A little Pharma vent!

I had an appointment last week on the 13th with my Doc who is going to tale a little breather this week since he spent the last month working 12 to 14 hour days before finding a new PA.

My methadone was written last month on the 17th so I was not out and did not even take it to the pharmacy until Sunday the 16th and then only to drop off so it would be ready Monday,hence there were only 29 days last month so I was not out until Monday night right?

I usually use the Walgreens next door to my Doc and this is in the town some 40 miles away and we do not have a Walgreens where I live but since I was filling this on Sunday and I was not at the Docs I elected to drop it off at one of our only 3 drugstores here where I live versus driving the 80 miles roundtrip,now had I known this was going to be such a problem I would have certainly made the drive! Even if gas would have cost me more then my entire script to get there and back.

I gave it to the RPH not the tech and she asked had I been here before? Yes but not this CVS,she said not a problem as it should be there regardless,info in puter.

I told her I wanted to pick it up on Monday. She then proceeded and I take it she now had seen what actually was written and said " Where di you fill it last month"? I told her Walgreens and where and she very nastily said " I have to call them to see when you filled it" I told her I had the bottle with me,just trying to help and she almost yelled at me that she had to call them anyway! What? I have never heard of such but didnt say a thing and I also might add my insurance screen was up on the computer by now and I could see when I filled it and what they paid for it.

She called them and then came back and said I cant fill this until no sooner then Tomorrow,Duh, thats what I said to you to begin with isnt it? Asked did I want to leave it or take it with me? After she had written on this crap on it via the phone call to Walgreens and b/d, Ss#,addy and so forth why bother to take it somewhere else as that may really look as if I was trying to pull an early refill wouldnt it?

I told her that I do not fill it the same place each month as I was particular as to which of the 2 brands I use and Walgreens had a bad habit of alternating between the two and also that alot of pharmacies even after assuring me they would keep it stocked didnt have enough and after getting burned a few times by those assurances in the past I do NOT leave my script with a partial fill on this schedule and hope like you know what they get the rest in the alotted 72 hour time slot. This is a rule for this schedule and you lose the rest of the fill if they do not get it before the 72 hours and then you have to have the Doc rewrite the entire months supply in 2 different scripts. That is a hassle and not something my Doc appreciates doing.

She then and she still has a attitude from the bottoms here tells me she can assure me they have it each month and at this point I wouldnt deal with this kind of attitude for double that many a month.

Being on a tight budget like most of us I also had a coupon for CVS bucks for $40 for transferring or filling a new script and this is more then I pay out of pocket for the med without putting it on my insurance and paying the co-pay so I thought I could get that and use it for Easter as well so that is the reason I went to CVS versus one of the other 2 here in town.

I can tell you it was not worth that $40 coupon standing here being treated like I was trying to get by with something illegal that is for sure.

I finally opted to leave it and the next day went far worse. I called early when they opened and asked for a small "purse bottle" to accompany the origional bottle and the tech said no problem!

When I got to the pharmacy to pick up meds he told me he didnt see a script and was I sure I left it here? Of course there is no mistaking what i had tolerated and where the previous day,of course I left it!

He looked int he to be filled box and nothing there and nothing in puter nor in the safe as they had just opened a hour or so ago.

Finally after exhausting all places and me getting really upset by the minute the tech found it taped,taped now to the side of the computer of all places! The script now not its filled version.

He said it would be ready in about 15 minutes and I waited and then even though he went thru the same round of questions and I could see all the writing on the script in red he did fill it and forgot the extra label for the purse bottle!

I knew there was a reason I did not use CVS and if I forgot it once I am not apt to do so again! What a ridiculous bunch of crap to go thru. I do not fill early and am not flagged in anyway and even though they use KAPER here in this state as a tracking link for narcotic use I am good with them and they should have been able to pull it up and see every single narc I had filled in the lifetime of the system.

Still they treated me as if I was trying to get something over on them by using their pharmacy and if that is how they feel about folks trying another pharmacy out I wont bother them again.

Sorry for this rant but are any of you all experiencing any of these kinds of problems with pharmacies? Is it getting to this everywhere or is it me and this state? I have been on this same med for almost 7 years and have not had such a time in my life.

Does the two day rule for filling early not apply to schedules anymore?

Thanks for the ear and I feel better already! LOl

Thanks Ry for the response. I am thinking along these lines myself as even though their hours are not as convenient as the larger places but even given that it would be nice to have someone recognize you an dnot catergorize you!

I am on methadone and too many times they assume I am an addict not a pain patient and precede to treat me as such.

I am going to look around and we do have a medicine shop here that is privately owned and a family owned drug store in the next little town and it is only 5 miles from the house and I hear they ar great and carry several different brands of meds for folks and offer as low as prices as some of the bigger chains. They are not open on Sunday and close at like noon on Saturday and 6 during the week but really I dont fill meds at those times and days anyway unless it is something refilled or a preset date and I imagine they account for their not open hours in filling times.

I certainly dont want to go thru anything like this again.

The thing that irks me the the most in all this is they offer incentives to transfer to their store and then have the audacity to think we are trying to pull something over on them when we do!

My pain med and nerve med are the two things I have to pay out of pocket for so these are the only things that qualify for the transfer incentive right? If it is covered my medicaid or insurance copays it isnt a qualifying medicine,hence the reason i used the CVS so I could use my coupon for the gift card that I got on a register receipt with my care card.

I cant afford to just lose that much money each month if I can gain any part of it back then I do so and I wasnt trying to pull anything at all and volunteered the info from previous months fill before they asked me to. I cant recall ever seeing Walgreens offer any gift card for a tranfer in my area but Rite-aid and CVS do often and are usually in competition to how much it is worth to us to transfer, Rite aid has one going now that gives you $40 gift card for the first time you transfer or fill new script with them and $5 off the next 2 times you fill it with it them,again trying to keep  you coming back right?

All our Pharmacies are suppose to run the KASPER on narcotics filled anyway so I couldnt pull off anything if I had wished to try. If I was attempting to fill early wouldnt you think I would have taken it in on the 13th when he wrote it and dated it as such? I didnt take it in until the 17th,4 days after the written date on it and they could clearly see that.

With the HIPPA laws implemented I dont think they should be allowed to transfer your records anywhere without your prior knowledge SJK. I know that if it was my record I would have been irate at Safeway for doing that to me without even asking me where I wanted to transfer it to. Seems to me that would have been an unauthorized release of my info.

I know alot of RPH's attempt to over ride the Docs orders and some go so far as to attempt to treat us with their advice and I try to overlook them but there are times it is impossible to do that.

They assume all those on methadone are addict I suppose and I had that similiar time with Walgreens a few months back when the new PA filled out the script and I told the RPH that when I took it in and had she not been talking on the phone and getting my info at the same time she would have heard me tell her that and not had to lie to me for an hour and wasted my Docs time by placing a call to the office. They kept telling me after the ten minutes it was suppose to take to fill it that the computer popped out a warning on interactions which in fact the truth was they were calling my Doc to verify the writing on the script and I figured this out by watching them since the 3 different techs that asked my name never came back to the window to tell me anything!

I was irate with them as I told them it was the PA's first day and she wrote the script and Doc signed it so it was no doubt his signature just a different writing in the wording. His PA's always write the script and he signs it.

I think I am going to use the hometown drugstore from now on and they assured me they would keep the methadone on hand if they knew I was going to be filling it each month and even agreed to stock the brand I preferred,the cost is allittle more but it is worth it to not have the headache of these 2 incidents.