120 strips. My new script says “Test 10 times per day and it is filled for 300 per month. Are you sure if the exact wording? The next thing would be to check for some weird max that your insurance would cover. I’m not thinking discrimination, I’m thinking more like lawyers.
Hello,
Yes, my prescription reads 8x daily and CVS refuses to fill the scrip for more than 100 test strips a month. I opened a new scrip with a smaller pharmacy and they filled for 200. I just want to make sure that diabetics are not being taken advantage of because they are diabetic. A nurse practitioner I know say this is CVS corporate policy in NYC not to fill any more than 100 test strips per person no matter what the prescription reads for. I should have also mentioned that my insurer covers the 200 scri[ and has consistently for the past five years.
Hmmm have you ever thought about mail order like express scripts?
I no longer use BG Check strips as finger-stick checking is only rarely needed with my current AIDs. But when I did frequent BG Checks, I would pick-up my supply of 800 strips every three months and never was questioned about that.
What counts, is that the doctor who writes the prescription must write it properly and must be able to provide certification to insurance company and Medicare that the strips are all used.
Be proactive and provide you doctor with evidence that you are actually using all strips prescribed and dispensed.
I use a CGM and only have to do 4 fingersticks/day so I’ve never had this issue. However, I have occasionally used a Freestyle Libre and found they were on backorder with the pharmacies in my neighborhood - apparently due to their proximity they all used the same supplier, which was having problems getting them. So I’m thinking - and this is not an excuse but a possibility - that they are limiting quantities in order to have enough on hand that (in theory) all or most of their customers can get some of what they need, rather than some of their customers getting none.
In my case I was able to find them at pharmacies a little farther from home - different suppliers. Mail order may be another possibility - I’ve used them before for all my scrips - including my insulin and test strips - and never had a problem.
I am going to go through mail order for my Freestyle Libre sensors starting this upcoming week. It’s a good idea to go with what you are saying for the test strips, but I will try out the new pharmacy that accepts my health insurance now that I am switching all my meds out of CVS. Thank you for the suggestion.
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I personally don’t use CVS for anything other than a quick 1 only prescription in the middle of the night. (antibiotics or something like that) I try to go to a small local pharmacy for most of my meds because with them they know you and tend to care more. With CVS you are a number and the pharmacist is on salary. My father still uses CVS for some reason and they are constantly shorting him pills. (filling a prescription for 60 pills and giving him 50 or 55) With CVS they care for themselves first, then the insurance companies and the patients are a distant 3rd… I would not recommend a CVS for any long term medications. These have been my experiences over the years…
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Thank you for your observations Mike. I have already made the move towards a smaller local pharmacy.
Geoff
I remember seeing something about this last year. It’s a limit that was imposed by CVS to match Medicare’s guidelines for restricting test strips to 1 x/day for non-insulin-dependent diabetics and 3 x/day for insulin-dependent. (Google it if you want more details.) My understanding is that this doesn’t apply to other pharmacies, so the solution may be as easy as checking with another pharmacy to confirm that they can fill your Rx as written, and then transferring it there. Good luck!
Thank you for the suggestion. I changed pharmacies this past week.