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If you’ve ever been in the military, known someone in the military, or read a newspaper some time in the past year, you know how bad military medicine can be.

Now, imagine trying to deal with all that, and a kid that has been off of their ADHD medicine for a week and a half, and having to find your way around in a new town at your latest posting.

A while back, a mother brought in a script for her son for Focalin XR 15mg, and no other pharmacy in the area had it. (Now, normally, this line would get an automatic “we don’t have it either” from me, but since the kid was bouncing up and down like a chimpanzee, I was more apt to believe her).

The doctor in Ohio had written a script, but nobody (including us) would fill it because he had forgotten to write the “XR”. They had run out when they first moved to out area from Ohio, and the base clinic couldn’t (or wouldn’t) schedule an appointment until that morning.

Problem One: The script was written on a god-forsaken DOD script that are never legible and look like they were printed in the 1960′s.

Problem Two: The doctor didn’t put her DEA number on the script, which of course, is required form all Schedule II medications (and indeed, all schedule III-V medications.)

Thankfully, the mom had a phone number for the clinic, a rarity in military medicine. So, we called and asked for the Doctor’s DEA number.

Problem Three: This particular doctor didn’t have a DEA number (WTF?), so we legally couldn’t fill the script.

Problem Four: Since Focalin XR is a schedule II medication, we’re not allowed to change much on the prescription, including the doctor’s name (same reason the “Focalin”, sans “XR” above couldn’t be filled).

Problem Five: It was almost 5pm and there was no way for the mom to make it back to the clinic before they closed.

However, the doctor offered to have someone stay until the mom could make it back to the clinic, which is 30+ minutes away. A new script, written by a doctor with a DEA number, would be waiting there for her to pick up.

Problem Six: She had to deal with a screaming kid in the car for yet another hour.

When the mom brought the new script back to the pharmacy, I typed it in and gave it to the pharmacist so she could pull the medication from the safe and count it. When she was checking it, she came across:

Problem Seven: The new doctor had neglected to write the strength (15mg); I had come to know the script so well, I hadn’t even noticed the lack of a strength when I was typing it in.

Thankfully, the mom still had the other (technically non-valid) script, so we just took both and called the clinic the next day to verify (the strength is one of the few things on a Schedule II that we can change.)

So after about 4 hours work (granted most of the work was the mom’s, not ours) TriCare paid us a whopping $5.69 over our cost. Thanks.

At least the mom was nice throughout the whole ordeal, especially considering the problem child she was having to deal with the whole time. Thank goodness for small miracles.