PharmCountry

Three weeks ago, a patient brought in two prescriptions, one for Lyrica and one for Protonix. We had enough of the protonix, but not enough of the Lyrica (she gets 90), so we told her we would order the rest for the next day. (Before I get too far, just let me say that this lady doesn’t have insurance.)

Today, she came in asking for the rest of her Protonix. I tried to explain to her that we had owed her on the Lyrica, not the Protonix, but she wasn’t buying it. “But I’m out of the Protonix.” I asked her if she had the bottle, and she showed it to me. “I’m sorry, ma’am, if we don’t have enough, we always mark it on the label, and my computer says you picked up the full quantity of 30.”

So I asked her if she was taking more than the prescribed dose. She told me that the doctor had increased it to 2 tablets per day about halfway through. “Well that explains it ma’am, you should be out if the doctor increased the dose.” Well, she still didn’t believe me, but she told me to just go ahead and refill the prescription

Unfortunately, the pharmacist had just gone to lunch, so I had to tell her it would be half an hour. (She wasn’t pleased.) When I counted the medicine, I made sure to double-count it and mark the label with a check-mark so there would be no questions if she tried to pull the same trick again.

Some people will do anything for free medicine.

Well, now that the site is working again, I can finally talk about all the stuff that happened last week.

Thursday night, I had this lady come in with a script for Paxil 40mg. She hadn’t filled prescriptions at my pharmacy before, so I had her fill out a profile while I went to make sure we had it in stock. Unfortunately, we didn’t.

So I went back to the counter to tell her this, and she screamed, “You’re f***ing kidding me!” and balled up the profile. “Well, can’t you just give me 2 of the 20mg tablets?” she asked. Our store’s policy is not to do this unless we can contact the doctor first.(in many cases, your body absorbs a little more medicine when taking 2 smaller pills).

She went ballistic on me, finally demanding to see my supervisor. “Oh, Pharmacist, can you come here please?” Well, Ms. Mean-Paxil-Lady pulled the same spiel with the pharmacist to no avail. So, she changed tactics and started up the water-works. “**sob** I’ve driven around for an hour looking for this medicine, and **sob** you’re the only pharmacy that takes my insurance, and **sob** I’ve been without it for four days.” (which could explain her behavior, other than the fact that her address is five minutes away — on foot.)

So, we ended up advancing her two days worth of the medicine in 20mg tabs, and ordered the rest of it in 40mg tabs for the next day. (The worst part is that she works in a hospital. I hope her bedside manner is better than her behavior as a patient.)