I know this battle is familiar to many. The fight to get insurance to cover the metabolic formula needed for a PKU patient to thrive. Or, how about the other side of that battle? You get the insurance to approve it, but then the supplier causes trouble. We are in that situation right now. Owen is on VitaFlo and loves it. The people at that company are wonderful to us. They have helped us time and time again with questions, concerns, ideas and more. The issue is with how we have to get the formula.

We cannot afford to pay the full price out-of-pocket and wait for our insurance to reimburse us whenever it feels like it and hope that check shows up in time for the next order. Virginia is a hard state to get coverage for metabolic disorders, its even harder for suppliers to set up billing operations. Because of twisted government policies we can only get Apria to order and bill for us. Apria is a warehouse supplier of all kinds of medical equipment and medicines. Our first two years with them were great. Every order was correct and on time.

Then, in late June, something happened. The warehouse in Alexandria started making mistakes. First they mailed half an order to an address we had not lived at for over a year. Then the other half of the order never showed up at all. The last two and a half months have been a battle between the main office and this warehouse. The office puts in a full 4 box order. The warehouse crosses out the number 4 and hand writes the number 1 and sends us one box. This has led to weekly phone calls all over the country, hours of lost time, high frustration levels and NO ONE fixing the problem.

Owen is so upset over having to ration his formula that he has started losing weight again. He was up to 111 pounds and now is back down to 105. He is understandably upset that we cannot get through to the supervisors at the Alexandria warehouse and that the central office, despite their neverending effort, cannot get the situation resolved either. We are stuck as well, Apria is the only company here.

Here is the kicker. In our battle for formula fairness, we found out how twisted things really are. Apria bills Anthem 1,000 for each box, Vitaflo charges 225. Anthem pays Apria only 37 dollars. The rest Apria is GIVEN by the government! Yup, your tax dollars at work. Allowing this company to milk us and not even return the favor with decent service. Isn't that enough to make your blood boil? I'll just end the blog here, as I sit and wait for yet another manager at their central office to call me back to say there is nothing they can do about the Alexandria warehouse.