glossy Novartis

[Guest guest]

I had recently a rather frustrating experience that does not improve

my opinion of the pharmaceutical companies. After someone post on

about mycmlcircle program a few months ago I registered thinking it

may be some source of information. A few weeks later I got in the mail

a copay assistance card, that I wasn't expecting but got it anyway.

With it some nice looking brochures about the merits of gleevec and

tasigna and a letter explaining that Novartis, through some other

company opushealth, would refund for a year 15$ for each copay (25$).

Since dx I have used not far from 180,000$ of gleevec, giving back

180$ sounds very generous. At my next gleevec refill I present the

copay assistance card to the pharmacist at Kaiser who tells me he

can't do anything with it, I ask her to call the number on the card

but she refuses to do it. So back at the office I call them myself and

get quickly somebody quite cheery who tells me they will send a refund

form in the mail. A month later still nothing so I call them back.

This time the tone is a little different. The person from opushealth

starts with some go away suggestions and then asks some funny

questions, like do I know why Kaiser Permanente doesn't want to deal

with their card. I ask him why somebody told me a month earlier they

were sending a refund form and didn't without any explanation. He then

ask me to hold, I wait 15mn, he come back to tell me they are

investigating about Kaiser and I will be contacted soon. That was a

month ago. I also talked with people at Kaiser without getting

anywhere. I hope other people who got the card had better luck with

it. I am giving up, not quite worth a fight. I wonder how much for the

glossy brochures.

Marcos.

--

Marcos Perreau Guimaraes

Suppes Brain Lab

Ventura Hall - CSLI

Stanford University

220 Panama street

Stanford CA 94305-4101

650 614 2305

650 468 9926 (cell)

marcospg@...

montereyunderwater@...

www.stanford.edu/~marcospg/