Welcome To My New Life Fighting A Disease I've Never Heard Of Before....... Ankylosing Spondylitis

  Here we are halfway through February already. As I get older it seems the years pass quicker.   Unfortunately, this new year has not began well. I experienced a change in my health insurance January 1, 2019. This normally might not be problematic, but if you are on biologic medications it can be a nightmare. With my prior insurance company, I was only allowed to receive 1 prefilled Cosentyx per month. Therefore, when the new year with the new insurance began I had no Cosentyx.   First thing I did was try calling my new insurance company, epic fail. I was on hold for 48 minutes waiting for my call to be answered. When a customer representative finally answered, she was clueless. I asked her who they used to fill specialty medications for their members. She had never even heard of a "specialty" medication. I explained it was a medication that has to be shipped to me because regular pharmacies do not carry it. She seemed perplexed. Finally after several minutes, she to...

  Frustration.... such a little word but it carries so much meaning. Frustration, it is what I've felt for the past week, dealing with medical insurance renewal. Yes, it's that time of year again, choose a plan. If only it was that simple.    Having a rheumatic autoimmune disease, Ankylosing Spondylitis, entails many doctors and many medicines. Therefore, I need an insurance plan that covers a majority of what or whom I need to fight this disease. It is no easy feat to find the "perfect" plan. There actually are no perfect plans available to me.   I resort to finding the insurance plan that covers the specialty drugs I need. Luckily, that plan also has my primary general physician, my neurologist, and my opthamologist included as in-network doctors. The only doctor it lacks is my rheumatologist. Oh, and it also lacks coverage for the folic acid I need to take daily to combat the side effects of the chemotherapy drug. The chemo drug makes my hair fall out, unless ...