Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Everything Your Fault, Customer Reports.

YOUR PHARMACY- Every single thing that went wrong with a person's prescription was singlehandedly your doing, a customer standing in front of your cash register reported today while angrily waiting for you to refile their insurance claim, and they really don't understand what the problem is.

Your first failure came when the customer's employer switched insurance carriers and you did not telepathically sense the change in the force and update the data in your computer without being told. Luckily, the new insurance company sent a card containing the new information to the actual insured party, because we sure as shit can't depend on you to keep track of other people's personal information.

Unfortunately you utterly failed to go through your customer's trash the night they threw their new card away instead of putting it in their wallet, solidifying your status as an incompetent buffoon.

Initial evidence also indicated you are to blame for the cost pressures in the American healthcare system that led to an increase in your customer's co-pay. Perhaps if you had been doing your job and singlehandedly countering the inflationary spiral that engulfs the provision of medical care in this country, the customer's employer wouldn't have had to change insurers in the first place.

You really fucked up here.

On top of it all, it would also seem you are the reason the new insurance company is taking so long to answer its phone, and a prime suspect when we tried to figure out why the medicine doesn't seem to be working at all. You only mentioned blood pressure medicine needs to be taken regularly three times during your counselling session, understandably leading the customer to take it only on days when they felt bad. They also sprayed the contents of an albuterol inhaler into their ear, which is your problem.

You also probably started World War II.

Despite your total lack of ability in your job, the customer stated they will for some reason continue to do business with you, and ordered you to fill "all their medicines" for tomorrow. And by tomorrow they mean 10 minutes from now, which anyone with a pharmacy license should know.

Not the blue ones you moron. They didn't need the blue ones.

What do you mean the Soma had no refills?

Christ.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

I Have Been Told My Hair Smells Girly.

Which I don't understand. The whole reason I picked my shampoo was because it was gender neutral.

"Prell" it says on the bottle. Followed by the word "shampoo" I just now sniffed it again. It just kinda smells like soap to me.

But the verdict was unambiguous. Girly. I've been using this shampoo for years and naturally am upset to find this out.

I wonder what a manly shampoo would even smell like? Hopefully not like the bus station where I found myself for part of this night. That odor, while definitely manly, was not pleasant.

Anyway, any suggestions you guys might have regarding masculine shampoo would be welcome.

Monday, October 18, 2010

CVS, An Everyday Miracle If You're Into Meth. Not So Much If You're Into Breathing.

It's a CVS twofer this day my friends. First we go to the Garden State, where the local FOX affiliate tells us the tale of a woman with asthma and her drugstore's commitment to her well being:

Just after seven o'clock Thursday morning, Katherine O'Connor and her boyfriend were walking home from a McDonald's in Garwood, New Jersey, when she suffered an asthma attack.
Her inhaler was at home. The couple was near there, but a CVS on North Avenue, near Cedar Street, was closer. They went in and found the pharmacist on duty.

Time for one of those CVS everyday miracles.

He was told the inhaler with tax would cost just over $21. He was short a dollar and change.
"I said 'Can you just give her the pump. She's on the floor wheezing," Jack said. "I didn't know if an ambulance would get there on time. He said there was nothing he could do for me."
CVS corporate offices sent Fox 5 a statement: "The well-being of our customers is our highest priority..."

"Right after money" they didn't add but believably could have "Every sweet sweet, last precious dollar...."

This being Fox news I can imagine the next line from the anchor desk being something like "Bob, what do you suppose is the connection between what happened here and the proposed Obamacare death panels?"

You could say this was just the case of one CVS pharmacist out of thousands using incredibly poor judgement, an isolated incident, and you would be right. Just like the one CVS Pharmacist who proposed a trade of Xanax for sex or the other CVS pharmacist who practiced at a CVS store without actually being a pharmacist.

Or the CVS pharmacist who posed a customers information on a Craig's list sex ad when the customer pissed him off.

Exactly how many isolated incidents have to occur before it's a pattern? Because I gotta tell ya, while Walgreens has almost the same number of stores and pharmacists, the bat-shit crazy ones always seem to be employed by CVS.

Our next story isn't about some random nutjob though. This one would be a failure at a higher organizational level:

The smurfers loved CVS. And CVS loved them back.
The giant drugstore chain became the go-to spot for hordes of shady buyers, called smurfers, who ran around scooping up over-the-counter decongestants under orders from bad guys who cook up methamphetamine.
Since 2005, federal law has limited how much pseudoephedrine a person can buy (no more than 3.6 grams a day). And retailers, like CVS, are supposed to police that by checking IDs and requiring people to sign for the stuff
But the chain switched from a paper logbook to an electronic system to keep track of things. The computerized ledger didn't prevent the same person from making a bunch of pseudoephedrine buys on the same day. And store employees, the feds say, were told to obey the computerized system's approval of sales, even if they had their doubts about the buyers.
Other retailers did a much better job on complying with the law, so the smurfers took their business to CVS, the feds say.
In a statement, CVS Chairman and CEO Thomas Ryan said, "We have resolved this issue, which unfortunately resulted from a breakdown in CVS/pharmacy's normally high management and oversight standards."

High management and oversight standards. The same standards that resulted in the company paying $36.7 million for ripping off Medicaid.

The same high standards that resulted in them "accidentally" charging people enrolled in CVS/Caremark's Medicare part D plans too much.

The same high standards that had two of their executives fighting off charges they tried to bribe a Rhode Island state senator. High standards would be avoiding even the appearance of impropriety. At least at most companies.

Again I'll ask, how many isolated incidents does it take before it's officially a pattern? Their "high standards" seem to be about as effective as the extensive pre-employment screening process they claimed to have when they got busted for hiring the fake pharmacist.

Who by the way, evidently had no problem practicing pharmacy the way CVS expects it to be practiced.

Something stinks here my friends. Something here totally smells like a rotten company.

Thanks to the alert readers who tipped me to the stories.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

A Quickie From Today's Paper.

I'm totally not making this up:

Still, illicit drug use was already common in the platoon as it prepared to leave Lewis-McChord for Afghanistan in spring 2009, at least according to the sworn testimony from one of its members, Pfc. Justin A. Stoner...
... On May 3, Private Stoner told investigators, the hash-smoking in his room was “to the point where the smoke was lingering in the air and the smell was impossible to get rid of.”

bwwwwwaaaaahhhhaaaahhhhhaaaa.....Stoner.....ok....as you were. Wait. maybe not this guy.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Pro Life. Certain Restrictions Apply. Offer Not Valid In All Areas.

Two mailers received by an alert reader from the same candidate on the same day.


Although to be honest, you really don't have to be all that alert to see the irony here.

Just more alert than the demographic this guy's going after.

A Book Tease

The slightly improved title:

Why Your Prescription Takes So Damn Long To Fill; A Foul-Mouthed, Liberal Pharmacist Breaks The Curse Of Evel Knievel And Strikes Back Against The Ideological Forces That Threaten The Profession He Grudgingly Grew To Love

That's actually shorter than it was a couple days ago. 

Here's what I have for amazon's book description thingy: 


" .... I call your doctors office and am put on hold for 5 minutes, then informed that your prescription was phoned in to my competitor on the other side of town. Phoning the competitor, I am immediately put on hold for 5 minutes before speaking to a clerk, who puts me back on hold to wait for the pharmacist. Your prescription is then transferred to me, and now I have to get the 2 phone calls that have been put on hold while this was being done. Now I return to the counter to ask if we've ever filled prescriptions for you before. For some reason, you think that "for you" means "for your cousin" and you answer my question with a "yes", whereupon I go the computer and see you are not on file.

 The phone rings." 

That's part of the reason why your prescription takes so long to fill, and after almost 20 years of this, a question I was never quite able to answer loomed larger and larger each day:

"Why did I get into this profession?"

Cranky customers whose only questions seem to involve their insurance co-pays. Pointless paperwork. People begging for early narcotic refills. Staff cuts. That was my workday. The struggle to get people the medicine and information they needed seemed almost futile at times.

Then one day I got the answer. It hit me like a ton of bricks while driving home one spring evening along the California coast. I was born again, but it had nothing to do with Jesus.

It did have a lot to do with Evel Knievel. And I did become the pharmacist who saved Christmas.

I absolutely know now why I became a pharmacist.

I still don’t know why your co-pay is so high.

That's all you get for now my friends. It shouldn't be too much longer. I'll keep you posted. 




Saturday, October 09, 2010

I Think If I Were In Charge Of The Local Columbus Day Celebration....

.....I'd organize a parade. Yeah, I mean, what's a holiday without a parade?

There'd be marching bands and floats and prominent local officials. And some police cars and members of the  National Guard. You'll see where they come in later.

It would be a very festive occasion. The band would strike up a tune and we'd just start walking around. There would be no formal parade route. We'd just take off to the west somewhere, 'cause that fool Columbus seriously had no idea where he ended up.

Eventually we'd get to another town somewhere, and the marching band could play a little song for the natives while the policemen went to the bank and took all the gold from its vaults. Then after we left the National Guard would go in and kill all the town's inhabitants. I can think of no better way to commemorate the spirit of Columbus Day.

Perhaps we could also come back with syphilis.

Anyway, there's no mail on Monday. Keep that in mind when making your plans for the day.


Wednesday, October 06, 2010

Afterwards He Wasn't Sure It Was Worth It.

At the time though, he was full of hope. When he started this whole thing he knew the odds were long and that the process would be difficult, but he was confident he had what it took. The patience, the skill set, the appropriate comfort with technology. Still, there was no way this would be easy.

The effort was started and he was immediately thanked. In a cold, anonymous way. He was told he was important, just not important enough to personalize. Encouraged to hang in there and try for the payoff. Many people began this process, but few completed it successfully, and no one who failed ever heard a harsh word.

The waiting was killing him. Long stretches of nothingness before yet another impersonal contact.

Frustration set in. Maybe he was crazy for trying. Surely there was a better way. This wasn't going to work. It took the encouragement of friends to lift his spirit enough to carry on.

Then......a voice.

"Thank you for calling Walgreens, may I help you?" The past 39 minutes waiting for human contact were the biggest emotional roller coaster ride of his life. Finally though, he had beaten the odds. Someone had answered the phone.

He asked if his doctor had phoned in his alprazolam refill, which he needed far more now than when he began the call.

Sunday, October 03, 2010

Highlights From The Weekend's Pill Counting Action

I will surely win the first Nobel Prize to be awarded in Pharmacy. Perhaps for my work over five years ago that will one day rid the world of tuberculosis. Or maybe for a brainstorm that struck me as I walked back to the happy pill room this day on my way back from lunch.

That's right every non-California pharmacist. My employer forces me to close the pharmacy and go eat. Forces he said. If I don't do it I can count on getting a phone call from corporate Monday morning. This stems from a victory won by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union back when unions still had a smidgen of power. So, thanks to the UFCW, I got to eat some tuna salad today.

Think about that for awhile then ask yourself if that's more than APhA has ever done for you. We both know the answer.

The crowds were thick and furious at the mall this day. Annoyingly so. Random numbnuts whose cellphone conversations evidently make them blind. Unpredictable yard apes liable to bolt in any direction at any time. Mormons. The only exception being when I walked in front of the bank. Why is it exactly that when someone is withdrawing $50 from a machine they are ensured of a bubble of privacy from the general public, but when grandpa is asking me if Cialis will give him a 3-day boner you can almost count on some lunatic coming up, standing next to him, and possibly interrupting grandpa mid-sentence with a question about where to drop off the film? Well no more. When I'm finished installing ATM machines next to every pharmacy cash register in the country, grandpa can ask me about his boners in peace.

You're welcome America.

Someone played out "Mary Had a Little Lamb" using their touch tone phone on the store's voicemail. It was perfect. The way they blended one note into the next showed effort and a little talent. I don't know why, but that message restored my faith in humanity a little bit.

It was soon destroyed. "What should I use in my eyes for allergies?" said a woman with very, very, tall hair. Normally I'm all about the hair, but this was just...freaky. I was trying to figure out if it was a wig and was distracted from the fact she had something in her hand. "Try some Zadator" I said, seeing the bottle in her hand too late.

Most of you in the profession know what happens when you recommend something to a person with a bottle already in their hand. They will engage you in a debate over the merits of what you suggested vs. what they are holding, and will ultimately buy what they came to the counter with over 95% of the time. Tip to all pharmacy students: If someone asks for a recommendation while holding a product, look the product over, and if they are not going to hurt themselves, say something like "that should do the trick"

Because you need to save your energy. You need to save it for customers like the lady later on that evening who asked "If I don't want to take Coumadin anymore what strength of aspirin should I use?" You must engage these people. You must fight them with all your power and pry that aspirin bottle from their hand. It will be difficult, and you will question at times whether it is worth it, but remember that person has a mother who loves them, or perhaps a dog, and you need to get that aspirin out of their goddamn hand for Rover's sake. It's not Rover's fault the human who adopted him is an idiot, and if the idiot dies, Rover will possibly be taken to the shelter and put down.

You must fight for Rover.

I went to refill the laser printer and saw there was one sheet of paper in the supply box. Someone left one sheet of paper in there so they could pretend it wasn't empty and thereby spare themselves the effort of going to the back room to get another box. I'm glad everyone who works in the store has a good union-provided healthcare plan, because when I find out who did this, I plan on hurting them.

On an allergy themed weekend, I told a 6 year-old child's mother she should "give the Claritin a shot" to treat the little dude's hayfever. Whereupon little dude starts to cry, thinking I'm about to give him an injection. I do kinda like my job sometimes.

I was almost run over by a car in the parking lot on my way home. Which would have been a shame because then I never would have got to collect my union-provided pension. Don't get me wrong, I still get to gamble in the stock market with a 401(k) like you do, but I can do it while counting on a set amount of retirement income guaranteed by law and insured like a bank deposit.

My last words would have been "Jesus Fucking Christ," which may be the same speech I give when I accept my Nobel Prize.