Look, lady, I can, in some vague way, understand how you forgot to call for a refill on your seizure medication until you were all out. We all screw up here and there.
And I can even understand you frantically calling me at midnight to get a refill. I guess I'd rather have you do this then get called at midnight by an ER doc because you seized and wrecked a car and hurt somebody.
HOWEVER, I DO NOT have your chart in front of me at midnight. When you wake me up I'm lucky to remember my own name. So telling me you need your refill at "the same pharmacy as last time" doesn't help. Neither does your insistence that "I think it's a Walgreen's, you know, one on the west side". We live in a big city here. There are Walgreen's on every other street corner.
And when you finally find a phone number, don't ask me if it's a 24 hour store, or where the nearest 24 hour place is, or what your co-pay is. I just call in the scripts. I am not the Shell Answer Man.
What you need, Doc, is a pre-screening recording on your phone.
ReplyDelete"Please have all necessary information available, including your name, prescription number, etc., etc."
It probably wouldn't help at all, but then you could REALLY berate them when they finally get through to you.
Dr. Grumpy, your blog is absolutely priceless. It's my daily source of entertainment and I look forward to more. I've linked you on my own blog as well. Great read!! And yes, patients will ALWAYS be obtuse...at least in some cases :)
ReplyDeleteOh so you didn't spring for the Sylvia Brown psychic course? None of the pharmacists at Walgreens did either. Turns out that lady has only filled her scripts at CVS.
ReplyDeleteSo you say, "Have the pharmacy call me." You might add "...within 15 minutes, or I'm going back to sleep."
ReplyDeleteIf she figures out which pharmacy it was, great. Otherwise she'll have to wait until the morning.
(Speaking as a pharmacist, it usually annoys me when doctors' offices tell the patient that I "have to" call them on a new script; in a case like this, though, I don't think it would bother me, especially at that time of the night. I've never worked at Walgreens, but I'd assume they have some way to look up profiles of patients that had stuff filled at other stores in the same chain, so a 24-hour store ought to be able to figure out what she needed even if they weren't the branch that filled the original script. This is of course assuming that it really was a Walgreens and not a Duane Reade or something... it was always good for a laugh when patients would come to me at the Chain of Very-large Stores where I worked and asked me to look up a Sav-On or Rite-Aid script. Sorry, guy, you'll have to find a branch of that chain and ask them. No, our computers don't talk to theirs.)
You really do have some nutty patients.
ReplyDeleteI would never dream of calling my doc in the middle of the night for a prescription refill. The message on my Orthopods phone says no refills after business hours or weekends and warns you to prepare ahead.
I think you are just too nice :)
sheesh. picky, picky. lol. just kidding. I feel guilty when I call for the refill and I remembered that I've forgotten to get the phone number of the pharmacy first. Don't y'all just have all those pharmacies on speed dial? ;)
ReplyDeleteWow, you guys can call your doctor's cell? At midnight?? And someone answers???
ReplyDeleteI thought that only happened on TV!
Reminds me of a story involving a local specialist "Dr. Bones". My wife was in labor with our first child at the time so I didn't sleep much the night before. I had a 6:00 AM hospital meeting that both Dr. Bones and I were in. So that morning I peeked into the meeting (my son was born in the hospital that I work in).
ReplyDeleteMe: "my wife is in labor so I'm not going to make the meeting" (I'm not a big meeting fan anyways)
Dr. Bones: "good luck..."
For some reason this didn't sink into Dr. Bones as a highly important event, because when my wife is like 7-8 cm dilated the OB nurse manager comes to our delivery room and hands me a paper with a cell phone number.
Me: "what's this?"
RN manager: "Dr. Bone's number, he wants you to call him, he said that it was urgent."
Me: "I'm a little busy right now, did you mention (just in case he forgot from 4 hours ago) my wife is trying to give birth."
RN manager: (gives me a pained look) "I did...but he said it will be quick..."
So against my better judgment I call the number...
Dr. Bones: "I paged you but I wasn't sure you had your pager on..."
Me: "Um my wife is in labor...I didn't bring it..."
Dr. Bones: "That's what the inpatient pharmacy said when I called...." (I'm a pharmacist)
Me:....
Dr. Bones: "so I figured you were on the obstetric floor. So I had the nurse manager hunt you down"
Me: "You know you got a 50/50 chance I'm going to give good antibiotic advice in my current mental status..."
Dr. Bones: "Yah, but the ID doc is on vacation so I need your help on a hand infection growing coliforms...."
Just another example how some people (even highly educated ones) have really high thresholds of what can be interrupted in someone else's life...
Sincerely,
AbxRx
I am pretty sure all of your patients come see me with their pets, and somehow the addition of animals into the mix makes them even STUPIDER.
ReplyDelete