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Showing posts from September, 2008
My all-time fav lines from real, live, authenticated customers: [Answering the phone] Hello, this is ******* pharmacy, how can I help you? [Customer] Are you guys open? [Duh, if I answer the phone then I'm here and I'm open] Is my prescription ready? Then I can pick it up? [Ah, but what is the secret password?] Can I use the restroom back there? [Of course you can--we wish to exceed your expectations after all--and help yourself to some of the samples on the shelf.] [Banging on the gate, which is closed and locked, and obviously so ... closed] Hey! You guys closed? Does this come in genetic? [Plunking the prescription down on the counter, seen for the first time for maybe 2 nanoseconds] How much is this going to cost me? [Well, let me just reach into my memory banks and, oh, here it is, $117.58 minus the -- what insurance?--12.789% discount plus the $3.78 dispensing fee ... but wait, on page 29 of the contract--which I have right in front of me by some weird lucky chance--I ha
... it's entirely illegal! What happens is this: Some fellow traveller stops in and remarks how he needs a refill on his prescription. Unfortunately the prescription is either expired or is not refillable (a clue would have been to look at the label where it says "No more refills--contact your doctor"). What to do? Well, with the price of gas going up there aren't a lot of people willing to go home and then come back later on in the day, especially if they live in a rural district where a drive to the pharmacy might be half an hour or more. Nowadays it can take several days to get a refill on a prescription, so what I do is to give the poor bloke a couple of days worth of meds and send them on their way. I then fax the doc and when I get the prescription OK I then subtract the few tablets from the new fill. Simple, right? Everybody happy, right? Sure, except ... it's entirely illegal. No one gave me the right to give those pills. I'm essentially writing a pre
NYT : McCain barbs stir cries of distortion - The New York Times- msnbc .com Now, normally I don't add non- health care news to my blog, but as this has, at the end of the article, some information about the Obama health care proposal, I thought I'd insert it. But first I must reveal myself as a Republican, albeit one who supports truth and the American way, and as such cannot find anyone to support among the red staters . The blatant lies told by the McCain campaigners disgust me. There are so many I cannot place them all within the space of this blog. Suffice it for interested voters to go to Senator Obama's Web site devoted to the cause: http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/fightthesmearshome . As to the NY Times article, McCain decries the Obama health care proposal as it would “force small businesses to cut jobs and reduce wages and force families into a government-run health care system where a bureaucrat stands between you and your doctor.” Get a clue, McCai
Top ten secrets you should know about visiting your pharmacy: The antibiotic you're about to get probably isn't right for you. As stated in the Chicago Sun-Times article ( http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/health/1152328,CST-NWS-health09.article ) half of the prescriptions written for us when we go to the doctor for colds are … worthless. If you have a cold then you have a virus. An antibiotic does not work for a virus. Simple, huh? But you sure feel better getting that prescription don't you? Otherwise you'd think you spent a couple hours in the waiting room for nothing. But that's really what you did. Shame on the doc who is writing these things, increasing resistance in the bio world so that when we get one of those superbugs we won't have anything that works. When the doctor or nurse tells you what something costs … don't listen. They don't know what they're talking about. Despite the increasing use of PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants or small
New record ... 464 prescriptions filled on the day after Labor Day. Few people know this but the two busiest days in pharmacies are the days after Labor Day and Memorial Day. So if you like quick and snappy service ... don't show up at the counter on those days. I hope I didn't make any mistakes yesterday, but I'm sure I did. In a 10 hour work day, that's 1.54 prescriptions every two minutes. Remember that episode on "I Love Lucy," when she got a job in a chocolate factory? That's what pharmacy is like now, with prescriptions coming down the belt instead of chocolate. I do seem to remember she started to eat the ones she couldn't get into the box ...