Tuesday, July 03, 2007

One More Reason Your Prescription Might Take So Damn Long To Fill.

One of the things that makes me special is my ability to do DUR. It's important stuff, this Drug Utilization Review, where I look over what you're getting, check it against your allergies, your other meds, your health conditions......actually it's where the computer looks all that stuff over and draws my attention to anything that might be a problem. Problems like this one, which was just added to our clinical database this month:

"Yaz oral tablets should be used with extreme caution in child bearing aged females."


This sounds like serious stuff. Indeed, it is serious enough that the pharmacist, and only the pharmacist, has to override this warning with a special code to allow the prescription to be dispensed. Some of you out there may take comfort in knowing that corpo pharmacy is looking out for you like this. Others of you know that Yaz is an oral contraceptive.

The computer is warning me to use extreme caution when filling a birth control prescription for a woman of child bearing age. And this warning must be overridden. Every.......single.......time. I would let you know what the computer thought about dispensing birth control to an 80 year old woman, except that, birth control tablets aren't as a rule given to women not of child bearing age you know. There are equally worthy computer generated warnings to override on the majority of prescriptions I fill.

A memo from corporate headquarters came today that said this month's customer service focus will be on having prescriptions ready when promised. I have made none of this up.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, our computer only has a pass on BCP's if the patient is 18 or under (curious how it considers 18 pediatric...)

Mother Jones RN said...

Drugmonkey, where do you want me to send your next bottle of scotch? It's no wonder you drink.

MJ

Anonymous said...

Okay, five posts in two days....

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH OUR DRUG MONKEY?! Please, bring back the Drug Monkey who used to ignore us and would only post just enough to appease our sorry asses.

This new, prolific Drug Monkey is scawwy...

prof drug dealer said...

Oh that's great. We haven't had any quite that ridiculous, but a new one just popped up that requires us to override everytime we're billing to a secondary insurance (usually some state-funded plan) reminding us to bill the primary first. This wouldn't be so bad if you could just override the thing and get it billed, but no, we have to credit the prescription, rebill the primary, override the secondary, and bill it to the secondary. Everytime we have to bill a secondary, we kill a forest.

PharmJam said...

"having prescriptions ready when promised"
Some genius actually got payed to come up with that idea too. haha

Anonymous said...

that's just about as dumb as a "dose too low" DUR for BCP that I get for all 21 days packs because it instructs patients to skip seven days.

Anonymous said...

Ahhh...promise times. I love it so much. I like to call them "empty" promise times. How come we have to promise when it's ready, but they can waltz in whenever the fuck they want? I was in the neighborhood....so the fuck what. Why does this country insist on NOW instead of RIGHT?

Anonymous said...

I agree Annapolitan. The Drugmonkey must not be in love anymore, which explains his recent comeback. Lonely, broken-hearted, alcoholic Drugmonkey rules!!!

Anonymous said...

I can only assume you work for Rite Aid, judging by that DUR message. Another Rite Aid slave here.
Brad

Anonymous said...

As if those warnings aren't bad enough, I work with a foreign pharmacist who insists on calling physicians for *every* major warning. The physicans know now to just ignore her messages. When I get in for the next shift, 1st thing I do is override each and every one of the bogus drug interactions she has called on (using BCP in a minor, KCL & spironolactone together, vicodin in someone who is allergic to codeine because it makes them sleepy...) When she comes back from break and asks where all the DUR's went to, I tell her that all the offices called back while she was gone and ok'd everything. :) I suppose I'm enabling her problem, but it beats having the offices all calling me back screaming that we won't fill their patient's RX's.