Monday, December 31, 2012

A Close Shave

This is not a post about morals and what's right. I know what's right and wrong, but I work in the Twilight Zone:

Man, age 50 something, with an active prescription for Cialis. Same man insists that his "file" be tagged with the following, "DO NOT LET WIFE PICK UP MEDICATION." Same man has spoken to me personally about said request. Request has been logged for quite awhile, but he brings it up every time he comes in. The last time I actually turned the monitor around and showed him the words on his "file." Same man looked satisfied (no pun intended) with the situation at that point.

Same man is a cliche for the old joke: He gets it refilled just prior to going out of town. This time it was no different... told us he was going "out of town" and needed a refill. Same man left the store without picking up the prescription we filled for him in 3.5 minutes. That's no big deal to us... we just keep it on the shelf.

Two days later the phone rings. It is the man's wife, wanting to know what prescription is waiting FOR HER at the pharmacy. The tech goes to the will-call and determines that there is no prescription FOR HER and by a pure stroke of luck doesn't say anything about the prescription of Cialis waiting there for her husband... which would have likely happened under different circumstances. Our computer automatically calls people when the prescription is not picked up in two days with a reminder call. The man's "file" has the same phone number as his wife and the computer was trying to call HIM, not HER. The tech very easily could have said, "No, we don't have anything for you, but there's a script for Cialis for your husband." Then all private healthcare protection information laws would have gone to hell in a hand basket. I can only imagine the lawsuits that would have come from that one sentence. Personally I'd like to see the cheating bastard get his due, but because of the law I have to keep his secrets.

Definitely a close shave. Phew!

4 comments:

Matt M said...

The next time you see him, suggest that he get a different phone number for his file. Or, got to a completely different pharmacy for this script. You just can't be too careful.

C said...

Oh good grief-you know eventually someone is going to make that mistake. Oh and he's a douche.

Cian Duffy said...

Is there a reason (insurance?) that he doesn't just use two pharmacies?

Worst that can happen here is that you end up paying two sets of capped social insurance co-pays (max 19.50 per family per month) but I know we've a lot less complex system than the US...

Anonymous said...

Is he really that much of a douche? If she doesn't know about the script that almost certainly means that she's not putting out.

I don't find it that evil for him to go elsewhere when he's not getting any at home.