After finishing a long session with someone whose expensive, sustained release pain medication was too soon to fill because he had been taking approximately 4 times the dose that was prescribed and didn't discuss this with his doctor so there was no way I was going to tell an insurance company that we confirmed that he HAD consulted with his doctor when in fact he had NOT.... (and this is the kind of thing I love to get on a Friday afternoon)..... I turned to the next prescription.
A beautifully laser-printed, signed document with just the essential information. We'll bang this one out in 45 seconds, I thought, until the technician brings it back and says, "what should I put for the directions?"
Here's exactly what it said:
"1 each 2 times a day 1 tab po qam orally." (quantity, 30).
This was one of those psychotropic meds that could be taken 100 different ways.
A call to the office phone number on the prescription revealed a fortress-like phone triage system finally ending in a voice mail.
This is why your pharmacist is kind of cranky sometimes.
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4 comments:
All my prescriptions come with "take as directed by doctor"
Up to the patient to remember, no the pharmacist to guess or pester the Dr. for.
And this, my pharmacy friends, is why we all have nightmares at the mere thought of e-prescribing controls.
I too dread ePrescribing because I think there will be problems with controlled substance prescriptions that happen at the worst possible times during the work week. Oh well, something to look forward to!
Working in the UK 99.9% of the prescriptions we deal with are computer generated. Still doesn't mean we get directions (or sometimes even drugs) that make sense.
The standard default seems to be "To be taken as directed" and I've now lost count of the number of times patients have asked me what the doctor told them....
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