Atrium Health Primary Care Cotswold Family Medicine

I want to begin by saying I liked my doctor, Dr. Shuster. I never had an issue with her. She listened to all of my concerns and truly helped me kick start my weight loss. The phlebotomists are great, I never felt a thing when I got bloodwork done and I’m not a fan of needles. I was on a certain medication that was costing me $400 a month. At my most recent visit, Dr. Shuster said that there was another name brand medication that was essentially the same drug, just a different brand name, and it’s covered under my insurance now. She prescribed it the same day. On Feb 24th my pharmacy called me saying the medication was getting rejected and needed a prior authorization. I immediately sent a portal message on MyChart and got a response that the PA was sent. As time was going by I hadn’t heard anything and Walgreens was saying it was still getting rejected. I kept following up without a response on MyChart, so I called. The woman that answered (I believe Terry?) told me she saw my message (like she was annoyed I called), they were still waiting for a response from insurance, and I needed to wait as it could take a while (around 14 business days). I expressed my concerns about missing my dose and she just said “sorry”. I gave it a couple more days but I needed the medication urgently at this point or I would miss my dose for the week. I did a live chat with a nurse and she advised I call my insurance. So I called my insurance and they informed me that my doctor’s office had never sent the prior authorization. I immediately sent another message through the portal and followed it up with a live chat (because I wasn’t getting a response prior to this and wanted to cover all of my bases) and the reply I get is basically “someone will look into it… but only use one form of communication please.” I missed my dose and decided the next day to switch doctors offices completely. I did a last minute doctors appointment with an entirely different doctor and this doctor was able to get the prior authorization sent, approved, and filled covered by my insurance the same day. The entire process of transferring to a new office, establishing care with a new doctor, getting my medication PA sent, approved, and having the pharmacy fill it took less than 4 hours. Atrium Cotswold is a complete joke. This is completely unprofessional and inexcusable. As of today, March 6th, my (now previous) doctors office still hasn’t responded to me. I filed a formal complaint with Atrium because no patient should have to go through this