Medicare Question

Yeb, I am sure that the facility I was in got their drugs from an area pharmacy. I had a medication changed and when I requested it, I was told they had to send someone to the pharmacy they use, to obtain it. I also was at the nurse's station, waiting for my turn at P.Y., when I observed a person enter and leave several big bags at the station. I asked what was in them and was told there were patients medications in them. And I watched, as a nurse emptied them and put them in patients drawers, in the med cart.

Now it is possible that I had experience short and long term memory loss and imagined the entire episode. But I don't think so.

Woody

And by the way, my roommate's daughter works at a local LTC facility, as a nurse. I recently asked her about how they obtained their drugs. She told me the same thing that I had witnessed. And she worked at a different facility. Perhaps it is something local to Charlotte County.

I would love to post a copy of my bill from the LTC facility I was in. As well as copies of my Medicare Part D payouts. To answer your question, my Part D was billed by the pharmacy that provided all of my medications while I was in the LTC facility, as well as the p[provider for the IV solutions I received after being discharge back to the LTC facility. I cannot find any billing to Medicare, from the facility, for any of the drugs and IV's I received.


Woody

Oh but my comment didn't apply to WHERE the meds came from (they can come from ANYWHERE the facility decides to contract with.... my point was that the FACILITY ultimately paid the pharmacy, not medicare paid the pharmacy.

Kind of a bum deal but it will remain so until they get their designation changed, something all three hospitals have been trying to do for more then 12 years.

Woody

AHHHH, maybe this is the technicality that we are missing. You refer to a "designation change" and the word "hospitals".

I am referring to an extended care, skilled nursing facility only. I am not familiar with how other "licensed" facilities bill, but I am sure there are differences.