Today, I was blown away by the latest Bizarre BWC position with regard to ACS, the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation Pharmacy Vendor. The Governor of Ohio needs to take action and appoint a responsive person as Administrator of The Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation.
It is so outrageous that ACS is not allowed or will not to talk to an injured worker’s attorney!
Now that we have taken care of the prior claim problems and gotten the claim allowed, we get a call from our client saying he is trying to recover his payments to the pharmacy for the prescriptions. As with most clients, he has a hard time explaining everything involved with the problem. So we call ACS.
So here we are, trying to help our lcient resolve an $8,000-$10,000 prescription mess up that occured because our client wound up paying for his prescriptions. To our surprise, ACS states it cannot discuss our clients claim with us.
WHAT??? We are the authorized representatives in the BWC claim. We are the attorneys for the injured worker AND YOU WON’T TALK TO US ABOUT OUR CLIENT??????
To make matters worse, once we do get this straightened out, our client who paid retail for the prescriptions will, at best, be reimbursed at the BWC UCR (usual, customary, reasonable) prescription fee schedule – which is much lower than you or I would pay a pharmacy for the same prescription.
We will keep fighting and doing all we can for our client, but the system is out of whack. It is a Bizaro World at the OhioBWC.
Ohio’s Governor promised BWC reform while running for election in 2006. He never came through on his promises to Ohio’s injured workers. Keep that ‘non-kept’ promise in mind when you go to the polls in November to vote!