If you are a reader here, you know Sue has been away most of the summer at her lake house with various people visiting and Mark Goldman as her caregiver.  I (Rose) failed to open some very important mail so that her Medicare Prescription coverage lapsed on July 1 for failure to pay.  Given the expensive medications Sue has to take, my mistake was a big one.  Over a ten-day period Sue and I probably talked with a dozen people at WellCare, her prescription provider, at Medicare, and at our local Schnuck's Pharmacy.  After a frantic couple of weeks and having to pay big bucks for some pills, the coverage was reinstated this week--retroactively, so Sue will get the money she paid for meds this month refunded.

The people we talked with were unfailingly kind, understood our situation, and were extremely helpful.   Our communication difficulties with WellCare, Schnucks Pharmacy, and Medicare were compounded because of the laws precluding discussion with anyone other than the patient.  To comply with those laws, the WellCare representatives would get both Sue (at the lake) and me (in St. Louis) on a conference call to make sure they did not violate any confidentiality about Sue's medical records.

The whole mess made Sue and me extremely aware of how intricate and difficult navigating the complex Medicare prescription plan is.  Even without my recent error, I have often had the thought that one unintended effect of the prescription drug plan (with its intricate rules, the doughnut hole, the enrollment period every year, and all the provider plans) is to drive seniors bonkers.  [Perhaps a cover for those "death panels" the GOP is forever talking about.]  Obviously there were no seniors involved in planning the thing, only young people with great computer skills.