Only Corporations and CEO's of Mail-order Pharmacies Could Get By With Risking Millions Of Lives

What would happen to me as a parent if I delayed my child’s medications that his life depends on every 12 hours?

What would happen to me if I purposefully put his medication in only a bag, placed them in my car, and allowed it to reach 120-170 degrees for a few days, knowing that the manufacturer and FDA have stated that the integrity could be compromised, thus threatening his life?

There would be criminal charges and public outrage, but A CEO can force patients to take these risks with their lives every day, and few scream injustice. Where are the voices for the millions of patients forced to risk their lives?

Some question why patients would choose to get their life-saving medication from the mail in the first place? Mail-order pharmacy, for many, is the only option of coverage for life-saving medications.  Many of these medications can still be obtained by local pharmacies, but the insurance companies refuse to cover locally. The patients are increasingly mandated to pay 100% of the cost if they use a local pharmacy that offers free delivery in temperature-controlled vehicles. Some feel like their medications are being held hostage by the insurance companies and their owned mail-order pharmacies as most cannot afford to pay 100% at a local pharmacy.

A recent report stated that over 14 million patients are at risk of experiencing delays in receiving medications. Please pause for a moment to realize what this means for the many patients without the medication that their lives depend on or the patients whose ability to carry out daily tasks without symptoms or pain-free is eliminated or reduced. Many didn't want to take this risk but couldn't afford to pay 100% if they didn't.

The delays with mail order pharmacy have been occurring for many years. Due to loose regulation, only the patients pay the ultimate price of suffering and pain when medications don't arrive on time. The many patients suffering is poorly tracked but upon looking at the reviews on pages such as the BBB and personally hearing thousands of patient stories, America has far too long overlooked these issues.

As stories break, the CEO’s of the insurance companies and their affiliates will try to minimize the impacts on the millions of lives they’ve risked and the number of people harmed.

Consistently, such as seen in this interview where a patient discovered the hard way that his medications were not working due to the temperature exposure as the mail-order pharmacies ship most medications in only bags the mail-order pharmacy will callously claim that they haven’t seen an increase in complaints but refuse to mention any corrective actions that they are taking to save others from the same harm.

How can they use the lack of complaints as a reason to not change the system that is endangering lives when patients were not forewarned that medications wouldn’t be stored properly during transit in the first place? When patients selected insurance coverage, they didn’t know that their lives or their children's lives were being used as unwilling participants in a poorly designed prescription drug stability study. We didn’t know that the FDA wasn’t regulating mail-order pharmacy or that the State Boards with many members who are affiliated with mail-order pharmacies would refuse to properly ensure the safety or timely delivery of these medications.

As addressed in this interview with a PhRMA at the 26-minute mark, most of our physicians are unaware that our medications are not being stored properly.

When medications are delayed, many patients suffer in silence. If they complain, some fear retaliation from their employer, the one pharmacy that they are allowed to use, or they are afraid of retaliation from the insurance company that owns the mail-order pharmacy.  If patients can afford to pay the full cost of medications, they may now be required to drive a farther distance as many of these insurance companies' pharmacy benefit managers are purposefully reimbursing local pharmacies below the cost of medications, so many local pharmacies have closed or are facing closure.

This is an absolute failure of our representatives, the Federal Trade Commission, and The Department of Justice who have far too long allowed for monopolization of the industry and poor regulation.

It’s time for America to care about the rapidly degrading and loosely regulated pharmaceutical care. Patients don't deserve more excuses for the risking of millions of lives. The insurance and mail-order pharmacies executives often claim that the millions of lives are just a small overall percentage, so it’s okay. They try to minimize the human lives harmed to a small number. No. This is not okay. It’s never okay to risk lives for the soaring profits of the insurance industry and their CEO's making $36.5 million a year. 

For the many patients of all ages who are forced to risk, please demand change from our representatives and help fight for justice.