Annie: "Dr. Grumpy's office, this is Annie."
Mrs. Pill: "I need a refill on my Plortchzap."
Annie: "Sure... Actually it looks like you should have 3 refills left on it."
Mrs. Pill: "That's what the bottle says, but I wasn't sure what 'three refills' meant."
"How do you fit them all into the one bottle?"
ReplyDeleteYa can't cure stupid...
ReplyDelete"I thought maybe it was a typo and it was actually 'free refills,' like the soda machine at the pizza place."
ReplyDeleteWell...I have 1 refill left on a of my prescription. Last month I had 1 refill on the same prescription. The month before I had 1 refill on that same prescription. For some reason, the pharmacy always marks that I have 1 refill left, until I have no refills left, then it changes from 1 to requires authorization. So far I'm on my 7th month of 1 refill left.
ReplyDeleteThat's because your doctor wrote for a 90 day supply with 3 refills, but your insurance only allows 30 days at a time (or you have chosen to get 30 days at a time). The pharmacy systems don't know how to subtract 1/3 of a refill so it counts your first two refills as a 'full' refill and then gets stuck on '1 remaining.'
Delete"It says three refills, but it doesn't specify what medicine the three refills are. I've been burned by this trick too many times not to be suspicious."
ReplyDelete"Everyone knows that when you're granted three refills, you should use your first refill to ask for more refills."
ReplyDeleteNot related to this post at all...I must have missed some posts (possibly years ago..sorry) but did you not have more that one dog? Only noticed as I had a similar name for one of my canine family. Condolences if I missed something...but hoping they have just been ...er.. re-homed to dog needy families??
ReplyDeleteWell, from the pharmacist point of view, there's not enough room on the label to explain the details. (For example, in an anonymous situation, the physician, or the nurse practitioner, or the little office lady out front, may have written for #100 quantity (on the prescription) with 3 refills, but the patient's insurance company only pays for a month supply at a time. In that case, the refill information may show up on the bottle as #30 of whatever drug with either #4 refills (because there's no place to designate that it's a partial quantity of what was originally written), or #30 with 12 refills, or some other permutation, of the fact that the prescriber wants the patient to be able to take the medicine every day.
ReplyDeleteWhen my healthcare facility used to have a pharmacy for employees, I'd just pick up the whole year quantity at a time if I could, such as on my thyroid medication which wasn't going to change much, but I had to ask the doctor to write for it all #365 with no refill.
Also, be sure to ask for the pharmacist, and the pharmacist only if the refills are correct. The techs don't like to be bothered with these questions
DeleteAnon 6:41 I noticed there was a dog name missing several days ago and was afraid to ask... :-( Very sorry, Dr. G.
ReplyDeleteWasn't the other dog's name 'Snowball'??
ReplyDeleteAre condolences due, O Yak Herder?
That's the hardest part about dogs.
ReplyDeleteLol
ReplyDelete