Medco Pharmacy reviews and complaints

1. The discount card is for CASH payment, so all your mom has to do is tell the pharmacy not to file the claim against the insurance. Easy as pie.

2. If it was removed and your mother insisted on the refill, then she is obligated to pay the fee. It is a federal law not to accept medication back once it has left the pharmacy.

3. If you do not like Medco then your mother needs to change her insurance. She agreed to use them when she accepted the insurance.

When starting and needed medications are identified Medco will foul up current orders with your pharmacy by limiting to a 14 day supply and then will not provide needed medications in time as needed. The answer then in to make another visit to your doctor and get an emergency short term Rx to replace the one Medco fouled up. Then you have to go back to your old pharmacy, order and wait for the filling and pay for another short term Rx.

Don't let them know anything until you cover all bases to prevent their creating your misery and increased cost.

Disclaimer: Medco employee (former). Different employee than from above.

The price increase on the medication is justified. Your employer is the one who sets up your benefits each year, and the letter you received basically just explains that effective 1/1/11, your plan has a deductible of $3600.00, that looks like it encompasses your medical and your rx benefit, whether you pick them up at the local retail pharmacy or get them through mail order. You have to pay that amount out of pocket before the insurance will kick anything in (again, for both medical claims and rx benefits). Your employer is legally obligated to send you information in the mail when they change your benefits. I don't know if your benefits changed or if you have always had a deductible, but they send you information annually (whenever your eligibility starts over, i.e. 1/1-12/31, or 7/1-6/30, etc), required by law, outlining your benefits. If your employer didn't do this, that is something you need to take up with them. If your employer changed the terms of your insurance, that's something you need to take up with them.

FYI, I got the following reply from Medco when I complained about the $350 charge for a prescription that I could get locally for $80. Obviously Medco has adopted a business model where profits are gained from sporadic price increases that they hope their customers will not notice if they don't have to pay the charge directly. Just another indication of why consumer-driven health care is needed. These scammers are using the insurance system to take money from you, hopefully without you knowing it.

"Dear Member, Thank you for your online inquiry. I will be happy to assist you today with your benefit information. Effective January 1, 2011, your plan has a deductible. A deductible is the amount you must pay before your plan sponsor begins paying for a portion of your medical claims and prescription costs. The deductible for medical claims and for prescriptions filled at retail or mail order pharmacies is $3600.00 every year. Please note, 100% of the funds in your Spending Account can be applied to your deductible. My records show $349.99 of your deductible was applied to your spending account for Rx# XXXX. To view drug coverage and pricing online, please follow this link: http://www.medco.com and once you have logged in, select "Price a medication" from the menu in the left hand side of the page. "

In other words: "Caveat emptor"

The CSR from Medco can't explain this one away! My wife just got a 90-day prescription in the mail from Medco that cost us $350, when we could get the same thing from a local pharmacy for $80. Unfortunately, the order was placed on-line by her doctor during her office visit and she never thought to check Medco's price. That will never happen again to us, and I warn others to check the price before ordering from Medco. I myself had a similar experience with a totally different drug. The last time I ordered it from Medco, it was $90. Now, with the doctor ordering it during my visit, it's $150. I wonder if they have recruited doctors to make these convenient, but very expensive orders during office visits.

Medco is the worst pharmacy I have ever dealt with. I have checked the price on their website under “price a medication”. The results showed I would get 3 bottle for $56. Now they sent me 1 bottle and charged me $56. The reason they gave me is that it is my Doctor’s fault since he wrote the wrong amount so a bottle will last for 2 months. All the pharmacy I knew they called the Doctor if they have questions. Obviously, Medco is not one of it. All the people answered my phone were very rude. One of them hung up my phone when I asked for a supervisor. This is a Company that cutting a lot of corners to make more money.

Disclosure: I am and have been a CSR for Medco for 12 years. Medco does not pay me to post comments here, nor would I ever tell them i was. While I don't love everything medco does, I do believe it is a good company and that your assesment here is incorrect. While I understand your frustration, please consider the following: First, Medco is NOT your insurance carrier. Medco is Prescription Benefit Manager (PBM) contracted by your employer to administer THEIR prescription benefits. If you work for the government or are a federal employee, then it is the government that contracts Medco to provide your benefits. Based on what you wrote, it sounds like your plan operates on a flat-rate copayment structure. I suggest you read your benefits brochure again, because I am certain that it states you can receive "UP TO" a 90 days supply of medication for that $100 copay, and does not guarantee that 90 day supply. Pills are very easy to calculate to a 90 day supply. Items like Androgel, inhalers, sprays, eye drops, make it a bit more complicated. Basically, your plan entitles you to receive up to a 90ds of meds for that $100 but will not allow you to receive a greater quantity. Therefore, Medco cuts the presription to the plan limits set forth by your employer. Trust me when I tell you this is one of the most common complaints received by CSRS, but it is not a medco error. If you spoke to Medco prior to mailing in your RX, the CSR should have calculated, based on your usage, exactly how many pumps medco would send you for that $100 copay. If you called and they did not, then the CSR was remiss. But if you didn't call to first inquire, that's hardly Medco's fault. If the RX is cut, Medco is not benefiting from that, and is in fact complying with its contract with your carrier. Cutting the RX does not benefit medco: Remember, you are paying a copayment and YOUR employer is paying medco the difference in the cost of the medication. See who benefits here? Again, i understand the frustration involved, but this sort of argument between Medco and its customers can be easily avoided by a little communication between the two before the RX is submitted.

The exactly same thing happened to me. I could have bought the same thing on the web without insurance for a lot cheaper price. Now they charge me on bottle, suppose to be a 60 days supply according to their calculation, for 90 days' price. By the way, I was on the phone with them for close to 3 hours and going to nowhere.

I received my prescription for my Restless Leg Syndrome on 03/10/11. I took one pill as usual. Within two hours I knew it was a complete fail and took another. I did not sleep at all and today have severe twitching.

I called and spoke to many people, including one Mandy Downey, who flat out refused to take the non-working pills back, or refund my $188. She said I could file an appeal with UHC, but it would do no good.

I repeatedly asked to speak to her supervisor and she stated there was no reason for me to do that, they would just tell me the same thing. After I made it clear I wanted her supervisor, she put me on hold and never returned.

Medco has stolen $188 from me, sent me placebos and refuses to do anything about it.

I have had numerous problems with medco. They take forever to fill a new prescription. Several times they have been out of one of my prescriptions and they have taken it upon themselves to contact my doctor's office to get approval for another medication. A doctor's office cannot on the spot remember everything about a patient's prescriptions. Some medications I take are the only ones that work for me. Others are not same strength (ie 12 hr vs24 hr). Then once they get it changed because they r out of what you normally take, they cancel your original prescription and keep your new one. It is not a temporary switch until your normal one comes in. If u try to get them to go back to your normal prescription too bad you have to get new one from your Dr. Second problem. I have been renewing my husbands prescriptions and talking to representatives on his medications for over two years. The insurance coverage is through me. We set up originally for both of us to be able to tale care of each others prescriptions. Recently I contacted them to get a statement of our medications from beginning of 2013 til now to submit on flex plan reimbursement. They would not send me his without talking to him. He was unavailable. I have been dealing with all this he NEVER does. I can discuss and order his prescriptions, but I can't get a printout of what we have paid. Doesn't make sense. If their website was working correctly, I would have been able to print it myself. But it did not work. I was upset needless to say so I wanted to know how to get corrected. They said personal representative form. I asked that they send and they would not send one for him without talking to him. I just asked for a blank form for him to fill out not personal information. Wouldn't send it. I asked if available online, was told yes and I said I would just print it off. So conveniently when I went to web my access to that area was unavailable. I can see all my husband's prescriptions (and billing information) when logging in to my area. I just can't print billing list. When I tried to log in on separate area for him, conveniently his was locked so I could not access it or try to print form from his area. Customer service is nonexistent with medco. The things they do cost you hours of time to get fixed and or taken care of. Also, other complainant is correct. If they send you a prescription you did not authorize and doesn't work for you because they requested a change then your are indeed stuck with paying for it. I WOULD NEVER RECOMMEND MEDCO OR EXPRESS SCRIPTS. I SPOKE WITH PROBABLY 6-7 PEOPLE (AND A MANAGER) WITHOUT SATISFACTION ON ISSUE. I GUESS I COULD ALWAYS STOP PAYING UNTIL I GOT BETTER SERVICE.

Too many mistakes have happened in the last three years. I have been hung up on after being put on hold. I have been put on perpetual hold when I have asked for a manager. They will not allow me to speak with anyone higher up in the chain of command.

Here are just a few occurrences. My prescription was lost. I complained that it had to go through an approval process so why was I sent a letter that stated that a pharmacist will have to evaluate how much I should receive of the cream. The pharmacist has no access to my clinical chart to make an educated evaluation. But the letter acknowledges my prescription, but I am told that there is no prescription. The lovely manager said "Maybe you were the one who forgot to mail the prescription" when I asked her to have someone check because I mailed two prescriptions.

On another occasion I was told that my address had changed so they did not send it. They had been sending prescriptions to the same location for two years.

Yet, another time I spoke to another person about an increase in medication so the previous medication was going to run out. I wanted to know what process I should take since I was aware of the many mistakes already. The representative did not understand and then proceeded to give me wrong medication.

The worst mistake was that I was not sent my medication. When I called to complain, the representative said he would send it and he did not. I could not get a manager on the line to complain.

Nobody at Medco knows what they are doing and they are not held accountable for their snarky remarks and inaccurate information.

I am a pharmacist and I am appalled at what Medco is doing to our profession. Our profession was once rated the highest in honesty. That does not exist any longer.

they sent me 3 refills after sending a letter they would send no refills to my husband since he was discharged from the company. MY HUSBAND IS NO LONGER ON THESE MEDS! they refuse to accept the return or give me a credit? WTF?

I agree 100%, this company's right hand doesn't know what their left hand is doing. 99.987% of the time it's because of lack of leadership from upper administration. They don't care about taking care of their customers, only about lining their pockets.

MEDCO should be avoided not only by the public, but Doctors as well as insurance providers. They are crooks and I do mean crooks. When I was employed I had medical as well as prescription coverage. My Doctor sent my prescription to Medco and my co-pay seemed reasonable. I then changed health plans and no longer had prescription coverage, another visit to the Dr. and he sent a refill again to Medco in 7/2012. Three generic drugs and Medco responded by giving me a bill for $439.58. I checked on-line with different pharmacies and found this charge to be way way out of line. I called, like talking to a brick wall! Went to a Supervisor, a waste of my time. I moved on, gave up I guess, until yesterday 10/2012 when I got a refill of my prescriptions at a local store. My total bill was $80.83. All three same generic drugs, and in particular one of my drugs with the same manufacturer, same quantity, same dosage. My new charge for this generic drug, $23.86, Medco charged me $255.40, yes that's not a typo, $255.40. Unethical, not trustworthy and will put it to you if at all possible. This is evidenced by the numerous complaints on this site. I say continue on the blogs and whatever avenue you might have available to continue to give Medco the response that they deserve, basically treat them in the same fashion as they treat you.

Here is what you do for Medco problems: First, get the name of the pharmacist off the bottle and then complain to the pharmacy board in your state and the state in which the medicine was filled. Secondly, file a complaint with the FDA and create a paper tr4ail by keeping notes of dates and times of calls to Medco. Thirdly, Medco records for call, so you go to Radio Shack and purchase a mini-recorder and a recording jack that fits to your telephone receiver and immediately tell the Medco representative you are speaking with that you are recording the call before anything is said, then aske the rep to repeat their name. State the date and time at the beginning of the recording and the names of the people involved with the telephone conversation. Thirdly, file a complaint with the following government agencies: The FDA in Washington, the commissioner of your state's health department; your State's Attorney General's office; and your Governor's Department of Cosumer Safety Division; the State Pharmacy Board in your state and in the state where your medicine was processed being sure to name the pharmacist who filled your prescription and Medco. Send a copy to your insurance company and to Medco and send all letters certified mail so you know when, where, how, and by whom they were received. That shoud start the ball rollong and get you better service from Medco.

We are suppose to use Medico but, we don't. We get harrassing calls and letters and what I call threats what will happen if we don't
use them. After reading hundreds, and hundreds and hundreds of complaints sure glad we don't. We are on our last third time of ordering
our maintance meds before we are suppose to be charged a whole lot more money. They (Medico) doesn't have any financial info about
us how can they get blood from a turnip? So very glad we are not using them.

Medco saves money, but delivery is slow. Some of the drugs such as inhalers are temperature sensitive. Extreme cold and hot weather can affect the drug. Medco can also alter prescription dosages without doctor or patient's consent.

My Issues with Med co is far beyond belife..After reciving many letters about using mail order...I was told that I need to go to a prefred pharmacy...I was told my copay would be lower then what I paid at Target Pharmacy...Co pay was the same..Then Iwas sent a letter from medco that my copay would increase if I did not change to mail order..Called mail order gave list of meds ..Was told by customer service first 3 months there is no copay...Ok that will work I stated.. This issue started... close to 3 weeks ago..I started getting calls from medco about 3 times a day..Was told doctor never comfirmed my meds..I went to the local pharmacy to get my meds last week and was told they were filled by medco..So...I had to pay cash for them...Today medco called about payment for meds..I stated that I was told no pay for first 90 days..And request to speak to a supervisor., Who stated they could pull calls but
they dont credit for any misinformation given to customer...WTW..MEDCO can have their mail order and I asked that they not contact me again.I will go to the local pharmacy and I dare them to raise the copays..My head still hurts from this crap