Posted At The Register-Guard

BY : Randi Bjornstad

Happy New Year may be a few days off yet for area pharmacists, who found themselves frustrated Tuesday after a new nationwide Medicare prescription program went into effect for elderly customers on Jan. 1.

However, many pharmacies weren't open Sunday, and because the official New Year's holiday was observed widely on Monday, crunch time came Tuesday.

"It's been a terrible day," pharmacist Matt Brazer at the Pharmacy Express in Pleasant Hill said wearily. "We've had a lot of processing problems. We can't get through to the insurance (carriers) to get approval for many prescriptions - we're just trying to figure things out however we can. It's probably going to be like this for half of January before things get straightened out." Nobody claimed to be having fun Tuesday, as pharmacies struggled to fill prescriptions for senior citizens under the new Medicare Part D program, often without success.

"Insane," a pharmacy technician at CostCo called it.

"Pretty hectic - we're stressed out," Jo Dell Offord of Jo Dell's Drugs on River Road agreed.

"Many people's information hasn't been put into the computer system yet. (The federal government) put this in place, but they don't have a system that can handle it.

"We're spending hours and hours on the phone trying to get authorization for these prescriptions - and still not getting through - and it's completely non-productive."

Not to mention financially draining, especially for small, independent pharmacies such as the Harrisburg Pharmacy, where manager Tony Taylor said all the Medicare Part D processing glitches were costing his business a lot of money.

The computer systems pharmacists rely on to evaluate and OK ordered prescriptions became so jammed with requests on Tuesday "that they're flat-out not answering," Taylor said. "It can take six times or more to try to make contact, and it costs us money each time we submit a request."

Without verification of insurance coverage, pharmacies have limited options - refusing to fill the prescription, giving a partial one to get the patient through until the system gets straightened out or filling the whole prescription on the assumption that the new Medicare Part D plan will pay for it, he said.

"We are part of the medical community - we are very aware that people need this medication," Taylor said. "But we're also a business. We can't let thousands and thousands of dollars in medicine go out the door and not know when - or even if - we're going to be paid for it."

Even so, none of the pharmacists criticized the purpose of Medicare Part D, which is intended to provide prescription drug