Why I switched FROM US vendors TO verified Chinese vendors — cost breakdown

DataDave said:

The useful checklist is about verifiability rather than presentation.

Vendor reputation tracking for vendor vetting: I maintain a personal spreadsheet with every order I've placed — date, vendor, batch number, Janoshik result, personal efficacy assessment (1-5 scale), and any issues.

After 15 orders across 3 vendors: average purity 98.3%, zero sterility concerns, 1 shipping issues (all resolved). This data gives me confidence in my current source and documentation if issues arise.

I encourage everyone to track their orders systematically. Community data aggregation makes us all safer.

One thing that is still open after Dr.PulmRoch’s answer:

What a vetting checklist should actually contain, as opposed to a list of things that are easy to fake?

Dr.PeteFamMed said:

Vendor reputation tracking for vendor vetting: I maintain a personal spreadsheet with every order I've placed — date, vendor, batch number, Janoshik…

Adding the part of the answer the thread has not reached. Denials are usually procedural rather than clinical, and the order that works reflects that. Get the denial reason in writing, because it names the criterion you failed. Then supply the documentation that criterion asks for — usually documented BMI with a comorbidity, or a failed prior therapy. Then appeal, and ask for a peer-to-peer review, because a prescriber talking to a reviewing clinician resolves a large fraction of denials that written appeals do not. Manufacturer copay assistance is separate and applies mainly to commercial insurance, and patient assistance programmes are means-tested rather than a discount.

That is the short version; the long version is somebody else's post.

Closing the loop on my own question.

Went back through my own correspondence with an earlier supplier and the warning signs were all there in the replies, weeks before the quality changed. I was reading the product and not the behaviour.

chris_chi24 said:

Denials are usually procedural rather than clinical, and the order that works reflects that.

Right, and one flattering data point from a group buy is not consistency. Consistency means separate batches, separately commissioned, over months.