Optum Rx Mail Order Pharmacy is terrible

[Hokie]

I am on a Medicare Advantage plan offered by AARP/United Health Care. They use Optum Rx for mail order prescriptions. I changed from the UHC Medicare Supplemental plan to the Medicare Advantage plan at the beginning of 2021.

On the Supplemental plan CVS handled mail order prescriptions. I never had a single problem with them. When I switched over in January my first problem was that Optum RX said they could not port over my prescriptions that still had remaining refills from CVS. OK, no problem, I had my doctor write all new scripts to Optum. One of my prescriptions is for a combo high blood presure med. It is a generic for Exforge or Alodipine/Valsartan/Hydrochlorothiazide. I had never experienced any problem getting it from two other mail order pharmacies.

I waited for weeks on the BP medication and all Optum could tell me is that it was out of stock. No they did not know when it would be in stock. So finally when I got down to a week's worth of pills someone at Optum RX finally said they could fill it with individual prescriptions for the components. However my doctor would have to wrote new scripts. So that is how I proceeded. Now I had to take two extra pills every day.

Last month at my six month checkup I asked my doctor to try to see if I could get the combination drug again. So he apparently wrote the prescription for Exforge, which is the brand name. Optum RX first sent me an email saying order needed a clarification from the doctor. The next email said the order was cancelled. The third email said they were filling the Exforge order and the cost was $1450 for a 90 day supply! The cost of the generic I was supposed to be getting was $0.00. The fourth email said the prescription was under review.

This is a simple medication that I have taken for over 10 years and never had a problem getting. Now Optum Rx is wearing out my patience. I have checked the AARP forums and others have found them to be terrible as well.

Now I have no clue what is going on. Their customer service folks are polite but are all ESL clueless and spend the last 5 minutes on the phone trying to get you to say they have solved the issue (they never do) and making sure you give them a good rating.