Sunday, September 25, 2011

Gatekeeper of the Drugs

I answered the phone yesterday and talked with one patient who had had a Dr. call in a pain medication.  They had called to let us know that someone else would be picking up their medication because they were in too much pain to drive.

I relayed this information to the pharmacist who said, "Well, on their profile it says that only themselves and Erik are allowed pick up medication."  I was a good messenger and told the patient this, who replied, "Well, Erik is in pain as well and is not able to travel."  At this point, the pharmacist wanted to speak with them.

The pharmacist explained to the patient that since they put in a comment on their profile saying that only Erik could pick up their medicines, then we could really only relinquish them to Erik.  However, if this new person brought in the patient's ID, then we would happily give over the medication.  Oh, and we would need to take the comment out of their profile.

"Why take that out?!  I never told you to put that comment in there!"

"Yes you did.  I remember because it was when you were taking norco.  You didn't want others to be able to have access to your prescriptions."

"Well, I'm telling you now that someone else can pick them up!  Isn't that good enough?"

"Well, actually, I can't tell if this is actually you on the phone.  Anyone can call into the pharmacy.  Until you personally come into the pharmacy and change the comment, I'm going to delete it off of your profile.  I can't have you say, 'Lisa is good today to come in for me' and the next 'Todd cannot pick up anything!' and then change it every week."

"I've never had this issue before in Utah."

"It's for your own protection, sir.  You can either have everyone have access to your prescriptions, or no one at this point."

"Now listen here lady... *curse words*"

And after that the pharmacist told them to find another pharmacy because they would not be cussed at, and simply hung up.

I can understand both sides, but was it really necessary to start cussing?  In pain or not, that's unacceptable.

I am not a confrontational person whatsoever, so I worry that I've chosen the wrong profession.  I suppose there's confrontation in every profession, however.  Perhaps I can be a mail-order pharmacist.  From what I hear you don't have to deal face-to-face with customers ever.

No comments:

Post a Comment