When Jacqueline Vakil needed a refill for Flovent, her 4-year-old son’s asthma medicine, she couldn’t get it. The drugmaker GSK had stopped making the popular inhaler, back in January. To make matters worse, Vakil’s insurance provider wouldn’t cover the alternative drug their doctor suggested.
“It got to the point that I was on the phone constantly with our doctor to try to find a substitute,” Vakil says. All the while, her son James was up at night coughing. She tried Vicks VapoRub, a humidifier, and steam from a hot shower to help soothe his deep cough.
"He couldn't sleep at night with the cough,” she says. “He would go to school and his school would tell me that he's having a constant cough there as well." Vakil spent hours talking with her pediatrician, the pharmacist and her insurance company trying to find a replacement.
At first the insurance company suggested a dry powder inhaler, but it didn't work for her son because the breathing techniques required were too difficult for a 4-year-old. "The whole process was frustrating because I felt helpless," Vakil says. Finally, after seven weeks, James’ pediatrician, Dr.
Joannie Yeh at Nemours Children's Health in Media, Pa., helped find a medication that worked for James and was covered by insurance. Yeh says that even when things go smoothly it can take days to find new medication, leaving her patients feeling frustrated and scared.
“And of course parents are also working,” she says. “They can’t spe.