Right hand, left hand

Express Scripts handles prescription drugs for my wife and me, through Tricare for Life and Medicare. Express Scripts is not the easiest firm to do business with, far from it.

In 2016, Express Scripts had revenues of $100.752 billion. I do not expect good customer relations from any organization with that kind of money running through its little corporate hands in one year.

This post, though, does not concern Express Scripts’ user unfriendly, but correspondence that made me wonder whether one part of the business knows what another part is doing.

A few months back, Express Scripts sent me an email stating the company would no longer fill generic Zantac, as a part of the drug was a carcinogen. The email said I might want to talk with my doctor about prescribing another drug that would replace generic Zantac. I did just that.

Not too long after discussing a Zantac replacement, I got a refill for the generic Zantac. "Wait a minute,” I thought. “Express Scripts first tells me it will not refill any more generic Zantac, and now it has done so.” Whatever, I decided, and continued taking the drug.

A couple of weeks ago, I got an email from Express Scripts stating the company had contacted my doctor concerning refilling prescription *****2959, but had not received a reply from my doctor. Perhaps, Express Scripts said, I might contact the doctor and have his office send a prescription refill order.

I had not done that before receiving another email stating the same as the one from several months ago, that Express Scripts would no longer refill prescriptions for the generic Zantac and, therefore, would not refill prescription *****2959.

I think I will just get over-the-counter famotidine. Same drug, less hassle.