Sunday, September 26, 2010

The law is the LAW!

Today, Sunday, I had a lady patient call me complaining that her new pharmacist would not dispense her lorazepam refill.  She wanted me to transfer her prescription to my pharmacy and fill it for her.  Lorazepam is a schedule 4 medication.  It is a controlled substance, and you are not supposed to have it filled early unless something has changed.  Something like the strength or directions.  She kept telling me her life situation over and over and over.  If I tried to interrupt her she would take offense, and say she is going to a higher authority over me to get the prescription filled.  She kept telling me that she was not psychotic even though she is on Seroquel.  She needed her Ativan now, and we needed to work with her to get her the medication.  She then said that one of her doctors told her to take 3 instead of 2 pills a day.  I said the only way you could get it filled is to call the emergency line and get the on call doctor to call you in a new script with the correct directions.  She had not thought of that and thanked me for reminding her of that option.  20 minutes later, I was finally off the phone.  I called the other pharmacist, and he had spoke with her for 30 minutes and gave her the same advice.  We never filled her Rx, and this lady is crazy.  Every time she calls she has to tell you her life story about being a top rated nurse and caregiver to her 97 year old mom.  Her mom is more legit than she is and probably takes care of her.  Oh yeah, she has crazy high blood pressure, 200/100, but she is thin.  She is so stressed over nothing all the time.

My First Pharmacy Story

I had a customer come in the other day and start screaming at me at the top of his lungs.  I could not even understand what he was saying.  Of course, being in the retail setting this is all to common.  I began to decipher the yelling in to something about receiving the wrong medication.  This is very serious in the pharmacy world.  We do not take this lightly at all.  He received the drug Levitra.  This medication is for erectile dysfunction.  He became very quiet, and said he was supposed to receive Viagra for the same thing. I pulled his prescription, and it was written for Levitra.  I showed him the Rx, and he was still upset.  He did not want Levitra.  He wanted Viagra.  I said that I would need a new prescription in order to fill that drug for him.  He then remembered that he told the doctor it only worked sometimes and that the doctor was going to change it.  I then filled his Namenda and Aricept which are for memory loss or alzheimer's.  All that screaming and craziness for nothing.