Recording included. Imagine a robber broke into your home, you call the cops and the robber answers the phone. That describes my recorded call to Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services or CMS this week. CMS is a government entity in charge of administering Medicare benefits paid for by our tax dollars.
Working in health care roles throughout my life, I have been intensely trained to report fraud, waste, and abuse to CMS. After hearing the students from Southwestern Oklahoma State University state that their study showed 80% of packages reached unsafe temperatures during transport according to the FDA’s guidelines, I wanted to report fraud, waste, and abuse for patients forced to put their medications in freezing or 120-170 degree trucks and mailboxes without protection. It’s the forcing of patients to mail order with the lack of warning and lies to patients that call in to question temperatures that make this fraud.
This week, I captured a recording of the alarming response from CMS telling me that I would need to report to the fraud waste and abuse to the same mail order pharmacies committing the fraud, waste, and abuse. Think about how this would feel for a patient wanting to report these mail order pharmacies. How hopeless and feeling that our own country doesn’t care about the most vulnerable?
These are the types of injustices and recordings of the alarming findings that I will share in with the makers of a documentary, “Would You Like Shots With That.” The name comes from chain pharmacists being forced to meet unrealistic goals such as a number of flu shots prior to the CDC even recommending flu shots.
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Email: Loretta@uniteforsafemedications.com