Monday, August 4, 2014

She was "Making Sure"

Mrs. Stickler is a pain in the ass.

Last Thursday she called the pharmacy and tells me she needs a refill on her Ketoconazole cream. She needs it NOW because they're going out of town. I tell her I will contact the doctor for a refill. 

"But I'm out," she says. 

"I know," that's why I'm contacting the doctor. You're out of refills too.

I send off a request to the doctor. Moments later I get a confirmation indicating that before she called me, she directed the computer via the phone system to contact the doctor too. That means the doctor will receive two requests for refill. Had she mentioned that, I would not have sent a request.

Friday, she calls. "Did I get my refill?"

"No," I said, not yet. "When do you leave?"

"Not until next Wednesday."

I tell her we have plenty of time and not to worry. We'll get a response way before then. We hang up.

Moments later another confirmation prints. She has sent another request, THEN called me to ask if it was there. The logic here escapes me.

Saturday she calls again. I tell her we haven't heard from the doctor yet.

"But I'm out!" she says.

I ask her if she put in her script number again before she talked to me. She says yes. I tell her that she only needs to do that one time, which she already did last Thursday. The office has the request. Duplicating that process only makes them angry and makes the pharmacy look stupid.

"But I'm out!" was her reply.

Moments later another confirmation prints.

Sunday I didn't get a call from Mrs. Stickler. But you guessed it, another confirmation printed. She sent another request. Apparently her doctor's office is open 24 hours?

Monday morning I get an authorization from the doctor, along with a perturbed message stating that we only need to fax them one time and to please stop sending multiple requests.

I process the prescription and have it ready to pick up. An hour later, Mrs. Stickler calls.

"Is my prescription ready? We leave on Wednesday!"

I tell her YES, it is ready. Come down and get it!

Twenty minutes later... TWO confirmations for refill requests print on my printer, indicating she did the process TWICE, and this was AFTER I already told her that the refill request was authorized and her cream was ready to pick up.

Later that day she came in to get her cream. I asked her why she used our phone system to request refills AFTER I had told her it was already completed.

"I was just making sure," she replied.

There are no words. No words can describe the insanity here. Sadly, the Sticklers have children and polluted the gene pool further.


1 comment:

Nurse Nasty said...

We do hate the multiple fax requests.

I think this is one of those things that was a good idea gone bad. It's nice that the patient can push a few buttons and try to renew their own refills, that is a good thing I'm not arguing that. But they shouldn't be able to do it over and over again. With technology being what it is in 2014 I'm sure there's a way for the manufacturer to configure the automated system so it doesn't allow the same Rx # more than once, maybe the patient could get a response saying something to the effect of "You just entered that request 37 minutes ago, please stop behaving like a wild assmonkey and allow a reasonable amount of time for your provider to respond and your prescription to be processed."

At least that's what I would have it do if I were in charge of such things.