Patient Denied Prescription Refill Due to COVID-19 Thanked for Her 'Sacrifice'

[Tactical Peek]

Patient Denied Prescription Refill Due to COVID-19 Thanked for Her 'Sacrifice'

A Los Angeles woman with lupus was denied a refill of her hydroxychloroquine prescription because her health care provider was “preserving” the medication for people “critically ill with COVID-19.” She was then thanked for her “sacrifice” and “understanding.”

. . . BuzzFeed News reported on Wednesday that a 45-year-old woman with lupus, Dale, learned her provider Kaiser Permanente halted her refills of hydroxychloroquine for the time being. The note Dale received, which was obtained by BuzzFeed, added most people who take the medication build up levels of the medication that can last in the body for up to 40 days and she should not ask her doctor for a refill.

“Please do not contact your physician about an exception process to get a refill, as prescriptions will not be filled even if written by your physician,” the note reads, adding:

Hydroxychloroquine does build up a level in the system that stays in the body for an average of 40 days even after the last dose is taken. If you do run out of medication and feel your condition is significantly worsening, please contact your doctor to discuss alternative treatments.

Kaiser Permanente then thanked Dale for her “sacrifice” and “understanding” of the new policy.

“Thank you for the sacrifice you will be making for the sake of those that are critically ill; your sacrifice may actually save lives,” the note told Dale. “We appreciate your understanding, and you will be notified of any changes in the policy as they happen. We all hope this will be a short-term situation.”

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/patient-denied-prescription-refill-due-205716857.html


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To hell with these hoarders and speculators, and the physicians who enable them.

[MontanaMama]

1. OMG!

Are you kidding me???

[Baitball Blogger]

2. Brave New Fucking World.

[central scrutinizer]

3. She wasn't rich and/or famous enough

Just like with the testing

[sinkingfeeling]

4. Yet, there's a lawyer in California taking it as a 'precaution'.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/coronavirus-tweet-economy-elderly/2020/03/25/25a3581e-6e11-11ea-b148-e4ce3fbd85b5_story.html

"As the blowback grew fierce, the lawyer took down his tweet, took down his website, screened his calls. He was miserable. He took his chloroquine, the anti-malaria drug that Trump kept talking up, hoping that it might protect him against the virus, though there is no evidence that it will. It makes him feel like crap. He lowered his dose, but he keeps taking it because, he said, maybe it does work."

[UpInArms]

5. Death panels

[LAS14]

6. So Kaiser-Permanente endorses Trump's claim that this medicine is being..

... used for COVID-19? Something isn't making sense here. Can someone untangle it?

tia
las

[CousinIT]

7. PRESCRIBERS (doctors) are hoarding the stuff...

https://www.propublica.org/article/doctors-are-hoarding-unproven-coronavirus-medicine-by-writing-prescriptions-for-themselves-and-their-families

Pharmacists told ProPublica that they are seeing unusual and fraudulent prescribing activity as doctors stockpile unproven coronavirus drugs endorsed by President Donald Trump.

A nationwide shortage of two drugs touted as possible treatments for the coronavirus is being driven in part by doctors inappropriately prescribing the medicines for family, friends and themselves, according to pharmacists and state regulators.

“It’s disgraceful, is what it is,” said Garth Reynolds, executive director of the Illinois Pharmacists Association, which started getting calls and emails Saturday from members saying they were receiving questionable prescriptions. “And completely selfish.”

Demand for chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine surged over the past several days as President Donald Trump promoted them as possible treatments for the coronavirus and online forums buzzed with excitement over a small study suggesting the combination of hydroxychloroquine and a commonly used antibiotic could be effective in treating COVID-19.

Reynolds said the Illinois Pharmacists Association has started reaching out to pharmacists and medical groups throughout the state to urge doctors, nurses and physician assistants not to write prescriptions for themselves and those close to them.

“We even had a couple of examples of prescribers trying to say that the individual they were calling in for had rheumatoid arthritis,” he said, explaining that pharmacists suspected that wasn’t true. “I mean, that’s fraud.”

In one case, Reynolds said, the prescriber initially tried to get the pills without an explanation and only offered up that the individual had rheumatoid arthritis after the pharmacist questioned the prescription.

In a bulletin to pharmacists on Sunday, the state association wrote that it was “disturbed by the current actions of prescribers” and instructed members on how to file a complaint against physicians and nurses who were doing it.

“People are losing their minds about this product,” said Brian Brito, president of SMP Pharmacy Solutions in Miami. “We’re selling so much of this stuff and people are just stockpiling it prophylactically if anybody in their family gets sick — they’re just holding on to it.”

[Make7]

8. No sane company would thank patients for an involuntary sacrifice that would compromise their health

That would destroy them in the inevitable lawsuit brought on by such actions.

This story doesn't seem kosher.

[Nictuku]

9. Terrific

I am one of those taking it for Lupus. Without it my hair will start falling out again. Lovely. I hate Trump.

[Mike 03]

10. Bloomberg: Malaria Drug Chloroquine No Better Than Regular Coronavirus Care, Study Finds

Malaria Drug Chloroquine No Better Than Regular Coronavirus Care, Study Finds
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-25/hydroxychloroquine-no-better-than-regular-covid-19-care-in-study

From yesterday.