Monday, August 12, 2013

Sum-Sum-Summertime

Well, most of the allergies are taking a break till fall, the hacking coughs seem to be at a minimum, and the ADHD prescriptions await the start of school.  Things are perhaps a little slower right now for some of us.  Our regulars, the core patients, continue to visit us though.  When I hear statistics describing how a small percentage of people account for a disproportionately large percentage of health care expenditures --- well, I sure believe it.   Don't get me wrong, I know most of them would rather not be in that group, but there's always the few who are demanding, entitled and have no concept of how much money is being spent every time they walk in the door.  I wish they knew.

My other summer observations, in no particular order:

If your insurance won't pay for your dose of gonorrhea medication because you've exceeded the maximum of once every 30 days -- maybe it's time to change your lifestyle.

I hate to harp on this, but I really am sick and tired of Vitamin D prescriptions. We could save billions of health care dollars by putting a big barrel of the stuff at the pharmacy entrance with one of those scoops in it, like the bulk section of the grocery store.  Help yourself.  All ages.

People are STILL stunned by this whole prescription coverage thing.  Again, just because your doctor writes the prescription, doesn't mean your INSURANCE has to cover it.  It also doesn't mean they have to cover it at little or no cost to YOU.   This is nothing new.  People still have a hard time getting this.

I get it, it's summer -- you're going out of town tomorrow, and need everything refilled NOW.  You wouldn't have thought of taking care of this yesterday, or the day before.  The insurance company is not going to pay for it early, so I'll drop everything and call them for you while you stand there with a quizzical look on your face.  What do you say we take this little task away from the pharmacist and give it back to the vacationer?

I don't lecture people on good eating habits or unhealthy lifestyles -- I get rather bored with that stuff myself.  But I would swear that some of my co-workers eat a fast food meal EVERY day.  Guys, that's not good for you.   I guess I get discouraged when I see people making bad lifestyle choices of all different descriptions, and it never seems to get better.

I guess I'll see you at the pharmacy in about 20 years..... every week or two, regular as clockwork....





3 comments:

PharmD Blogger said...

I agree with most of what you said! I feel like people will never change. They always call or come in and need everything for their whole family RIGHT NOW. I had a 40yo guy come in and needed his adderall right now. He has come to the pharmacy about a year and needed it now. He had no hard copy prescription. He stayed at my pharmacy for 30minutes. I would not give it to him. I don't do emergency c2's. Maybe I would do it for a terminally ill patient. He came in again the other day and asked for just one pill NOW. He had a hard copy and I said 10 to 15 minutes. He couldn't wait for me to verify it. No respect!

Hildy said...

Please, elaborate on WHY there seems to be a huge push to have people take more vitamin D.

Crazy RxMan said...

Hildy,

It's pretty obvious that lower vitamin D levels are a punishment from God.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-frank-lipman/vitamin-d-what-you-need-t_b_308973.html