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General Questions
New Prescriptions
Refill Orders
Transfer Orders
What is Union Center Pharmacy ?
We are a pharmacy dedicated to serving healthcare plans by mail order
service.
Standard Drug Pharmacy merged with Union Center Pharmacy on April 1st,
2006. As of April 17th, 2006, all pharmacy operations in Spokane
have closed and all pharmacy records have been moved to our Seattle location.
- Click here to read more detailed
information.
- To refill your
Standard Drug prescriptions, click here.
Contact your plan's benefits coordinator to find out if you are eligible.
Ask them to provide you with the necessary claim form to fill out and send to
us. When you get a new prescription, fill out the claim form and send the
original prescription and claim form to us.
If you are in pain and need relief immediately or need an antibiotic,
please take your prescription to a local retail pharmacy and have that
prescription filled for you or your family member. Depending on your plan,
your insurance will pay for your medication at a retail pharmacy with an out
of pocket co-pay. Mail order is designed for routine medications taken on an
ongoing basis.
We ask for a 10 working day turn around time. It usually takes
approximately one week, but sometimes, there are instances in which the order
is held up.
It is probably no surprise that the most common call received at Union
Center Pharmacy is that of someone wondering where their order might be.
Though this is not always an easily answered question and in many cases a
call is warranted. The following is a list of possibilities for you to
consider before picking up the phone.
- Orders should not be
considered late until 10 business days after submitting them
- Although it is not
obvious, many prescriptions require a call to the physician before they
can be mailed out
- Controlled substance
prescriptions may take more than 10 days to be received since some of
these medications must be special ordered and require unique handling
- Holiday
weekends will slow your receipt of a prescription because many of these
weekends are postal holidays
- Every effort is made
to keep orders together, so one prescription requiring a call to a
physician or transfer from another pharmacy could delay your entire
order by one or two days
In an effort to keep trust expenditures low, Union Center Pharmacy may at times
switch between brands of generic drugs. We make every attempt to signify
these changes with a green sticker stating that the pills may look slightly
different and acknowledging that they are in fact the correct
medication. However, there are times that these changes occur and
stickers do not make it on the bottles. Therefore, if you notice that your
medication looks, smells, or tastes different, please give us a call or send an email to clarify the
difference immediately.
Your plan administrator, local Union office or Union Center Pharmacy can
supply you with mail order envelopes/claim forms. You may print a copy of
your claim form by clicking here.
All of your information is considered confidential by the staff of Union
Center Pharmacy. All of our interactive web pages that allow your ordering of
medication and asking of personal questions require a Secure Sockets Layer
(SSL) connection, which prevents people from "listening in" on your
transaction. Moreover all transactions between our internet servers and the
physical pharmacy are encrypted using the most current methods. Finally,
although it requires slightly more time than other pharmacies that operate
online, our pharmacy software and database are completely separated from the
online system, physically disallowing would-be hackers access to your
personal information. If you have further questions or concerns regarding
security on the internet, please email security@unioncenterpharmacy.com.
It would be wonderful if we could simply anticipate your every need and
that your medications would arrive every three months without even having to
blink an eye. However, some patients' needs change with each refill. Many of
you take extended vacations requiring special amounts of medication to be
filled. Other people move around and have a different address every two or
three refills. And sometimes people simply have ever changing medication
needs that are simply impossible to anticipate. So, we require you to submit
your request for each refill. Also, your signature or an internet variation
is necessary to have legitimate proof that you in fact requested this
information. This requirement is not unlike the log book maintained by many
community pharmacies that must be signed stating that you picked up your
prescriptions.
So, when you need your refill and have used approximately 75% of your previous
order, please mail or fax us a claim form or visit us here on the web and
submit your request.
Your plan administrator may require you to use a specified percentage of
the day's supply of your medication before they will pay for another refill.
Please check your plan benefit booklet for details. It is not necessary to
wait until you run out of medication to send in your refill request.
Some plans require that new medications must go through a test period in
order for you to try out the medication, make sure that it will work for you
and that you do not have any allergies to the medication.
If you have been on a medication previously at another pharmacy, please
advise us when ordering.
Northwest Administrators: (800) 458-3053
2324 Eastlake Ave E, Suite
405
Seattle, WA 98102
pharmacist@unioncenterpharmacy.com
Phone: (206) 441-9174 Or (800) 441-9174
Fax: (206) 448-4406
You can have your healthcare provider call in or fax a new prescription to
our pharmacy.
No.
It is against the law. Technically, you could fax us the prescription and
then take it to a local retail pharmacy and get the same prescription filled
twice.
Yes.
This is allowable by law. The most ideal situation is to have the
healthcare provider’s office fax in BOTH the new prescription and your filled
out claim form. You might want to make extra copies of your claim form for
this reason. Or you may print out copies by clicking here.
Most prescription drugs and diabetic supplies are covered. However, there
are certain limitations according to the specific plan you belong to. For
drug information, please visit our Web
Pharmacist.
No we do not. Because medications can be frequently changed or
discontinued we do not automatically refill prescriptions just because they
are likely to be needed. It is your responsibility to let us know when you
are in need of medication.
You may send us a refill request via mail, fax or the web. Please make
sure all the information is current and allow 10 working days to process your
order.
Yes! Please utilize our automated system to enter
your prescription numbers, or feel free to speak to one of our staff or leave
a voice message.
We can fill up to the limits of your individual plan. Please refer to your
plan benefits booklet for details on your mail order benefits.
Typically plans will pay for a refill once 75% of that particular
prescription has been used up. This allows for plenty of turn around time for
your order. Please plan ahead if you have no refills remaining as it takes
extra time for us to contact your healthcare provider and then wait for them
to return our call.
Like your local pharmacy, we will call your healthcare provider for a
refill. There is no need to obtain a new prescription every time. Fill out
the RX number or the name of the drug on your claim form and we will contact
your healthcare provider’s office.
It is very important to let us know if you are seeing a new healthcare
provider. Please indicate what healthcare provider you are seeing on your
claim form (not what healthcare provider wrote the prescription).
The biggest delay in processing your order is that you have switched
healthcare providers and didn’t indicate it on your claim form. Also, the
second biggest reason for a delay on your order is that you are due for a
follow up appointment.
Please see your healthcare provider routinely.
Also, please remember that all Schedule 2 prescriptions cannot have
refills and require a new written prescription each time they are to be
filled.
Communication is the KEY and we need to know that your directions have
changed or your dose has changed so that we may contact your doctor to verify
the new order and then make the necessary adjustments for future coverage by
your plan administrator.
Please make us aware of changes on the claim form so that we may refill
your order without unnecessary delay.
We will fill for whatever the healthcare provider authorizes, but it is
your responsibility to re-submit a request for a larger supply. In other
words, once you have seen them, they may call in for more, but your still
need to submit a NEW request asking for the larger supply. We never fill
prescriptions automatically. It is your responsibility as a member to submit
a request for us to fill.
It depends on your plan. Please ask your plan administrator. Please note,
there are different limitations to different plans.
Fill out your claim form and indicate the other pharmacy’s name, phone
number and prescription number. We can call them to transfer your
prescription to our pharmacy and fill your prescription.
If there are no refills remaining, we will call your healthcare provider
for a refill. Please allow more time in processing your order, as we would
have to contact the transferring pharmacy, then contact your doctor for
additional refills.
Copyright © 2006 Kelley-Ross & Associates. All rights reserved.
Revised: April 10, 2006.
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