Why Corpo Pharmcies Suck

I work for an independent chain, meaning we have 7 retail pharmacies and a nursing service pharmacy but we are not affiliated with a national chain. Generally when you come into one of our stores its just like walking into an independent pharmacy in a rural area. Every one is usually rather friendly and you get to know one another quite well. I always figured this was the main reason someone would transfer over from Walgreens or Wal-Mart, but I found yet another reason today.

A woman came in today and asked to get her Lisinopril transferred over from a Walgreens in town. She was a new customer to us and while the pharmacist was getting the copy I was shootin' the shit with her. I asked her, for my own curiosity, why she switched to us. She stated it was because the last time she had her Lisinopril filled they told her it would take up to 12 hours or more to fill.

Now understand there were refills on this medication, she had a stable insurance plan and she was a very friendly, and competent, woman. We could have filled this prescription in under five minutes. Fifteen minutes max if we're rather busy. So how in the hell would it take them over 12 hours to fill something as simple as a 30-day Lisinopril prescription.

I can understand that they have a higher volume than us (they usually beat us by a 2:1 ratio) but they can't have more then 5, maybe 10, waiters at one time. Even in that scenerio, this prescription shouldn't take longer than that 15 minute max (unless a difficult customer/phone call interupts). What in the hell could they be doing during this time? Needless to say I gave some thought to it and this is what I came up with.

1. Playing the "I found this tablet on the floor and I don't know what it is, but I'll take it and see what it does" game
2. Looking at transvestite porn
3. Looking at midget porn
4. Making a Soufflé
5. Looking at midget transvestite porn
6. Performing a tooth extraction (see previous post)
7. Looking at midget transvestite porn who have no teeth

Other than these items I have no idea just what in the world they're doing back there. Maybe they have orgies or something, and if thats the case I'm putting in my app right now.

Pharmacy = Dental Office?

It was a regular Friday night. Lortab junkies calling every 5 minutes, everyone is leaving town (when in reality they're probably not gonna leave the couch) and I'm counting the minutes until freedom. And then a woman walks in. I know this woman. I know she probably believes the sky is purple. In three years of seeing her once a month I don't think I've seen her sober once. She is usually polite though, so I just go along with it.

That day was slightly different. I watched her stumble in her own way up to the pharmacist. She was politely greeted and she responded that she needed a favor.

Now on a Friday night a favor is a couple of Soma on the side, maybe a five spot for some beer. This Friday night was not a night for one of those regular questions. This question reminded me that there was a full moon outside.

"I got a small favor," she asks, "I got a dentist appointment on Monday cause my tooth hurts real bad, but I don't want to wait so can you just yank it out for me right now?"

Needless to say the pharmacist just kind of stood there speechless. Had this woman really just asked a pharmacist to yank her tooth out? Was he expected to sit her in one of our chairs, grab a pair of pliers and just tug at it until it popped out? Needless to say he politely told her she should just wait until Monday as that was not his expertise. She kindly told us to have a nice weekend and stumbled back out of the door.

Honestly I don't know what the hell to think of this. Perhaps I shall head to the eye doctor and ask for a vasectomy. Maybe go to Cub later and ask them if they have any deals on TVs. Or maybe I'll just chalk this up to the fact that she's a druggie, it was Friday and a full moon. Now that I think of it, I do need a dentist appointment....

The November Miss Medication Contest!

Brought to you by Amnesteem® (For when you care more about your acne then birth defects) and NuvaRing® (The trampoline for your fun spot!) I present to you the November Miss Medication Contest! This month's contestant is one which has always been deemed pretty regardless of the effect it may have on a person and can help loosen up even the stiffest individual.

I present to you, this month's prettiest medication, Ms. Docusate Sodium!




Hailing from many varying origins, from the land of Watson, to the island of Qualitest, to the beaches of Valu-rite and the mountains of Leader, she has traveled far and wide. Constantly referred to as 'Poopy-head' while growing up, she has shown that she can indeed soften the stools of the most hardened kind. She takes pride in helping people flow and be more regular then they would upon their own accord. Often she cares for thus under a chronic narcotic regiment, a sign that she truly cares! If your bran muffin isn't doing it to you, I suggest you see our November medication of the month, Ms. Docusate Sodium!

What A Way to Start the Day

Its always a joy to work a Sunday, especially when you work every Sunday. I'm beginning to think the NFL are just lil graphics on my computer screen and not actual people, but alas that is another story. Whats the absolute best way to start your day when you first walk in the door and clear off your fax?

Have a doctor bitch at you. We faxed for refills on a drug for a patient and this particular doctor responded with:

Rx faxed with years refills on 10/06/07. Please check records before sending

Check records? Check fucking records???

This comes from the same people who will 'accidently' change a patients daily med from BID (twice a day) to QID (four times a day) or will write for Haloperidol 5mg when they really mean Haloperidol 0.5mg.

The same people who tell us to expect 5 or more days to get a refill authorization.

The same people who will take a vacation for 3 weeks and not allow any other docs to refill their patients meds (even if they are out)

The same people who will ignore that great big Amoxicillin Allergy at the top of their own prescriptions and then type "Amoxicillin 500mg, 1CQID+10D"

The same people who put in Hydralazine instead of Hydroxyzine

And finally, the same fucking people who click a button and think their Rx automatically, and without a doubt of certainty, was received by the pharmacy. We never recieved this original Rx from this doc. Wonder if I should write a note back asking her to check her records

Politically Incorrect Giggles

..I.

Screw the woman who yelled at me because I didn't answer the drive thru door quick enough because the bell was frozen and I didn't know anyone was there

Screw the second woman who bitched about having to stand outside said window for 10 minutes before she pounded on the window. Obviously the front door, which is 15 feet away, was much to far for her to walk during those 10 minutes.

Screw the woman who calls in for her oddball medication and then gets pissy when we don't have it. I'm sorry we don't carry your $4,000 a month medication at all times. Sure take your business to Walgreens, they'll just tell you your SOL as well

Screw the guy who gets brand specific medications. No one at this store (not my home store) is smart enough to type that note on your profile and I do not have ESPN therefore I don't know that you can only take Mylan brand otherwise you may die.

Screw the store I'm at this weekend for not filing things in the computer. Its the 21st century, you shouldn't need three separate stacks of Rxs that can't be filled. Just put them on file in the damned system so when I look for something that was called in last week, I can see that we actually have it.

Screw Jimmy Johns for fucking up my lunch order. Only goddamn thing I have to look forward to today and they have to fuck it up.

Screw the store I'm working at again for not having any Mountain Dew. Seriously how the fuck am I supposed to be chipper anymore without the Dew. And just who the hell runs out of Dew?

Screw Mother Nature. I'm sorry your on the rag and you decided to snow today, but please don't rain and then decide to snow. No one likes a bitch with a split personality.

Screw Grand Theft Auto. I just wanted to go home and shoot some pimps and hoes, but nooooooooooo I have to be stuck on a difficult level which I can not pass.

Screw NASCAR for taking the only semi-entertaining thing I used to watch on Saturdays and turn it into an event as exciting as watching worms screw. Actually that's really entertaining, maybe they should make a Worm Porn channel

Screw my laptop for burning my crotch as I write this rant. What the fuck is up with that?

Ok... I'm better now. Now wheres my Johnnie Walker....

Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie

What would happen if I were to set one foot inside a McDonald's and then state, in a very loud voice, "I want a Number 2 with a Coke"

No hello, no please, no actually walking up to the counter. Just bellow it out as I walk in the front door. You'd expect to be laughed at, to here people mutter just what the hell his problem is right?

So why in the world do people barely set foot in the pharmacy and scream "I want some Icy-Hot" or "I want my Lisinopril". Do these people not realize that a simple act such as saying "Hello" will greatly speed up the time it takes to get their medications? That a word as simple as "Please" will cause me to point you to the correct aisle instead of having you wonder around aimlessly?

I mean just what in the hell is wrong with people? Oddly enough the lady who did this today works at the gas station across the street. So I think after work I'm gonna take one step into the store and go

" I want a case of Mich Golden Light"

And then not move until she gets it for me. See how she likes that. And she smelled to... kind of like cabbage. Smelly bitches...

You haven't lived until theres an assult rifle pointed at you...

Just another day in the ghetto. Lil Lortab here, lil Oxy there. And it was snowing making kind of pretty... well as pretty as the ghetto can look.

The pharmacist next to me gets a phone call, and looks kind of confused. He asks me if I had dialed 911 and that one of the alarms had been pressed. I go and look around and check all of them, but they appeared to be fine.

As I go in the back again the pharmacist puts the phone down and says we need to walk out the front door with our hands up. I, of course, think he's just shitting me seeing as we were just plotting a prank on a co-worker 30 minutes prior. He says no, he's serious, we have to leave now. So I go and walk out the front door.

And there stands 9 police officers. One with an assult rifle pointed directly at the door, another with a 9mm off to the side. They then storm the building to check and see what the issue is. All of us (5 employees and 2 customers, including a 5 year old) were searched and questioned. Seeing as this was my regular store I went in with the lead guy and went through the store with him and found everything to be just fine. We chalked it up to some kind of glitch in our security system and they went on their way.

Now one could look at this as a bad thing. But I think of it as I got a free 15 minute break from work, got some fresh air, and since we had to have our hands up I got to stretch for a lil while. Needless to say I felt a little refreshed when we went back to work. The joys of the ghetto...

I am Batman

Fear not people of my city, for I am the one who protects the innocent from harm, who puts criminals behind bars. Yes... I am Batman!

I'm seriously thinking of wearing my underwear on the outside of my clothes and wearing a cape to work after this week. Lets get a little back history before we delve into my adventures.

The main pharmacy I work at is in the ghetto portion of the city. And by ghetto I mean "I don't have the $1.00 for my son's seizure meds, but I can buy a $5 pack of Marb Reds" kind of neighborhood. I have worked there for three years (as of the 1st) and during my time this is what has occurred.

1. We have been broken into, by my count, bout 7 or 8 times in three years. It is never drugs taken. Nor cash from the open register drawers. No they always steal just the cigs. Kinda strange when you think about it.
2. I have confiscated 9 fake $50/$100 bills
3. I have had to call the police on 9 separate occasions
4. After sending a fella to jail, had a couple strikes against him already, for passing some fake cash he decided to come visit me after he was released, seeing as all he remembered was my first name. He sat for 15 minutes fiddling in his jacket pocket thanking me for helping him find God and the likes before he finally left. Needless to say I had a few lil streaks in my shorts.
5. I have witness a woman grab our 70 year old pharmacist by the neck when he refused to dispense her pain medication (she was an abuser)
6. I have had to throw people out of the store for coming in with guns poking out of their jeans
7. We have been robbed twice, both times taking someone hostage with a weapon, both times asking for Oxycontin. They were caught the second time however and I had to joy of id'ing them and filing plenty of paperwork for the courts.
8. During the 2nd robbery attempt they found a car that had been stolen from Chicago in our parking lot (it was unrelated from the robbery)
9. Recently our manager was caught trying to sell Vicodan (which she stole from our store) to an undercover cop. More paper work for me. Yay

There are numerous other lil incidents I'm forgetting, but needless to say I know most of the cops in the area by first name. I have personally gotten 5 people arrested, probably the most interesting being someone thrown to the ground just outside our front door with a gun to him.

Now back to this week....

Wednesday was merely an ordinary day. Or so I thought. As I arrive I am quickly informed that our pharmacist, when checking on an iffy script of a patient, somehow found out that the guy had a warrant out for his arrest. As soon as he was to arrive we were to detain him and call the police. Well he showed up, I went back to the 'bat phone' (yes we have a red bat phone for emergencies) and dialed 911. As he walked out the front door the police stormed him and he took off like a fat kid after a cake. The cops ended up chasing him for several blocks before he trying OD'ing on the Hydromorphone he just received from us. Luckily for him, but perhaps not for his butthole, he survived.

The excitement for the day was over... or so I thought.

Two weeks prior to this we had taken a Tramadol Rx from a girl. I immediately flagged it and alerted it to the pharmacist. 1) It was a DDS writing for a quantity of 60 which is strange in itself and 2) All she ever got from us was Tramadol, from 4 different stores, all cash. Yet he filled it anyway.

A week later we find out that she had stolen a blank Rx pad from this dentist and was writing out forged prescriptions all over the city. Well, the genius that she is, called in for the refill on her forged script.... 20 minutes after we got the last guy arrested.

We alerted the police, who stated they would have some squads in the area for the next couple hours. It would be the same pharmacist and I from the last time she was there. As she walks in the door I recognize her immediately. The pharmacist does not and actually buys her spiel as she asks questions for her 'kid'. I go back to dial 911 on the 'bat phone' again and after I get off the phone I see she is gone. Turns out she forgot her money.

So the police come and go and I ask them to wait around because she said she'd be back shortly. They do not. And she comes back. I dial 911 only to hear them say that they have no squads in the area.. shift change. The pharmacist and I decide to give her only 12 of the 60 and send her on her way. Not even 2 minutes out of the store she calls and asks where the rest of them are. I politely tell her they'll be in the order at 10am the next morning and she can get them then.

Now we are on Day 2 of our sting operation. She shows up twice, but is extremely antsy and impatient and doesn't wait longer than 30 seconds. Police misses her both times. Today, Day 3, her boyfriend shows up. The clerk is legitimately held up by another patient as I go to the 'bat phone' once again. He grows impatient and leaves soon after. Cop shows up a minute later. And then, the geniuses they are, they park 5 squads on the corners around the store. Sure, they're gonna come in now!

Tomorrow will be Day 4 of our operation. I talked to her, once again, before I left today and she stated that she would be in sometime on Saturday. Hopefully we can nab her then.

So you see, I truly am like Batman. She shall be the seventh criminal I take off the street. Don't think they'll have a class on this stuff in pharmacy school...

I need an early refill...

Patient: I need to get my Senna filled early

Me: Well you're about 13 days too early, what happened?

Patient: Well I dropped them

Me: Did they land in a toliet

Patient: No

Me: Did they go down a sink

Patient: No

Me: So where did they land

Patient: On my rug

Me: Ok..... well the tablets are still good

Patient: Really? Oh ok.

Me: Yep, just make sure you brush the dirt off them before you take them.

Patient: Thanks! (Click)

Oy

BCBS... how I loathe you

So when Trileptal went generic about 3 weeks ago it caught nearly everyone by surprise. On a Saturday I was trying to bill a Rx for a patient who was out of the med. It came up rejected. I look at the reject screen and it tells me there is a generic available.

Strange I thought, we usually get this stuff the day it comes out. Look it up on our wholesaler, nada. Make a quick phone call, it won't be sent out until Monday, meaning we won't get it until Tuesday. Then I decided I'd call BCBS (the patients insurer.)

I explain to them, calmly and politely, that the drug is not being released by the manufacturer until Tuesday. She tells me that there is a generic for this drug and we must dispense it. I state again, NO ONE will have the drug for another 4 days, thus we cannot dispense it. She says the same thing. I ask to talk to the manager.

The manager gets on the phone and I state my problem. He goes, well there is a generic available for this drug, you must dispense it. I tell him, again, that it is unavailable and that the patient is out. He then goes, well the patient will just have to go without it for a couple days until you get the generic. Some dipshit, who probably can't even spell the drug, is deciding this patients therapy. I politely called him an uneducated asshole (not in those exact words) and hung up.

Needless to say we fronted the patient some of the brand name until that Tuesday. Why did I just think of this? Because a pharmacist in another store went through the exact same thing earlier today. Nice to see they have learned.

Why the fuck do you want a PA?

So maybe its cause the Lienie's is flowin' but the more I think about this the most I get pissed off. And for those of you that don't know I highly recommend Lineie's Honey Weiss.

Anywho so this guy comes in today and asks for a transfer on some Quinine Sulfate 325mg. Now for those outside of the pharmacy world the FDA put a stop to the generic form of this several months ago and it is only available under the now brand name Qualquin. We have seven pharmacies, including a 1500 bed nursing facilitates and we only have 485 capsules on hand between the stories.

This guy comes in and DEMANDS a PA (Prior Authorization, basically a doctor and pharmacy jump through hoops for an insurance company saying that the patient really really really needs this) and that he wants it today. I calmly tell him that we'll only be able to supply this fill and MAYBE the next fill with the specific Quinine Sulfate he desires. Its simply that we can no longer get it and have to switch him to Qualquin (which of course its much more expensive then the generic)

His insurance won't even cover it. No a PA won't help, we know his local insurance, its not going to cover it. Even if it doesn't he wants 'just this generic'. The dipshit can't seem to understand that he's only gonna be able to get this for a max of maybe another 30 days.

So we're going through all the paperwork and the hassles, doctors office is doing this as well, to get a PA for an insurance that will not pay for it in the first place, for an item which will he will not be able to get in 4 weeks time from us (and trust me we have exhausted our last resources) .

Really I wanna just punch this guy in the face, but hey that gives me a reason to drink on a Wednesday night!