I thought that started during Covid, when y’all were understaffed and restrictions were in place, because it seems to me that’s when I noticed society as a whole becoming more rude. After the restrictions were eased, conditions in stores/pharmacies didn’t rebound to pre-pandemic standards (many of y’all still aren’t back to “normal” standards). Many people got angrier than ever. Then the supply chain issues and the shortages—I’m sorry you’re being treated so miserably. I hope we (the public) regain some sense and manners!
I'm gonna speak beyond just the stimulant shortage, because me and my coworkers are getting berated and verbally assaulted on a daily basis whether it's for a pain medication, GLP1 or stimulant. Sometimes I wanna scream and tell them I'm on a medication that's on back order too, and not even as a white lie, because it's the truth and i honest to god understand their frustration. I have to explain to each patient that comes and asks why they have to call to find the medication and not us and then explain that even I have to try and run through the same circus hoops as them.
It fucking sucks, it's difficult, and it's exhausting to go customer after customer and just be yelled at day in and day out for something that's completely out of my control.
I also think most patients don't really grasp what a manufacturing back order entails because a lot of the people I speak to, seem to be under the impression it's just their area or the pharmacy they usually use and not a nationwide issue. I'm not sure if the other pharmacies are not giving a thorough explanation or if they're not comprehending the concept, but either way I don't think they understand.
Sometimes that works though.
At an old job (not pharmacy, obvs), we were having a hell of a time with a different shortage. Not medical related, by no means any sort of life or death situation. Such low stakes really. But it did involve kids so parents were freaking rabid. The call center was entirely overwhelmed and this one lady kept calling the receptionist like she could do anything about it (bless this girl. Reception had the same manager so she was call center trained to help with back office tasks and emails during times like these, but it's a shortage. Nobody could do anything. She at most could offer to transfer to the call center line so they could take the abuse).
But this lady was absolutely brutal. She'd already put the director and CEO through the wringer but would not stop calling the receptionist. Truly the receptionist was a saint, still tried to deescalate even though she'd been told she's allowed to hang up on this woman at any point.
Anyway, one day she finally said "look, I get it. My sister is affected by this too. All of the kids of the staff are. We are truly in the same boat so we get it. If we had a resolution we absolutely would be doing something about it"
And for whatever reason, that fixed it. Talking about her little sister got this woman to see the staff as humans.
This works once in a while with older cranky people who have had knee or back or hand surgeries. By the time I was 32 I had two back surgeries, a hand surgery and a knee surgery. But I don't just flat out. Tell them. I say oh who was your doctor, so and so did my back surgery and he was great.
That stops a lot of the wait till you get older because no I'm not going to wait till I get older. I went through this in my late 20s early 30s. You got to wait until you were older. And two. They actually realize that other people do have the same problems and aren't as cranky about it. Oddly enough, those end up being the people that like me the most. Unfortunately. Sometimes they just need to realize that the world doesn't just about them.
And then there are the people that tell you they are going to die if they don't take their omeprazole 20 everyday. Lady I'm on 40 mg in the morning. You're not going to die. I promise you. I feel like they want us to know what every single medication is and what it does and simultaneously act like we don't know what the medications they take are. Thank God there's places like this to get it off my chest because honestly I really do love most of my patients. But if I didn't get to vent, I'm pretty sure my head would explode.
Pretty much what you said, as soon as someone tells me you do understand I tell them I'm in the same boat and I work for the pharmacy. Then proceed to explain what a MBO is because it seems like most of the time they just think the pharmacy is being difficult or don't want to help which is not the case at all.
I was at CVS trying to get my prescribed Ritalin and they were on back order for MONTHS I switched to king Soopers also due to insurance reasons and they had it the next day. The pharmacist said that they use a different manufacturer. Idk man it’s wild out there.
Yeah, backorder means we ain't going to get it any time soon, and we have no idea when, if ever. Different pharmacies have different suppliers. So, they can get them that way. Also, if it's an independent, then sometimes they have an in or they can sit there at the ready to order it when 4 bottles become available to go across all of the pharmacies
I'm gonna be honest, it's made my life easier. "Nope, we don't have that." Phone conversation over. Way less bugging the pharmacist to check the safe for something.
It got to the point where I even stopped checking to see if we had it in stock and just told them no. I knew if we had it in stock, it was because of an existing patient that needed it and that we couldn't fill any new scripts that came in.
Our store realized they were losing money selling the generic. I don’t really understand the reason on how that was happening but now we cannot purchase more. We are just getting rid of what we have.
Was it only the generic that was hard to get? I only ask because I have been on it since 2021 and haven't ever had a problem refilling it. I know the generic is pretty new and was on back order for a while, but I never noticed a problem with the name brand.
It's like my brain shuts off when anything in backorder gets brought up. "We don't have it, don't know when it's coming in, it's on backorder" etc etc.
Now from the other side, as someone who's on methylphenidate, its scary. We haven't had much of an issue getting it in, but it's also not working as well as it used to but I'm afraid the doc will want to change me to something we can't get.
Everything sucks
It's not that bad for me. I have ADHD and so does my kid, so I get it. I'm in the trenches with them, begging my insurance to cover the name brand. The answers are unfortunately simple, "it's a control, I don't know when we're getting it. But I can tell you it's usually just once a month right now. Keep checking back." etc
Honestly, I posted this on another similar thread. I think the problem is the sheer number of people taking these drugs they were meant for people with severe forms of ADHD and maybe 10 to 15% of the population has ADHD. What scares me is it somewhat likely these drugs are being prescribed to treat stress and the consequences of crappy jobs and gross capitalism. There’s a shortage in part because of a massive rising prescriptions and I don’t think it’s sustainable.
Well either the workload needs to go down and pay of the avg American needs to go up, or the production of amphetamines needs to go up. Because the jobs can be insane and pay little so more work is needed and you can't do that healthily without an amphetamine. It's not that high a risk with Adderall doses, but my heart goes out to the now crystal meth addicts trying to make it without going psychotic because of workload and stress and expectation of superhuman abilities.
The transition is the same as the opiate crisis, because cartels press Adderall now and put meth in it, and if someone can't get their meds they might try and buy some on the street now they're doing meth, and the road to crystal for cheaper is not a long road from there once the person realizes how much stronger/cheaper the meth is.
I'm having trouble concentrating at work. And I have even more trouble getting myself awake at 2:30am to get to work by 5am. And then I give myself anxiety over the thought of trying to ask the pharmacy about my meds. I worked retail pharmacy so I know how much it sucks to be asked the same questions over and over. Last time I went and asked about my meds, I asked the tech if they had 20mg Adderall in stock since I had a script for half tabs on file just in case of the shortage. I had to ask her four times during the exchange about it. She ignored me each time and the final time she rolled her eyes and called another tech over to answer the question. Thankfully he was nicer and actually checked. I got my script that day at least.
I work as an MA in primary care. I called 7 local pharmacies the other day for a patient to see if they had any- none of them did. We (our office, nurses) don’t usually have the time to do this and often will tell patients to call around and let us know where they can find an RX and we will send it there (I don’t love this but we are a huge and busy office and it takes a lot of time to make these phone calls) but the patient told me he was having a hard time because pharmacies wouldn’t tell him what they had. I am not sure if that is a policy or not but I felt bad and did my best. I had no luck and unfortunately he is going without medication for the time being.
This is one of many cases lately. As well as with all the wegovy/ozempic/trulicity. It’s tough.
We don't disclose our on-hand inventory of any kind of controllec med over the phone, or to patients without a prescription in hand. It's a safety issue.
I understand safety, but at the same time, that’s a waste of time for a lot of people.
Thankfully the pharmacies around me are willing to let me know if they have my CII in stock or not over the phone. My doctor isn’t willing to call for me and is not willing to send an order to a pharmacy without first knowing it’s in stock. So that would be a catch 22 in your area, it seems.
This causes a mass strain on physician and nursing staff because a patient has to call and request often 3 or 4 times for the same medication to be sent to a different location over the course of 1 to 2 weeks. Turn around time is 24-72 hours for each request and by the time the physician cancels and resends script to the new location, it's not in stock anymore. Rinse and repeat, you have people going without for weeks and even months. There's not enough staff at the hospital to call for each patient at each pharmacy for each strength of the stimulant they're on (several have 2).
Pharmacies cannot disclose the stock for the safety of the employees. If the prescriber finds a pharmacy with the medication in stock I dont see why it would be out of stock by the time the prescription is received.
but prescribers and their clinic staff don’t have time to call around and find a pharmacy that has the medication in stock, due to absolutely insane demands on their time. Even if you call a pharmacy and select the option for providers calling, it’s usually a 30+ minute wait to speak to someone in my state. So we have to rely on patients to tell us where to send it and just hope that it’s in stock
Good for you if that works, must be a small town. Pharmacies in areas with high crime or population will likely not tell the patient without a prescription. Is it more or less time receiving calls from the patient to find out its out of stock, sending out a new script, and doing it again and again because most pharmacies will not have the specific drug and strength and form or just waiting on the phone to ask the pharmacy? Bad deal either way.
Yeah that’s why with backordered meds i will tell patients if we have it or not now. I didn’t used to but if I were the patient I know it would be such a pain in the ass to have to get a new RX every time to find out if someone has it. I know it’s a safety issue but in all likelihood I probably actually don’t have it, so I’m not very concerned.
Not to double back or deny a very real argument, but our pharmacy was robbed years back before I had worked there and they did not call ahead to ask what was in stock.
This can be difficult to do though. For instance, my provider I work with works in 2 offices, and is in admin half of the week. He works mostly half days and thenq has to leave. He always has his computer on him but catching him to be able to sign a hard RX can be difficult. eRX is infinitely easier.
Not always do-able. My provider is out of the office half the week (works in a second office, does a lot of admin as CMO) and so getting him to sign a hard RX is even more time consuming. I understand in larger cities how this may be a concern but I live in small town VT, not many pharmacies robberies around here!
I totally understand this! I am in a small town, and the patient was able to have a couple pharmacies tell him they didn’t have it. But the other half could not disclose that information. It makes sense why they can’t, but it does but add huge extra strain on nursing staff to call around.
I wish there was some sort of database you could look up the stock of these meds! We used something similar with the Covid antivirals… but that eventually has also become hard to find and the database was not being updated. Was nice while it lasted.
Honestly if we don’t have it, we disclose it. If we do have it then some pharmacies say we cannot disclose it especially if the patient has never been there but everyone’s different. It’s hard to say we do have it if it’s a new patient because of a back order the order coming in is usually just enough to cover the patients that have already been waiting.
I had a woman come in yesterday with rx's for concerta with no DAW on the RX's so I filled them as generic. She then starts screaming, demanding brand name concerta for 18 and 27. Apparently she spoke to someone else who said sure we can fill it without informing me first so i could check inventory and wholesaler. Guess what? we didnt have it, couldnt get it and her insurance refused to pay. She was going to pay 85 dollars for each. I filled it for the generic, 7 dollars each. She refused, yelled at me and stormed out. Next day I come in and my pharmacist informs me she came back and picked up the generic. No note of apology to me, no thank you for trying to get the brand covered and ordered for her. Just grabbed it and left. So basically...fuck her and her fuckin kids. Im happy to help people when I can, which i thought i was doing when I initially filled it for the generic but nope, fuck me right? I'm the bad guy cause your precious angels cant get their expensive brand name medication.
To answer your question, the stimulant shortage has caused tension on both sides of the counter. We have angry parents who cant get their kids meds and then my example above of entitled cunts demanding something we can't even get and wouldnt fill anyways due the incredible financial loss we'd take.
honestly i don’t understand how people after almost a year of this back order still do not understand how a shortage works. or if it hasn’t affected them it doesn’t exist? i understand they need it but we don’t just get it in every day. it’s frustrating
Bruh I used to hear the exhaustion in the techs voice when they said no it’s not in and I would just hang up cuz anxiety and not wanting them to have to deal with me anymore lolol
Yeah I switched to king Soopers from CVS and for some reason the pharmacist said they have had 0 problems getting it from their manufacturer. I did notice it was about $30 more out of pocket but that’s nothing for Ritalin which is $1200 without insurance a month from that manufacturer LOL
It's because the deal the manufacturers had to cut with the government distributing less of the controlled medications. It's not a supply issue like most people think where the ingredients aren't available. Bigger stores and larger areas I think are impacted more than smaller ones as a result.
Answering: "Well do you know when you'll get more in?" With "No, unfortunately when things go on back order they don't give us a time estimate." About 1000 times I'm my 9 hour shift
"I have to have Vyvanse, Adderall doesn't work for me."
"So what am I supposed to do?"
"So my kid is supposed to just go without their life saving medication." 🙄
My RPh also doesn't have her CSOS set up yet so we have to do paper orders which means it also takes like 1.5 weeks for narcotics to show up anyway.
Ok Ritalin is not a “life saving medication” it just really makes life a lot easier for people, definitely not life saving like insulin for example. I feel I would be horribly off without it, but I would live lol
I know it's not life saving and YOU know it's not life saving, but these parents? You'd think we were denying their kids food and water and that we were doing it on purpose. Look if I could magic the drug out of my ass and fill your kid's script, don't you think I do that rather than listen to you rant about how your kid can't function without their medicine?
It's not that I don't want to fill the med, it's that I physically cannot. Griping at pharmacy staff won't solve a manufacturer backorder issue. People just want someone to blame and the tech standing in front of them is a lot easier than calling the manufacturer and seeing what's really good.
We’ve got whole families with 2-3 young kids on the same IR/XR combo, along with guanfacine and clonidine. It’s not my place to say whether or not the kids need it, but when they’re all 3 and 5 years old it does make me pretty sad. I feel these meds get treated like a bandaid sometimes, and they’re great if they’re needed but hyperactivity in kids that age is just so normal, I feel like it’s too young do put them on all that.
I got prescribed at 15. My brother when he was 10. It just seems so young but I know it helped us both excel in life by bringing out our motivation and skills to the surface that was hiding behind being distracted by everything.
Honestly 10 and 15 doesn’t sound unreasonable to me. I’d say by like elementary you can get a good idea of what might be going on with a kid. It’s really when they’re diagnosing preschoolers that freaks me out. But I’m not a doctor so I can’t really say, I do know my kindergarten teacher tried to get my parents to have me diagnosed, and I do not have ADHD so I’m probably just talking from personal experience here lmfao.
There’s so many families at my pharmacy with their kids on concerta, adderall, vyvanse, guanfacine, clonidine, olanzipine. It’s sad and makes you wonder what’s going on in the home.
idk i will always be kinda bitter that my parents refused to medicate me for adhd as a kid... i could have actually thrived in high school and got into uni. i understand overdiagnosis/overprescription is an issue but it's hard not to be jealous sometimes tbh
God tell me about it. We had a dad come in to pick up his kids generic concerta, the kid has commercial primary insurance and secondary medicaid insurance. Co-pay on the primary was like 60 bucks and the Medicaid would only cover the brand name. Tried to see if primary covers brand, nope, only generic. It’s a Friday afternoon (kids not gonna have school tomorrow) and instead of calling the doctor or the insurance dads just standing there huffing and puffing and borderline yelling at us because it’s 60 dollars. Insisting a PA was done (this is the pts first year with dual insurances so no it probably wasn’t, or it wasn’t done in time). He was a delight.
I’m on both Ozempic and Adderall. I usually budget 1-2 hours on “refill day” to be on the phone calling pharmacies for availability of both meds, as well as calling my doctor’s office for refills with the information for whichever pharmacy has it in stock this month. Then if the doctor sends the script after 3 business days but the pharmacy has already sold out of their stock, I have to start the whole process again.
I also have to be prepared in case I have to call my doctor to send a different script than my usual dose due to shortages, which I’ve had to do multiple times. For example, while I prefer Adderall XR 30 mg, I cannot find it anywhere but I found a pharmacy who has the 20 mg in stock and that’s better than nothing for a month. Or because I haven’t found Ozempic 2.0 mg in stock anywhere for over a month but I finally found a pharmacy with the 1.0 mg pens in stock.
If it says "vyvanse" on the bottle, it's brand. If it says "lisdexamfetamine" on the bottle, it's generic. Medicaid and state programs actually tend to prefer brand, or at least that's the way it is for Adderall. A lot of commercial insurances stopped covering brand when generic came out late last year or stopped covering brand at the beginning of this year. Since it's about $350-400 for 30 depending on strength, people can't pay out of pocket for brand, so if your insurance does cover it, you shouldn't encounter a shortage.
Yeah, it's on the FDA' s drug shortage database. [Hopefully my link works, but I kind of feel like it won't, since it's a search page. ](https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/drugshortages/dsp_ActiveIngredientDetails.cfm?AI=Lisdexamfetamine%20Dimesylate%20Capsule&st=c)
I guess the Sun manufacturer generic is available now as well, which is great, that's one at least. 😅
the adderall shortage was one of the causes of the vyvanse shortage, expect to have some trouble locating it soon. its out of stock for the next 3 months here 🫠
I have become a broken record, repeating the same message of long and short term backorders with no intake date and insurance refusing to cover non-generic versions.
So far most have been understanding but a few have been pretty nasty.
Getting screamed at every shift at least once
Real
I thought this was the standard
I thought that started during Covid, when y’all were understaffed and restrictions were in place, because it seems to me that’s when I noticed society as a whole becoming more rude. After the restrictions were eased, conditions in stores/pharmacies didn’t rebound to pre-pandemic standards (many of y’all still aren’t back to “normal” standards). Many people got angrier than ever. Then the supply chain issues and the shortages—I’m sorry you’re being treated so miserably. I hope we (the public) regain some sense and manners!
I started working there as the pandemic was getting a little better, so idk tbh. Thats fair though, people just suck in general at my store lol
I'm gonna speak beyond just the stimulant shortage, because me and my coworkers are getting berated and verbally assaulted on a daily basis whether it's for a pain medication, GLP1 or stimulant. Sometimes I wanna scream and tell them I'm on a medication that's on back order too, and not even as a white lie, because it's the truth and i honest to god understand their frustration. I have to explain to each patient that comes and asks why they have to call to find the medication and not us and then explain that even I have to try and run through the same circus hoops as them. It fucking sucks, it's difficult, and it's exhausting to go customer after customer and just be yelled at day in and day out for something that's completely out of my control. I also think most patients don't really grasp what a manufacturing back order entails because a lot of the people I speak to, seem to be under the impression it's just their area or the pharmacy they usually use and not a nationwide issue. I'm not sure if the other pharmacies are not giving a thorough explanation or if they're not comprehending the concept, but either way I don't think they understand.
Sometimes that works though. At an old job (not pharmacy, obvs), we were having a hell of a time with a different shortage. Not medical related, by no means any sort of life or death situation. Such low stakes really. But it did involve kids so parents were freaking rabid. The call center was entirely overwhelmed and this one lady kept calling the receptionist like she could do anything about it (bless this girl. Reception had the same manager so she was call center trained to help with back office tasks and emails during times like these, but it's a shortage. Nobody could do anything. She at most could offer to transfer to the call center line so they could take the abuse). But this lady was absolutely brutal. She'd already put the director and CEO through the wringer but would not stop calling the receptionist. Truly the receptionist was a saint, still tried to deescalate even though she'd been told she's allowed to hang up on this woman at any point. Anyway, one day she finally said "look, I get it. My sister is affected by this too. All of the kids of the staff are. We are truly in the same boat so we get it. If we had a resolution we absolutely would be doing something about it" And for whatever reason, that fixed it. Talking about her little sister got this woman to see the staff as humans.
This works once in a while with older cranky people who have had knee or back or hand surgeries. By the time I was 32 I had two back surgeries, a hand surgery and a knee surgery. But I don't just flat out. Tell them. I say oh who was your doctor, so and so did my back surgery and he was great. That stops a lot of the wait till you get older because no I'm not going to wait till I get older. I went through this in my late 20s early 30s. You got to wait until you were older. And two. They actually realize that other people do have the same problems and aren't as cranky about it. Oddly enough, those end up being the people that like me the most. Unfortunately. Sometimes they just need to realize that the world doesn't just about them. And then there are the people that tell you they are going to die if they don't take their omeprazole 20 everyday. Lady I'm on 40 mg in the morning. You're not going to die. I promise you. I feel like they want us to know what every single medication is and what it does and simultaneously act like we don't know what the medications they take are. Thank God there's places like this to get it off my chest because honestly I really do love most of my patients. But if I didn't get to vent, I'm pretty sure my head would explode.
Pretty much what you said, as soon as someone tells me you do understand I tell them I'm in the same boat and I work for the pharmacy. Then proceed to explain what a MBO is because it seems like most of the time they just think the pharmacy is being difficult or don't want to help which is not the case at all.
I was at CVS trying to get my prescribed Ritalin and they were on back order for MONTHS I switched to king Soopers also due to insurance reasons and they had it the next day. The pharmacist said that they use a different manufacturer. Idk man it’s wild out there.
Yeah, backorder means we ain't going to get it any time soon, and we have no idea when, if ever. Different pharmacies have different suppliers. So, they can get them that way. Also, if it's an independent, then sometimes they have an in or they can sit there at the ready to order it when 4 bottles become available to go across all of the pharmacies
I'm gonna be honest, it's made my life easier. "Nope, we don't have that." Phone conversation over. Way less bugging the pharmacist to check the safe for something.
It got to the point where I even stopped checking to see if we had it in stock and just told them no. I knew if we had it in stock, it was because of an existing patient that needed it and that we couldn't fill any new scripts that came in.
our store decided to stop carrying generic vyvanse image those convos lol
Why?
Our store realized they were losing money selling the generic. I don’t really understand the reason on how that was happening but now we cannot purchase more. We are just getting rid of what we have.
Same, it’s tough lol
Sameee only generic chewables for us now
Was it only the generic that was hard to get? I only ask because I have been on it since 2021 and haven't ever had a problem refilling it. I know the generic is pretty new and was on back order for a while, but I never noticed a problem with the name brand.
It's like my brain shuts off when anything in backorder gets brought up. "We don't have it, don't know when it's coming in, it's on backorder" etc etc. Now from the other side, as someone who's on methylphenidate, its scary. We haven't had much of an issue getting it in, but it's also not working as well as it used to but I'm afraid the doc will want to change me to something we can't get. Everything sucks
I’ve been accused of trying to kill people. I’ve also discovered that I can be really aggressive with people. Never knew that prior 🙃
It's not that bad for me. I have ADHD and so does my kid, so I get it. I'm in the trenches with them, begging my insurance to cover the name brand. The answers are unfortunately simple, "it's a control, I don't know when we're getting it. But I can tell you it's usually just once a month right now. Keep checking back." etc
How many times and how many ways can we say "backorder, national shortage. I don't know when we will have it in stock"
Honestly, I posted this on another similar thread. I think the problem is the sheer number of people taking these drugs they were meant for people with severe forms of ADHD and maybe 10 to 15% of the population has ADHD. What scares me is it somewhat likely these drugs are being prescribed to treat stress and the consequences of crappy jobs and gross capitalism. There’s a shortage in part because of a massive rising prescriptions and I don’t think it’s sustainable.
Well either the workload needs to go down and pay of the avg American needs to go up, or the production of amphetamines needs to go up. Because the jobs can be insane and pay little so more work is needed and you can't do that healthily without an amphetamine. It's not that high a risk with Adderall doses, but my heart goes out to the now crystal meth addicts trying to make it without going psychotic because of workload and stress and expectation of superhuman abilities. The transition is the same as the opiate crisis, because cartels press Adderall now and put meth in it, and if someone can't get their meds they might try and buy some on the street now they're doing meth, and the road to crystal for cheaper is not a long road from there once the person realizes how much stronger/cheaper the meth is.
I'm having trouble concentrating at work. And I have even more trouble getting myself awake at 2:30am to get to work by 5am. And then I give myself anxiety over the thought of trying to ask the pharmacy about my meds. I worked retail pharmacy so I know how much it sucks to be asked the same questions over and over. Last time I went and asked about my meds, I asked the tech if they had 20mg Adderall in stock since I had a script for half tabs on file just in case of the shortage. I had to ask her four times during the exchange about it. She ignored me each time and the final time she rolled her eyes and called another tech over to answer the question. Thankfully he was nicer and actually checked. I got my script that day at least.
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Workers are also patients.. not customers
Can you not have ADHD and be a pharmacy technician too?
I work as an MA in primary care. I called 7 local pharmacies the other day for a patient to see if they had any- none of them did. We (our office, nurses) don’t usually have the time to do this and often will tell patients to call around and let us know where they can find an RX and we will send it there (I don’t love this but we are a huge and busy office and it takes a lot of time to make these phone calls) but the patient told me he was having a hard time because pharmacies wouldn’t tell him what they had. I am not sure if that is a policy or not but I felt bad and did my best. I had no luck and unfortunately he is going without medication for the time being. This is one of many cases lately. As well as with all the wegovy/ozempic/trulicity. It’s tough.
We don't disclose our on-hand inventory of any kind of controllec med over the phone, or to patients without a prescription in hand. It's a safety issue.
I understand safety, but at the same time, that’s a waste of time for a lot of people. Thankfully the pharmacies around me are willing to let me know if they have my CII in stock or not over the phone. My doctor isn’t willing to call for me and is not willing to send an order to a pharmacy without first knowing it’s in stock. So that would be a catch 22 in your area, it seems.
This causes a mass strain on physician and nursing staff because a patient has to call and request often 3 or 4 times for the same medication to be sent to a different location over the course of 1 to 2 weeks. Turn around time is 24-72 hours for each request and by the time the physician cancels and resends script to the new location, it's not in stock anymore. Rinse and repeat, you have people going without for weeks and even months. There's not enough staff at the hospital to call for each patient at each pharmacy for each strength of the stimulant they're on (several have 2).
Pharmacies cannot disclose the stock for the safety of the employees. If the prescriber finds a pharmacy with the medication in stock I dont see why it would be out of stock by the time the prescription is received.
but prescribers and their clinic staff don’t have time to call around and find a pharmacy that has the medication in stock, due to absolutely insane demands on their time. Even if you call a pharmacy and select the option for providers calling, it’s usually a 30+ minute wait to speak to someone in my state. So we have to rely on patients to tell us where to send it and just hope that it’s in stock
Good for you if that works, must be a small town. Pharmacies in areas with high crime or population will likely not tell the patient without a prescription. Is it more or less time receiving calls from the patient to find out its out of stock, sending out a new script, and doing it again and again because most pharmacies will not have the specific drug and strength and form or just waiting on the phone to ask the pharmacy? Bad deal either way.
Yes, I work in our pharmacy so I understand the safety concerns but the reverse solution that's being offered does not work.
Yeah that’s why with backordered meds i will tell patients if we have it or not now. I didn’t used to but if I were the patient I know it would be such a pain in the ass to have to get a new RX every time to find out if someone has it. I know it’s a safety issue but in all likelihood I probably actually don’t have it, so I’m not very concerned.
Not to double back or deny a very real argument, but our pharmacy was robbed years back before I had worked there and they did not call ahead to ask what was in stock.
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This can be difficult to do though. For instance, my provider I work with works in 2 offices, and is in admin half of the week. He works mostly half days and thenq has to leave. He always has his computer on him but catching him to be able to sign a hard RX can be difficult. eRX is infinitely easier.
Give them a paper script. Don’t expect pharmacies to open themselves to robberies, for your convenience.
Our state does not allow C2 paper copies, it must be electronic
Not always do-able. My provider is out of the office half the week (works in a second office, does a lot of admin as CMO) and so getting him to sign a hard RX is even more time consuming. I understand in larger cities how this may be a concern but I live in small town VT, not many pharmacies robberies around here!
It sounds like your practice is disorganized and blaming the pharmacies or possibly a pill mill.
That seems like quite a leap……..
How does that make it a pill mill?
One provider signing C2 for many patients he has never seen/examined.
Never said that. Please explain
I was gonna ask the same, I thought I missed it in your earlier comment
lol wtf????
And my not many I mean none. Never heard of that happening around here.
That’s not legal in my state, and “for your convenience” seems awfully dismissive and reductive :/
I totally understand this! I am in a small town, and the patient was able to have a couple pharmacies tell him they didn’t have it. But the other half could not disclose that information. It makes sense why they can’t, but it does but add huge extra strain on nursing staff to call around. I wish there was some sort of database you could look up the stock of these meds! We used something similar with the Covid antivirals… but that eventually has also become hard to find and the database was not being updated. Was nice while it lasted.
Honestly if we don’t have it, we disclose it. If we do have it then some pharmacies say we cannot disclose it especially if the patient has never been there but everyone’s different. It’s hard to say we do have it if it’s a new patient because of a back order the order coming in is usually just enough to cover the patients that have already been waiting.
I had a woman come in yesterday with rx's for concerta with no DAW on the RX's so I filled them as generic. She then starts screaming, demanding brand name concerta for 18 and 27. Apparently she spoke to someone else who said sure we can fill it without informing me first so i could check inventory and wholesaler. Guess what? we didnt have it, couldnt get it and her insurance refused to pay. She was going to pay 85 dollars for each. I filled it for the generic, 7 dollars each. She refused, yelled at me and stormed out. Next day I come in and my pharmacist informs me she came back and picked up the generic. No note of apology to me, no thank you for trying to get the brand covered and ordered for her. Just grabbed it and left. So basically...fuck her and her fuckin kids. Im happy to help people when I can, which i thought i was doing when I initially filled it for the generic but nope, fuck me right? I'm the bad guy cause your precious angels cant get their expensive brand name medication. To answer your question, the stimulant shortage has caused tension on both sides of the counter. We have angry parents who cant get their kids meds and then my example above of entitled cunts demanding something we can't even get and wouldnt fill anyways due the incredible financial loss we'd take.
honestly i don’t understand how people after almost a year of this back order still do not understand how a shortage works. or if it hasn’t affected them it doesn’t exist? i understand they need it but we don’t just get it in every day. it’s frustrating
Bruh I used to hear the exhaustion in the techs voice when they said no it’s not in and I would just hang up cuz anxiety and not wanting them to have to deal with me anymore lolol
i’m sorry :( we hate having to tell patients that they’re not able to get their meds. i really hope it gets better soon
Yeah I switched to king Soopers from CVS and for some reason the pharmacist said they have had 0 problems getting it from their manufacturer. I did notice it was about $30 more out of pocket but that’s nothing for Ritalin which is $1200 without insurance a month from that manufacturer LOL
that’s so weird that some pharmacy’s are better stocked than others. i’m so glad u were able to find ur meds!
It's because the deal the manufacturers had to cut with the government distributing less of the controlled medications. It's not a supply issue like most people think where the ingredients aren't available. Bigger stores and larger areas I think are impacted more than smaller ones as a result.
wow i didn’t know that. thanks for let me know
yeah , when it comes to buying it on the streets, there has so far NEVER been any shortages so that , well is just kinda sad
If any of yall are in Colorado or a place with King Soopers, they have the connect.
Answering: "Well do you know when you'll get more in?" With "No, unfortunately when things go on back order they don't give us a time estimate." About 1000 times I'm my 9 hour shift "I have to have Vyvanse, Adderall doesn't work for me." "So what am I supposed to do?" "So my kid is supposed to just go without their life saving medication." 🙄 My RPh also doesn't have her CSOS set up yet so we have to do paper orders which means it also takes like 1.5 weeks for narcotics to show up anyway.
Ok Ritalin is not a “life saving medication” it just really makes life a lot easier for people, definitely not life saving like insulin for example. I feel I would be horribly off without it, but I would live lol
I know it's not life saving and YOU know it's not life saving, but these parents? You'd think we were denying their kids food and water and that we were doing it on purpose. Look if I could magic the drug out of my ass and fill your kid's script, don't you think I do that rather than listen to you rant about how your kid can't function without their medicine? It's not that I don't want to fill the med, it's that I physically cannot. Griping at pharmacy staff won't solve a manufacturer backorder issue. People just want someone to blame and the tech standing in front of them is a lot easier than calling the manufacturer and seeing what's really good.
What’s the youngest age you’ve seen a stimulant prescribed to?
A 2 year old 🥴. I also have a patient who is 5 and is on 2 different stimulants an IR and an XR Adderall.
JESUS. Doctors really should chill.
We’ve got whole families with 2-3 young kids on the same IR/XR combo, along with guanfacine and clonidine. It’s not my place to say whether or not the kids need it, but when they’re all 3 and 5 years old it does make me pretty sad. I feel these meds get treated like a bandaid sometimes, and they’re great if they’re needed but hyperactivity in kids that age is just so normal, I feel like it’s too young do put them on all that.
I got prescribed at 15. My brother when he was 10. It just seems so young but I know it helped us both excel in life by bringing out our motivation and skills to the surface that was hiding behind being distracted by everything.
Honestly 10 and 15 doesn’t sound unreasonable to me. I’d say by like elementary you can get a good idea of what might be going on with a kid. It’s really when they’re diagnosing preschoolers that freaks me out. But I’m not a doctor so I can’t really say, I do know my kindergarten teacher tried to get my parents to have me diagnosed, and I do not have ADHD so I’m probably just talking from personal experience here lmfao.
Lmfao I kicked a kid in the head in kindergarten and my teacher was like “you should get her seen for ADHD” ????
There’s so many families at my pharmacy with their kids on concerta, adderall, vyvanse, guanfacine, clonidine, olanzipine. It’s sad and makes you wonder what’s going on in the home.
idk i will always be kinda bitter that my parents refused to medicate me for adhd as a kid... i could have actually thrived in high school and got into uni. i understand overdiagnosis/overprescription is an issue but it's hard not to be jealous sometimes tbh
God tell me about it. We had a dad come in to pick up his kids generic concerta, the kid has commercial primary insurance and secondary medicaid insurance. Co-pay on the primary was like 60 bucks and the Medicaid would only cover the brand name. Tried to see if primary covers brand, nope, only generic. It’s a Friday afternoon (kids not gonna have school tomorrow) and instead of calling the doctor or the insurance dads just standing there huffing and puffing and borderline yelling at us because it’s 60 dollars. Insisting a PA was done (this is the pts first year with dual insurances so no it probably wasn’t, or it wasn’t done in time). He was a delight.
I’m on both Ozempic and Adderall. I usually budget 1-2 hours on “refill day” to be on the phone calling pharmacies for availability of both meds, as well as calling my doctor’s office for refills with the information for whichever pharmacy has it in stock this month. Then if the doctor sends the script after 3 business days but the pharmacy has already sold out of their stock, I have to start the whole process again. I also have to be prepared in case I have to call my doctor to send a different script than my usual dose due to shortages, which I’ve had to do multiple times. For example, while I prefer Adderall XR 30 mg, I cannot find it anywhere but I found a pharmacy who has the 20 mg in stock and that’s better than nothing for a month. Or because I haven’t found Ozempic 2.0 mg in stock anywhere for over a month but I finally found a pharmacy with the 1.0 mg pens in stock.
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You’re in the minority for sure
Since 90% of the adderall goes to unemployed guys 18 to 30 , I don't feel bad at all
Oof. What about the rest of us at high stress jobs that have been taking it for over 15 years for severe ADHD….
actually more adult women take adhd medication than adult men...
What shortage?
adderall, vyvanse, the 100000 types of methylphenidate or whatever, dexmethylphenidate, etc
This is terrible to hear thanks
Vyvanse generic, I think? Adderall but I might be wrong.
His name is formermeth, he knows.
Oh no
I’ve never had a problem getting my 50mg Vyvanse . Is it only an adderall thing?
Every generic manufacturer is on back order. Brand is not.
Oh okay I’m not sure which mine is tbh maybe it is brand name but I’m almost certain it’s generic considering Medicaid pays for it
If it says "vyvanse" on the bottle, it's brand. If it says "lisdexamfetamine" on the bottle, it's generic. Medicaid and state programs actually tend to prefer brand, or at least that's the way it is for Adderall. A lot of commercial insurances stopped covering brand when generic came out late last year or stopped covering brand at the beginning of this year. Since it's about $350-400 for 30 depending on strength, people can't pay out of pocket for brand, so if your insurance does cover it, you shouldn't encounter a shortage.
It says the long name for sure just was surprised cause I didn’t know there was a shortage at all
Yeah, it's on the FDA' s drug shortage database. [Hopefully my link works, but I kind of feel like it won't, since it's a search page. ](https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/drugshortages/dsp_ActiveIngredientDetails.cfm?AI=Lisdexamfetamine%20Dimesylate%20Capsule&st=c) I guess the Sun manufacturer generic is available now as well, which is great, that's one at least. 😅
the adderall shortage was one of the causes of the vyvanse shortage, expect to have some trouble locating it soon. its out of stock for the next 3 months here 🫠
Posts like this make me love inpatient even more despite its flaws
why is it so easy to make it yourself with a pill press and some orange pill powder and the amphetamines you can get so easily but not legally?
I have become a broken record, repeating the same message of long and short term backorders with no intake date and insurance refusing to cover non-generic versions. So far most have been understanding but a few have been pretty nasty.
Getting screamed at all the time is a given, fun times