In this installment I have decided to look at another side of the joys of retail pharmacy--dealing with the great unwashed masses. Although this is not meant to be a complete list of observations or complaints I bet everyone reads this and says "yeah, no kidding."
Dear customer,
-If you approach me with an overly friendly approach and make a point of calling me by name like I'm your best friend I'm going to be immediately suspicious of that narcotic prescription that you're handing me. In spite of what you think, you are not putting me at ease, you are putting me on the defensive.
-When you come to the drive-thru window on your cell phone, apologize to me, NOT to the person to whom you are talking. You're being rude to me, not to them. You pulled up to MY drive-thru while in the middle of your conversation. And by the way, I quit smoking a long time ago. I'd prefer that you not share your cigarette with me while I'm waiting on your lazy ass. And if you're coming to the drive-thru to pick up your blood pressure meds or your cholesterol meds, or you weigh more than 250 pounds do yourself a favor and walk into the store. A little exercise goes a long way.
-If you take your medication every day and have done so for a long time, why in the world do you wait until you take the last pill to try to refill it? With no refills left? On a Friday? Before a long weekend? Did it surprise you that you were actually going to need your diabetes medicine before you left for your weekend away to visit the in-laws?
-If your insurance doesn't want to pay for your prescription, for whatever reason, please don't call your doctor and tell them that we refused to fill your prescription, or that we wouldn't sell it to you. That's not what we said. If you want to pay out of your own pocket feel free. If you don't want to pay $150 for that newest, latest, greatest brand name only medication then maybe you should ask your doctor why he/she prescribed that one in the first place. Bet it has nothing to do with that "consultant" gig they were offered by the big pharmaceutical company that manufactures it.
-And speaking of insurance, let me explain how this works. You get a new insurance plan. You bring your new card into the pharmacy. We put the information into our computer. We bill your insurance. Everyone goes home happy. Let's be clear about this-your insurance information doesn't magically transmit from your insurance company's computers into ours, we have to actually type it in. And no, we can't access Walgreen's or Rite Aid and look it up there. They get a little sensitive about proprietary info being accessible by their competitors.
-Why do you bring in a prescription dated 3 months ago and tell me you need it as soon as possible? Is 3 months as soon as possible? If it's not for you, why should it be for me? I'm sure sometime in the last 90 days you knew you were coming into the store, why didn't you bring in your colonoscopy prep script in to fill instead of waiting until the morning before your procedure? I'll just tell the mother of the sick 2 year old that the antibiotic that they need is going to be a few more minutes because I was just filling the script that you've had hanging on the front of your refrigerator so long the paper's starting to yellow.
-If you've handed me a prescription that you need to be filled, and I'm concentrating on reading the doctor's handwriting, making sure I've selected the right patient out of our database, making sure I selected the right medication and strength, making sure I can read and properly type the directions, choosing the correct prescriber and making sure your insurance information goes through (maybe while also fielding a phone call) please don't be offended if I don't do it all with a big smile on my face. Sometimes it's not at the top of my mind to smile you to death like I'm trying to sell you a used car. If a smile is more important to you than competence when it comes to your medication perhaps you should re-evaluate your priorities.
-When you bring me a prescription that you're dropping off for someone else and I ask you for the date of birth don't ask, "Mine or theirs?" I hate to break this to you but even if you're the nicest person in the world I really don't give a shit when your birthday is unless the script is for YOU. I'm not asking so I know when to mail you a fucking birthday card. Use your brain!
-If you need a prescription refilled please have at least a slight clue as to what the medication is. If you have the script number that's excellent; if you have the name of the medication that will also work well; if you don't know either of those things at least have a clue as to what it's treating (blood pressure, cholesterol, male pattern baldness, whatever) and I can probably figure it out. Don't say to me, "It's a little white pill, I take it once a day." Do you have any idea how many "little white pills" we carry? Why is knowing what your medication is more important to me than it is to you? Have a clue as to what medication you take and why you take it. It might just save your life.
-When you come to the register to pick up your prescription and you have 12 things from the front store to pay for it's OK to start writing out your check while I'm ringing your merchandise. Nothing pisses off all the customers in line behind you more than when you wait for the total before you actually pull your checkbook out of your pocket or purse and start the tedious job of writing out a check. On a related note none of us want to stand there while you search through your change purse or pocket for the exact change, like you think you're doing me a favor. Trust me, I can count your change back to you way faster than you can dig into the inside pockets of your pocketbook and slowly dig out the exact change ONE PENNY AT A TIME!! That will also not win you any new friends.
I'm sure as soon as I post this I'll come up with a bunch more but I figured this was a pretty good list. If you think of any that I left out don't hesitate to post your own contribution to the list.
