Saturday, October 4, 2014

We're Spoiling Them

We get e-Scripts all the time. We fill them. That's what we do.

It's kind of like someone calling in an order for a pizza to pick up, except it all comes electronically. On our end an e-Script is like a pizza order. "One medium size pizza with mushrooms" pops up on the computer, so we make the pizza. 

Except there's one prescriber here in Snootyville that doesn't get it. A few days ago she sent over several e-Scripts for herself. As is customary, we process and fill her prescriptions. She's ordered several pizzas, so to speak, and we're going to have them ready for her!

Today she came in to the pharmacy and I pulled all the prescriptions off the shelf that she e-prescribed for herself. I set them on the counter and starting ringing them into the register.

"Oh, I don't want these," she says.

WHAT?! WHAT?!?!?!?!? is going through my mind.

"Why did you send them to us?" I ask. I'm not happy, and it is showing. I personally filled all these medications and maybe I'm just an idiot for thinking this, but I feel like my time is valuable and she wasted a lot of it.

"So you could have them on record when I needed them," she says, defiantly, completely unaware of how it works on our end... I assume.

"You know, when you send over an e-Script, we're going to fill it, right? That's what we do."

She looks at me and doesn't say anything. I'm not sure if she's embarrassed for wasting my time or just doesn't give a damn. I'm leaning toward the latter.

I undo what I've done at the register and ask her why she's at the pharmacy today. She asks about getting a refill for a medication she didn't e-Script to us, nor bothered to even let us know ahead of time that she needed. In her head it is completely reasonable to just show up at the PICK UP window and ask us to refill a prescription on the fly, right during the busy dinner hour, without any idea or concern about the issues this creates for us.

I fill her prescription. As I'm ringing it into the register, three people in line are now staring at me. As politely as I can, I tell her we need to know 24 hours in advance what she needs filled, and if she's going to send over a prescription electronically, it would be nice if she added a note to "do not fill ~ place on hold" if she doesn't want it filled.

Her puzzling reply: "Oh, but I'm used to you spoiling me."

Euthanize me.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wait....a prescriber can provide for themselves? I thought that was frowned upon or possibly not legal.

Anonymous said...

Non-controlled meds are okay for a prescriber to prescribe for themselves. It varies state to state but as a rule of thumb, they cannot prescribe controlled meds to themselves, and only to family members in an emergency.

Anonymous said...

Early in the pharmacy career, the pharmacist's credo is the Oath of a Pharmacist. After a few years it becomes, "Euthanize me."