Thursday, June 24, 2010

And Another Thing........

I remember some years ago picking up a magazine at work that was primarily aimed at family practice physicians. There was an article called "Dealing with the Difficult Patient" and to illustrate the article there was a picture of a guy in a hospital gown sitting on an office exam table glaring into the camera with his arms crossed and looking thoroughly pissed off. The kind of picture that makes anyone want to turn around and run far, far away.

I know there are some people who feel they've always got to be a squeaky wheel to get the results they want, especially if they are fighting some faceless bureaucracy or rude desk jockey who's clearly not doing his/her job. I can understand that... but what bugs the crap out of me are the ones who DON'T PLAY BY THE RULES but get what they want simply because they are such well-known A-holes that no one wants to deal with them.

Like the guy who came in expecting to pick up a refill and was told by us that it was denied. He stared us down and kept saying "that's not acceptable." We went round and round and explained it was the doctor's decision and we're just passing along the information at this point. He finally stomps off to the doctor's office (who is in our building) and 15 minutes later comes back WITH A prescription.

That just bugs the crap out of me. We talked to the nurse later who indicated they had eventually buckled and gave him one month because the guy was always so difficult and put up such a stink. Something along the lines of "we've gotta keep him happy."

I really hate that. And the next time he's just gonna do it again. (Why not? it worked.) He ought to have been told, "Them's the rules, if you don't like it, go somewhere else." Jerk.

3 comments:

Cody said...

Did they even force him to make an appointment for within the next few weeks? Or did they put 6/PRN refills on that script he handed you? A pain's a pain, but if he's intimidating enough that a nurse/doctor can't say "You need to be seen by us soon, we're not a charity", something's wrong with that picture.

Frantic Pharmacist said...

Yeah it was pretty pitiful. I think he was previously told he needed an appointment. They gave him another chance. No backbone....

Pharmd Biker said...

/Dwight Schrute voice, "IDIOT!!" I had a physician yell at me because it was too early AND out of refills.... like it was my fault. I finally cut him off and said that he shouldn't be out for 1 more month, and the reason why he was, was because he (the doctor) authorized 5 too soon early refills and I had the notated prescription to prove it... "IDIOT!"