http://www.al.com/news/mobile/Jan2000/13-a126272a.html

January 13, 2000

Computer bug slows flu relief

01/13/2000 By JEFF AMY and WILLIAM RABB Staff Reporter

Just as the flu bug was peaking across Alabama, a computer bug struck the state's largest health insurer this week, delaying or blocking more than 70,000 prescriptions all over the state.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama's computer system was back up and running Wednesday after being down Sunday night, all Monday and Tuesday morning, but pharmacists still were trying to recover from the crash.

Blue Cross spokesman Jim Brown said the computer was fixed by Monday but pharmacists contacted Wednesday by the Mobile Register all agreed the system showed no signs of life until Tuesday afternoon.

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"It created havoc. It hit right in the middle of the flu epidemic," said Jim Stowe, pharmacist at Nixon Drugs on Old Shell Road in Mobile. "They sure picked a good time."

The computer problem prevented pharmacists from knowing how much the insurance company would pay and how much the customer should pay. So drug stores either charged customers full price, issued a partial prescription to tide them over or estimated how much the insurance would cover.

"Several people weren't able to get their prescription because they didn't want to pay the full price," Stowe said.

Brown couldn't say why the crash happened, but leaders of the Alabama Pharmacy Association said they were told by Blue Cross officials that the company had taken the system down for a routine backup when a thunderstorm struck Sunday night, erasing critical files that had to be reloaded. The problem was not related to the Y2K computer bug, Brown said.

"I'm not sophisticated enough on the minute details," Brown said. "Suffice it to say, we had a computer glitch."

Pharmacists said problems with insurers' computers as well as their own systems occasionally cause delays. But never has a crash affected so many Alabamians' prescriptions for more than a day, pharmacists said.

Brown would not discuss how many prescriptions Blue Cross fills on a daily basis, and would only say that the insurer serves "virtually all" the pharmacies in the state. Billy Eley, the pharmacy association's executive director, said the group estimates more than 70,000 prescriptions every day are paid for by Blue Cross. The insurer's share is about 45 percent of an average drug store's volume, association leaders said.

Blue Cross insures 2.6 million Alabamians, according to its Internet site, more than 70 percent of the health insurance market in Alabama.

When the problem first surfaced Sunday, some pharmacies gave customers a day's worth of pills, thinking the computer would be up and running by Monday. But Monday, the crash continued.

"By then, we gave them four days' worth of medicine," said Fairhope pharmacist Ed Brueggemann. "We pretty much just loaned people some medicine to get them through until things were up and running again."

For many more customers, pharmacists estimated the co-payment and set aside paperwork to file for payment later. That's what Steve Love said he did at Elberta Pharmacy.

Although the Blue Cross computer was operating again by lunch time Tuesday, so many pharmacists were trying to clear a backlog of prescriptions that it still took hours before most could get through, pharmacists said.

"I had one prescription I had to run through 40 times before it went through," Stowe said.

Doug Hardin, sole pharmacist and owner of Foley's Medicine Shoppe on McKenzie Street, said the backlog forced him to work until 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, and he still had a big basket of paperwork to catch up on as Wednesday was winding down. He said the backlog will delay Blue Cross' payment to him, causing a cash crunch as his payments to drug companies come due.

"That's going to throw us into horrific cash-flow problems," Hardin said.

Blue Cross did not talk directly to drug stores, pharmacists said. The pharmacy association did provide updates to members by fax and phone.

"What they told us was that they take the computer system down every so often, and while it was down a thunderstorm hit and they had to reload the entire system," said Rob Colburn, the association's president. "But I've seen thunderstorms worse than that one that didn't cause such a problem."

Brown said it's up to pharmacies how they handle such outages, and that Blue Cross has no contingency plan for how it would deal with extended network problems, although it was working on keeping the problem from happening again.

"We had what we thought were adequate redundancies," Brown said.

It was unclear what would happen to pharmacies in the event of extended power and telephone outages such as might be caused by a major hurricane. Some pharmacists said they owned generators, but would be dependent on the telephone system working.

Some pharmacies also lost money on the deal because Blue Cross raised the deductible Jan. 1 for some policyholders, including state employees, said Colburn, a Northport, Ala., pharmacist.

When the computer system went down, some pharmacists went ahead and sold medicine to regular customers at the previous $15 co-payment, said Colburn. But when the computer came back up Tuesday, Blue Cross said some customers now were expected to pay the $15 co-payment, plus a new $50 deductible.

"If you let that prescription go out the door for $15, you're out 50 bucks," Colburn said.

-- Homer Beanfang (Bats@inbellfry.com), January 13, 2000

Answers

"We had what we thought were adequate redundancies" said Brown.

"It's going to throw us into some horific cash-flow problems" said Hardin.

"I had one prescription I had to run through 40 times before it went through," Stowe said.

"It created havoc, and right in the middle of the flu epidemic," said Jim Stowe.

This sort of glitch continuing could put pharmacies out of business.

-- Squirrel Hunter (nuts@upina.tree), January 13, 2000.

What a mess this will be to sort out.

Thanks Homer.

-- (pigs@do.fly), January 13, 2000.

Meanwhile, I am working on a test plan for a system I developed. This is not supposed to be allowed in a good organization, because I would be biased towards not testing those things that I know don't work very well. Bad practices continue...the band plays on...

-- Amy Leone (leoneamy@aol.com), January 13, 2000.

wow!

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), January 13, 2000.

"Brown couldn't say why the crash happened, but leaders of the Alabama Pharmacy Association said they were told by Blue Cross officials that the company had taken the system down for a routine backup when a thunderstorm struck Sunday night, erasing critical files that had to be reloaded. The problem was not related to the Y2K computer bug, Brown said."

Yeah, and monkeys fly out of my butt! Don't you hate when thunderstorms erase all your critical files (and then it takes you 3 days to restore them)?

-- Think It (Through@Pollies.Duh), January 13, 2000.

Agreed, this is a pathetic coverup for a serious Y2K problem. It's getting worse, folks!!!

-- (al3t@wegrof.net), January 13, 2000.

Talk about juxtaposition! A 3-day storm, with all the infrastructure up -- thank God it didn't go the way we feared ...

Can you imagine the state of the cold "Warming Shelters" with this highly contagious virulent flu?

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), January 13, 2000.

The City of Atlanta Police got their paychecks yesterday. They were all; well let's just say don't get into any trouble in Atlanta, there not very happy right now. No explanation of course.

-- Friday (cop-per@doughnut.duh), January 13, 2000.

"This is not Y2K related" goes down with "December 1998 with a year for testing."

-- Forrest Covington (theforrest@mindspring.com), January 13, 2000.