Thursday evening, 7pm:
"The doctor made a mistake."
That's what she said when she handed this prescription to me last week.
"You can fill it now. It's ok."
"Do you have another printed prescription that says it's ok to fill in July?" I asked.
"No. But it's ok. He just made a mistake."
"I'll have to call their office tomorrow and verify that," I said.
"But he told me it was ok to fill it now. Can't you just take my word for it?"
"No."
"I'll take it somewhere else," she starts to threaten.
"Ok. No one is going to fill this prescription, you understand. It clearly states DO NOT REFILL until August 21. He even put it on there twice."
"But that's a mistake."
"I believe you."
"So why can't you fill it?"
"Because it says DO NOT REFILL until August 21."
"What's wrong with YOU people??!" she says, angrily.
"We can call the MD first thing in the morning."
"Why can't you call him now?"
"It's after 7pm. They likely left their office at 5pm."
"Can't you page him?"
"No. This doesn't qualify as an emergency situation."
"I have to leave in the morning. I'm going on vacation."
"Then take the prescription with you and get it filled where you're going. But I have to tell you, NO ONE is going to fill it until August 21 unless they talk to the physician."
"I'll pick it up in the morning after you call the doctor."
So much for "going on vacation."
I'd like to tell you that this is an isolated thing, an outlier, something that rarely happens. Unfortunately, your typical pharmacist deals with this kind of nastiness almost on a daily basis. It beats us down, wears us out, causes us to lose hair. I'm tired of it. It's not about being up the challenge of retail. It's about common sense and simple logic and pushy, arrogant, entitled people. We don't fill prescriptions that indicate a future date to fill. That's the way it rolls.
So when this kind of crap happens over and over and over, it makes the Crazy RxMan... crazy. And I'll bet if you're a pharmacy technician or pharmacist you're a little crazy too.
4 comments:
I had a guy come in with an Adderall rx that was unsigned. He even called my attention to it before I noticed it. Before I could tell him that we couldn't fill it, he whipped out his phone and played me a voice mail from his doctor's nurse saying that the doctor goofed and we should just go ahead and fill it. He was ticked off when I told him that wasn't an option. He supposedly drove the 90 minute round trip drive to get it signed, but I honestly think he just forged the doctor's signature. Oh, and he wanted only the yellow ones. I don't get paid enough to deal with this crap.
"I'll take it somewhere else..."
"Ok." *hand rx back* "Have a nice day."
That should have been where you stopped the interaction. It would have saved you the ensuing headache.
The date is one of the 4 elements that cannot be changed via oral clarification on a CII. In my state, the do not fill before date IS the date written (makes sense, right?). So in my state, the Dr can call all they want, but that script isn't being filled before 8/21. New hard copy would be required.
All I want is to be able to get my Vyvanse 50 refilled on Thursday, so I can leave for vacation on Friday. But nooooooooo, the pharmacy policy is to fill one day before my last pill, so Sunday is the earliest they will fill. And then try to tell me it's the law? Damn drug seekers are making it hard on the rest of us.
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