Are we losing any resemblance of privacy in our lives? Is there anything that big brother/big business doesn't know about us?
I received a phone call today from the mail order pharmacy that I use for my oral meds. The call was generated because I had not filled any scripts since March. This was because I used a local pharmacy last time. I told the nice lady that I would again be using their service and had just mailed them a new round of scripts. Then she said something that shocked me and upset me. She ask...Will you allow us to fill your insulin subscription? Ding Ding Ding bells went off in my head. I HAVE NEVER FILLED AN INSULIN SUBSCRIPTION with them. How did she know? Isn't there a law out there about medical privacy.
I can only suspect my insurance company for violating my privacy rights. Who else has a copy of my medical records? I 'm not a paranoid person and I don't see black helicopters but this scares me. I can see my health care decisions being taken away as big goverment/big business become all knowing and all seeing.
I know of nothing I can do about this but just wanted to rant. Thanks for listening to me
I can't speak for your mail-in/online pharmacy, but my health insurance runs their own "pharmacy". From my online "pharmacy" I can see both prescription records for both the "online" and my local Walgreens pick ups.
They are probably following a menu, if you get med X, maybe they can get your insulin business? It could be too that they are affiliated with your Health Insurance company, in which case HIPAA could be addressed through some of the 40 or 50 pages in the manual somewhere? I don't pay any attention to that stuff. I still go to the pharmacy for insulin because I like having it at hand if I need it?
".......I like having it at hand if I need it?" Sorry for the chuckle, but we I think you are going to need it. btw, you are my diabetes hero of the day.......your a1c rocks!! 2012 is my year to get it in the low 6s.
Having someone solicit my prescription business by telephone so that it can be mailed to my door has happened to me as well. I simply told them that my prescription business has been handled and that I want to continue to order from my local Walgreens outlet. They continued to press me and I nearly ended the call.
I was asked about insulin and test strips. I asked them if they could guarantee their delivery without freezing. I live in a harsh winter climate and don't want a problem with freezing. They assured me that there would be no problem with freezing of the prescriptions and that if that did happen, all I would need to do is to return them for replacement.
At that point, I realized they didn't know what they were doing and hung up.
LOL, thanks. When we moved, we had a map of the town we moved to and had little stickers (sticky corners of post-its...) marking schools but I knew where the 24 hour Walgreens was and *amazingly*, we ended up about 2 minutes from one!
Unfortunately, our privacy in many cases is lost and gone. Every prescription you fill is reported in some way. Drug reps know exactly what prescriptions your doctor has been writing. And if by chance you use some sort of mail order service that is run by CVS Caremark, they will have your information and show it right on the screen there at your local CVS. You may think your mail order service is run by someone else, but my mail order Aetna service is run by CVS.
Did I give Aetna "permission" to share my personal health information to CVS? No, but they did it anyway.
There is no privacy with your meds list. Any pharmacy anywhere can dial up and see any meds you have. I think that sucks, but what can you do? I guess that's the USA government's way to fighting drug abuse by felons out there. Big Brother should leave us alone. You want my social security number for what? Screw 'em .That info is for MY "social security". Off my soapbox.
Did they know anything personally identifiable about you? I've gotten robo-calls (at my old job - at work) with an urgent-sounding message saying I needed to refill my diabetes supplies. It sounded like a scam to me, and just by playing the odds, they picked a phone number that happened to correspond with someone with diabetes.
I wonder if this might have been such a thing. They used a popular mail-order pharmacy name and a popular disease, and made random calls trying to solicit business (or maybe just credit card numbers!). If they call you, I'd be weary and don't tell them anything.
(Re-reading the message, if she knew you hadn't filled an Rx since March, it could have been legitimate. Still, my above message is a powerful warning)
It's not "black helicopters" that should scare you, it's the drone planes! I don't have any idea how the mail order service knew about your insulin prescription. I do know that ALL of your pharmacy services should know everything that you take in the form of meds...this is importatnt in case there are any contradictions with any of your prescriptions. I think you should just ask how she knows, and then let us know.
