Thursday, December 27, 2007

I've Been Busy, But...

I just wanted to take a second to announce that I'm now a nationally certified technician! Take that, Pharmacy Chain! Now you have to give me a raise! Mwuah ha ha....

Monday, December 10, 2007

Okay, folks. My name is NOT Criss Angel.

This is going to be short, because my computer is dying, and I need to go run errands for tomorrow.

You need to realize, we're not magicians in the pharmacy. Sure, we do have some tricks up our lab coat sleeves, but not anything to make your prescription appear out of thin air. You need to give us at least a few moments to get it together.

Case in point - Friday morning, a babysitter comes into my store with her charge. She comes to pick up, and tells me "Prescription for Jane Doe*, it was just called in."

Of course, it wasn't ready. We hadn't even gotten it off our voicemail yet. It was 10:30 AM exactly. So, my pharmacist went into the doctor voicemail, and took the first message -- from 10:23 AM -- off. It wasn't the right one, but after that, the message from 10:28 AM -- yes, 2 minutes prior -- there it was. It was for an assload of Augmentin-ES suspension. I went to work typing it into our system right away, then I mixed up the bottles. The woman stood at the register trying to rush me along. One of my biggest pet peeves, besides cell phone use, is people standing at the counter staring at me to make me hurry up. Not only does it piss me off and make me work a little bit slower, but it's also really irritating to the pharmacists on duty. We've got to run the DUR system, and we've got to make sure everything's correct. Sit yourself down in our comfortable (they really are, this isn't sarcasm) chairs, and just give us a few freaking moments.

When I finally had it done, and my pharmacist had checked it for me, I went to ring her up. It took 20 minutes, because she kept asking asinine questions, like "is it okay to charge it to this card? It's not mine" and so on. I could not have cared any less if she'd've pulled out Brad Pitt's credit card, or something, at that rate. I just wanted her out of there before my blood pressure went up any further. Even when I gave her some typical Augmentin counseling, she just wanted more. My pharmacist gave me a look of pity, since I had to keep repeating myself over and over and over and over. It was pretty awful. She tried to get the lady to listen to what we were saying, but it didn't work very well.

Just read the information sheet we give out, people. If you have any remaining questions, call us and ask, but just listen to what we have to say the first time we say it.

Friday, December 07, 2007

Drive-Thru Etiquette

Today's topic is Drive-Thru Etiquette.  I have to state this first, though -- I completely disagree with the whole concept of having a pharmacy drive-thru window, pneumatic tube, et cetera.  Let's face it - we're not McDonald's.  Why should we have to have a drive-thru, then?  There are only two groups of people whom I feel should be allowed to use the drive-thru -- new parents with brand new babies who are ill, and people who have just had surgery/cannot walk.  Every single person who is just too lazy to park their car and come into their pharmacy for just a few moments to be rung up is part of what I feel makes the country more obese.  Those few steps from the lot to the pharmacy counter will help burn a few extra carbs and calories.

Anyway, before I go off onto that tangent, here's the biggest pet peeves my pharmacist on duty and I thought up today.

  • Cell Phones - this is one of our largest pet peeves.  If you're going to be so lazy as to not come in the store, the least you can do for us is to either place the person on your phone on hold for a few moments while you treat us with a little respect, or even better, tell them you'll call them right back.  Really.  Our drive-thru turn around at my pharmacy is about 1 to 2 minutes, if we're not reconstituting antibiotics or dermatological creams for you.  Giving us your undivided attention for those 1 to 2 minutes is the very least you can do.  One time, I was trying to verify somebody's address and birth date, since we had 2 people with the same name, yet this patient was rude enough to ignore me and snap their fingers at me to hurry up.  I made sure my pharmacist and my other techs saw this behavior, so that if they got home and discovered this wasn't their medicine, that I would not be at fault if they called to complain about me.  It's just common courtesy to treat somebody with respect, especially when they're dealing with your own health.
  • Cigarettes - this one is really irritating, too.  Not everybody on this Earth smokes, and in fact, out of our 8 to 9 regular pharmacy employees in my pharmacy, only one of us smokes, and she goes to her car for her smoke breaks.  So, when you're sitting at my window, and it's wide open, there's no need to blow your smoke straight in at me.  Either put it out for a moment, or refrain from pointing it at me.  Also, it makes my pharmacy smell like crap the rest of the day.
  • Consultations - this one is kind of iffy, but it should be on here, we decided.  If you just need a quick consultation (like my two minute Augmentin suspension consultation - must be refrigerated, shaken well, discard any remainder after 10 days, and you should give your child the medicine with food to try to prevent the nasty gastrointestinal side effects that can accompany it), fine, come by my window.  If you want a serious, in-depth consultation on your new Lipitor or atenolol prescription, or something like that, don't waste our time.  Come into the store.  We won't bite, we promise.  You'll save us a ton of hassle trying to lean out the window and yell to you (because most of the time, you're parked way too far back for us to talk to you in a normal voice), and you'll be able to better understand what we're telling you.  That's why basically all of us retail pharmacies provide you a consultation window.
  • Pressing the button - Our drive-thru has a button you have to press to let us know you're sitting there.  Don't just assume that since you're in your big SUV that we can see you.  In fact, some of our stations aren't within sight range of the window, nor are our shelves to find our drugs.  Do us all a favor, and even if you think we saw you, press the button.  The only exception to this rule is if we did notice you and are walking towards the window, or if we are sitting right at the computer next to the window.  Don't press it and be a jerk then.
  • Coming to the window when it's cold - I know this one, and maybe the last one and a half-ish (you can still get requests on the speaker system for consultations at the pneumatic tube drive-thru's) don't really work for the tubes, but seriously.  When it's cold, and you make us repeatedly come to the window, chances are we're going to get very irritated if you delay us in finishing our job quickly.  It only takes a few moments to jump out of the car, come into our nice, warm store, and get back to your car.  If you absolutely insist on using the drive-thru, it takes only moments to get your payment or prescription ready to hand through to us, so we don't get hypothermia.  Remember - you're in your car with your jacket, hat, gloves, and scarf, and we're just in our lab coats and our work clothes, which aren't all that warm, since our store is fairly warm.  Be polite.  Be ready for us.
  • Have your information ready - we need to gather some information from you when you drop off a prescription, whether in the store or at the drive-thru.  If you've ever dropped off a prescription before, you know we at least need to be able to read your name, and we need your date of birth, at the very least.  We also need to know if you've got any new drug allergies, and if you're a new patient, we also need your phone number, address, and insurance information.  If you're a returning patient, you should hopefully realize you should give us any new insurance info you may have.  It'll save us time getting you all added to the system and filled and back out.  Make it easy, please, and give us what we need to know.  You can write it all on the back of the script -- it's okay, and it's totally legal.
We actually had about 4 more topics to cover, but looking over them, some of them were consolidated into the above etiquette tips, and some of them we'll save for another day.  Cell phones could actually be expanded into their own topic, and that may one day be done.  You following these rules for a good pharmacy experience.  If you end up being a regular, we won't forget you doing these things, and it usually ends up in us remembering you and not even needing to know your name when you walk up, but us remembering it.  (Although, that may just be me.  They call me Rain Man at work, since I invariably end up remembering everyone and everything that goes on there.)  Please just try to make it a pleasant experience for both of us.  We like it when our job is easy, and you like it when it's fast and accurate.

Get a $$$$ Gift Card for Annoying Me Senseless!!

Introductions will come at a later time. Right now, I need to vent about one of the absolute worst inventions retail pharmacy ever came up with --

Gift card coupons.

Now, I know that almost every major pharmacy chain (the one I work for included) have these stupid things, and almost all of us accept competitor coupons, as well.  But do the pharmacy a favor by reading the fine print, and if you fail to do so, please don't act shocked when we tell you why you don't qualify.

On a government-funded plan?  Sorry, you can't use them.  It's a federal law -- not one that I know the name of offhand, but it says it right there, in black and white, or maybe even in color.



Here's a great example I just found on eBay (don't get me started on that topic just yet, because that one has me annoyed, too).  It clearly states that law prohibits the use on federally funded programs.  It's right there, and in person, these are actually very simple to read.

So, you can imagine my surprise yesterday when I was standing at my terminal, just waiting for something to do, since Wednesday is our slow day, an old lady came up to me and demanded to know why I was scamming her.  Me!  Scamming an old lady!  Well, I wanted to know exactly how I was scamming her, and she proceeded to tell me that pharmacies (oh okay, finally some clarification on her word choice of "me") not allowing her to use these coupons, because she has Medicare Part D.  I spent about 5 minutes talking to her and explaining how it's not our choice not to accept it, but it's a federal law, and we could get into trouble if we just started handing out free gift cards to anybody coming in with a new prescription being paid for in part or whole by the state and/or federal government, and she told me that she was going home to call her representatives and senators, and then, she was calling to personally report myself and my pharmacist to our company!  What we ever did to her, I'll never know, especially as since I'm the full-ltime technician, working Mondays through Fridays weekly and I didn't recognize her, but let this serve as a lesson -- read the fine print!  Don't go harassing your technicians (who, by the way, can determine how quickly your prescription can be filled, as mean as that sounds, but when you treat us like crap, that kinda makes us less willing to push you to the very front of the long road to pharmacist verification and completion).  Accept that this is a law, and out of our hands.  I'm waiting to find out if I've been nationally certified as a pharmacy technician yet, but I am always willing to tell them I won't allow them being mad I can't just hand over a free giftcard in varying amounts to jeopardize the time I spent learning flow rate and other miscellaneous information I'll probably never use again just to get a pay raise and a fancy title.