Birth Control Patrol

Before I relate my harrowing ordeal that quickly turned into an sweet deal, let me make this suggestion:
If you are a male between the ages of 18 and 30 and you work in a pharmacy, you should probably practice not getting flustered when a girl asks you about her birth control prescription.   Just saying.

With that, if you're male and heterosexual, you might prefer to go here for a few minutes while I finish my story.  If you're male and gay, try here.  Ladies, you might want to backtrack to that last one when you're done reading.

As you can probably guess, I have no health insurance.  I purchased private insurance after I stopped working to finish grad school in September, but I had to cancel it when I moved out of their coverage area.  And when I say purchase, I had every intention of paying for it.  But, um, they never billed me.  Ever.  Not once.  I went to the doctor, had prescriptions filled, got a head transplant, all with no problem.  But my insurance provider just didn't want my money, I guess.  I found out when I canceled my policy that an electronic billing error had prevented them from collecting payments from anyone who signed up for automatic bill pay.  That would be me.  Thank you?

Earlier this week, I came to the shocking realization that I was down to my last week of Yaz.  Oh hell, I thought.  Then I remembered that I found this prescription savings card in some circular we got in the mail.  I wasn't kidding when I mentioned before that I get outrageously excited about any and every piece of mail we receive, so naturally I sifted through the Omaha Steaks and Bed Bath & Beyond coupons until I happened upon this little gem.

I marched right up to the drop-off counter at the Walmart pharmacy, savings card and prescription in hand.  Aside from feeling physically ill about the potential costs I was about to incur, the pharmacy counter was so abnormally high, I felt like a child caught doing something illicit and being chastised for it.  "You need this BIRTH CONTROL REFILL, HARLOT??" the pharmacist seemed to yell.  Even though I am married, and take birth control for various medical reasons, my inner-16-year-old still feels like I've been branded with the big ol' 'S' for slut every time I get my refill.  It was not a pleasant experience.

It got worse when Andy and I returned to retrieve my "baby maybes" or "poppa stoppas," as my mom likes to call them.  Exsqueeze me, Garth, but I don't have $170 to drop on a 3-month supply.  Guess that discount card wasn't worth the paper it was printed on.  It was so bad, we had to buy a bottle of $3 Walmart wine to assuage the pain.

Upon returning home with our spoils, I opened my pharmacy bag to find...Gianvi?  What the hell is that?  Where is my Yaz?

I did some furious Googling and found out it is a generic form of Yaz that has been released over a year prematurely and in violation of Bayer Pharmaceutical's patent.  There's a lawsuit in progress, but that's not all.  A slew of ladies are complaining that their insurance companies are coercing them into switching to the generic by decreasing the amount of coverage they provide for Yaz.  These insured women can still get Yaz at a slightly higher cost than before, but they are ultimately paying less than us poor uninsured bastards.

The worst aspect of this Gianvi business, however, seems to be the side effects.  I took one look at the stampede of women complaining of mood swings and acne flareups and ran screaming in the other direction.  Thanks, generic drug manufacturer, but my face isn't really trying to relive ages 12-21.

Fortunately, the clouds began to part at this point.  One woman on this forum said she snagged a year's supply of Yaz for free at Planned Parenthood.  I didn't know they gave out brand-name drugs, or I would have started hitting that up a long time ago.  But, since I was saddled with this pile of useless Walmart pills, I figured I needed to go through Walmart for my next refill.  At first I was angry that I would probably have to pay even more to get my real prescription.  However, it turns out that Bayer, probably in response to the generic scandal, is offering a savings card with which patients can get their first prescription of Yaz filled for $5 and subsequent refills for $25.

It takes two minutes to sign up for this card, print it, and activate it.  With this new and improved savings card in hand, I stalked back to the pharmacy and demanded (or asked politely, whatever you'd rather imagine) that they exchange my prescription.  They promptly did so, but could offer me only one box of Yaz, as that was all that remained in stock.  I felt a little like Elaine in the "Sponge" episode of Seinfeld.  But one was good enough for me - I'm totally going to Planned Parenthood next month.  I fully expected to pay $25, but the pharmacy deities smiled upon my poor, pathetic soul because they charged me a mere $5.  WIN!

So I bought a jug of Carlo on my way out.  To celebrate.  And not a moment too soon, because the sorrow-drowning bottle was almost gone by the time I got home.  I guess Andy had a lot of feelings about my birth control pills.