My husband has a hyphenated first name.
When he applied for a driver’s license, the Department of Licensing deleted the hyphen and used the second name as his middle name.
When he applied for Social Security and Medicare, the SSA deleted the hyphen and made the two names into one long one.
We are patients at OMC, and its administrative brains have decided that prescriptions written by their providers should only adhere to the name on the driver’s license.
Consequently, my husband regularly receives letters from CVS Caremark saying that he is not a member when we try to get his prescriptions filled.
According to workers at OMC, using only the driver’s license is not changeable.
Note that this is not the policy at UW, Harborview or Jefferson Healthcare, where he has been treated and prescribed medication.
OMC stands alone.
OMC’s solution to this problem is my husband changing his driver’s license to match the name on the Medicare card. Before we go to the expense and effort of following this directive, I would like someone in authority at OMC, an entity which receives federal funding, to answer one question, “Why are you refusing to use a federal medical ID for the purpose it was intended?”
Instead of being patient-centered, this sounds more like a case of being ego-driven.
Before OMC asks support from the community it serves, maybe it should examine its own practices, which are overly bureaucratic, not patient-centered and wasteful of precious financial resources.
Margaret Hillers
Sequim