CVS: Evil, Part II

Remember how the electronic "confirmation" the doctor received was just a bunch of gorgonzola according to the pharmacist who then made me wait 2 hours to fill the script I needed? Good. Keep that in short-term memory for about 2 paragraphs.

We discovered last week that the cause of Rora's recurring UTI's is kidney reflux. Fortunately hers can be treated medically rather than surgically. She will need to take antibiotics every day to prevent infections. She just finished up the meds to treat her UTI, so today I dropped off the new prescription for the prophylactic, daily drugs.

(Remember Paragraph 1? Good!)

When I went to pick up the presciption 30 minutes after dropping it off (in person, I might add!) the pharmacist (a different one) handed me a bag and said, "Oh, from the 25th, right?"

"Huh?" (I admit to being both tired and in a McDonald's brownie sundae-induced food coma.)

"You dropped this off on the 25th?"

"Nooo . . . I dropped it off half an hour ago."

"Well, did you want this one too? It's the same medicine."

Then it clicked. Yes, this was the ORIGINAL PRESCRIPTION that had SUCCESSFULLY been logged in the pharmacy's computer at 6:34 p.m., just as the doctor had received electronic confirmation of. The prescription I actually took home on the 25th was a duplicate-- after I finally got ahold of the doctor and had her confirm via phone that she had prescribed the drug. The pharmacist really was a dumb@$$ unfamiliar with his own pharmacy's electronic prescription system.

I was so not pleased. I told today's pharmacist as much, but I don't think she even understood what I was saying. Or cared.

CVS: Chronically Villainous Salespeople

My 2-year-old began showing symptoms of another UTI last night. Being Saturday evening, I paged the doc on call, who agreed to call in a prescription to my local CVS/pharmacy. I confirmed both address and phone number with the doctor before hanging up at 6:30.

At 7:30, deciding an hour was more than enough time for the pharmacy to fill the prescription, I ran to CVS to pick it up. Naturally, the pharmacist informed me that there was "no record" of the prescription ever being ordered.

Flustered, I called my husband, and had him obtain the on-call number from the Post-It on my desk. I provided the number to the pharmacist, who had the doctor paged. While we waited, I wandered the drugstore filling my basket with various impulse buys such as a new toothbrush and conditioner.

After about half an hour, I approached the pharmacist again. Nope-- the doc hadn't called back. I asked him to page her again. He said he would. I wandered, this time treating myself to some new bath salts, then ogled the ice cream.

Thirty minutes later, still no call back. This time _I_ called and explained to the answering service lady that it was crucial that the doctor call back. My toddler was in pain, waiting at home while Daddy kept her up past bedtime so we could make sure she got her medicine before going to sleep. The pharmacy had no record of the prescription, and the doctor had not called back in over an hour.

The answering service lady was great, and assured me that she would keep paging the doctor all night if she had to! She put in a third page.

Thirty minutes after that there was no reply. I called again, and the answering service lady told me to sit tight, she would try to reach the doctor on her cell phone. (By now, I was up to Super Sticky Post-Its and a new medicine spoon. I briefly contemplated the at-home anemia test kit, but managed to resist its siren song.)

And the doctor called me right back. With the news that she had ordered the medication online and had a confirmation number stating that the prescription had been received by my pharmacy at 6:34 p.m.

It was now 9:15 p.m.

I handed my cell phone to the pharmacist, who spoke with the doctor for a minute, then hung up and handed me the phone. "Okay, we'll get that filled for you."

I said, "You've had it in your computer for nearly 3 hours?"

He said, "No, she just called it in."

I said, "She had a confirmation on her PDA that it went through at 6:34!"

He replied, "Oh, those don't work." I said, "Don't work? Your company sends erroneous confirmation numbers? Don't you think if it didn't work, physicians wouldn't use the system?" He flashed the most condescending, annoying smirk.

I narrowed my eyes. "Will this take about five minutes, or what?"

He looked at me. "Ma'am, there are several prescriptions waiting to be filled here."

I nearly lost it. "And I've been sitting here for an hour and a half waiting for you to fill mine, which in your incompetence you managed to lose. Have you ever seen a two-year-old with a UTI? You know what? Their pregnant mothers don't wait around for more than ninety minutes waiting for pharmacies to get their acts in gear. I'll be back in ten minutes to pick up my Bactrim." I stalked off.

About seven minutes later, the pharmacist found me to say it was ready.

Short-Term Memory Loss at Wal-Mart

On vacation and desperate for comfier, cooler maternity pants, I went to Wal-Mart this evening. I grabbed a few items to try on, and the dressing room doler-outer pointed to an empty dressing room. As soon as I got in the room and stripped down to my unmentionables, the door opened-- "Oh, sorry!" It was the woman who assigned me the room. She had forgotten I was in it.

Several minutes later, I exited the room and said to her, "I'm going right back in-- I need to grab another size." "Okay," she acknowledged.

While I was rummaging on a rack fifteen feet away from the room, I saw the same woman assign my room to somebody else (my sister, actually, so I had no problem yelling for her to get another one ;)

Sigh.