a month and a half ago i started working at a pharmacy. i've got a few helpful hints to keep in mind the next time you call your pharmacy:
1. the person who answers the phone unfortunately does not always speak "prescription drugs" (though she's learning trial by fire). if YOU don't know the name of your medication it is highly unlikely that your untrained cashier who answers the phone will either. the proper procedure is to call me with your name and the 7 digit RX# found on the outside of the bottle in BOLD PRINT. what you threw away your bottles?? awesome. don't ask me for your zoco if you mean zocar. don't ask me for lipitil if you mean lipitor. and please stop asking me for you blood pressure pills.....what KIND do you take?? and PLEASE PLEASE don't call me up and say "oh you know, the usual, you've got the list" and then hang up on me. and if you do commit said offence i am taking away your right to call me up and curse me out for not delivering your __________ medication. if you don't tell us you want it, how should we know that you want us to fill it?!
2. when you get a bottle of medication and it says 0 refills left in bold print, this should indicate to you that it is time to call the dr. and ask them to write you a new prescription. waiting until the day that you take your last pill is not the time to call me and tell ME to call the dr. (while we are willing and able to call the doctor for you, they do not always return our phone calls immediately). the doctor's office bases their system for refills off of the fact that they assume you will call several weeks in advance to refill your prescription.
one of the pharmacy technicians spent 20 minutes on the phone explaining to a woman this procedure. this woman assumed that since we had not promptly fill her prescription we must certainly be ignorning her. my coworker explained to her the entire procedure and at the very end of this painfully slow conversation the woman actually thanked her and apologized for the fact that for three years she's been screaming at us on the phone about this, she simply had not realized that it was HER responsiblity to call the doctor, not ours.
3. the cashier is not a dr. and i'm sorry, nor is the pharmacist. you can go ahead and ask him the same question you just asked me and he is going to tell you to call your doctor. sorry.
i kid you not, a woman called me yesterday and asked me if i knew her brother. i asked her if he was a customer with us. he is not. i said no, then i do not know your brother. she rambled on explaining to me that her brother has a large lump in his neck. what should he do? i told her that i was not allowed to give out any medical advice except that he should see a doctor immediately. she continued on to explain that both she and her mother have had a history of thyroid issues/cancers and that they are both on medication for such problems. again i told her that he should see a doctor as soon as possible and that if they have a family history he should definitely see the doctor! she then asked me to reccomend some medication for him. i told her that i was not allowed to do so and repeated my advice a third time. good grief.
4. my coworkers are intelligent people with a good bit of knowlege on health care coverage plans, however it is not their responsibility to memorize each plan. if we quote you a price it is because that is what our computer told us to charge you. we do not jack up the prices, we do not try and rip you off. we spend many hours explaining to people how plans work and reccommending that they call their insurance company if they have issues. we've been known to call them FOR YOU and then call you back and explain it to us. i'm sorry that we are not walking guidebooks on health care coverage. please acknowledge that we try and HELP YOU and that if you call the pharmacy technician a liar on the phone and then hang up on that person you are only making it harder for us to HELP YOU.
people just amaze me. really they do. i never knew that such ridiculousness was out there walking the streets. i love my new job. honestly. my coworkers are awesome. they know how to help people to the best that they can and they know when to laugh it off. i don't think i would like my job at all if i didn't work with them. i probably sound bitter about the above things, but i'm really not. i care about my job, but not enough to bring it home with me and be upset about it. i know that everyone at our store does the best that they can for people, therefore i reserve the right to help my cranky customers when i can and then not worry about it. i've been cursed out by many an old man or woman already. i guess it's par for the course. the first time that happened i was a little taken aback. my coworkers just congratulated me and welcomed me to the club.
one more thing: i've been placed in charge of the dollar store in our pharmacy. (that means all of the restocking/ordering). one of my coworkers is going to rewrite the words to the song "dancing queen" for me and change it to "dollar queen". she hums it sometimes when i walk past her.
1. the person who answers the phone unfortunately does not always speak "prescription drugs" (though she's learning trial by fire). if YOU don't know the name of your medication it is highly unlikely that your untrained cashier who answers the phone will either. the proper procedure is to call me with your name and the 7 digit RX# found on the outside of the bottle in BOLD PRINT. what you threw away your bottles?? awesome. don't ask me for your zoco if you mean zocar. don't ask me for lipitil if you mean lipitor. and please stop asking me for you blood pressure pills.....what KIND do you take?? and PLEASE PLEASE don't call me up and say "oh you know, the usual, you've got the list" and then hang up on me. and if you do commit said offence i am taking away your right to call me up and curse me out for not delivering your __________ medication. if you don't tell us you want it, how should we know that you want us to fill it?!
2. when you get a bottle of medication and it says 0 refills left in bold print, this should indicate to you that it is time to call the dr. and ask them to write you a new prescription. waiting until the day that you take your last pill is not the time to call me and tell ME to call the dr. (while we are willing and able to call the doctor for you, they do not always return our phone calls immediately). the doctor's office bases their system for refills off of the fact that they assume you will call several weeks in advance to refill your prescription.
one of the pharmacy technicians spent 20 minutes on the phone explaining to a woman this procedure. this woman assumed that since we had not promptly fill her prescription we must certainly be ignorning her. my coworker explained to her the entire procedure and at the very end of this painfully slow conversation the woman actually thanked her and apologized for the fact that for three years she's been screaming at us on the phone about this, she simply had not realized that it was HER responsiblity to call the doctor, not ours.
3. the cashier is not a dr. and i'm sorry, nor is the pharmacist. you can go ahead and ask him the same question you just asked me and he is going to tell you to call your doctor. sorry.
i kid you not, a woman called me yesterday and asked me if i knew her brother. i asked her if he was a customer with us. he is not. i said no, then i do not know your brother. she rambled on explaining to me that her brother has a large lump in his neck. what should he do? i told her that i was not allowed to give out any medical advice except that he should see a doctor immediately. she continued on to explain that both she and her mother have had a history of thyroid issues/cancers and that they are both on medication for such problems. again i told her that he should see a doctor as soon as possible and that if they have a family history he should definitely see the doctor! she then asked me to reccomend some medication for him. i told her that i was not allowed to do so and repeated my advice a third time. good grief.
4. my coworkers are intelligent people with a good bit of knowlege on health care coverage plans, however it is not their responsibility to memorize each plan. if we quote you a price it is because that is what our computer told us to charge you. we do not jack up the prices, we do not try and rip you off. we spend many hours explaining to people how plans work and reccommending that they call their insurance company if they have issues. we've been known to call them FOR YOU and then call you back and explain it to us. i'm sorry that we are not walking guidebooks on health care coverage. please acknowledge that we try and HELP YOU and that if you call the pharmacy technician a liar on the phone and then hang up on that person you are only making it harder for us to HELP YOU.
people just amaze me. really they do. i never knew that such ridiculousness was out there walking the streets. i love my new job. honestly. my coworkers are awesome. they know how to help people to the best that they can and they know when to laugh it off. i don't think i would like my job at all if i didn't work with them. i probably sound bitter about the above things, but i'm really not. i care about my job, but not enough to bring it home with me and be upset about it. i know that everyone at our store does the best that they can for people, therefore i reserve the right to help my cranky customers when i can and then not worry about it. i've been cursed out by many an old man or woman already. i guess it's par for the course. the first time that happened i was a little taken aback. my coworkers just congratulated me and welcomed me to the club.
one more thing: i've been placed in charge of the dollar store in our pharmacy. (that means all of the restocking/ordering). one of my coworkers is going to rewrite the words to the song "dancing queen" for me and change it to "dollar queen". she hums it sometimes when i walk past her.
2 comments:
a pharmacy and dollar store? that's like an angry old person's disneyland, your highness.
i can't believe i never replied to this comment. that pretty much sums it up even more spectacularly that i could have imagined.
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