CVS Caremark Beware allowing to request prescriptions from your doctor Nationwide

Let this be a warning about allowing CVS Caremark to request a prescription from your doctor for online orders. Since 2010, CVS/Caremark has been handling prescriptions for the medical plan I am in. We are required to obtain 90 day refills for any long-term medicine use. Not 30 days, not 60 days, not 180 days, but 90 days. Period. End of options. 90 days.

In October 2017, I used the CVS Caremark website to request that the company contact a doctor for a prescription of a long-term maintenance medication that they have always handled in an orderly manner. I prepaid for a 90 day supply. CVS Caremark says that the doctor did not submit a prescription to them for a 90 day supply. Instead of contacting the doctor to correct the prescription and/or contacting me, CVS Caremark filled the order for around a 30 day supply and made no adjustment on the amount I had prepaid for a 90 day supply. I was unaware of what they had done until after the order had been shipped.

CVS Caremark refused to adjust the price I was charged, so I initiated an online dispute with the credit card company. The credit card company reversed some of the charges to match what CVS Caremark charges for a 30 day supply if you use one of the local CVS Caremark pharmacies for pickup. That credit card reversal is now final as CVS Caremark did not dispute the chargeback.

CVS Caremark's position is pay for the credit card chargeback or we'll turn the matter over to a collection agency. And if the doctor submits a prescription for a maintenance drug for a time period that isn't allowed in your medical plan, that's just too bad. We're going to ship to you and charge you for a 90 day supply even though you're only going to get maybe a 30 day supply or 60 day supply. We’re not going to call you and advise you of the discrepancy.  We don't care. Pay up and shut up. Well, I'm not paying up and I'm not shutting up.

CVS Caremark has a great incentive to hope a doctor doesn't complete the prescription properly so the company can charge you for a 90 day supply but send you far less than what you prepaid for.  I would suggest that if CVS Caremark is the company your medical plan uses, then be sure and make the doctor hand the prescription to you and handle everything yourself. Don’t let CVS Caremark get involved in obtaining a prescription, because if you have a really expensive drug you have to take, you may get taken to the cleaners by CVS Caremark. That could literally be thousands of dollars involved for some people.