AIBU to be enraged about a £100 HRT fine?

[OnlyOneAdda]

Been on HRT for about 18 months ago, so have purchased HRT pre payment certificate. Each time I collect my prescriptions, I am asked to show my certificate as proof of payment.

I have just received a letter from NHS saying according to their records I have falsely claimed for a prescription and I will be fined £100. Have called them and provided my certificate number...turns out that one of the new medications my GP added six months ago isn't covered and I should have paid. The letter explicitly states that being mislead by the pharmacy is not a valid exclude.

WTAF? The pharmacy accepted it as payment. If this item wasn't eligible then they shouldn't have. If I go into a shop that doesn't accept AmEx they tell my at point of payment - they don't send me a £100 fine six months later and tell me I should have known better and used a different card.

If I've pre-paid my HRT then it should cover all fucking HRT. And if an item isn't payable by the means provided at the till then this should be flagged at point of sale!!!

Absolutely fuming 🤬 (and of course like most AIBU posts I actually just want you to agree with me 🤣 so if you think IABU then please scroll on and leave me to my menopausal rage...)

And don't get me started on the fact that men don't have to pay full stop for HRT, sanitary products etc. 🙄

Something similar happened to me. The lady at the pharmacy wrote down the name of the website to pre-order medication (not HRT). She directed me to the HRT version and I ordered and paid, she said it was valid if I sent it that same day (I did).

it was the incorrect version so I paid for the HRT cert and also got charged a fine.

spoke to so many people on the phone who said they can’t change the certificate to normal prepaid medication and I still have to pay the fine.

I was going to say, was it testosterone as that's not covered. My doctor told me when she prescribed it. I'm surprised others haven't been told. It's not licensed for menopause so the cert doesn't cover it.

But... you need to make sure you order it on a separate prescription as the pharmacist told me they couldn't take part payment; you can't pay for 1 item and get the rest on your pre-payment cert, you would have to pay for the whole lot.

To reiterate; testosterone gel is not licensed for menopause. It is not an HRT med.

I'm shocked that doctors are not making patients aware of this very important fact.

Unfortunately, the OP did get a non-HRT med.

Had heard that wasn’t covered, it should definitely be though

Did you find that it made a difference to your symptoms and if so what?

The HRT PPC is clearly marked as such and was checked by the pharmacist

I would be peeved as well as it seems to be set up to catch people out through forgetfulness, misunderstanding or whatever, even if they had no intention of not paying. It should be simple enough for the system to flag up any items not covered and for the pharmacist to pass this information on to the patient.

It can't be covered, it's not licensed.

I found my energy level increased, as did my libido, but it does make you hairy around the application area.

Lots of people posting to say that testosterone is not an HRT medicine because it's not licensed...but that's a bit circular isn't it?

If you are aware of this, great. It's not very obvious if you don't know.

If a GP adds an HRT med to your regimen, to help your menopause symptoms, it is reasonable to assume it's a licensed HRT med no?

Or do you all go and check the licensing status of every antibiotic etc that is prescribed?

To be honest, I'm really surprised that the NHS can prescribe something not licensed? What is the purpose of licensing if they can prescribe whether it is or it isn't?

The greater travesty is the NHS attitude to menopause and HRT in general. I have found some posts on here about testosterone and evidentially it is not uncommon for NHS GPs to refuse testosterone on the basis of brain fog anxiety etc but willingly prescribe it to any woman who says she is unable to satisfy her husband due to low libido. What a fucking joke.

Yep- it is shocking

I think people are getting confused. Testosterone is not licensed for women in the UK. It’s prescribed off license, it’s licensed for men. Only Australia has a female specific testosterone product. It’s available privately in the Uk. I tried it but decided not to continue with it because:
a) measurement was annoying they provided a syringe that didn’t work well for cream. Tostran is a pump so you just pump it once and that’s the dose
b) it’s very expensive £120 for 3 months supply. Tostran is £45 for 7 months supply
c) It then turned out my GP could give me tostran on the NHS, so free as I have a medical exemption but even if I had to pay would be £9.90 for 7 months supply
There could be other drugs that are licensed in the UK for women but that might not mean they are on the HRT pre payment list.

Do not pay the fine without speaking to the pharmacy first. They can contact the NHSBSA on your behalf.

Could you explain the 'circular' comment please? I don't understand what you mean.

I've already said that I'm surprised the GP doesn't explain that testosterone is not an HRT med.

I don't need to check other prescriptions - I'm paying for those.

As for satisfying my husband, he couldn't keep up and I had to reduce the dose! 🤣

My pharmacy were very helpful when I had a similar situation and sorted it so I didn't have to pay.

@Everyonceinawhile

I found it helps with brain fog, anxiety, sharpness, motivation - those sorts of things.

I completed mine in the queue at the chemis. I didn’t know this existed until another customer told me. So I didn’t read it in its entirety and I’d expect the doctor or the chemist to say it wasn’t valid for that particular prescription. It wouldn’t occur to me there’s a list I’d need to check.

Okay that's useful to know - thank you.

Yes very annoying. I’ve been moved to a new brand without asking, Slynd. Not covered by my existing certificate so that’s pointless now

just in case it’s not been answered yet.
I’ve had a 6 year fight to start hrt. I started getting my symptoms in my mid- late 30’s with doctors telling me I was too young. Which, I don’t believe for a second. If your fertility starts to drop in mid 30’s it’s just to hormones so it stands to reason that Peri symptoms will follow.
don’t expect it to be periods changing first!
but back to your question.
you can buy a pre payment certificate for your hrt meds, so you don’t have to pay a prescription for each item (normally 2-3 items per month) so it would quickly add up.
this is cheaper than the usual pre payment certificate

Only specialists can prescribe it, because it's not licenced.

My GP is, luckily enough, the regional meno specialist, so she can prescribe it. The reason I know all this is because she told me. I would expect your healthcare professional to inform you if they were prescribing something off licence. Not to do so would be pretty poor practice I think.

No, I would not check the licence of everything (or of anything!) because the NHS doesn't normally prescribe off licence, which is why my GP gave me all the info. I also take Minoxidil off licence, and melatonin, but I buy those privately.

Sounds great……thanks

Argh not quite the same scenario as this but my friend was getting free prescriptions due to pregnancy. Her midwife hadn't yet written out her mat b1 certificate (and friend didn't even know that existed as it was her first pregnancy). Pharmacy had been merrily accepting her word that she was pregnant and not asking to see proof. She ended up needing to pay something like £1500 because when she tried to get the mat b1 cert from the midwife she was told she already needed to be in possession of it when collecting the meds. Even though there was obvious evidence she was pregnant throughout. Madness. Sorry this has happened to you OP. It might be worth arguing, I had a similar challenge with another similar public service I won't go into as it is outing but I was ultimately able to get acknowledgment that the processes were unclear to anyone without a detailed professional understanding of tye system. And got the fine removed. Good luck, worth a try (didn't work for my above friend sadly).

It's only shown to work in under 5% of women, and, of those, there's no control to ensure the results are real. And the risks are unknown, never really been investigated. This is why it's not licenced I guess. And noone seems to want to do the research.

And, my GP was happy to prescribe for me because of my loss of libido. Nothing to do with "satisfying my husband", mainly bc I don't have one, but that was never even mentioned. I think it's pretty well known that having satisfying sex is good for everyone. I just decided to try more estrogen before I go down the testosterone route. But still no libido, which is a bit of a shame.

How annoying. I would be angry enough to move to Wales where the prescriptions are all free.

That's incredible shit and I'm quite sure the last thing your poor friend wanted to be doing while she was pregnant was fighting a battle like that