Jeez, my doctors office drives me crazy. You literally have to DEMAND what you want done. They won’t refill my Adderall script unless I come in for a Med Check and “Would I like to schedule an appointment?” – which typically is months out. “NO!” I need the drug script as I will be out of them this Friday and I shouldn’t be expected to be taken off of a controlled drug and risk withdrawal symptoms just because I wasn’t advised that I have to have a 3 month Med Check in order to get a controlled drug script filled. Let’s not get into the fact that my doctor’s office doesn’t have the technology to email the controlled script to my pharmacy so I have to pick up a script every month and hand carry it to my pharmacy until I learned recently that I could get three scripts written the later two post dated and present them all to the pharmacy at the same time. And also let’s not get into the fact that my Insurance company insisted that I use this drug because my former drug, Provigil, is too expensive to be filled by my current Insurance provider. So my Insurance provider puts me on a controlled drug that is addictive solely because of cost and not being considerate of my health and risk that I could potentially become addicted to the cheaper drug instead of giving me the more expensive non-addictive drug. I am so glad open enrollment on Healthcare.gov is open again and is still in place so I can get off of this WORST Insurance provider I have ever had.

As a knowledgable Licensed Healthcare Insurance Agent I always stress to friends and colleagues that one has to take control of their own health and know exactly what to ask for each time you go to the doctor’s office. Like always come with a list of questions to ask, always demand that the doctor take the time to answer those questions. And this is the hardest part because who really knows the ins and outs of what you need to do such as always being sure where you go is covered on your insurance plan; to be sure when you are referred to a specialist that they are on your plan; to be sure when you are prescribed a drug, it is covered on your insurance plan; to ALWAYS ask questions of the drug being prescribed to you directly to your doctor and to always research the drug after leaving the office; to always get that next appointment on the books before leaving the office; to always take control of how YOU want issues of your health managed. All this alone makes for one to never go to a doctor and just live by: “If I don’t know about it, it can’t hurt me.”