The other day we had a patient (call her Amy) come in to refill her Lexapro prescription. Unfortunately it was out of refills, so we had to advance her 3 days worth and fax the doctor a refill request. Yesterday, when we got the prescription e-scripted to us, it was sent for her mom (call her Anna.) Ok, no big deal. We called the office and got it straightened out.
Or so we thought. This morning, two more prescriptions, one for Lexapro and one for Celexa, were e-scripted to us for Anna — along with faxed prescriptions for Xanax and Xanax XR. Now, I’m not a pharmacist — I haven’t had my 6 years of school yet — but even I know you don’t mix Celexa (citalopram) with Lexapro (escitalopram), since they’re essentially the same thing. (not even to mention that Xanax and Xanax XR are the same medicine, alprazolam.)
Of course, this all happened right before noon, so I had to wait until 1:30 to call. (How come doctors get 90 minute lunch breaks and pharmacies are lucky to get 30 minutes?) Well the, ahem, “nurse” I talked to said, “Of course Dr. Feelgood wants her on all of them. He prescribed them, didn’t he?”
So, I explained to her my concerns. “Well, let me ask the doctor. Hold on one second, m’kay?” After a few seconds, she came back and told me she had spoken to the doctor and confirmed that he wanted all 4 meds. Needless to say, I didn’t even bother getting her name.
After I told all of this to the pharmacist, she decided to call and speak with the doctor himself. (Good luck.) However, she was told he wouldn’t be available until 3:00. When the pharmacist called back, she was told he was gone for the day.
Any guesses on whether we filled the scripts or not?
