Friday, November 4, 2011

Perhaps you should know where you fill....

Hi!  Lots has been going on since last postings: lots of tests, quizzes, papers, and articles.  I'm pretty much tapped out for the semester.

However, onto tonight's story: knowing where you fill prescriptions.  It's encouraged for people to fill prescriptions at one location so that the computer system and pharmacists can stop drug interactions.  It's so insurance information is all in one place (including coupon cards, yay!) and to develop a relationship with patients.

If you don't happen to fill at only one pharmacy don't be surprised to find that that automatic call is actually for another store altogether.

After a long day of grueling classes I came into work ready in a costume for Halloween!  During downtime I found a refill reject notice, so I thought I would be nice and call the patient to let them know.  The phone number was disconnected.  I made note of it and went about my works.

During the 5 'o clock rush the patient came up and said that we had called them on the phone to let them know a prescription was ready.  It was the patient that had the refill reject.  I showed them the paper and said how we had nothing else ready for them, so it couldn't have been us that called them.  Was the message from another day?  Perhaps we put the prescription back to stock...

Oh hell naw.  Screaming and basically saying that we were incompetent because WE called THEM.

"Someone needs to get their act together.  Whoever is making those phone calls obviously doesn't know what they're doing."

Now, I'm very prone to becoming flustered.  I don't like conflict, and I definitely don't like it when someone becomes angry with me.  I'm a huge people pleaser and I love when people are happy with whatever I do.  It certainly makes sense that I would choose "pharmacist" as a profession...  But at the time I had no idea how much abuse they receive.  Anyway, I'm getting better with my nerves.

However, I was absolutely flustered with this patient.  So much that I couldn't think straight.  It wasn't until they left that I realized that I had tried to call them and the phone number was disconnected!  If that was the case, then how did they get an automated phone call?

The pharmacist let me know that their prescription was called in by a doctor and filled at another one of our stores in a different town.

ASSUME makes an ASS out of U... and I guess ME.

They were going to call their doctor the next day to see what was going on.   I hope they felt like a dumbass for making a scene.  I am not omnipotent, but if you react civilly perhaps we can figure out what happened to the "disappearing" prescription....

I need to learn not to pigeon-hole answers to problems.  And if there is a problem, step back and take time to actually figure out an answer.  People would much rather have the correct answer that took a bit longer to figure out, than a BS answer that will just exacerbate the problems...

In other news, I successfully counseled a patient all by my lonesome self.  :-)

A 16-17 year old came up asking for an OTC laxative for her 14 year old sister.  I showed her the sennosides and then prompted to fiber pills for more regularity (after the initial problem is cured).  She looked at me skeptically and proceeded to grab 2 100 count boxes of senna and leave.

Guess it was that bad...

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