Random Funny Pharm rants

[ShinyGreenApple]

Also I'd like to find each and every doctor or hospital employee who tells these people that all medications cost $4 at Volde-Mart. They do not ALL cost $4, they never have, and they never will. Don't write your patient some Plavix or Ventolin and tell them it's $4, for the love of all things good! In fact, don't give them prices at all since it's obvious you don't know jack shit about how these things work.

"But my doctor saaaaaiiiid it would only be this much!"

[GuardingYourLife]

Can I ask an honest and innocent question from you guys in the pharmacy field? Why does it take 20-40 minutes to fill a prescription when there are several people working in the pharmacy and only a few people waiting for meds? I'm not one of those people who assumes you're just making me wait for fun while you goof around in the back, but when it's for birth control pills, prepackeged in boxes I can see on the shelf right behind the pharmacist, why do I still have to wait 20 min? Is there that much paperwork, etc that has to be done?

[Sapphire Silk]

"But my doctor saaaaaiiiid it would only be this much!"

Then the doctor can cover the balance. Truth is, a lot of doctors write prescriptions without any real thought to the costs. They get samples from pharmaceutical reps, along with other goodies, that convinces them to hand out scripts for expensive drugs that are far more expensive than older ones but work no better.

When I worked in the ER, I used a program called ePocrates that had a cost database. When patients asked about costs, I could give them an estimate. If it was too expensive, I could often get the physician to order an older, less expensive drug that often did the job just as well.

Can I ask an honest and innocent question from you guys in the pharmacy field? Why does it take 20-40 minutes to fill a prescription when there are several people working in the pharmacy and only a few people waiting for meds? I'm not one of those people who assumes you're just making me wait for fun while you goof around in the back, but when it's for birth control pills, prepackeged in boxes I can see on the shelf right behind the pharmacist, why do I still have to wait 20 min? Is there that much paperwork, etc that has to be done?

I'm not a pharmacist, but I may be able to shed some light. Pharmacy techs process the prescriptions: pull them from the shelves after obtaining the prescriptive order, verify insurance information, and then package it. Pre-packaged stuff I imagine is a bit faster . . . but when all else is said and done, the prescription then needs to be verified by the pharmacist that it was filled correctly.

There is usually one pharmacist on duty at any time, and maybe 3 techs. They process hundreds of prescriptions a day. It's time consuming because a mistake can give a patient not only the wrong drug, but a dangerous drug There was another thread where we talked about a drug with a name similar to AZT . . . that is an immunosuppressent . . . which is the last thing you want to give to someone immunocompromised.

That's my best guess

[GuardingYourLife]

Fair enough. I can see how giving the wrong drug is such a serious thing that you would want to double and triple check. I guess there must also be certain protocol that must be followed to make sure all drugs are properly accounted for...just in case one of the employees decided to "help" themselves?

[auntiem]

Also I'd like to find each and every doctor or hospital employee who tells these people that all medications cost $4 at Volde-Mart. They do not ALL cost $4, they never have, and they never will. Don't write your patient some Plavix or Ventolin and tell them it's $4, for the love of all things good! In fact, don't give them prices at all since it's obvious you don't know jack shit about how these things work.

"But my doctor saaaaaiiiid it would only be this much!"

Case in point - I was on a couple of meds to see if we could get any of them to work, I didn't like (hated in fact) the side effects of one of them and told my dr. "I hope it is the expensive one that is doing it" He asked me how much it was and when I said it was $64 told me he was suprised because he thought it was $250.
Really - you are going to give an Rx to an uninsured person that has the BP of a giraffe and not even give them a heads up for when they get it filled?!

[Sapphire Silk]

Fair enough. I can see how giving the wrong drug is such a serious thing that you would want to double and triple check. I guess there must also be certain protocol that must be followed to make sure all drugs are properly accounted for...just in case one of the employees decided to "help" themselves?

Especially in the case of controlled substances . . . .

Case in point - I was on a couple of meds to see if we could get any of them to work, I didn't like (hated in fact) the side effects of one of them and told my dr. "I hope it is the expensive one that is doing it" He asked me how much it was and when I said it was $64 told me he was suprised because he thought it was $250.
Really - you are going to give an Rx to an uninsured person that has the BP of a giraffe and not even give them a heads up for when they get it filled?!

Yeah . . . pretty much.

And people wonder why health care costs so much.

[ShinyGreenApple]

Can I ask an honest and innocent question from you guys in the pharmacy field? Why does it take 20-40 minutes to fill a prescription when there are several people working in the pharmacy and only a few people waiting for meds? I'm not one of those people who assumes you're just making me wait for fun while you goof around in the back, but when it's for birth control pills, prepackeged in boxes I can see on the shelf right behind the pharmacist, why do I still have to wait 20 min? Is there that much paperwork, etc that has to be done?

There are several reasons why this happens, and I always wondered myself until I actually got behind the counter. As for there not being many people in the waiting room, not everyone stays at the pharmacy to wait for their stuff. Many will leave and come back, go shop around, out for lunch, etc. Then there are the scripts that are called or faxed in by doctor's offices and emergency rooms, scripts that were called in by customers on the automated system, and in the case of minutes after opening, we may be filling things left over from the night before. I know when we opened yesterday morning, the pharmacist said we had 80 something scripts waiting in fill.

The pharmacist and technicians fill scrips as they are entered into the system, so even if it is the pre-packaged stuff, there may be dozens of orders in front of it that need to be counted. So unless it's something that really needs to be filled immediately, it'll remain in the 'Will pick up' queue unless someone bumps it up to 'in-store' or 'critical' priority. We try to use the last one sparingly, for obvious reasons. Techs count, fill, and label most orders, and then put it in a basket for the pharmacist to verify, then he/she bags it up and it's officially ready to be sold to the customer. Most days my pharmacy has two pharmacists on duty for most of the day, but in the case we only have one or one of them is on lunch, quite a workload can pile up. Another thing that slows us down a little is when there is a CII script that needs filling. CII meaning class 2 narcotic drugs; they're kept in a locked drawer, only a pharmacist is allowed to fill them and it usually takes a few minutes as they want to be completely sure that the strength and count is correct.

Hope that clears things up a little

As for what happened to me today . . . nothing makes me happier than an employee I otherwise got along with is my first customer of the day and proceeds to have a language filled rant at me about how company insurance sucks and bitch about their deductible. I've lost respect for so many of my fellow employees since I started back there