What the hell is up with Blogger and/or my computer? I’m typing, and it’s way, way behind. For example, right now the screen is showing me typing “and/or” near the end of the first sentence, even though I’m all the way over here at the end of the third sentence typing “typing.” Frustrating.
I took Henry for his 2-week check-up this morning. On the way, I dropped off my prescription at a pharmacy with a drive-up window. My plan was to thank them when I picked up the prescription for having a drive-up. What a great thing for a mother of five, four of whom are currently in the car and three of whom have to be buckled/unbuckled and can’t be trusted to walk. But when I came back 90 minutes later for my “this will be ready in 30 minutes” prescription, it was not yet ready.
One reason I get very, very crabby when that happens is that I know there is no one to bitch at. I worked for awhile as a pharmacy technician and the problem is usually understaffing, and bitching at the clerk just makes the clerk feel yuckier than she already feels: she doesn’t like the understaffing, either, and she’s about to quit from being run off her feet and yelled at all the time. Complaining to management doesn’t help, since then they yell at the clerk, too, rather than drawing the conclusion that their “save money by pissing off customers” idea isn’t working out. So I just held my teeth together in a grim approximation of a smile and said, “These things happen” and “I’ll come back later”—when I would really have preferred to let loose about how annoying this was and how I really couldn’t come back later unless I loaded FOUR children into the car.
One thing that helps get the prescription done on time is to tell the clerk at drop-off when you’ll be back. Like, if I’d said, “Okay, we’re going to a doctor appointment and I’ll be back in an hour,” she would have written that time on the prescription and it probably would have been ready. But I was a big dim and didn’t think to do this.
Hey, do you have any pressing pharmacy questions? Like, why does it take so long to fill a prescription? Or, why do they always give me the generic? Or, do the clerks remember everyone in town who has a male-enhancement prescription, and do they notice how many tablets are gone through per month? Ask away, that’s what I’m here for. Swistle: Where to go for HOTTT pharmacy tips!
Hmmm, hot pharmacy tips….how about, how come there are no hot pharmacists? Or why are most of them huge jerks??
I still give you so much credit, I don’t think I’d have even left the house yet if I was you, and there you go carting 4 kids around. :)
Hahahaha. Yes, I feel your pain, for sure. And I admire you for not yelling at the clerk. She’s probably been yelled at many, many times already today, poor thing. You were very wise.
And Holy Crap! What a darling picture!!!
My question is how do you learn to read the doctors’ handwriting? I remember thinking there must be a special class on this or something.
Do they end up calling the doctor a lot to ask WTF?
Actually, I DO have a pharmacy question, but it may be more of a rhetorical question, but it may be that you actually know… so here it is:
Marin was put on Zantac, for babies, at a few months old. The Zantac she was put on? It was specifically for Babies. You know, those little people who only drink milk and (in our case) Mylicon gas drops. Anyway, why, oh why, would the Zantac for babies come in a STRONG ASS peppermint flavor? For Babies? Who thought, gee, these babies are gonna *lurve* peppermint. These babies are going to swallow this stuff like it’s baby crack. Sheesh…
(Our pharmacist, who is very likable and nice, tried to flavor it, but alas, the peppermint could not be covered up.)
Love that baby boy of yours!
Sara: We did have one hottie pharmacist. He was kind of a jerk, though. But hott. The others, though–I know what you mean. I think it’s that pharmacists have to rock chemistry. And I’m not making any correlation between physical attractiveness and being good at chemistry. I’m just saying.
Tessie: Oooh, good one! It IS tricky at first, but after awhile you get used to it. There are only so many words likely to be on a presciption, and most medications are likely to contain certain ones in a certain order. When you know it’s probably “twice daily by mouth for ten days,” the words shimmer out at you from the tangle. Plus, the most common words are coded, and it’s easier to read a messily-written “PO” than a messily-written “by mouth.” We did have to make WTF calls from time to time, though, and the doctors were always very peevish when we did.
Marie Green: I think I MAY have the answer, but I’m not certain it’s correct. What I think is right is that the flavor of the Zantac itself (without the peppermint) is so, so hideous and nasty, peppermint is the only flavor intense enough to cover it up. Seems like they could put a little more research into that, then–my kids don’t even like minty toothpaste flavors.
why is the pharmacist always on a platform 2 feet above the rest of us plebes?
I actually don’t have any gripes this time because my current pharmacist works in a grocery store and I just put my refill requests online (or have the dr call them directly) and my husband picks it up AND he usually gets me foooood while I’m there! :)
Couldn’t you call ahead or do they hate that too?
Ugh!! I love the drive thru pharmacy as much as you do, but it sure can make a good day bad, or a bad day worse.
So, after Elise was born, I had problems controlling my blood pressure still and changes were made to my meds at my first follow-up appointment. I got my script and took it to the drive thu, dropped it off, and returned half an hour later only for them to tell me that I didn’t tell them when I was returning. So yeah, I fell for it, too.
I called same prescription in for a refill and was told that they would call me when it was filled. I never got the call back and by then my blood pressure was fine, so I never picked it up. Is it still there waiting for me? Can they put those meds back in with the big bottles of labetatol? I wonder if they charged my insurance for them.
And Targets new color-coding, BRILLIANT! I’m red. Nobody else in my family takes medicine though..so I guess it is useless for us.
And Swistle, I still want to see your cookies. You can choose the next food though, k?
Why is it that my prescription is always a different price? I have a prescription plan that clearly states it should be $40, but I have been charged all kinds of prices ranging from $30 (not that I am complainting about that one) all the way up to $52, and four different prices in between. I only have one prescription, and my plan has not changed. I just do not have the courage to challenge anything. I wonder what it will be this month?
Jen: One of my previous pharmacies had a sign near the pharmacist that said, “Please do not talk to pharmacist.” How’s that for elevated?
I had to go in person for this particular prescription because it was a narc0tic (those can’t be called in or refilled). But normally I’m a big fan of online/phone refilling.
Shannon: Eventually they’ll take the prescription, reverse the billing to the insurance, and return the tablets to the big bottle. That was one of my favorite pharmacy tasks: so satisfying to clear out the drawers!
I love the Target color-coded bands, too! They need a new color for our family, though: we have seven people, and there are only six colors. In fact, I asked about that last time I was there, and they weren’t even sure they could ADD a seventh person because of that! They said it hadn’t come up yet. If they add a new color, I hope they add pink.
Okay, okay, I’ll photograph the cookies! (Do you think anyone thinks we’re being euphemistic here?)
Tess: Good one! That makes me itch to get my fingers on the pharmacy computer to see what’s going on. When a pharmacy fills a prescription, they have “instant billing”–that is, they contact the insurance company as the prescription is being filled, and the insurance company shoots back the amount to charge. So the pharmacy has no power over the price, it’s set by your insurance–BUT the pharmacy can sometimes tell what the heck is going on just by looking at the pattern. You could ask the pharmacy, but they’re likely to say in a snotty voice, “You’d have to contact your insurance company about that.” And probably you would, even if they weren’t being snotty, just because only a small number of issues can be figured out by the pharmacy from their end.
I WOULD call the insurance company if I were you. Say that you’re getting charged a different amount each month and you can’t figure it out. Use a pretty-please voice and they’ll probably figure it out for you. You might even get a refund.
Likely reasons for a LOWER price: if the cash cost of the medication is lower than your copay, you’ll be charged the cash cost. Likely reasons for HIGHER price can include things like they gave you the brand name instead of the generic (this is rare unless you ask for it–the insurance will usually insist on the generic during the billing process if the pharmacy were to accidentally use the brand); it was more than a month’s supply and the copay is only for one month’s supply; the insurance has a tricky thing about only covering certain medications up to a certain amount (like, they’ll cover two refills in four months, and after that it’s a higher copay); the insurance company limits a month’s supply to less than what your doctor prescribed; the insurance company wants the dose changed (ex: they want you to take one 100mg tablet but the doctor prescribed two 50mg tablets); etc. Usually it’s some unpleasant insurance company thing, the sort of thing you’d have to read a phone-book-sized manual to know about.
You handled that so much better than I would have.
Readers: some interesting questions. I never gave it much thought but I’ll never look at my pharmacist the same again…
I posted a comment, but it didn’t show up, so forgive me if it posts twice.
I worked part time as a pharmacy tech while in high school and college. I thought nothing of it but it does make me nervous now when I think about a sixteen year old reading and typing up the prescription, pulling the medication from the shelf and counting out the pills. Frankly, all the pharmacist did was put the label on the bottle after he/she checked for mistakes. Scary thought.
My sister is a pharmacist and hates the drive-thru. One time a disgruntled customer squirted a packet of ketchup all over the drive-thru window. So there’s an idea for retaliation when they make you mad!
How come every time I fill my Adderall, the same pharmacist asks if I have insurance, and I say “no”, and he says, “WOW, do you KNOW how much this costs?!!!” Even though I fill it twice a month, and yes, I know how much it costs. Is that appropriate?
Also, a month ago, I was given another customer’s Trazodone even though the bottle was my name and said ADDERALL (I only knew it was Trazodone because I used to take it for sleepwalking and recognized the pills) and apparently he was given my Adderall. I went back into the store and handed it to them and there was complete horrified silence by the pharmacy techs. How often does that happen? Do people lose jobs for things like that?
I have to tell you my amusing story about the pharmacy today. I am trying to get ready to be out of town for a week or so. I thought I’d be all prepared and request my refill. This Rx is thyroid med and cash price is $14.99. My co-pay is $15. This amuses me EVERY time. I’m thrilled to have a cheap med and a low co-pay, don’t get me wrong. I just thinks it’s funny. But that wasn’t my point.
Today, I got a voicemail *and* an email from the pharmacy saying I was trying to refill the Rx too soon (by 4 days) for my insurance but that if I needed the refill I could just call them back and they’d refill it for the cash price. BUT I ALREADY PAY THE CASH PRICE WHEN I REFILL IT. I wanted to call them back and say “Do you even realize you said you can’t refill my $14.99 Rx but if I want to pay you $14.99 you can refill my Rx?” But, like you, I realized the clerk I’d be talking to had nothing to do with the crazy system.
Thanks for your interesting pharmacy insights.
i dont have any questions, but the question about what happens to meds that are never picked up reminded me of when i had strep throat a couple of novembers ago. the doc prescribed me codeine cough syrup along with the antibiotics but the pharmacy didn’t have enough to fill the prescription. they gave me just the amount that they had but could only charge me for the full amount. they said they would have the rest for me in a couple of days but being all feverish and sick i completely forgot.
come christmas i got a package in the mail from the pharmacy. inside was a note saying that they had sent me the “item” i had purchased, one big full bottle of codeine cough syrup! best christmas present ever.
Black Sheep: People at my pharmacy did that “do you know the cost?” thing, too. It starts, I think, because the person who is about to ring up the prescription sees the cost and thinks, “If they have insurance and this just went through as a mistake, they are going to FREAK OUT when I tell them the cost.” So they double-check to see if there’s insurance. And when they find out you don’t have insurance, they feel a sharp pang of financial empathy and want to say something that expresses it, but instead they say something stupid.
About the medication mix-up. It does happen, not often but when it does it stops the heart of everyone in the pharmacy. A medication mix-up can be fatal, but even if it’s not dangerous (like, someone gets a medication that wouldn’t hurt them, but it wasn’t the right one), it just should never, never, never happen. There are so many checks and double-checks in place to prevent it–so when it happens anyway, it’s sobering. One of my pharmacists used to say, “It’s either 100% right, or it’s 100% wrong”–there’s no such thing as a small mistake. I remember once we made a mistake like that and the pharmacist went to the bathroom and threw up. Not because he could lose his job (though he certainly could) but because he was so distressed at the mistake itself. Pharmacy people tend to be perfectionists. Which is good. But whenever a mistake happened, it was like a dark cloud came to hang around for a couple of weeks while everyone got over it.
Melinda: The pharmacy computer automatically submits the bill to insurance even if the customer usually pays cash (thanks, helpful computer!), and then the technician gets an error message about filling too soon. The technicians should look to see how someone usually pays before they make a “too early” call–but sometimes they flake! Also, and this is a strange thing, even if the cash price is $14.99, it may be that it still “went through your insurance”–that is, your insurance handled the transaction even though they didn’t pay anything, so it might show up in the pharmacy computer as successfully going through your insurance but at a final price lower than the co-pay, which would throw off a tech who was checking. (Hey, is this BORING enough yet?)
When I’m going to do something a little unexpected (like filling the kids’ vitamins–which we pay cash for–early), I call and talk to someone rather than using the refill system, just so I don’t get there and have someone say, “Oh, yeah…You were trying to fill it too EARLY? So your insurance wouldn’t cover it? So we didn’t fill it.”
I worked in a pharmacy in high school. I knew who was on the pill, who needed anxiety meds and acne cream. It’s quite the power position for a 16 year old.
Henry is amazing!
I always wonder why it takes them 20 minutes when I go in to have my birth control refilled. It’s a blister pack with no work on their part to do but take it off the shelf and hand it to me. I was in there refilling it the other night with a whiny four year old and a screaming three month old and she was all, “that’ll be 20 minutes if you want to wait for it.”
And I said, “Don’t I LOOK like I want to wait for it? Do you think I need to add another baby to my family right now?”
then it was done in five minutes.
Kelli: Usually it’s a combination of two things. First, taking it off the shelf is only a tiny part of the work that gets done to fill a prescription. It has to be entered into the computer, submitted to your insurance, labeled and checked and bagged by a technician, and then there are about ten things a pharmacist has to check to make absolutely sure the prescription is correct.
Second, it’s usually a matter of waiting your turn: it may take only 5 minutes to fill a prescription (especially if you have a fast technician and a not particularly careful pharmacist), but there would be other people ahead of you: people wandering around the store, people who called, people who used the online refill system, people who dropped off prescriptions and are coming back later.
Okay that makes sense. I feel silly for whining now. :)