Comments | partran: Welcome to the Pharmacy, shall I wipe your nose for you?

partran

Welcome to the Pharmacy, shall I wipe your nose for you?

Apr 22, 2011 21:07

So today I ran up against perhaps my biggest single pet peeve of human behavior at work. Well, at least in regards to work. Picking my biggest pet peeve of all, well it's like picking your favorite tree from a forest. I have so many...

The one in question though, has to do with the expectation of care. I don't mean the expectation of prompt, ( Read more... )

Comments 12

luagha April 23 2011, 05:13:17 UTC

And if the holiday in question is Earth Day, well.

partran April 23 2011, 05:42:39 UTC

Earth Day isn't a holiday. As far as I'm concerned it's not even a day.

otterdoc April 24 2011, 03:40:12 UTC

We deal with this frequently, too. You clearly have a MUCH higher burden of this kind of bullshit, though, since it's your primary job duty. People are fools, utter fools. They will blame anyone but themselves for this kind of behavior. Somehow they think that YOU ruined their day instead of their own inattention or plain stupid behavior.

I do wonder something, though. When I fill a script at our hospital, it can be finished in a matter of about three minutes. We try to have people call ahead, with all calls before noon filled before 2pm, and anything after noon filled by closing time. Often, though, people walk in for a refill and we get it done in a matter of minutes. Why does it take the human pharmacy 25-30 minutes? Is it all the insurance stuff? The computer system? Some kind of triple-check policy for accuracy and so on? I'm not trying to be a dick about this, I'm honestly just curious about why it's different. (I never give my pharmacy a bad time about this, btw -- I just try to plan ahead for the wait.)

-M.

partran April 24 2011, 04:17:31 UTC

That's a topic I've thought about putting a rant up about and will soon, but it's an issue of volume, interruptions, insurance, interruptions, staffing, interruptions, bottlenecks, and interruptions ( ... )

otterdoc April 24 2011, 05:57:42 UTC

Yeah, see, this is the sort of shit that isn't apparent when I'm standing on the client side of your fishbowl. :) You get just as much interruption and hassle as I do when I'm trying to see appointments. It's often me as the bottleneck due to a lot of the same kinds of problems that you're describing as part of your own day. I have a LOT of sympathy for that kind of stuff, so I'm glad I didn't ever flip out about the wait. Frustrated? Yeah, but probably not as frustrated as the pharmacy staff. And now I know. In a lot of ways, it's much easier for us. Everybody pays out of pocket for damn near everything.

I don't use any chat programs (other than the MUCK, which I'm rarely on anymore). I'm an internet curmudgeon that way. Cut my teeth on raw telnet MUCKing, after all. ;D

-M.

partran April 24 2011, 06:45:39 UTC

A pharmacy can be up to their necks in work, hours behind on the prescriptions due that day, and everyone on their last nerve, and the place look quiet and orderly, it's weird like that. It can be insanely busy and on the other side of the counter they see people wandering quietly about their work ( ... )

Thread 8

rustitobuck April 24 2011, 07:03:19 UTC

It sure would be nice if the staffing in the pharmacies was better ( ... )

partran April 24 2011, 07:18:11 UTC

The whole "get all my prescriptions at the same time" thing is damn tricky from a pharmacy standpoint. Barring being short on stock because of keeping on-hands tight, insurance restrictions on refilling too soon and delays in getting refills authorized can be a real disaster to that. And it can take a couple months to "three days before you run out" adjust refills to where you can get them at the same time again, and by then it's almost time to call the doctor. We try to accommodate patients and limit the number of times you have to come see us, but there are barriers to it if things fall out of sync ( ... )