Persnickety

So we're 29 th in infant mortality... is that a big deal? Guess not, by the reaction of everybody (the media, the two presidential candidates , President Bush, Congress). I think it was in 1960 that we ranked 12 th in the world. We've dropped 17 places in 48 years. And we outspend the average industrial nation by (drum roll ...) 100 percent! Double ! Here's my take on this. The fact that we spend double and still drop back in the pack with regards to health care is not unrelated. Should we spend more? How much more? The thing is, we should be spending less. We spend more and ipso facto we get less. The two factors are not unrelated, in fact they are inversely related. The more we spend the less we get. Why? Because the money that we inject into the system goes to fund insurance companies, stock dividends, CEO salaries, etc. The more the insurance companies proliferate, the less care we get. Insurance companies are in the business of not helping us, but instead helping th...

You wanna see the manager? Ha! I am the manager! So this really nice lady ( sarcasm! ) comes up to the counter just about as I'm putting down the gates, ready to close up the joint. I say, "May I help you? Do you have a pick-up?" She says, "K...N...I..." So I type her nicely enunciated letters into the pick-up screen and nothing comes up. "Do you have a prescription here?" I ask. "K...N...I..." I try it again, thinking maybe I just hit the wrong key. Nothing. "What is it you're looking for?" "K...N...I..." "Why don't you come down here," I say, directing her to one of the PCs at the other end of the counter. I look up her profile and Lo! eleven days earlier we had put up two prescriptions of generic Prozac for her. I explained that we can hold prescriptions for seven days and that after that they are put away. "I have to be somewhere in half an hour! I had an emergency vacation--how was I supposed to...

Where everybody knows your name ... Remember that song from "Cheers"? It came to mind recently when a customer (a long-time customer) came up to the counter to retrieve her prescription. I recognized her, but when the day gets busy as it certainly was, I find it difficult to always match a name with the face. Sometimes I can come up with the first name, sometimes the surname, and sometimes neither. I usually get around the embarrassment by asking a date of birth. That can be a problem, however, when the gender is that of a female. Women can get quite ornery when asked a DOB (date of birth), especially when over the age of thirty-ish. I asked for her name, thinking that that would be the lesser of two evils. Actually, I apologized, then asked for her name. Something like "I'm sorry, I can't remember your name." She then remonstrated against my failure to recall her name. "Everybody else remembers my name!" she said. Now, that may be true, and it may...

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 ...