September 29, 2008

46 Degrees of Separation

My good friends at Caremark had a Pharmacist call back to explain that their insulin shipping practices are tip top. There was a fairly impressive amount of smoke blow up my skirt and I was less than impressed. He promised to have someone else call back to explain why I should trust them. Given that I can barely breathe from all the smoke, I am not holding my breath. It has been more than a week. I don’t think they are calling back.

The gist is they are just all over it and I shouldn’t be worried because they are just brilliant. Sure. Then why did you’re their own pharmacist decide to re-ship not once but twice? He did let the cat out of the bag and told me they were looking into considering the weather when they ship going forward. Ya Think?

I called Lilly. They wanted me to know I could refuse a shipment. Not that they have a vested interest or anything.

I asked at what temperature can I be confident that the stuff is OK? In short if I take my trusty instant read thermometer and check the stuff what is the safe range to store the stuff?

36 to 46 degrees.

Get a thermometer. Check your insulin. If your shipment is in that range you are cool, literally as well as figuratively. Simple no guessing.

No need to thank me, adding more numbers to check into the daily lives of families with type 1 is thanks enough.

3 comments :

  1. That's funny because Caremark told me I could not refuse a shipment.

    It was a somewhat different story though. My endo put in a prescription for lancets because they figured I needed them since I ordered test strips and insulin. I did not ask for or want a three month supply of lancets (at $50). I noticed this problem after the prescriptions were processed but before they were shipped so I asked about sending them back or refusing the shipment.

    Caremark basically said too bad and take it up with your endos office.

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  2. It wasn't Caremark who said we could refeuse a shippment it was Lilly.

    It was funny to me because they get paid more if we kick back insulin shipments.

    The point is to know when to suspect the insulin. Caremark was fine about taking it back when we asked but why not just ship it safe the first time?

    We have a bunch of unwanted lancets too.

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  3. We had a very similar problem recently, but with Express Scripts. On its way from Arizona to Nevada, our insulin took a 3 day vacation in Los Angeles. In July in 100+ temps. After the second day it hadnt arrived, I called Express Scripts and told them I would need a new shipment sent right away because this one wasnt going to be any good anymore. The woman just couldnt understand how I would know that and what the problem was and kept telling me that it wasnt lost and they wouldnt refill the order until it had been 10 days past the ship date. True, it wasnt technically lost because we knew where it was, just not why it had been there for days. I eventually talked to someone higher up and got them to understand what the problem was and they refilled and resent the order, which beat the original order here. One person told me I would have to send the original order back, which I wasnt comfortable with and after explaining why to another person, I was told I could destroy it myself and they would just mark it off as damaged and not returnable.

    Thanks for letting us know about the temperature, it could come in handy some day.

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