Tales from the Funny Pharm

[ShinyGreenApple]

At my pharmacy, if they see that a script isn't covered by insurance or/and is going to cost gobs of money, they won't fill it until they can talk to the patient and see if they still want it at that price. Most of the time they don't, but some will take it because they simply have to have it. But it saves us the trouble of filling lots of scripts that will never get picked up.

[Raveni]

At my pharmacy, if they see that a script isn't covered by insurance or/and is going to cost gobs of money, they won't fill it until they can talk to the patient and see if they still want it at that price. Most of the time they don't, but some will take it because they simply have to have it. But it saves us the trouble of filling lots of scripts that will never get picked up.

Stuff like that bothers me as a customer, because more often than not, the tech doesn't talk to me about the price when I drop off the script or bother to call me at the number that I leave to ask me if I really want it. Instead, they wait until I come to pick it up to see if I really want to buy my child's medication this month, like I have every month before. It really comes across as "it saves us the trouble" too when you don't have any suggestions for an alternative.

Oh, and now I have to wait 30 minutes in the store with my three kids for you to fill the script when you've had it for a day already.

[RootedPhoenix]

I get the catbutt face at work when I tell patients their script will take 15 minutes!

What would these dingbats do if told they had to wait 3-5 hours for their stuff??

It's happened to me. (County clinic.) Makes you really appreciate the speed of an average pharmacy. (It made me want to hug one guy, lol)

[Pagan]

Stuff like that bothers me as a customer, because more often than not, the tech doesn't talk to me about the price when I drop off the script or bother to call me at the number that I leave to ask me if I really want it. Instead, they wait until I come to pick it up to see if I really want to buy my child's medication this month, like I have every month before. It really comes across as "it saves us the trouble" too when you don't have any suggestions for an alternative.

Oh, and now I have to wait 30 minutes in the store with my three kids for you to fill the script when you've had it for a day already.

Except at the time you drop it off, the tech has no way to know how much it's going to be. All they can give you is the cash price immediately. To find out how much/if insurance is going to cover, it has to be typed in, RPh has to verify, then it has to processed through the insurance. That can take a while. Sometime the tech has to get on the phone with the insurance company, which can mean beign on terminal hold.

The techs, not even the RPhs, know off the top of their heads even the cash price of every drug in the pharmacy, factor in how many insurance plans there are out there?

If they're (not) staffed the same way as where I was, we simply not time to call everybody to see if they want their meds at that price. That would boost the wait time even more. They'd have to hire someone to just that.

And if you're wanting an alternative drug, you have to talk to the RPh. By federal law, CPhTs can't give advice.

[zombiequeen]

When I go to get my pills filled, I drop them off or request them to be filled, go browse clearance for the time they say (or if it's somewhere where they page, until they call my name) then I go to the counter. One time they were being delivered, so they weren't in stock and I had to wait another hour. Oh well, I found some makeup on sale that was the brand I wanted and looked really nice, and if I hadn't have had to wait, I wouldn't have had that makeup for my wedding!
Of course, my gramma pitches a HUGE fit if her pills are late, my mum calls them in for her so that the poor people don't have to deal with gramma.

[ShinyGreenApple]

Stuff like that bothers me as a customer, because more often than not, the tech doesn't talk to me about the price when I drop off the script or bother to call me at the number that I leave to ask me if I really want it. Instead, they wait until I come to pick it up to see if I really want to buy my child's medication this month, like I have every month before. It really comes across as "it saves us the trouble" too when you don't have any suggestions for an alternative.

Oh, and now I have to wait 30 minutes in the store with my three kids for you to fill the script when you've had it for a day already.

There are times when it can be frustrating, yes. But most of the time, it's a quick issue that can be solved with a few mouse clicks and the RPh has it out in less than five minutes. No more (and possibly less) time than it would take it we'd filled the script for an outrageous price and had to go through the ordeal of trying to find an insurance to run it through and printing new labels.

[EricKei]

I guess I kinda lucked out ~_~ I have only one heart pill that's NOT covered by the current "$4/month" thing, and it's $55/month. This was unexpected, and, of course, it's the one pill which has had the most dramatic (quantifiable) positive effect...Also, I know that many, many people have it a lot worse off than I, so I consider myself lucky in this regard. I can't seem to get insurance (even the one that my boss resells stopped me as soon as I mentioned my weight, even tho I'm a lifetime nondrinker/nonsmoker/nonanything) >_< -- Thus, without the $4 program, I'm not sure I could even afford the ones I DO take ~_~

[Raveni]

Except at the time you drop it off, the tech has no way to know how much it's going to be. All they can give you is the cash price immediately.

So, the tech can't see how much it cost me the last 3 times I picked it up? Granted, it might be different now, but if it cost me $108 each of the last three months, why would they assume that I would suddenly have an issue with it now? Oh wait... <looks at board title> I guess you get a lot of people who would make an issue out of it anyway.

If they're (not) staffed the same way as where I was, we simply not time to call everybody to see if they want their meds at that price. That would boost the wait time even more. They'd have to hire someone to just that.

And if you're wanting an alternative drug, you have to talk to the RPh. By federal law, CPhTs can't give advice.

I would think that before the decision was made to simply not fill a perscription, there would be a conversation with the RPh. Also, it would seem that you would want to have that (admittedly tough) conversation over the phone as soon as possible rather than risk that customer making a big scene in the store holding up the line. But I don't work in your field, so I'm sure you have a reason for doing it that way.

There are times when it can be frustrating, yes. But most of the time, it's a quick issue that can be solved with a few mouse clicks and the RPh has it out in less than five minutes. No more (and possibly less) time than it would take it we'd filled the script for an outrageous price and had to go through the ordeal of trying to find an insurance to run it through and printing new labels.

When I've got my 3 kids running around playing with all the Zhu-Zhu Pets and gel insoles it seems longer than that, but I must admit that I am on CST then.


I don't mean to come across as a jerk. It just sucks that the masses of people who drop off perscriptions and don't pick it up have made it so you do things that way and I get inconvenienced by SCs at a place that I don't even work!

[Pagan]

So, the tech can't see how much it cost me the last 3 times I picked it up? Granted, it might be different now, but if it cost me $108 each of the last three months, why would they assume that I would suddenly have an issue with it now? Oh wait... <looks at board title> I guess you get a lot of people who would make an issue out of it anyway.

We would get people swearing up and down that they've never paid that much before. Look it up, and that's what they've been paying for a year.

Not to mention, the insurance could have decided not to cover anymore. You wouldn't believe how often that happens from month-to-month. Or it now requires a prior authorization, which involves the doctor trying to convince the insurance to cover it.

I would think that before the decision was made to simply not fill a perscription, there would be a conversation with the RPh. Also, it would seem that you would want to have that (admittedly tough) conversation over the phone as soon as possible rather than risk that customer making a big scene in the store holding up the line. But I don't work in your field, so I'm sure you have a reason for doing it that way.

I don't know about other pharmacies, but where I was, we went ahead and filled the rx regardless.

Again, as I said, most pharmacies are simply not staffed to call every single customer when there's a problem with their prescription.

There was many a time that there would be a line 10 deep at drop-off, a line 20 deep at pick-up, 2 techs and one RPh. Which means a tech at drop-off typing in, a tech at pick-up ringing out customers, and the RPh trying to verify, fill, visual verify, bag, field phone calls, and have consultations on top of it.

When were we going to have time to call people to tell them a price?

[dalesys]

...When were we going to have time to call people to tell them a price?

Get it out of the back room?

[Pagan]

Get it out of the back room?

Don't think we didn't get asked that! Never mind that you could see the whole of the pharmacy! Well, except for the bathroom....

[PepperElf]

of course i'm thinking if she choses to ditch one med for the expense... what about the sick people in the car waiting for their meds?

and i agree, the pharmacist deserves thanks.
instead of more grief.


the only thing i can say is that... sometimes when you offer more information it bites you in the ass.

[Raveni]

There was many a time that there would be a line 10 deep at drop-off, a line 20 deep at pick-up, 2 techs and one RPh. Which means a tech at drop-off typing in, a tech at pick-up ringing out customers, and the RPh trying to verify, fill, visual verify, bag, field phone calls, and have consultations on top of it.

When were we going to have time to call people to tell them a price?

I've never seen it that bad in the pharmacies that I've shopped in, but I don't doubt that some get that crazy. Just saying that's all the more reason to call the SCs at home instead of waiting for them to come in and hold up your line.

[Shalom]

There was many a time that there would be a line 10 deep at drop-off, a line 20 deep at pick-up, 2 techs and one RPh. Which means a tech at drop-off typing in, a tech at pick-up ringing out customers, and the RPh trying to verify, fill, visual verify, bag, field phone calls, and have consultations on top of it.

The day I quit working for Aid of Rite was the Monday that they left me in a busy store, from 3 to 5:30 PM, with one "tech" who had just been promoted from cashier the week previous and hadn't yet been taught how to do any of the tech stuff. Not that she'd have had any time to do so while simultaneously running the register, even had she known how. Oh, and we also had one robot, for all the good it did us.

There was a line from drop-off to the front door. I don't even know how many people there were in it, I couldn't see the end from where I was. I was typing non-stop, piling up stacks higher than my head of baskets with labels which I was not going to have a chance to fill, because I never got a break from people dropping off, and $DEITY forbid I walk away from the dropoff window to actually get any of those scripts counted and bagged because then someone would have to wait to drop off a prescription (that I still wouldn't have a chance to fill). People were asking me when their script would be ready; my estimates went from an hour, to two hours, and finally I told them flat out that I just didn't know, because there wasn't anyone there to fill them except me and the robot, and I'm stuck on drop off. Maybe when more personnel come in at 6 (who actually showed up at 5:30, thank $DEITY for small favors) I'll be able to make a dent in this stack, but how much longer after that I truly can't say. If someone insisted that they needed their med right then, I told them to go across the street to the independent pharmacy, and I'd call them and give them the RX over the phone and the patient's insurance information so they could get it faster. I figured that I'd lose the script, but maybe the customer would remember that I'd been at least a little helpful and still come back for their next one. (I cared about stuff like that back then.)

About 5:15 I finally lost it. I opened SYSM and e-mailed my scheduler. "Dear (forgot her name): I quit. Please don't schedule me any more." I felt so good after sending that. What a weight off my shoulders.

Got a panicked phone call from her five minutes later asking if I was planning to walk out right then and there or finish out the day; I told them grudgingly that I would finish the day there. (I wanted to just lock up and leave, but I didn't want to burn any bridges.) What about the rest of the week? All right, I'll finish the week too; it wouldn't be fair to dump it on anyone else on so little notice (not that they had any compunction about dropping that kind of thing on me with no notice. I didn't realize at the time that pharmacists who reserved their not-yet-scheduled time for their companies' convenience were called On Call pharmacists and paid for that time), and the rest were pretty easy stores anyway. Then my supervisor called me and said "I want two weeks notice." Turns out he meant, in addition to the rest of this week. OK, you can have your two weeks notice; the knowledge that the end was in sight was enough to give me strength to finish those extra two weeks.

Couple days later get a visit from my boss and his boss. Where are you going from here? Well, I guess I'll work out my notice period and then go look for another job... They seemed taken aback at that. I don't think it had occurred to them until that point that I really meant it. Quitting to go work for someone else, they could deal with, and maybe try to outbid the prospective new employer. Quitting to be unemployed because sitting at home was better than continuing to work for them, there was just not much they could offer to top that.

I found out afterwards that this was the Store from Hell. One of the techs told me that in the preceding two months, one other pharmacist and no fewer than six techs had quit after being assigned to work there, which may have explained why I was so short staffed: there just wasn't anyone willing to work.

I'm thinking now that I mis-handled it; should have told them I needed to go out on unpaid leave for mental health reasons or something like that, and come back in a month or three. Those were the days of the pharmacist shortage, and I definitely would have had a job to go back to, but at the time I just wasn't thinking straight (untreated depression, among other stuff going on).

Shit, and I just filled out an online application to go back to work at Aid of Rite too. I'd managed to forget about that day until now. I guess when you're out of work long enough you get desperate. I wonder if my old supervisor still works there.

[Pagan]

The day I quit working for Aid of Rite was the Monday that they left me in a busy store, from 3 to 5:30 PM, with one "tech" who had just been promoted from cashier the week previous and hadn't yet been taught how to do any of the tech stuff.

How the hell did they get away with that? In New Mexico at least, you have to be a certified, licensed tech to do any of that.