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| Ok so I read this on one of my fellow pharmacy student's facebook pages and thought it was not only true but very very funny. Of course I may only find this funny because I am a pharmacy nerd and see this type of stuff everyday but I hope all of you enjoy: For over a year and a half now, the first thing anyone visiting my little blog garden has seen under the headline at the top of the page is the promise that the question of “why does my prescription take so damn long to fill” will be answered. Tonight I looked over this blogs archives and realized it was a promise not kept. While many topics have been covered here, and you have been provided with ample evidence of how drugstore workday life does indeed warp the mind, the question of why it took 2 hours for you to get 20 Vicodin has remained unanswered. I can’t help but to think there may be someone out there who has been logging on every day for the last 18 months hoping in vain for this mystery to be solved. Should such a person exist, I offer my humble apologies. To everyone else, I offer the following prescription scenario:
You come to the counter, I am on the phone with a drunk dude who wants the phone number to the grocery store next door. After I instruct him on the virtues of 411, you tell me your doctor was to phone in your prescription to me Your Doctor hasn’t, and you’re unwilling to wait until he does Being in a generous mood, I call you doctors office and am put on hold for 5 minutes, then informed that your prescription was phoned in to my competitor on the other side of town. Phoning the competitor, I am immediately put on hold for 5 minutes before speaking to a clerk, who puts me back on hold to wait for the pharmacist. Your prescription is then transferred to me, and now I have to get the 2 phone calls that have been put on hold while this was being done. Now I return to the counter to ask if we’ve ever filled prescriptions for you before. For some reason, you think that “for you” means “for your cousin” and you answer my question with a “yes”, whereupon I go to the computer and see you are not on file.
The phone rings.
You have left to do something very important, such as browse through the monster truck magazines, and do not hear the three PA announcements requesting that you return to the pharmacy. You return eventually, expecting to pick up the finished prescription…..
The phone rings.
…….only to find out that I need to ask your address, phone number, date of birth, if you have any allergies and insurance coverage. You tell me you’re allergic to codeine. Since the prescription is for Vicodin I ask you what codeine did to you when you took it. You say it made your stomach hurt and I roll my eyes and write down “ no known allergies” You tell me……
The phone rings.
……you have insurance and spend the next 5 minutes looking for your card. You give up and expect me to be able to file your claim anyway. I call my competitor and am immediately put on hold. Upon reaching a human, I ask them what insurance they have on file for you. I get the information and file your claim, which is rejected because you changed jobs 6 months ago. An asshole barges his way to the counter to ask where the bread is.
The phone rings.
I inform you that the insurance the other pharmacy has on file for you isn’t working. You produce a card in under 10 seconds that you seemed to be unable to find before. What you were really doing was hoping your old insurance would still work because it had a lower copay. Your new card prominently displays the logo of Nebraska Blue Cross, and although Nebraska Blue cross does in face handle millions of prescription claims every day, for the group you belong to, the claim should go to a company called Caremark, whose logo is nowhere on the card.
The phone rings.
A lady comes to the counter wanting to know why the cherry flavored antacid works better than the lemon cream flavored antacid. What probably happened is that she had a milder case of heartburn when she took the cherry flavored brand, as they both use the exact same ingredient in the same strength. She will not be satisfies though until I confirm her belief that the cherry flavored brand is the superior product. I file your claim with Caremark, who reject it because you had a 30 day supply of Vicodin filled 15 days ago at another pharmacy. You swear to me on your mother’s….
The phone rings.
……..life that you did not have a Vicodin prescription filled recently. I called Caremark and am immediately placed on hold. The most beautiful woman on the planet walks buy and notices not a thing. She has never talked to a pharmacist and never will. Upon reaching a human at Caremark, I am informed that the Vicodin prescription was indeed filled at another of my competitors. When I tell you this, you say you got hydrocodone there, not Vicodin. Another little part of me dies.
The phone rings.
It turns out that a few days after your doctor wrote your last prescription, he told you to take it more frequently, meaning that what Caremark thought was a 30-day supply is indeed a 15 day supply with the new instruction. I call your docotr’s office to confirm this and am immediately placed on hold. I call Caremark to get an override and am immediately placed on hold. My laser printer has a paper jam. It’s time for my tech to go to lunch. Caremark issues the override and your claim goes through. Your insurance saves you 85 cents off the regular price of the prescription.
The phone rings.
At the cash register you sign….
The phone rings.
…….the acknowledgement that you received a copy of my HIPAA policy and that I offered the required OBRA counseling for the new prescriptions. You remark that you’re glad that your last pharmacist told you you shouldn’t take over the counter Tylenol along with the Vicodin, and that the acetaminophen you’re taking instead seems to be working pretty well. I break the news to you that Tylenol is simply a brand name for acetaminophen and you don’t believe me. You fumble around for 2 minutes looking for your checkbook and spend another 2 minutes making a check for four dollars and sixty seven cents. You ask why the tablets look different than those you got at the other pharmacy. I explain that they are from a different manufacturer. Tomorrow you’ll be back to tell me they don’t work as well.
Now Imagine this wasn’t you at all, but the person who dropped off their prescription three people ahead of you, and you’ll start to have an idea why…..your prescription takes so damn long to fill. | | |
| Today we got our biochem tests back from last friday...and I did suprisingly well. In all honesty I didn't think I passed, I mean I came out of the test thinking that I didn't do well at all but then I got it back today, and with the exception of a few small mistakes and then the whole first page which I absolutley knew none of, I did well. I guess I finally reached the point where I couldn't get any worse and I guess I stressed myself out about everything so much that I had no choice but to do well. I mean they say that most people perform best under stress and I totally believe that is true, it seems that I don't really do well until I get myself in the position that I'm stressed about grades and that's finally when I begin to perform to my best ablity. Hopefully I can work past that because I don't know how much more stress I can take. On a happier note, Carla (my sister) found out what she is having and it's gonna be a girl!!! Her name is going to be Bailey Elizabeth...cute but every time I say it it reminds me of a girl at school named Bailey which is definately not a good association. | | |
| Today we took the first of the two tests we have this week. The exam was in advanced physio and I was very nervous about it...but I just checked to see if the grades were up, and they were (at least for the multiple choice portion) and I got an 88%!!! Ok so after failing the last two tests in that class I'm feeling pretty good about this grade. Granted there is still the essay portion to be graded, but it is only worth 7 points so I may have actually passed something!! We still have the biochemistry exam on Friday, but besides the mechanisms (I appologize to those of you who have never had chemistry because you probably have no idea what I'm talking about) I think I may actually do well on that one as well. As far as the good news...we found out yesterday that my sister is having a girl! I'm so excited..I was hoping it would be a girl, now I get to buy her pretty things. Yay! Well I guess I better get to studying for biochem...how exciting. | | |
| Ok so it's about midnight on Monday..and I'm studying for my advanced physio exam which is on Wed. I am not even through the second chapter yet and already I'm not retaining anything....could it be from lack of sleep? Probably. I think I go through this every time I have a test...I get myself really motivated after getting my last test grade back, and I decided that I'm not going to wait until the last minute to study...then the next test rolls around and there I am struggling to cram all of the information into my brain. You'd think that after 3 years of this I would know better...but aparently I'm a slow learner....a very very very slow learner. And to those of you who have Dr. Katz...self learning is aparently not my thing lol. So you're probably asking yourself: if she's running out of time to learn all of this material, why in the world is she wasting time writing on here? I'd say you're very justified in this question...I shouldn't be wasting this time, but I'm getting ready to go to bed anyway and I just wanted to comment on my procrastination problem as well as inform everyone that I am going to find out what my sister is having tomorrow...will it be a boy or a girl? I'm hoping for a girl! Anyway I'm pretty excited about it..but I better be getting to bed so that I can get up bright and early for more cramming...woohoo!!! | | |
| Ok so I've just spent about the last half hour reading some of my old blogs on here..and it made me realize how much I've grown. It's strange to go back and see what things you found important then and compare them to the things you find important now. I noticed that most of my blogs dealt with school and the stress that it caused..and that kind of got me to thinking: "is that the way I want my life to be?" I mean do I want to look back at my life one day and realize that I let something like school control my life? I know that I want to change, that I want to become more outgoing and more involved...but how do you take such a large step. I guess the reflection back on my old blogs can help me answer that question, I mean look how much I've changed just in the two years that I've been blogging....imagine how much more I can change, if I really put my mind to it. I know this is kind of rambling..and I apologize, but honestly this blog is more for me than it is for you. We all need a place to vent, to let our thoughts flow no matter how random they are. Who know's maybe one day I'll turn my blogs into a book ha ha just kidding..no one would buy it lol. I guess I just really need to take inventory of my life. I realize that some of the things that I am giving priority to should not be given priority. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that school shouldn't be a high priority because it should, but other things should come before school..things like friends and family, as well as myself. I mean I take an shower in the morning and pull out chuncks and chuncks of hair...disgusting I know, but it also worries me. If I am so stressed out that I am losing hair, what other effects is this stress having on my body? It's not that I don't have a lot to stress out about, I mean school is HARD..probably the hardest thing I'll ever do...and now I have money to stress out about too. Because for those of you who didn't know it, my dad got layed off from work (which is ok cause he was going to be retiring soon anyway) but now I feel more stressed out about money. I mean I just don't have the time to work and do my school work, but at the same time I don't want to ask my parents for money because I don't want them to stress out about it. It just really stinks..I can't wait for the day when I'm actually making decent money. I guess that's enough reflection for now..and I apologize if this blog made absolutely no sense. Like I said I just kinda let my thoughts flow, even if they were in random order. Oh and P.S. I am officially starting my diet again tomorrow....I really need some support on this because I really haven't been able to get myself motivated to stick with it this time. So keep me in your prayers. Thanks! | | |
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