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Maybe some of the pharmacy people here can help me figure out what happened here.
My last pack of birth control was running out, so we had to get a refill on it. Now, we just moved at the tail-end of December, so Hubby's been getting things squared away with our insurance coverage, including dealing with prescription coverage. We weren't able to get the mail-order script filling done before we needed to get a refill, due to a disagreement between the old doctor's office, the last pharmacy we filled at, and the mail-order pharmacy on how to go about transferring the script. So we decided to take the pertinent information to the local Walmart and get it filled there, sicne the previous pharmacy was also at a Walmart, so it should be relatively simple to transfer the prescription over.
We call the local Walmart pharmacy and get it all handled, and they say that it'll be ready in about an hour (this was last Saturday morning). We go in to the store with the in-laws who were visiting, and Hubby heads to the pharmacy to pick it up while the rest of us shop. About ten minutes later, he rejoins us with the bag, but with an odd look on his face. He opens the bag up to double-check the prescription, because it didn't feel right through the paper bag.
He pulls out one of those orange medicine bottles with loose pills in it. Cue confusion for us both, as what I'd been getting was pre-packaged flat packs of 28-day pills, not loose pills in a bottle. Hubby reads the label, and while it claims to be the same medicine (Norethindrone) and a 28-day supply, according to the label it's either 3.5mg or 35mg per pill instead of the .35mg it's supposed to be (I don't recall the exact number, unfortunately, and Hubby is unavailable to ask at the moment). I also have no clue how you're supposed to take a 28-day supply when it's all loose in a medicine bottle like this.
So we head back to the pharmacy to figure out what was up. Hubby explains to the lady at the counter that this wasn't what we'd gotten previously (not to mention it was apparently over $200 for a single month's supply before insurance). She shows it to the pharmacist. The pharmacist starts asking us questions about what we'd gotten before, while the lady at the counter (tech?) deals with the other pharmacy customers and we step aside. We also realized at this point that the woman had forgotten to give Hubby back his insurance card, so we got that taken care of too.
By now I was laughing at the general ludicrousness of it all, because it was either that or get angry at people who were just as confused as I and thus didn't appear to have anything to do with the mixup. The pharmacist finally got us squared away with a flat pack of prepackaged pills, in the correct dosage. It seems that whatever tech filled it earlier that day had somehow misread the prescription.
Or something. I didn't quite catch what was up.
Another bright point: the pharmacist told us that the previous Walmart had overcharged us for the 3-month supply they'd given us, as we'd paid about $108 to them (no insurance), when the packages they'd given us were only supposed to be $24 or so per package pre-insurance. So the pharmacist here is going to see if he can swing us a refund of some sort. I totally wasn't expecting that (and will still be surprised if he manages to get us one), so that made me even happier beyond getting the mix-up straightened out.
But yeah, laughing about it because we opened up the bag and I immediately went, "There's no way that's my birth control." It was just so strange. Perhaps a little scary in hindsight, because this is how bad things can happen when a pharmacy mistakenly gives a customer too high of a dosage, but it was handled superbly by the pharmacy when we went back for clarification, so I'm not mad at them.
So, any pharmacy workers like to explain to me what was up with the loose pills? How are you even supposed to take those on a 28-day schedule, and what is the larger dosage for?
My last pack of birth control was running out, so we had to get a refill on it. Now, we just moved at the tail-end of December, so Hubby's been getting things squared away with our insurance coverage, including dealing with prescription coverage. We weren't able to get the mail-order script filling done before we needed to get a refill, due to a disagreement between the old doctor's office, the last pharmacy we filled at, and the mail-order pharmacy on how to go about transferring the script. So we decided to take the pertinent information to the local Walmart and get it filled there, sicne the previous pharmacy was also at a Walmart, so it should be relatively simple to transfer the prescription over.
We call the local Walmart pharmacy and get it all handled, and they say that it'll be ready in about an hour (this was last Saturday morning). We go in to the store with the in-laws who were visiting, and Hubby heads to the pharmacy to pick it up while the rest of us shop. About ten minutes later, he rejoins us with the bag, but with an odd look on his face. He opens the bag up to double-check the prescription, because it didn't feel right through the paper bag.
He pulls out one of those orange medicine bottles with loose pills in it. Cue confusion for us both, as what I'd been getting was pre-packaged flat packs of 28-day pills, not loose pills in a bottle. Hubby reads the label, and while it claims to be the same medicine (Norethindrone) and a 28-day supply, according to the label it's either 3.5mg or 35mg per pill instead of the .35mg it's supposed to be (I don't recall the exact number, unfortunately, and Hubby is unavailable to ask at the moment). I also have no clue how you're supposed to take a 28-day supply when it's all loose in a medicine bottle like this.
So we head back to the pharmacy to figure out what was up. Hubby explains to the lady at the counter that this wasn't what we'd gotten previously (not to mention it was apparently over $200 for a single month's supply before insurance). She shows it to the pharmacist. The pharmacist starts asking us questions about what we'd gotten before, while the lady at the counter (tech?) deals with the other pharmacy customers and we step aside. We also realized at this point that the woman had forgotten to give Hubby back his insurance card, so we got that taken care of too.
By now I was laughing at the general ludicrousness of it all, because it was either that or get angry at people who were just as confused as I and thus didn't appear to have anything to do with the mixup. The pharmacist finally got us squared away with a flat pack of prepackaged pills, in the correct dosage. It seems that whatever tech filled it earlier that day had somehow misread the prescription.
Or something. I didn't quite catch what was up.Another bright point: the pharmacist told us that the previous Walmart had overcharged us for the 3-month supply they'd given us, as we'd paid about $108 to them (no insurance), when the packages they'd given us were only supposed to be $24 or so per package pre-insurance. So the pharmacist here is going to see if he can swing us a refund of some sort. I totally wasn't expecting that (and will still be surprised if he manages to get us one), so that made me even happier beyond getting the mix-up straightened out.
But yeah, laughing about it because we opened up the bag and I immediately went, "There's no way that's my birth control." It was just so strange. Perhaps a little scary in hindsight, because this is how bad things can happen when a pharmacy mistakenly gives a customer too high of a dosage, but it was handled superbly by the pharmacy when we went back for clarification, so I'm not mad at them.
So, any pharmacy workers like to explain to me what was up with the loose pills? How are you even supposed to take those on a 28-day schedule, and what is the larger dosage for?
I knew there had to be something that such high doses would be used for.
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