Wednesday, July 29, 2009

One for ALL and ALL for one

OK, valued customer, you've just come out of your doctor's appointment and are feeling really guilty that you haven't taken any of the medications you have been prescribed. Perhaps the doctor or nurse scolded you, or you just feel bad about lying to them. So you come over to me and say, "I need refills on all my meds."

Every pharmacist out there can say it with me: "OK, which ones would you like us to fill?" And we all know the answer, and it will include one or all of the following:
" I don't know the names of them."
" I don't know how many there are."
"Just whatever I got last time."
"It should be in my records."
"I might have filled some of them at Walmart."

We pharmacists get really crabby with this. We don't like to play guessing games. And we've ALL been burned on this too many times. Same story with "Can you transfer all my meds from (other pharmacy)?" We spend all kinds of precious time pulling everything together only to find that you just wanted the Ambien. People have no idea how time consuming this is --- they figure we'll just put together a grab bag of stuff and they can figure it out later, no big deal. And we keep trying to make people understand that knowing what medications you are on is not just for our convenience, it's for your own SAFETY.

And don't even TRY bringing it back to me for a refund saying "I didn't order this."

3 comments:

Pharmgirl said...

Arrrgh!!! I hate those customers. Sorry guys, I am a pharmacist, not a mind-reader.

Grumpy, M.D. said...

Yeah, I hate that crap too. "I need a refill on all my pills" or "I need more of the white ones with numbers" and I know this issue is worse at your end of the business.

The Ole' Apothecary said...

No fries with that?