And so has allergy season. Both oak and maple seem to be “gettin’ it on” (at least as much as trees can) this week. The problem is Zyrtec, one of the most-used allergy medications (outside of Claritin, which is over the counter) is on backorder at my wholesaler. The only kind we can seem to get right now is the chewable tablets, and I’m betting that won’t last for long.

Of course, if McKesson’s website had been working yesterday, I might have been able to check to see if it was available. As it was, I had to use their TeleStock phone system to order everything, which went something like this:

  1. McKesson Voice: Thank you for using TeleStock. Please enter the item number, followed by the pound key.
  2. Andrew: (typing) 1944560#
  3. M: How many would you like to order?
  4. A: 1#
  5. M: Please hold while I check stock for that item…Thanks! Would you like to order another item? Press 1 for yes, or 2 for no.
  6. A: 1
  7. Repeat steps 1-6 about 50 times until all items are ordered.

So, yesterday was fun. We also got generic Norvasc, another fast-moving drug. It would have been nice to actually use it, but the generic hadn’t been put in our computer yet, so we couldn’t fill with it. The first prescription we tried to fill for it today was rejected as “non-match NDC,” which is a fancy way of saying that it wasn’t in the insurance company’s computer yet.

The good news is I sent about $10,000 worth of drugs back to McKesson (getting the higher-ups off my butt about inventory, at least until next month), and the wholesaler website was back up today, faster than ever.

Anyway, at least today’s over and tomorrow’s a short day. Thank –insert deity here– for small miracles.