Beware of the Elderly

I have stated several times that many of my coworkers are not... well they are not the most astute employees in the world. Some of them I am surprised they can pick the right drug when filling a script half the time.

Yes, they really are that bad.

I was having my tour at the counter about mid-afternoon after processing scripts all morning. I try to do a little bit of everything during a day when working with other people just to give them a change of pass. I see labels appear for Tramadol, Augmentin and Lortab for a 77 year old gentleman. The dosing appeared to be that similar of a some type of surgery, so I didn't think much of it.

And then the pharmacist handed me the hard copy. All it was was the discharge orders the man was given upon leaving the hospital.

Of course in my mind red flags went up immediately. No DEA number, no signature, just bare bones information. The pharmacist stated that the elderly man said this was all he had been given and didn't know what else he would need.

On a whim I decided to press the man. It was one of those gut feelings you always hear detectives getting on tv. I mentioned that we would have to contact the doctor to get proper prescriptions before we could dispense these meds. It was a bit of a tug of war match until he finally grumbled that he would see if he had them in his car.

A minute later he walked back in the store, scrawl on his face, with the hard copies in hand.

Ruh oh. Did I bust grandpa's little scheme?

He went from being cheerful to a downright asshole in about 4.2 seconds when I called him out. The kicker is that the hard copies had a much lower quantity (I'm talking like 12 tabs for the Tramadol, etc) than what was stated on the discharge notice. Obviously the doc on call was somewhat aware of the situation.

Thus, the more of the story is beware of the elderly. Then can be crafty drug seekers too. Plus they have canes. And canes hurt, trust me.