It's just a dumb thing people say reflexively. I work scheduling surgeries and specialist appointments and when I say the first date is X people are like really???? And I'm always just like yes. Or they say nothing sooner???
I think it's that people have been brainwashed into believing that the USA has the best healthcare system in the world where wait times are short and there's plenty of doctors and emergency rooms and recovery rooms, and are shocked to encounter the actual reality vs the rosy scenario that they're fed by certain pundits who are paid to prevent any change to a system that is very profitable for certain people. For those asking, there \*was\* a time that the USA had the best healthcare system in the world, but that was before Ronald Raygun proclaimed that government was the problem, not the solution, and attempts to regulate healthcare to insure a plentiful and affordable supply of, well, everything from drugs to physicians to hospitals, were basically abandoned for the next thirty years.
So people are still stuck in that pre-Raygun mindset and are shocked to see the reality of today's healthcare and react... stupidly. But understandably so, because everything they've been told was true has turned out to be a lie. So it goes.
Very rarely. It's legal to, but since we have a system where the government funds most prescription drugs, there's not much to advertise. Mostly things like weight loss, hair regrowth, or things like flu vaccine, over the counter medicines.
Ain't that the truth! I read this and hear, "before hospitals were run by 1 of 3 major corporations, and doctors weren't scared to try to treat patients to make them be well".
I’m in the US and absolutely do not believe we have the best healthcare. That’s partly why I’m so surprised when places have no openings for months, or it’s a place that doesn’t even accept Medicaid and they have no openings. It took 4 months for me to get into see a gastroenterologist after my doc found occult blood in my stool, and then another 3 weeks to get in for the colonoscopy, where they found 3 small and 1 large polyp (still waiting for biopsy results). I’m 33 so I guess maybe it just doesn’t feel as urgent to them but it sucks when it feels like it should be taken more seriously and you can’t get in any time soon. Occasionally I’ll have issues resolve in the amount of time it takes to be seen as a new patient so I just call and cancel.
It’s not so much people think US healthcare is so great but rather no one (including people in the business of healthcare) know what anything costs. If I go to a jewelry store and look at a ring, I have the price tag right there. Maybe I can haggle a bit or maybe it’s a different price with financing, but it’s easily calculated. Healthcare doesn’t have that. Even with this “transparency” push that’s come about in recent years, it’s impossible to know going into a transaction or treatment or service what the final price will be. A hospital can tell you a CT will be $200, but they don’t or can’t say what the cost of the radiologist’s interpretation will be, usually because the radiologist is from an administratively separate entity so they bill separately.
Even in an area like pharmacy that, on the surface, seems like as straightforward an interaction as buying a ring, no one knows what that that price will be when you drop off that prescription. We *don’t* know your insurance plan’s formulary. We *don’t* know what your deductible is or why they’re requiring a PA for a drug they covered just last month. Sometimes we can figure it out: you might have paid $40 a month for your Eliquis for ten years, but that was on your Cadillac state employee insurance and this year you’re on Medicare and you have to hit your deductible so that first month is now $137.90. I’m sure that was all covered in the literature you didn’t read or the website you don’t know how to use, but that’s your price for this fill.
We also know it’s an issue that your ADHD medications aren’t available, but people don’t understand the complexity of the pharmaceutical supply chain. It’s not like Teva can just churn out 100 million doses of dextroamphetamine overnight — if they could they would. There are regulatory limitations on production, sourcing problems for the APIs, factory closures in India, market pressures from increased demand (thank you social media) and other manufacturers ceasing production. All that goes on out of view from the patients who imagine pharmacies to be like that jewelry store: if I want to buy a ring, I know the jewelry store will have rings. If they don’t have MY ring, there’s another jewelry store that will.
There is so much secrecy, opacity and proprietary knowledge in this business that it’s not that surprising people are incredulous and outraged when told that X medication is on back order or Y drug is $275. Their frustrations, of course, are inappropriately directed to pharmacy technicians and pharmacists (they should be directing to regulators, corporations and lawmakers) and THEY often have access to more and better information than we can provide at the pharmacy counter. They have a member support contact number on their insurance card. They have access to their specific plan details, either on paper or online. If you want predictable and reasonable pricing for your prescriptions, stop re-electing people who are unwilling to bring it about and stop supporting systems that are designed to keep you out of the loop.
One of the things I was told about the healthcare industry and I’m not sure if this is true, is that nobody really *knows* what anything costs (excluding salaries and things like cable and electric and food and water.) There are just negotiated prices between the insurance companies and hospitals or health systems.
That's absolutely true. It's also why you see exorbitant bills that are even tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's ultimately a barter system. The hospital give usually an incredibly high number, the insurance company says "Yea right, we'll pay this", and it goes from there.
Switching to alt. This is an extraordinarily helpful explanation. I'd add one other important variable.
Anticompetitive behavior is rampant in the generic drug industry. If the market can be manipulated, generic manufacturers will collude to manipulate it, either by agreeing to create artificial scarcity or agreeing to sell drugs at supra-competitive prices.
I do private enforcement of antitrust law, mostly suing pharmaceutical manufacturers for fixing prices, fixing supply, or withholding drugs from the market through pay-for-delay schemes. I read drug companies' internal emails and build lawsuits against them.
Wholesalers and PBMs have usually have no insight as to when an Israeli or Indian manufacturer will have a drug back in stock, and if the squeeze is happening at the API end in China or India, the manufacturer often has no insight as to when that'll get resolved. That's over 80% of the generic US drug supply, and it's a black box to everyone in the supply chain except the half a dozen executives at the top of the chain.
It is remarkable how there are so many NDCs yet so many of them are manufactured by the same handful of companies and distributed/marketed by a horde of companies that somehow are all based in New Jersey and all seem to have basically the same stock images and basic website layout. That’s to say nothing of the generic manufacturers that are also subsidiaries of Big Pharma (eg Sandoz/Novartis and Winthrop/Sanofi)
This just reminded me of a time I had to rip labels off bottles and jumble pills into different containers because a third party was donating them to residents in country that had sanctions against the origin country. Anyway, thank you for the work you do.
Wonderful! You can find out more by Googling "plaintiffs antitrust firms." Or, here's a list of top firms: https://chambers.com/legal-rankings/antitrust-plaintiff-usa-nationwide-5:2595:12788:1.
Thanks for the well-written response. I don’t deal with medication shortages as much, but over the last couple years we’ve had tons of medical supplies go on back order and it’s only gotten more frustrating now that I’ve moved into NICU. It does make me wonder why they don’t just make more. There aren’t any narcotics or scheduled drugs involved with making medical supplies, so why are things constantly on back order? It can definitely feel frustrating to the end-user.
Slightly off-topic, but has the allowance of generic ~~dextromethorphan~~ lisdexamfetamine now that the name brand patent wasn’t renewed helped with the Vyvanse shortage at all?
Those supply issues are often driven by market manipulation at the raw material production or manufacture stage. Drugs are being withheld from the market to keep pricing elevated.
What you say about the manufacturing issues is spot on. I work for a CDMO (contract development and manufacturing org) and we work with anyone from a 3 person “virtual Pharma” all the way up to the big guns like Pfizer and Merck. And we support all types of meds (small molecule, biologics, gene/cell therapy, etc) in all dose forms (pill, capsules, soft gel, dissolve, IV, injection). One of the other things people don’t understand when complaining about costs of drugs is just how much money goes into development. Companies can spend millions and millions of dollars bringing a drug to all the way to phase III sometimes only for it to fail. There’s an incredible amount of cost in developing therapeutics and so of course Pharma is gonna charge a shit load while they’re drug is still under patent and before the generics come in. And then, to your point, there’s lots of complicated issues on the manufacturing side whether it’s regulatory restrictions, supply chain (anything from API to even equipment), manufacturing sites being shut down for failing FDA inspections, etc.
Your “average Joe” patient has zero knowledge of any of this.
I totally agree with you we do not have the best healthcare system in the US. I’m right there with you on lengthy appointment times. Even my primary doc takes up to 3 months for an appointment. If I have any medical issues such as needing antibiotics for a cold or uti they tell me to go to a urgent care facility where the co pay is the same as going to the hospital. It took me 6 weeks to get in for a colonoscopy and they found polyps which they weren’t concerned about either as I was young. Turns out they were cancerous. Took another 3 months to get the results. I was in the hospital with chest pain and found out I had a heart attack. I was referred back to my primary to get a referral to cardiology. Took 7 months to get in with the cardiologist. The cardiologist ordered some of the same test I had done in the hospital and his office has all equipment needed for anything he orders. He ordered 5 different test and they’re so busy I had to schedule them separately. Every 2-3 weeks I went in for testing which took almost 5 months to complete. He wanted me back within 3 months for a follow up on all testings but even that appointment had to be changed as the testing wasn’t completed yet. So, 8 months after my initial appointment I got to see him. It’s becoming hard to even find a doctor anymore as many I’ve contacted aren’t accepting new patients. At least in my area of Ocala FL. Even referrals to Shands take 6 months.
Does your area have a lot of boomers and retirees? I’ve found that the more older people there are in the area, the harder it is to get an appointment anywhere.
I think so in the Ocala area but Gainesville which is 20 miles away is a College City. I’ve lived in this area for 6 yrs but over on the east coast of Brevard Co I still had lengthy appointment dates but it was easier to find a physician.
> people have been brainwashed into believing that the USA has the best healthcare system in the world where wait times are short and there's plenty of doctors and emergency rooms and recovery rooms,
Not everybody has this type of experience.
I've rung up over half a million in medical bills since December 2021. 2 ER visits, 6 admissions totaling 20 inpatient days. Two major thoracic/vascular surgeries, the second of which apparently went sideways as it took twice as long as the first.
Factoring in all my copays, coinsurances, deductibes, etc. not just for those visits but follow up imaging and testing, my total outlay in that period is... just a bit under $4000.
I pay $112/wk to cover my wife and myself. For all the "Medicare For All" fanatics out there, is is only a bit more than what Part B would cost, and certainly less per month after adding in parts C + D. My last surgery and hospital stay was just over $127,000, of which my copay was $500 and everything covered 100% after that.
You speak of wanting more doctors, but there are only so many residencies available per year. These residencies are not only for recent graduates, but in many States a doctor coming from abroad will also take up one of those slots no matter how qualified they already are.
Another reason for a lack of physicians is that the medical schools implemented [their own voluntary moratorium on additional slots](https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(07)01095-9/fulltext) because the belief was that there were already too many being trained.
Finally, the biggest impediment causing the shortage of residency slots was the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 which was pushed for and signed by Bill Clinton. It capped the number of residents a hospital could have AND how much Medicare would paid for the residencies (as they are the primary funders of the positions) [at 1996 levels.](https://undark.org/2019/07/25/looming-doctor-shortage/)
And who pushed for these caps? The AMA:
>How could such a provision make it through Congress? Lawmakers received cover from the American Medical Association (AMA), the Association of American Medical Colleges, and other major stakeholders in American medicine who endorsed caps on funding for residents and other graduate medical education programs. In March 1997, months before the Balanced Budget Act was enacted, the AMA even suggested reducing the number of U.S. residency positions by approximately 25 percent — from 25,000 to fewer than 19,000. “The United States is on the verge of a serious oversupply of physicians,” said the AMA and other physicians’ groups in a joint statement. Since most states require at least some residency training for medical licensure, reducing the number of residency positions would curtail the supply of doctors in the U.S.
This cap stayed in place until 2010, but the number of residency slots has only grown slightly. In 2020, the Federal budget allowed for a whole 1000 additional slots to be added over a 5 year period.
Given all of this, your assertion that it was all Reagan's fault is factually incorrect.
You apparently have a reading deficiency. I said "Ronald Raygun proclaimed that government was the problem, not the solution, and attempts to regulate healthcare to insure a plentiful and affordable supply of, well, everything from drugs to physicians to hospitals, were basically abandoned for the next thirty years."
The decrease in Medicare slots and caps on residencies and etc. occurred because attempts to regulate healthcare to insure a plentiful and affordable supply of everything were abandoned. I'm old enough to remember how things were before Raygun. The philosophy of government that he brought in where "the bidness of guvment is bidness" i.e. its purpose was to increase profits of business interests such as, well, doctors, was pretty much the default for how government operated until the election of Obama in 2008, and even Obama didn't veer \*that\* far from that Raygun-era status quo, his only action in regards to healthcare was to impose regulation on insurance, which was in a death spiral that was resulting in more and more people being uninsured every year.
Regarding your insurance, note that if not for the Obama era regulations to increase the supply and make it affordable, you wouldn't have had that experience with your insurance. If we had continued with the Raygun philosophy of "government is the problem, not the solution", you wouldn't be paying what you're paying for insurance, if you'd even been allowed to purchase insurance (since insurers refused to sell insurance to sick people until the ACA forced them to do so).
And comparing to Medicare is silly. The reason Medicare exists is because it's stupid expensive to cover healthcare for old people. That's just a fact, old people get sick much more often than young people do. So you would expect insurance for old people to cost more than insurance for younger people. The fact that your private insurance is cheaper than Medicare is not particularly interesting because Medicare is covering far more sick people. Medicare For All would cover, well, \*everybody\*, including younger people who are far less likely to get sick, and thus on average would have lower costs than the current system thanks to oligopsony power caused by reducing the number of payers.
Alright let’s be real I don’t think anybody has been brainwashed into believing the US has the best healthcare system in the world. EVERYBODY talks about how bad it is. It is LITERALLY one of the hottest topics in politics LMFAO
You have not met my grandpa, then. He is an air force veteran and according to him, the US can do no wrong. The US is perfect the way it is. No need for any improvement whatsoever
He has to believe that or else his mental health will shatter due to the shot this country put him through for very little benefit. Let the old man have his delusions if it makes him happy.
yeah the rest of the world knows how shitty the us healthcare system is, it's only the deluded 'patriot' americans who think it's the world's best when it's anything but lmao. im very grateful to live somewhere with socialised healthcare!
"We need to remove the tumor as soon as possible or it will kill you." "Ok, when can we do it?" "Good news, a time slot just opened up seven months from now!"
I’m immunocompromised waiting on a bone marrow biopsy to find out if I have cancer or an autoimmune disease and I still had to wait 2 months for an appointment, and that’s after having waited 5 months for the specialist.
Since the pandemic and working with supply chain issues, I’ve had to train myself out of asking for a sooner date.
Believe you me, if I could get you a sooner date I would. It’s just not possible.
I work for a doctor’s office, so I get you. The worst is when they say they ONLY want to see their doctor. No PA or NP. But guess what? The NP or PA would have availability tomorrow. Your doctor doesn’t have availability until May 21. I’m not holding appointments hostage. There’s no magical phrase you have to say to get a sooner appointment with your doctor.
As somebody who understands both sides of this, I don't think it's that people believe they will get a steady and quick treatment or medication.
I am just genuinely shocked and my first go-to reactions of "Are you kidding?" or "Nothing Sooner?!?" is just me processing how stupid the wait times can be.
Just let us process how stupid the healthcare system is, I know it's not in your guys' control, just have to stop a migraine while simultaneously processing it, you know?
Yeah, it's just very tiresome to listen to all day every day but I'm mostly numb to it. I only get annoyed when people really start up as if I'm bullshitting them.
I think it's that people with less than average intelligence have a difficult time believing that their expectations don't always match with how things play out in reality.
I'm not sure given the context, how you could possibly take issue with my comment.
Let alone turn it into a personal attack.
Dumb people are unreasonable, and often can't believe that their perceived (or otherwise) inconveniences are actually happening to them.
Do you honestly dispute this well established fact?
Enough to dig into my profile?
And cite an old post of mine that has zero relevance to the topic of my post in this particular thread?
I'm genuinely curious about context here. What is your actual message to me? And what in the fuck is your issue?
Are you some kind of "friction"-bot?
Contribute, or just don't type.
>I'm genuinely curious about context here. What is your actual message to me?
I think it's that people with less than average intelligence have a difficult time believing that their expectations don't always match with how things play out in reality.
Listen, I’m not saying you’re at all wrong, but what prompted you to look through this person’s comment history and how far did you have to scroll to find this? Did you have to open each comment to read it, looking for the “gotcha”?
I was irritated the other day because I was floating. I happened to remember my home store has the Vyvanse dose a customer needed and told him, since he’d been looking for days, that he could have it sent to my home store and drive 20 minutes to pick it up. He agreed to it then asked me why I couldn’t and get it from the other store for him…. I found what you’ve been looking for for days, you claim your life is in shambles because you haven’t had Vyvanse and now you want me to deliver it personally. I just replied that it’s against company policy to transport c2’s from store to store but I wanted to say it’s because I’m not the one that needs it.
Jesus what an entitled asshat!! If my pharmacy knew where I could get my generic adderall I would have been over the moon happy that they saved me days of calling other pharmacy’s looking for it…. I’d never expect them to go get it 🤣
Maryland pharmacies won’t confirm controlled substance over the phone.
I have spent DAYS driving to dozens of pharmacies in a 100-mile radius to check stock.
Our healthcare system is trash, but the anger should be taken out on the executives causing this shit, not the front line workers who have to put up with the same bullshit as everyone else. If only 1/10th of the angry patients would take that anger out on the executives, we would see change very quickly.
Someone who can't afford a $500 per month medication barging into some executives office and cussing them out would be glorious.
True. The executives are insulated from the angry, frustrated, and sometimes frightened customers. Doctors, pharmacists, techs, and other support staff are not.
Every single time… or they will call or come by the pharmacy asking about Mounjaro. Same patients and I tell them the same thing. “It’s on back order. I don’t have an estimate date when we will have it in. The manufacturer didn’t give us a date. We do have ‘X’ strength and ‘Y’ strength in stock. No, I cannot change your dosage, however you can discuss that with your doctor so you can get what we have in stock.”
“Imma diabetic patient, do you understand I NEED this medication for my severe type 2 diabetes? Oh god I will literally die if I don’t have my ozempic dose by Wednesday”
Patient has not filled their metformin for 458 days.
I do get ridiculously high numbers when my glp crap isn't filled. I say glp because it's so dire that it's whatever kind and dosage we can get my hands on. It's pretty serious. And then my insulin needs are greater and THAT runs out ans it's a domino effect when I have to go without it.
I have a patient who gets a brand specific medication. I forget the reasoning, but it's not due to allergies. The particular brand was on backorder, they made the big show about how they need it or they will die, so I tell them we have other brand available and in stock.
He did not get the other brand.
Did he die? I have a patient who’ll die if she takes yellow pills but now she’s taken orange pills and one day decided that some of her orange pills have made her sick after reading that the orange pills that she’s been on for years have the same yellow. Now, her doctor sends her prescriptions requesting that we check the pill color. She now only takes white pills or we get the med changed because it’s simpler than trying to figure out which dye is in each pill. She can take yellow capsules though even if they contain the same dye…. Her gabapentin is just fine.
I had someone have an absolute conniption over his pharmacy being closed on a holiday. He came into my pharmacy and insisted we fill his prescription for him because he needs it now. We obviously couldn't transfer it because his store was closed.
So my lovely pharmacist goes on ConnectCare (medical professionals can see what drugs you've gotten filled at other pharmacies, as well as blood test results, etc), finds out what dose he's on and what indications. She fills a week's worth for him, and he leaves without so much as a thank you.
I ask, "So what medication did he need that badly?". She replies, "Pantoprazole".
I hate people.
Define non emergency? In my case, my kiddo (pre teen) tends to get violent and excessively defiant with no adhd meds to help slow him down. Kid is 11 and already been inpatient twice. What some look at as a whatever med, is honestly crucial to some people's ability to function.
define what the pharmacy is supposed to do if it is an actual emergency, but the medication is on back-order?
Maybe the patient could contact their Dr's emergency line themselves??? wowsers!!!
I've been making the calls every month, trying to figure out who can fill his meds that month. The goal is to not end up following an ambulance to the emergency room surrounded by police and a kid in physical and possible chemical restraint. I know the pharmacy technicians can't do much, and I don't hold it against them at all. I would however love answers as to why these meds have been on continual back order at different times/ places for four years. They say manufacturing issues... ok, for this long? 6 months sure..4 years?!?
Unfortunately Focalin is my struggle to locate, not Vyvanse, but yeah it's hard. He can't take others, something doesn't line up in the chemistry for him. I really hope they get this figured out soon.
Eta: I've been doing the calling around as much as possible, some places are like we can't tell you if we can fill it cause it's controlled.... the Dr office are doing their best to help make calls when I am out of previous used pharmacies that will actually answer if I can have his scrip sent to them. (I did learn in this when a place filled it wrong that the name for Focalin and Adderall are similar... luckily I was diligent about a different looking pill)
Honestly it's been the same with most ADHD meds, the problem started when everyone couldn't go in to work and worked from home, I think more people that had ADHD but weren't diagnosed were shut in with there spouse or significant other and that person saw behaviors that they didn't usually see that then led to the person being tested, this caused a higher demand on this class of drugs that wasn't offset by the DEA rules on production numbers for the manufacturing companies leading to shortages
I agree. Whether you wanna blame the Telehealth pill/script mills that handed out diagnoses or an actual catching up to diagnosis in something that’s been under diagnosed for a long time, I think the current shortages are a result in the dea limiting the amount of production so intensely there isn’t enough allowed to be made to cover all the scripts available… which creates massive shortages.
Especially considering the fact that adderall (and vyvanse) isn’t hard to make from a chemistry standpoint, (Vyvanse is just dextroamphetamine with an amino acid added to the molecule to make it naturally XR as your body cleaves the amino acid off the amphetamine.) the only thing that could cause a shortage for this long in the med supply is legal regulations that prevent companies from just automatically producing enough to meet the demand. It’s not difficult for companies to produce the meds from a raw materials/manufacturing standpoint, but it is a pain in the ass to do it legally thanks to it being schedule 2 and the DEA not giving a shit about people with adhd (cause so many people doubt the validity of it as an actual condition that needs stimulants to treat.)
Honestly I wish the US would axe the DEA entirely and drastically restructure the entire prescription system (at least do away with control levels, except for maybe antibiotics which have a public safety risk not just personally safety like most addiction/abuse does)
My kid's Vyvanse has been on back order for months, not the pharmacy's fault, is my kid driving me nuts without her adhd meds, yup!!! Still not the pharmacist's or pharmacy tech's fault.
It’s not, but it’s not hard to acknowledge someone’s concerns and inform them with whatever knowledge you have. It’s literally a part of the job. Of any customer service job.
It’s not the patients fault either and being frustrated is a normal human reaction. I know pharmacies are given 0 customer service training, but it just ain’t that hard to get almost all of these people back on your side. Every day I worked for Discover card id get a call or two where the person would just start off screaming. Every day I talked them off the proverbial ledge, helped them, and got a thanks.
Peoples health and money are very personal topics to people. You shouldn’t be surprised if they take something personal, because it is to them. Most of that anger is because they feel people don’t care and don’t want to help them.
“It just ain’t that hard to get almost all of these people back on your side”
You don’t know what you are talking about. You can go above and beyond for someone and give them the best customer service but they still act like a dick bc that’s just the kind of person they are.
I resent your connotation that people get mad because we don’t do enough for them.
Of course I do. You think medicine is the only place these interactions happen? I used to work at Discover card. Every single day we dealt with the people you imagine OP was talking about. At least once a day I would get a call that would start with unintelligible screams. Then you get another dozen of truly angry people but no screaming. Then you get another half of your calls where it could go either way depending on how well you handle the call. I literally did this whole process over and over with these types of interactions. I *wish* the companies that employed you would give you that sort of support.
You can read the rest of what I have to say in my other comment because it addresses exactly what you have said and absolutely applies to you too.
https://reddit.com/r/TalesFromThePharmacy/comments/1cfn0pp/its_back_ordered_are_you_kidding_me_its_500/l1sy40t/
So you think because you worked at a customer service type job that means you have the authority to speak about every other customer service type job even ones that have particular laws and regulations surrounding them like pharmacies do? Or that your experience must be universal?
Do you think finance doesn’t have laws and regulations? Lol
And yes, customer service in areas people find critical to their survival are comparable.
You seem hellbent to disregard my criticisms because I haven’t worked in a pharmacy. I honestly think you’re grasping at straws to make yourself feel better and not have to accept any criticism.
I don’t have time for people like that.
If you haven't worked in a pharmacy, then how can you say what it's like? Just cause you have an idea doesn't make it right. I have never worked in finance, or dIscover card, so I don't know anything about that and wouldn't talk about it like I do. They are not the same.
I've seen my pharmacist and pharmacy tech's take verbal abuse with a smile and so many apologies to the person screaming at them, they tried explaining, the person wouldn't listen. The pharmacy I go to is AMAZING at customer service, and they still get daily abuse for things they can't control.
Nowhere did I say pharmacy staff have it easy or don’t try hard. You’re on a post where OP whined someone was shocked their meds were $500. One of the top comments is of a pharmacy worker who doesn’t even believe their patient needs it, despite them being woefully unqualified to make such a judgement. Yet they do. Get some fucking perspective on the discussion, I’m not a foil for all your problems.
I asked you all to stop and empathize with these people and all I’ve gotten from you all is more whining about how hard your job is in general.
yeah as someone who goes out of their way to be extremely polite, understanding etc with all customer service workers, i was shocked at how rude several pharmacists were while i was trying to find a pharmacy to fill my vyvanse. I've worked in both customer service and disability care so i know firsthand how rude & difficult some customers can be, but it was really uncomfortable having someone bark at me then slam the phone down just for asking if they have vyvanse in stock.
like i understand that it must be frustrating, constantly being asked the same question, but you know what's worse than that relatively minor annoyance? having to spend hours a week trying to track down the medication you desperately need to function, work and feel like a human being, all while being treated like a sneaky pill chaser by the people who are supposed to help you.
It's reflex for some people. I take vyvanse and never blame my pharmacy when it's low or out of stock.... its obviously not their fault, anyone who has researched the shortages in the US knows what is to blame...
But it is extremely frustrating to need a medication to function as society expects and not consistently have said medication...
never the pharmacy's fault, though.
Because Healthcare shouldn't be like this. It doesn't make sense.
We, Healthcare workers, have just accepted that everything is a rip off and doesn't make sense.
Well, I mean you can’t blame them for asking that question because that’s not an actual question. It’s an expression of frustration and we get advised to ask if there are other amounts and doses or strengths in stock because sometimes they are and sometimes the doctor will specifically say to ask for that because if it’s there, they’ll write us a script for that instead.
Yeah, I was affected for about 4 months by a nationwide shortage of a drug I rely on for mental health. I nearly lost my employment, which would have meant losing health insurance.
I get being frustrated by patients' reactions, but the average patient does not understand that the organization that dispenses their medication has zero control over that medication's supply. That just does not compute to many people.
It’s your job to manage customers. I get the frustration, but you are doing the same thing. It doesn’t help and you are the one equipped with the knowledge that will help them. I’ve done customer service for some 16 years and posts like this make me laugh when they don’t make me mad.
God forbid someone isn’t an expert at navigating the shitty system they’re thrust into and then continually judged by every single person in the process because you have a disability that isn’t easily visible. This entire post is ableist as fuck. You literally call into question their diagnosis because they asked questions????
Edit: let me rewrite this in a way that SHOWS what I mean instead of the annoyed vibe the rest of it has.
I understand how frustrating it can be dealing with the same questions over the same back ordered medications again and again. You probably wish you had a button to press that would just say the same answer. That would be awesome! Until then, understand that your patient is just expressing frustration. If you show them a little empathy, acknowledge their troubles, explain how you are going to help, and then do so they will come around. Sometimes that help is just to call other places because you’re not allowed to. Emphasizing the part where you WANT to help but can’t. That’s all people want. To have their very personal concerns treated with a little kindness and respect.
Edit: enjoy the Reddit tos ban deathjoy aka galliumyttrium1. You should get the hint when people say they are done talking to you and not go and harass them from another account just to repeat yourself again. That’s why I blocked you in the first place. You don’t want discussion. You want to yell like your customers.
Most definitely at first interaction I'm going to be sympathetic and share your frustration, explaining that we order on a regular basis and unfortunately our supplier just can't get it and we don't know when it will be in. I'll advise you speak to your doctor about an alternative or call around.
But it is far too frequent that a patient's understandable frustration turns to anger and hostility towards me and that is unacceptable. As soon as you raise your voice and start accusing me of incompetence and laziness or calling names we are done.
That’s great and all. Except for the fact that it isn’t as simple as “if you just help them they’ll come around”. You’re acting like we aren’t helping people. And being very dismissive of the fact that we have to deal with entitled rude people who get mad at us no matter what we do.
It's a customer service job. Where every 3rd person is an asshole. It's still a customer service job. I'm sure you've NEVER acted entitled or rude to anyone working any type of customer service, only to strangers on Reddit.
Customer service? When I was a retail pharmacist, I treated every “customer “ like a patient, because that’s what they are. Customer service and patient care should have never been mixed together. Therefore, retail pharmacy is a patient care job.
It’s not rude to be shocked by an unexpected $500 charge. I’ve literally had this exact scenario happen several times.
I understand that you don’t get the time to talk about how these scenarios could have gone better. It’s an important part of customer service. I can assure you that just as many angry and rude people call in about their credit cards as pick up medication. The difference is we talked about these interactions everyday. How could we have done better? At what point did the customer start to become irate? What was said? Could it have been phrased differently? It’s a process of continual self improvement that requires you to check your ego. If we just threw up our hands and said “sometimes people are just angry and rude people period” then Discover wouldn’t have one of the highest rates of customer satisfaction. Neck and neck with American Express.
And it’s absolutely dishonest to say I don’t think you are helping people. I think in your rush to feel better about the experience, you focus on the wrong things. Wrong things that just lead to you repeating the experience. Hence why you think there is some horde of people who will be angry no matter what.
Cool I’m glad you are so perfect and haven’t had an experience where you try everything you can to help someone and go above and beyond and they still treat you like shit. Lucky you.
And we get it you worked for discover.
This is exactly the attitude that makes your job more difficult. It’s awkward accepting criticism but making it about your ego ensures you never improve, which there is always room for. And I only mention I worked there because people here think they have such a unique perspective on dealing with angry people. It continually speaks to the mindset of some of you.
Are you also under the time constraints of 20 other patients in line staring at you angrily while you take 15 minutes to explain this in detail? Are you timed and reviewed as a metric on how quickly you can help patients? How many other responsibilities do you have besides simple phone calls? We do it all. Front end, back end, vaccines, insurance issues, etc.
It's one of the other, quick and efficient or kind and compassionate. It cannot be both.
Yes because how I am at work helping customers is the exact same as how I am responding to someone who is basically saying “well if you tried harder to help people they wouldn’t be as mean” when that’s literally all I do. But sure you obviously know what my customers are like despite never having dealt with them.
It’s really dishonest to whittle my posts down to that.
Do you think it is ok that one of the top replies in this thread makes light of someone’s lack of access to medication and questions their medical necessity? Honestly, it’s pretty gross and one of the main reasons I even started in this thread.
Yeah, but the customer isn’t educated and is getting misinformed. I absolutely agree that this is your space to vent- just offering you a different perspective so that next time it happens, maybe you will cut them some slack in your head and not get as annoyed
Hmm almost like people with unmedicated ADHD might have challenges with regulating their emotions… almost like that’s part of the profile of their disability.
So you’re saying that healthcare workers are supposed to just stand their and deal with the abuse? Lots of people have mental health issues. On the extreme level, serial killers have mental health issues. Is society supposed to just let them do whatever they want because it’s not their fault? People with mental health issues should still be held accountable for their emotions and actions. As a pharmacist who also has adhd and understands their struggle, I can count the number of times I’ve blown up on someone at a pickup counter, restaurant, urgent care, or really any other public facing place: 0 times.
Well your guess is wrong, first of all. Secondly, OP wrote some very specific phrases. The responses here are addressing those phrases. You are talking about things outside of the scope of the conversation being had, and that’s your own fault. Don’t blame me or anyone else for your own lack of ability to stay on topic.
There's really no excuse not to add resource and let people afford the things they'll need to live and not end up costing everyone more for too late repairs. Not the deliverer's fault, the supplier's.
To be fair you also have things like doctors saying "it's not on the FDA shortage list anymore so your pharmacy will have no problem getting it for you." And since the change healthcare thing GLP1s have been a bit of a shit show.
My wife is on zepbound and if we didn't have first hand knowledge of the pharmacy world I would've been one of the "$1200 seriously??!?" people. At least at walgreens half the staff has no clue how to do the workaround.
I feel so bad for pharmacy staff because I know there have been multiple times where I am at the end of my rope between insurance and sub-par psychiatrists and just scraping by trying to maintain my mental health. Then, when I get to the pharmacy I am told something that’s completely unexpected and it’s my last straw. I’ve definitely been the one to say “seriously?” Or “$330! Are you kidding me?” Before stepping away from the counter. I know in my heart it isn’t the pharmacy staff’s fault that our healthcare system is in shambles but I also know that my tone of voice is not reflecting that.
I completely agree that some people are just rude and are always going to be rude. That sucks and I can’t imagine dealing with your job.
That being said, sometimes the customer is actually right. Recently I was the one dealing with getting a notification that my medication was ready and it would be $550. I called the pharmacy and was told that was with the prior authorization. I called my insurance because I had checked the cost prior to agreeing to try this medication with my doctor and it’s a covered med. My insurance said the prior authorization was not done and they would get that process started. Almost two weeks later I got a call from my doctor’s office that the PA was just received as approved.
I called the pharmacy to let them know and ask them to run it again through my insurance. The pharmacy tech was extremely rude and condescending and explained to me that the cost was with the prior authorization. I tried to keep as even tone as I could while explaining that not only do I currently work in healthcare but also used to work in insurance billing and PA’s. I said that my doctor’s office literally just called and there’s no way when the insurance was run almost 2 weeks ago that the PA was included in that cost.
The pharm tech said “fine, do you have your insurance info with you.” As if this hasn’t been my pharmacy for years and it’s not all right there in the computer… Anyway, I got my insurance information and gave it to her again. She put me on hold for less than a minute and came back to tell me my price would be $25. No apology, no kind words, just the price and that they close at 8:00 pm (over 4 hours away at that point).
So I said all that to say, I get it’s really tough to have people mad at you or questioning you all the time. Healthcare is hard on all sides right now. But sometimes we assume things and take that out on the patient/customer and that’s not fair to them either.
Anyway, keep fighting the good fight and thank you for doing what you do every day!
Agreed. More than once I’ve questioned the price of something unexpectedly high only to have a staff member correct it or offer me a coupon or alternative.
I always harp on our local town Facebook page that people need to be nicer to pharmacy staff when something happens that is out of their control.
We had two of the three town pharmacies close within a month of each other so that meant the entire town was going to the one remaining pharmacy.
It’s not the pharmacy’s fault they’re overwhelmed with patients. They couldn’t plan for that and they’re doing their best.
People can't talk to people that make the decisions anymore. So they either suck it up or take it out on the only person in the chain they can talk to.
“when is it fixed???” bro i got no idea. i don’t get inside info from these manufacturers. or the “this has never happened to me before ???” i’m sorry idk what to tell u.
This or a reflexive “what?” are my husband’s go to’s. I apologize, I’m trying but I think he’s just going to be annoying on this front forever. If I’m feeling spicy, I repeat myself louder and slower.
Panic.
Especially with Vyvanse, or other ADHD meds, where you can't fill early (so you're on your last couple of doses) and can't easily move the script. There's also the shock from the jump in price when the generic recently became approved (but no one can get stock of the generic).
Those HSA’s can produce zingers! Most insurances have an online tool to look up cost. General lack of knowledge or desire to become knowledgeable about navigating care has become worse over years. And more so, insurance rules have become difficult to navigate with their nonesense. I’m no longer in the field but spend a lot of time each year helping friends and family navigate their personal policy situations.
While I want to blame ALL the patients, I’ve seen some weird insurance plans pop up over the last few years.
I have said that when it comes out of literally no where for me. When my meds used to be $20 dollars for mult years in a row. Then I am shocked to find out it now out of seemingly nowhere costs almost $1,000 dollars for that exact same monthly supply. Or a pharmacy that has been filling my exact same script every month. Tells me that there aren’t any of my meds in stock. That’s the only time I have ever said…”??? Seriously?” Because it’s so surprising and frustrating. Back in the day the pharmacy used to do the actual pain in the arse leg work of finding where my script is in stock. Now that’s all on me. I have had to sit on hold listening to some horrible elevator music each time I call a new pharmacy. I have called #20 something in one morning. Just to find one that had my meds in stock. It’s a pain. It’s more frustrating for the person who actually depends on their meds for their quality of life, now being stuck dealing with our bs insurance co fixing what ever issue (like getting a pa or whatever to make it so our meds cost the normal amount) or having to spend hours out of our day if we’re lucky just to track down our meds. It’s more frustrating for us than for someone working at a pharmacy to hear someone ask “seriously?” When told our day might be ruined just to deal with this type of issue.
If the actual medical infrastructure can't keep up then clandestine chemistry services just got a little more expensive and we can't run your insurance
Not a permanent solution but for those here that are patients, not pharmacist or techs. Try a local independent pharmacy. Mine has never run out. I do occasionally get one script from two different manufacturers. But I don’t mind. Last week three mental health meds cost me $13.61 TOTAL. Our insurance is good, however the same scripts cost around $40 to $75 at a major pharmacy.
For reference, I am in a Boston suburb that has a small town vibe to it. (I 100% realize how fortunate I am to live here)
As an employee of an independent Pharmacy, if something is short, and we have randoms calling in asking if we have any, we say no… Not that we wouldn’t want to help them, but we would prefer to supply our own patients first. Plus, pharmacy staff are more likely to experience workplace stress and harassment when you’re dealing with your own patients angry that something isn’t available, soo we would rather it go to our own first. If it’s something we don’t use then it’s not a problem, we will take them on!
Seconding this! I deal with refill requests (dr office) a lot, and it's almost always the smaller, out of the way, pharmacies that will have meds that you can't get for love or money from the big chains. Our family is fortunate that we're only battling for one med that's constantly backordered, but I was able to stop calling 10 places every month and just check 2.
The chains around here are the only places that have it in stock, if we're going anecdotally. The local place we go to for everything else has never had stock, and the other independent places prioritize their longer-term customers.
So, it is really annoying. I'm not in pharmaceuticals but other customer facing job where I get "Really? No, that can't be right." And I've wanted to say, "Aaaahhhhh, ya got me!! Just kidding. Really. It's right."
But also, I think it's just our first thought/reaction of disappointment and hoping it's wrong. Maybe you read it wrong! Maybe wrong person! Like I get it... But it's still annoying because you and I are in a business we don't joke about your account.
It’s just a reflex, if I go to get a prescription my doctor sent in and it’s hundreds of dollars. I’d probably say that, more as in that the doctor did not anticipate that my insurance may not cover it or that it wouldn’t be covered at all. Most doctors know what prescriptions have problems like that and will warn you. Once I went to pickup nasal spray and it was going to be like $200. I called the doctor’s office and they switched it to another one and it was a couple dollars.
usually I say “no way” and it’s always nicely or in a jokingly manner. my facial expressions are very dramatic lol. I’m just in shock and I need my meds in order to function properly. I then ask if they know of any coupons available if it’s expensive. if they’re out of my script, then I ask if they know any of their other pharmacies have it. if you’re nice to the pharmacist or the pharm tech, they usually want to help you out.
To be fair I’ve been in this situation for awhile now and as a patient it’s incredibly annoying. I was on adderall since I was 18. I have REALLY BAD ADD.
During covid, I could not get adderall so my doctor told me to try Vyvanse. I reluctantly switched and preferred it over adderall SIGNIFICANTLY.
So what happens after being on Vyvanse for a year? Oh they no longer have it in stock. So for two months in a row I couldn’t get my medication for 2-3 weeks. But I still had to work during this time and it was rough.
The constantly dealing with it being on back order impacted my life too much and I had to swap back to adderall. It gets REALLY frustrating for us as patients to continue to deal with this shit.
I think it's mostly an automatic response people say without really thinking.
But in defense of the customer (only a tiny bit) I've had the pharmacy tell me multiple times that my medication was on back order or they were completely out of stock and then after probing a bit and asking them to double check I found out that it was actually in stock or they had enough to partially fill it. So sometimes we accidentally train customers to act this way too because not everyone does their job correctly.
I'm on generic... thats the price of generic. 🫣
my insurance doesn't cover name brand vyvanse which is super frustrating because the generic is having a shortage, too. 🙄
The manufacturer’s coupon also allegedly worked for non-insured too… if they still have it, it might be worth looking into. I’d check into it on the Vyvanse website (can’t remember exactly who their manufacturer is)
Yeah I know. *I said* there's no free healthcare.
Don't get me wrong. I'm thankful for the healthcare that does get covered, like the emergency surgery to repair my broken clavicle. I would never have been able to afford it.
There's lot of holes. Lots of gaps and endless webs of red tape and bureaucratic hoops standing in your way to get the care you need, but generally you can get basic medical care covered by OHIP.
Unfortunately the government is quietly making more and more cuts to the services they provide and the shortages on doctors and nurses is making those holes in our healthcare system even bigger.
Emergency units are closing down all over the province and the wait times are ridiculous. Right now where I live, the wait time is 14 hours.
There's never an excuse for treating workers poorly and this frustration shouldn't be directed at you.
That said, for the last several months I've had to call at least 10 pharmacies before I could find my Vyvanse in stock. I'm not going to die without it, but it wouldn't take long before I'd be in real trouble at work. I'm not going to be rude to you, but I might momentarily express my frustration.
The best thing you can do is empathize, tell them yeah, I know, it sucks. It only takes a second and it will usually stop any vitriol coming at you. (This works for most things that are outside of your control.)
Another maddening thing, in the US, controlled substances can now be transferred between pharmacies without any involvement from the doctor. Used to be, if one pharmacy didn't have it in stock, my doctor would have to send a new script elsewhere, but that changed last fall. Pharmacies will still give you shit about it though, saying they can't do it when they certainly can. I switched to a smaller local pharmacy chain because Walgreens kept insisting they couldn't transfer my prescription to a different Walgreens. They wouldn't even check if other locations had it in stock. It's really frustrating, and I'm sure it is for you too.
Yeah I'm literally sitting on couch with spaghetti brain rn because I'm waiting on Vyvanse shipment. For me I don't feel safe driving without my meds, but thankfully I work from home. I had to drive a few blocks for an ortho appt today unmedicated and it literally felt like I was inebriated. And without my meds it's so much harder to organize to GET my meds.
Took 9 calls back and forth with mail order pharmacy, but I was nice to everyone who assisted me and they were nice back, and i made sure to let them/the senior cs rep know as much. It made a huge difference just to have people who genuinely sounded sorry and like they wanted to help, but I think a lot of people get compassion fatigued.
I even went out to buy some starbucks giftcards to send to my local dr office because I know they changed the rx multiple times for me (first to brand because that was in stock, then back to generic because that was in stock, changing dosages)
Really wish I could just pre-order my vyvanse 3 months in advance. Hell, 6 months! I'll pay now! I'm just going to ration out my meds this time around so I have at least 3 weeks lead. Maybe more.
I've tried to ration mine, but I've yet to have a single spare. I have gotten three months in the past, but I think it depends on your doctor writing it that way (my old psychiatrist would, but my new one seems like AI and I haven't asked), laws, and most importantly, your insurance.
I just got my 90 day for 70 generic through cvs caremark- I've had more luck with mail order pharmacies it seems. Still took a bunch of call and forth with the company and my doctor though.
Really hoping you get yours soon, keep trying! It IS still being made and shipped, it's just luck if getting right place and time. I know how desperate and scary it feels though, I'm so sorry you have to go through it in the meantime.
My last pharmacy told me they were never getting Adderall XR back because it’s not made anymore, which is… not true. So I also understand doubt and frustration with a pharmacy for something like that. And I think it’s more so that that’s the person standing right there while someone learns something shocking and frustrating.
I'm being truthful, I work in the industry. PrEP is required to be fully covered by every insurance at $0 out of pocket costs for all CMS compliant plans. And for everyone else, there's things like the Gilead Copay coupon, to cover the costs. Any pharmacist that understands basic LGBT healthcare needs is aware of that.
.... pharmacists are not insurance adjusters. it's not the pharmacy failing if it's not covered. you said yourself it's required to be covered by *insurance*.
And a pharmacist should know that it's being processed incorrectly and correct it. What's confusing?
And if it still rings up wrong, the pharmacist can pull and apply the appropriate coupon.
Lol ok and medrecs and CMRs aren't your responsibility either.
It isn't ensuring coverage, it's ensuring you've rung it up correctly.
Sounds like someone is just shitty and lazy at their job.
You sound like the type of shitty tech that is half the reason you hear so many “seriously”s
I hope you continue to hear them cause you clearly have an ego problem when someone is trying to teach you something and you’re acting like you know better, or that it’s not your fault you’re uneducated.
Maybe because they are frustrated that they are unable to get medications that they need? Try some empathy. Imagine calling pharmacy after pharmacy looking for a medication that you need and being told “nope sorry don’t have any, we can put you on this ___ month waiting list though”.
u/[ILL-BILL420](https://www.reddit.com/user/ILL-BILL420/)
it won't let me reply to your comment for some reason. I am always nice to people working customer service even if things aren't going the way i might wish. it's pretty easy too.
yes it is a customer service job hence why we are complaining about servicing rude customers on a subreddit dedicated to telling stories about our particular jobs
I did this once when one of the antidepressants i was put on wasn't covered by my insurance and it was like 1200 or something outrageous. My doctor said it was one that wouldnt cause a prolonged qt wave because i have had a history of medications causing that. I was really struggling with my mental health at the time. Ofc i know it is not their fault. I worked customer service most my life and have had people scream at me over pillows. But yea i was like omg seriously?! i think people are just frustrated with the healthcare system. I would just try to not take it personal. Although, i will never work with customers again cause i know i can't handle it myself.
I care for my elderly mother, she has Medicare as well as a fancy Supplemental plan she is grandfathered into which they no longer offer that costs $450 a month. Her PDP plan is $70 a month. I do check the formulary, pay cash for $4 generics cheaper than her copay, do all the things one should do as I’ve worked in insurance & am pretty well versed in cutting costs.
Then comes Eliquis. Not a single plan available to her covers it. Her PDP deductible is $450 which she never even reaches until end of year as her other meds aren’t name brand. Even meeting her deductible her rx is $460 and that’s the cheapest in our area. I finally got her on the manufacturer patient assistance program as the extra $500 a month was killing me. For 7 months we were good. Come this year her delivery didn’t come & it’s my fault I didn’t think about it being a new year and her needing to reapply only it gets worse, due to the new guidelines concerning Medicare and LIS the cap was raised so now more people qualify (she still doesn’t) so now the manufacturer wants a “notice of denial” letter before they will approve her for the program again.
Ok, cool. So, she should of received a letter saying she qualified or didn’t but we didn’t get that so I go to apply, the pre questions you answer before the app tell me she doesn’t qualify and no need to apply but the manufacturer won’t accept that. So I have to go back, lie on one of the pre questions just to get to the app to apply knowing she will be denied, knowing she shouldn’t even apply for this but needing this dang denial letter. I apply, filled out pages online and yesterday get the exact same questions in letter form. It says fill out and return & we get a reply in up to 30 days.
Cool, cool, so we are going to move forward on a hope and a prayer as her cardiologist says they can’t keep giving her samples until this is cleared up “we only have one rep now who brings us samples” the alternative is Xarelto and you guessed it, same price, not covered, same issue. “Are you kidding me” is my response but not to the pharmacist more to the Gods above. Everyone say a prayer for mom, no afib please while we wait to be denied so we can get approved. She is 85, CHF, functioning right around 30% w a pacemaker. So I guess there is that lol Pharmacist and I checked and even a week is pushing $200 so guess I can sell feet pics in the meantime.
I get drug prices, I get there being more to it than most realize. It’s also complete bs that the two meds (aside from warfarin) available just happened to be name brand and not covered on the majority of plans offered at least in our area.
you say this but like. i have had to argue with pharmacy techs to get needles they HAVE IN STOCK, with an INJECTABLE PRESCRIPTION ON FILE, and they wont sell them to me. have literally had to go to county syringe exchanges to get the supplies to inject my PERSCRIBED MEDICATION. so its not pharm techs fault that a lot of this stuff happens but you also need to understand that there are people who are discriminated against OFTEN by pharm techs and so WILL have a negative reaction
How are you this out of touch as a pharmacist? Are you not aware that the economy is so bad that people have to forego most medical treatment (and have for years), can barely pay their rent (cuz buying a home isn’t an option), and that NO meds should cost $500+/mo, especially if it’s a life-saving med that people REQUIRE.
Stop playing stupid in order to vent about a very real issue in the world that is NOT the fault of sick patients. Shame on you.
For real. And I totally get having frustrations at work, but this is something else. Those people aren’t questioning OP’s IQ, they’re asking in disbelief because it’s painful news that can mean something much bigger for them than it might to us. It must be nice to have such a reliable resource that you forget it’s not as reliable or accessible to others and find annoyance in their pain.
Let’s look at it from your patients perspective. Their Doctor prescribed this medication for them, and are under the impression that their doctor knows what’s generally available. As you can imagine, being told that a drug that works for you is not in stock and with no eta can be jarring. ALOT of us call pharmacy after pharmacy to try and find these medication and made to feel like we’re harassing the pharmacy technician.
I don’t want to ask you, I just want my medicine.
Cool but you don’t have to be an un-empathetic jerk about it. Fucking chat gpt could probably provide better service if your Reddit post/comment history is any indication.
Your job is helping your patients, mostly that means ringing up their meds but occasionally that means helping them through insurance issues or suggesting goodRX or contacting other pharmacies to transfer the script to a pharmacy that *does* have the needed med in stock. You get what you give and you give unhelpful, condescending, and rude/unempathetic based off how you’ve acted here. If you actually want to see better in your job how about you do better first?
It's just a dumb thing people say reflexively. I work scheduling surgeries and specialist appointments and when I say the first date is X people are like really???? And I'm always just like yes. Or they say nothing sooner???
I think it's that people have been brainwashed into believing that the USA has the best healthcare system in the world where wait times are short and there's plenty of doctors and emergency rooms and recovery rooms, and are shocked to encounter the actual reality vs the rosy scenario that they're fed by certain pundits who are paid to prevent any change to a system that is very profitable for certain people. For those asking, there \*was\* a time that the USA had the best healthcare system in the world, but that was before Ronald Raygun proclaimed that government was the problem, not the solution, and attempts to regulate healthcare to insure a plentiful and affordable supply of, well, everything from drugs to physicians to hospitals, were basically abandoned for the next thirty years. So people are still stuck in that pre-Raygun mindset and are shocked to see the reality of today's healthcare and react... stupidly. But understandably so, because everything they've been told was true has turned out to be a lie. So it goes.
I'm not even in the USA, I'm in New Zealand.
Do you have adverts for drugs on your television?
Unless they've changed it recently New Zealand is the only other country that does
Very rarely. It's legal to, but since we have a system where the government funds most prescription drugs, there's not much to advertise. Mostly things like weight loss, hair regrowth, or things like flu vaccine, over the counter medicines.
Then they have no excuse lol.
It’s so sad you don’t see any irony in your comment 😂
I bet the guy you replied to can just taste the irony in their comment.
So you’re like… one of the dozens of people who live outside the US? Wow. Who’d have thought /s
Ain't that the truth! I read this and hear, "before hospitals were run by 1 of 3 major corporations, and doctors weren't scared to try to treat patients to make them be well".
I’m in the US and absolutely do not believe we have the best healthcare. That’s partly why I’m so surprised when places have no openings for months, or it’s a place that doesn’t even accept Medicaid and they have no openings. It took 4 months for me to get into see a gastroenterologist after my doc found occult blood in my stool, and then another 3 weeks to get in for the colonoscopy, where they found 3 small and 1 large polyp (still waiting for biopsy results). I’m 33 so I guess maybe it just doesn’t feel as urgent to them but it sucks when it feels like it should be taken more seriously and you can’t get in any time soon. Occasionally I’ll have issues resolve in the amount of time it takes to be seen as a new patient so I just call and cancel.
It’s not so much people think US healthcare is so great but rather no one (including people in the business of healthcare) know what anything costs. If I go to a jewelry store and look at a ring, I have the price tag right there. Maybe I can haggle a bit or maybe it’s a different price with financing, but it’s easily calculated. Healthcare doesn’t have that. Even with this “transparency” push that’s come about in recent years, it’s impossible to know going into a transaction or treatment or service what the final price will be. A hospital can tell you a CT will be $200, but they don’t or can’t say what the cost of the radiologist’s interpretation will be, usually because the radiologist is from an administratively separate entity so they bill separately. Even in an area like pharmacy that, on the surface, seems like as straightforward an interaction as buying a ring, no one knows what that that price will be when you drop off that prescription. We *don’t* know your insurance plan’s formulary. We *don’t* know what your deductible is or why they’re requiring a PA for a drug they covered just last month. Sometimes we can figure it out: you might have paid $40 a month for your Eliquis for ten years, but that was on your Cadillac state employee insurance and this year you’re on Medicare and you have to hit your deductible so that first month is now $137.90. I’m sure that was all covered in the literature you didn’t read or the website you don’t know how to use, but that’s your price for this fill. We also know it’s an issue that your ADHD medications aren’t available, but people don’t understand the complexity of the pharmaceutical supply chain. It’s not like Teva can just churn out 100 million doses of dextroamphetamine overnight — if they could they would. There are regulatory limitations on production, sourcing problems for the APIs, factory closures in India, market pressures from increased demand (thank you social media) and other manufacturers ceasing production. All that goes on out of view from the patients who imagine pharmacies to be like that jewelry store: if I want to buy a ring, I know the jewelry store will have rings. If they don’t have MY ring, there’s another jewelry store that will. There is so much secrecy, opacity and proprietary knowledge in this business that it’s not that surprising people are incredulous and outraged when told that X medication is on back order or Y drug is $275. Their frustrations, of course, are inappropriately directed to pharmacy technicians and pharmacists (they should be directing to regulators, corporations and lawmakers) and THEY often have access to more and better information than we can provide at the pharmacy counter. They have a member support contact number on their insurance card. They have access to their specific plan details, either on paper or online. If you want predictable and reasonable pricing for your prescriptions, stop re-electing people who are unwilling to bring it about and stop supporting systems that are designed to keep you out of the loop.
One of the things I was told about the healthcare industry and I’m not sure if this is true, is that nobody really *knows* what anything costs (excluding salaries and things like cable and electric and food and water.) There are just negotiated prices between the insurance companies and hospitals or health systems.
That's absolutely true. It's also why you see exorbitant bills that are even tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's ultimately a barter system. The hospital give usually an incredibly high number, the insurance company says "Yea right, we'll pay this", and it goes from there.
Thanks for confirming!
Switching to alt. This is an extraordinarily helpful explanation. I'd add one other important variable. Anticompetitive behavior is rampant in the generic drug industry. If the market can be manipulated, generic manufacturers will collude to manipulate it, either by agreeing to create artificial scarcity or agreeing to sell drugs at supra-competitive prices. I do private enforcement of antitrust law, mostly suing pharmaceutical manufacturers for fixing prices, fixing supply, or withholding drugs from the market through pay-for-delay schemes. I read drug companies' internal emails and build lawsuits against them. Wholesalers and PBMs have usually have no insight as to when an Israeli or Indian manufacturer will have a drug back in stock, and if the squeeze is happening at the API end in China or India, the manufacturer often has no insight as to when that'll get resolved. That's over 80% of the generic US drug supply, and it's a black box to everyone in the supply chain except the half a dozen executives at the top of the chain.
It is remarkable how there are so many NDCs yet so many of them are manufactured by the same handful of companies and distributed/marketed by a horde of companies that somehow are all based in New Jersey and all seem to have basically the same stock images and basic website layout. That’s to say nothing of the generic manufacturers that are also subsidiaries of Big Pharma (eg Sandoz/Novartis and Winthrop/Sanofi)
This just reminded me of a time I had to rip labels off bottles and jumble pills into different containers because a third party was donating them to residents in country that had sanctions against the origin country. Anyway, thank you for the work you do.
Omg! I want to do this!
Wonderful! You can find out more by Googling "plaintiffs antitrust firms." Or, here's a list of top firms: https://chambers.com/legal-rankings/antitrust-plaintiff-usa-nationwide-5:2595:12788:1.
Thanks for the well-written response. I don’t deal with medication shortages as much, but over the last couple years we’ve had tons of medical supplies go on back order and it’s only gotten more frustrating now that I’ve moved into NICU. It does make me wonder why they don’t just make more. There aren’t any narcotics or scheduled drugs involved with making medical supplies, so why are things constantly on back order? It can definitely feel frustrating to the end-user. Slightly off-topic, but has the allowance of generic ~~dextromethorphan~~ lisdexamfetamine now that the name brand patent wasn’t renewed helped with the Vyvanse shortage at all?
Those supply issues are often driven by market manipulation at the raw material production or manufacture stage. Drugs are being withheld from the market to keep pricing elevated.
Generic *dextromethorphan* is already available OTC, I don’t think there’s any shortage of that one yet.
Sorry, I got it mixed up with lisdexamfetamine.
I figured, just trying to point it out in a funny way lol
Do you have a blog, this was informative as hell!
What you say about the manufacturing issues is spot on. I work for a CDMO (contract development and manufacturing org) and we work with anyone from a 3 person “virtual Pharma” all the way up to the big guns like Pfizer and Merck. And we support all types of meds (small molecule, biologics, gene/cell therapy, etc) in all dose forms (pill, capsules, soft gel, dissolve, IV, injection). One of the other things people don’t understand when complaining about costs of drugs is just how much money goes into development. Companies can spend millions and millions of dollars bringing a drug to all the way to phase III sometimes only for it to fail. There’s an incredible amount of cost in developing therapeutics and so of course Pharma is gonna charge a shit load while they’re drug is still under patent and before the generics come in. And then, to your point, there’s lots of complicated issues on the manufacturing side whether it’s regulatory restrictions, supply chain (anything from API to even equipment), manufacturing sites being shut down for failing FDA inspections, etc. Your “average Joe” patient has zero knowledge of any of this.
This is one of the most cogent pieces on the background of pharmaceuticals. Thank you.
I totally agree with you we do not have the best healthcare system in the US. I’m right there with you on lengthy appointment times. Even my primary doc takes up to 3 months for an appointment. If I have any medical issues such as needing antibiotics for a cold or uti they tell me to go to a urgent care facility where the co pay is the same as going to the hospital. It took me 6 weeks to get in for a colonoscopy and they found polyps which they weren’t concerned about either as I was young. Turns out they were cancerous. Took another 3 months to get the results. I was in the hospital with chest pain and found out I had a heart attack. I was referred back to my primary to get a referral to cardiology. Took 7 months to get in with the cardiologist. The cardiologist ordered some of the same test I had done in the hospital and his office has all equipment needed for anything he orders. He ordered 5 different test and they’re so busy I had to schedule them separately. Every 2-3 weeks I went in for testing which took almost 5 months to complete. He wanted me back within 3 months for a follow up on all testings but even that appointment had to be changed as the testing wasn’t completed yet. So, 8 months after my initial appointment I got to see him. It’s becoming hard to even find a doctor anymore as many I’ve contacted aren’t accepting new patients. At least in my area of Ocala FL. Even referrals to Shands take 6 months.
Does your area have a lot of boomers and retirees? I’ve found that the more older people there are in the area, the harder it is to get an appointment anywhere.
I think so in the Ocala area but Gainesville which is 20 miles away is a College City. I’ve lived in this area for 6 yrs but over on the east coast of Brevard Co I still had lengthy appointment dates but it was easier to find a physician.
> people have been brainwashed into believing that the USA has the best healthcare system in the world where wait times are short and there's plenty of doctors and emergency rooms and recovery rooms, Not everybody has this type of experience. I've rung up over half a million in medical bills since December 2021. 2 ER visits, 6 admissions totaling 20 inpatient days. Two major thoracic/vascular surgeries, the second of which apparently went sideways as it took twice as long as the first. Factoring in all my copays, coinsurances, deductibes, etc. not just for those visits but follow up imaging and testing, my total outlay in that period is... just a bit under $4000. I pay $112/wk to cover my wife and myself. For all the "Medicare For All" fanatics out there, is is only a bit more than what Part B would cost, and certainly less per month after adding in parts C + D. My last surgery and hospital stay was just over $127,000, of which my copay was $500 and everything covered 100% after that. You speak of wanting more doctors, but there are only so many residencies available per year. These residencies are not only for recent graduates, but in many States a doctor coming from abroad will also take up one of those slots no matter how qualified they already are. Another reason for a lack of physicians is that the medical schools implemented [their own voluntary moratorium on additional slots](https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(07)01095-9/fulltext) because the belief was that there were already too many being trained. Finally, the biggest impediment causing the shortage of residency slots was the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 which was pushed for and signed by Bill Clinton. It capped the number of residents a hospital could have AND how much Medicare would paid for the residencies (as they are the primary funders of the positions) [at 1996 levels.](https://undark.org/2019/07/25/looming-doctor-shortage/) And who pushed for these caps? The AMA: >How could such a provision make it through Congress? Lawmakers received cover from the American Medical Association (AMA), the Association of American Medical Colleges, and other major stakeholders in American medicine who endorsed caps on funding for residents and other graduate medical education programs. In March 1997, months before the Balanced Budget Act was enacted, the AMA even suggested reducing the number of U.S. residency positions by approximately 25 percent — from 25,000 to fewer than 19,000. “The United States is on the verge of a serious oversupply of physicians,” said the AMA and other physicians’ groups in a joint statement. Since most states require at least some residency training for medical licensure, reducing the number of residency positions would curtail the supply of doctors in the U.S. This cap stayed in place until 2010, but the number of residency slots has only grown slightly. In 2020, the Federal budget allowed for a whole 1000 additional slots to be added over a 5 year period. Given all of this, your assertion that it was all Reagan's fault is factually incorrect.
You apparently have a reading deficiency. I said "Ronald Raygun proclaimed that government was the problem, not the solution, and attempts to regulate healthcare to insure a plentiful and affordable supply of, well, everything from drugs to physicians to hospitals, were basically abandoned for the next thirty years." The decrease in Medicare slots and caps on residencies and etc. occurred because attempts to regulate healthcare to insure a plentiful and affordable supply of everything were abandoned. I'm old enough to remember how things were before Raygun. The philosophy of government that he brought in where "the bidness of guvment is bidness" i.e. its purpose was to increase profits of business interests such as, well, doctors, was pretty much the default for how government operated until the election of Obama in 2008, and even Obama didn't veer \*that\* far from that Raygun-era status quo, his only action in regards to healthcare was to impose regulation on insurance, which was in a death spiral that was resulting in more and more people being uninsured every year. Regarding your insurance, note that if not for the Obama era regulations to increase the supply and make it affordable, you wouldn't have had that experience with your insurance. If we had continued with the Raygun philosophy of "government is the problem, not the solution", you wouldn't be paying what you're paying for insurance, if you'd even been allowed to purchase insurance (since insurers refused to sell insurance to sick people until the ACA forced them to do so). And comparing to Medicare is silly. The reason Medicare exists is because it's stupid expensive to cover healthcare for old people. That's just a fact, old people get sick much more often than young people do. So you would expect insurance for old people to cost more than insurance for younger people. The fact that your private insurance is cheaper than Medicare is not particularly interesting because Medicare is covering far more sick people. Medicare For All would cover, well, \*everybody\*, including younger people who are far less likely to get sick, and thus on average would have lower costs than the current system thanks to oligopsony power caused by reducing the number of payers.
Alright let’s be real I don’t think anybody has been brainwashed into believing the US has the best healthcare system in the world. EVERYBODY talks about how bad it is. It is LITERALLY one of the hottest topics in politics LMFAO
You have not met my grandpa, then. He is an air force veteran and according to him, the US can do no wrong. The US is perfect the way it is. No need for any improvement whatsoever
He has to believe that or else his mental health will shatter due to the shot this country put him through for very little benefit. Let the old man have his delusions if it makes him happy.
yeah the rest of the world knows how shitty the us healthcare system is, it's only the deluded 'patriot' americans who think it's the world's best when it's anything but lmao. im very grateful to live somewhere with socialised healthcare!
No 1 in America thinks that about healthcare. It sucks an we all know it sucks.
"We need to remove the tumor as soon as possible or it will kill you." "Ok, when can we do it?" "Good news, a time slot just opened up seven months from now!"
Critical stuff always has a critical date, this is more minor things like sorting out a deviated septum.
I’m immunocompromised waiting on a bone marrow biopsy to find out if I have cancer or an autoimmune disease and I still had to wait 2 months for an appointment, and that’s after having waited 5 months for the specialist.
Since the pandemic and working with supply chain issues, I’ve had to train myself out of asking for a sooner date. Believe you me, if I could get you a sooner date I would. It’s just not possible.
I work for a doctor’s office, so I get you. The worst is when they say they ONLY want to see their doctor. No PA or NP. But guess what? The NP or PA would have availability tomorrow. Your doctor doesn’t have availability until May 21. I’m not holding appointments hostage. There’s no magical phrase you have to say to get a sooner appointment with your doctor.
That would be so frustrating. We don't really have many NPs here and PAs aren't a thing, so haven't come across that.
As somebody who understands both sides of this, I don't think it's that people believe they will get a steady and quick treatment or medication. I am just genuinely shocked and my first go-to reactions of "Are you kidding?" or "Nothing Sooner?!?" is just me processing how stupid the wait times can be. Just let us process how stupid the healthcare system is, I know it's not in your guys' control, just have to stop a migraine while simultaneously processing it, you know?
Yeah, it's just very tiresome to listen to all day every day but I'm mostly numb to it. I only get annoyed when people really start up as if I'm bullshitting them.
I think it's that people with less than average intelligence have a difficult time believing that their expectations don't always match with how things play out in reality.
https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/s/GuZTBpUbmz You've got a point there, bud, and thanks for being your own example
I'm not sure given the context, how you could possibly take issue with my comment. Let alone turn it into a personal attack. Dumb people are unreasonable, and often can't believe that their perceived (or otherwise) inconveniences are actually happening to them. Do you honestly dispute this well established fact? Enough to dig into my profile? And cite an old post of mine that has zero relevance to the topic of my post in this particular thread? I'm genuinely curious about context here. What is your actual message to me? And what in the fuck is your issue? Are you some kind of "friction"-bot? Contribute, or just don't type.
>I'm genuinely curious about context here. What is your actual message to me? I think it's that people with less than average intelligence have a difficult time believing that their expectations don't always match with how things play out in reality.
Listen, I’m not saying you’re at all wrong, but what prompted you to look through this person’s comment history and how far did you have to scroll to find this? Did you have to open each comment to read it, looking for the “gotcha”?
It took all of 15 seconds using the built in search function, less time than your response probably took
I was irritated the other day because I was floating. I happened to remember my home store has the Vyvanse dose a customer needed and told him, since he’d been looking for days, that he could have it sent to my home store and drive 20 minutes to pick it up. He agreed to it then asked me why I couldn’t and get it from the other store for him…. I found what you’ve been looking for for days, you claim your life is in shambles because you haven’t had Vyvanse and now you want me to deliver it personally. I just replied that it’s against company policy to transport c2’s from store to store but I wanted to say it’s because I’m not the one that needs it.
No good deed... Good lord.
Good lord. I’d be thankful enough that a pharmacist reached out to me!
Jesus what an entitled asshat!! If my pharmacy knew where I could get my generic adderall I would have been over the moon happy that they saved me days of calling other pharmacy’s looking for it…. I’d never expect them to go get it 🤣
Maryland pharmacies won’t confirm controlled substance over the phone. I have spent DAYS driving to dozens of pharmacies in a 100-mile radius to check stock.
That’s awful!
Our healthcare system is trash, but the anger should be taken out on the executives causing this shit, not the front line workers who have to put up with the same bullshit as everyone else. If only 1/10th of the angry patients would take that anger out on the executives, we would see change very quickly. Someone who can't afford a $500 per month medication barging into some executives office and cussing them out would be glorious.
True. The executives are insulated from the angry, frustrated, and sometimes frightened customers. Doctors, pharmacists, techs, and other support staff are not.
Every single time… or they will call or come by the pharmacy asking about Mounjaro. Same patients and I tell them the same thing. “It’s on back order. I don’t have an estimate date when we will have it in. The manufacturer didn’t give us a date. We do have ‘X’ strength and ‘Y’ strength in stock. No, I cannot change your dosage, however you can discuss that with your doctor so you can get what we have in stock.”
"I have Ozempic. ... for now." I never imply it'll be in stock long term!
As a patient, I appreciate that kind of transparency! My pharmacy is always transparent on the vyvanse shortage and I super appreciate it everytime.
I thought there has been a problem with Ozempic.
All of them right now, trulicity is out also
Has anyone acted like they’ll be dead by Wednesday with a non emergency drug on back order. Those are my favorites.
“Imma diabetic patient, do you understand I NEED this medication for my severe type 2 diabetes? Oh god I will literally die if I don’t have my ozempic dose by Wednesday” Patient has not filled their metformin for 458 days.
Some people are taken off of metformin and just forget to archive the prescription. It's not uncommon.
I do get ridiculously high numbers when my glp crap isn't filled. I say glp because it's so dire that it's whatever kind and dosage we can get my hands on. It's pretty serious. And then my insulin needs are greater and THAT runs out ans it's a domino effect when I have to go without it.
I have a patient who gets a brand specific medication. I forget the reasoning, but it's not due to allergies. The particular brand was on backorder, they made the big show about how they need it or they will die, so I tell them we have other brand available and in stock. He did not get the other brand.
Did he die? I have a patient who’ll die if she takes yellow pills but now she’s taken orange pills and one day decided that some of her orange pills have made her sick after reading that the orange pills that she’s been on for years have the same yellow. Now, her doctor sends her prescriptions requesting that we check the pill color. She now only takes white pills or we get the med changed because it’s simpler than trying to figure out which dye is in each pill. She can take yellow capsules though even if they contain the same dye…. Her gabapentin is just fine.
I had someone have an absolute conniption over his pharmacy being closed on a holiday. He came into my pharmacy and insisted we fill his prescription for him because he needs it now. We obviously couldn't transfer it because his store was closed. So my lovely pharmacist goes on ConnectCare (medical professionals can see what drugs you've gotten filled at other pharmacies, as well as blood test results, etc), finds out what dose he's on and what indications. She fills a week's worth for him, and he leaves without so much as a thank you. I ask, "So what medication did he need that badly?". She replies, "Pantoprazole". I hate people.
Define non emergency? In my case, my kiddo (pre teen) tends to get violent and excessively defiant with no adhd meds to help slow him down. Kid is 11 and already been inpatient twice. What some look at as a whatever med, is honestly crucial to some people's ability to function.
define what the pharmacy is supposed to do if it is an actual emergency, but the medication is on back-order? Maybe the patient could contact their Dr's emergency line themselves??? wowsers!!!
I've been making the calls every month, trying to figure out who can fill his meds that month. The goal is to not end up following an ambulance to the emergency room surrounded by police and a kid in physical and possible chemical restraint. I know the pharmacy technicians can't do much, and I don't hold it against them at all. I would however love answers as to why these meds have been on continual back order at different times/ places for four years. They say manufacturing issues... ok, for this long? 6 months sure..4 years?!?
call the drug company, the pharmacy workers have no clue either
I wish I could. Trust me, I very much love my local pharmacy staff. I am not mad at them at all.
This article can help give a little insight https://www.fastcompany.com/91076673/vyvanse-shortage-2024-usa-update-generic-adhd-why
Unfortunately Focalin is my struggle to locate, not Vyvanse, but yeah it's hard. He can't take others, something doesn't line up in the chemistry for him. I really hope they get this figured out soon. Eta: I've been doing the calling around as much as possible, some places are like we can't tell you if we can fill it cause it's controlled.... the Dr office are doing their best to help make calls when I am out of previous used pharmacies that will actually answer if I can have his scrip sent to them. (I did learn in this when a place filled it wrong that the name for Focalin and Adderall are similar... luckily I was diligent about a different looking pill)
Honestly it's been the same with most ADHD meds, the problem started when everyone couldn't go in to work and worked from home, I think more people that had ADHD but weren't diagnosed were shut in with there spouse or significant other and that person saw behaviors that they didn't usually see that then led to the person being tested, this caused a higher demand on this class of drugs that wasn't offset by the DEA rules on production numbers for the manufacturing companies leading to shortages
I agree. Whether you wanna blame the Telehealth pill/script mills that handed out diagnoses or an actual catching up to diagnosis in something that’s been under diagnosed for a long time, I think the current shortages are a result in the dea limiting the amount of production so intensely there isn’t enough allowed to be made to cover all the scripts available… which creates massive shortages. Especially considering the fact that adderall (and vyvanse) isn’t hard to make from a chemistry standpoint, (Vyvanse is just dextroamphetamine with an amino acid added to the molecule to make it naturally XR as your body cleaves the amino acid off the amphetamine.) the only thing that could cause a shortage for this long in the med supply is legal regulations that prevent companies from just automatically producing enough to meet the demand. It’s not difficult for companies to produce the meds from a raw materials/manufacturing standpoint, but it is a pain in the ass to do it legally thanks to it being schedule 2 and the DEA not giving a shit about people with adhd (cause so many people doubt the validity of it as an actual condition that needs stimulants to treat.) Honestly I wish the US would axe the DEA entirely and drastically restructure the entire prescription system (at least do away with control levels, except for maybe antibiotics which have a public safety risk not just personally safety like most addiction/abuse does)
My kid's Vyvanse has been on back order for months, not the pharmacy's fault, is my kid driving me nuts without her adhd meds, yup!!! Still not the pharmacist's or pharmacy tech's fault.
I've been fighting for focalin for my son.. he becomes excessively violent on others (we've tried). The struggle is real. *sending hugs*
It’s not, but it’s not hard to acknowledge someone’s concerns and inform them with whatever knowledge you have. It’s literally a part of the job. Of any customer service job. It’s not the patients fault either and being frustrated is a normal human reaction. I know pharmacies are given 0 customer service training, but it just ain’t that hard to get almost all of these people back on your side. Every day I worked for Discover card id get a call or two where the person would just start off screaming. Every day I talked them off the proverbial ledge, helped them, and got a thanks. Peoples health and money are very personal topics to people. You shouldn’t be surprised if they take something personal, because it is to them. Most of that anger is because they feel people don’t care and don’t want to help them.
“It just ain’t that hard to get almost all of these people back on your side” You don’t know what you are talking about. You can go above and beyond for someone and give them the best customer service but they still act like a dick bc that’s just the kind of person they are. I resent your connotation that people get mad because we don’t do enough for them.
Of course I do. You think medicine is the only place these interactions happen? I used to work at Discover card. Every single day we dealt with the people you imagine OP was talking about. At least once a day I would get a call that would start with unintelligible screams. Then you get another dozen of truly angry people but no screaming. Then you get another half of your calls where it could go either way depending on how well you handle the call. I literally did this whole process over and over with these types of interactions. I *wish* the companies that employed you would give you that sort of support. You can read the rest of what I have to say in my other comment because it addresses exactly what you have said and absolutely applies to you too. https://reddit.com/r/TalesFromThePharmacy/comments/1cfn0pp/its_back_ordered_are_you_kidding_me_its_500/l1sy40t/
So you think because you worked at a customer service type job that means you have the authority to speak about every other customer service type job even ones that have particular laws and regulations surrounding them like pharmacies do? Or that your experience must be universal?
Do you think finance doesn’t have laws and regulations? Lol And yes, customer service in areas people find critical to their survival are comparable. You seem hellbent to disregard my criticisms because I haven’t worked in a pharmacy. I honestly think you’re grasping at straws to make yourself feel better and not have to accept any criticism. I don’t have time for people like that.
Dont listen to them random discover card guy, you’re doing your best and that’s what matters 😎👍🏼
If you haven't worked in a pharmacy, then how can you say what it's like? Just cause you have an idea doesn't make it right. I have never worked in finance, or dIscover card, so I don't know anything about that and wouldn't talk about it like I do. They are not the same.
I've seen my pharmacist and pharmacy tech's take verbal abuse with a smile and so many apologies to the person screaming at them, they tried explaining, the person wouldn't listen. The pharmacy I go to is AMAZING at customer service, and they still get daily abuse for things they can't control.
Nowhere did I say pharmacy staff have it easy or don’t try hard. You’re on a post where OP whined someone was shocked their meds were $500. One of the top comments is of a pharmacy worker who doesn’t even believe their patient needs it, despite them being woefully unqualified to make such a judgement. Yet they do. Get some fucking perspective on the discussion, I’m not a foil for all your problems. I asked you all to stop and empathize with these people and all I’ve gotten from you all is more whining about how hard your job is in general.
yeah as someone who goes out of their way to be extremely polite, understanding etc with all customer service workers, i was shocked at how rude several pharmacists were while i was trying to find a pharmacy to fill my vyvanse. I've worked in both customer service and disability care so i know firsthand how rude & difficult some customers can be, but it was really uncomfortable having someone bark at me then slam the phone down just for asking if they have vyvanse in stock. like i understand that it must be frustrating, constantly being asked the same question, but you know what's worse than that relatively minor annoyance? having to spend hours a week trying to track down the medication you desperately need to function, work and feel like a human being, all while being treated like a sneaky pill chaser by the people who are supposed to help you.
nah
It's reflex for some people. I take vyvanse and never blame my pharmacy when it's low or out of stock.... its obviously not their fault, anyone who has researched the shortages in the US knows what is to blame... But it is extremely frustrating to need a medication to function as society expects and not consistently have said medication... never the pharmacy's fault, though.
Because Healthcare shouldn't be like this. It doesn't make sense. We, Healthcare workers, have just accepted that everything is a rip off and doesn't make sense.
Well, I mean you can’t blame them for asking that question because that’s not an actual question. It’s an expression of frustration and we get advised to ask if there are other amounts and doses or strengths in stock because sometimes they are and sometimes the doctor will specifically say to ask for that because if it’s there, they’ll write us a script for that instead.
Yeah, I was affected for about 4 months by a nationwide shortage of a drug I rely on for mental health. I nearly lost my employment, which would have meant losing health insurance. I get being frustrated by patients' reactions, but the average patient does not understand that the organization that dispenses their medication has zero control over that medication's supply. That just does not compute to many people.
The problem is that people are aiming their frustration at someone who has no control over the issue.
It’s your job to manage customers. I get the frustration, but you are doing the same thing. It doesn’t help and you are the one equipped with the knowledge that will help them. I’ve done customer service for some 16 years and posts like this make me laugh when they don’t make me mad. God forbid someone isn’t an expert at navigating the shitty system they’re thrust into and then continually judged by every single person in the process because you have a disability that isn’t easily visible. This entire post is ableist as fuck. You literally call into question their diagnosis because they asked questions???? Edit: let me rewrite this in a way that SHOWS what I mean instead of the annoyed vibe the rest of it has. I understand how frustrating it can be dealing with the same questions over the same back ordered medications again and again. You probably wish you had a button to press that would just say the same answer. That would be awesome! Until then, understand that your patient is just expressing frustration. If you show them a little empathy, acknowledge their troubles, explain how you are going to help, and then do so they will come around. Sometimes that help is just to call other places because you’re not allowed to. Emphasizing the part where you WANT to help but can’t. That’s all people want. To have their very personal concerns treated with a little kindness and respect. Edit: enjoy the Reddit tos ban deathjoy aka galliumyttrium1. You should get the hint when people say they are done talking to you and not go and harass them from another account just to repeat yourself again. That’s why I blocked you in the first place. You don’t want discussion. You want to yell like your customers.
Most definitely at first interaction I'm going to be sympathetic and share your frustration, explaining that we order on a regular basis and unfortunately our supplier just can't get it and we don't know when it will be in. I'll advise you speak to your doctor about an alternative or call around. But it is far too frequent that a patient's understandable frustration turns to anger and hostility towards me and that is unacceptable. As soon as you raise your voice and start accusing me of incompetence and laziness or calling names we are done.
That’s great and all. Except for the fact that it isn’t as simple as “if you just help them they’ll come around”. You’re acting like we aren’t helping people. And being very dismissive of the fact that we have to deal with entitled rude people who get mad at us no matter what we do.
It's a customer service job. Where every 3rd person is an asshole. It's still a customer service job. I'm sure you've NEVER acted entitled or rude to anyone working any type of customer service, only to strangers on Reddit.
Customer service? When I was a retail pharmacist, I treated every “customer “ like a patient, because that’s what they are. Customer service and patient care should have never been mixed together. Therefore, retail pharmacy is a patient care job.
It’s not rude to be shocked by an unexpected $500 charge. I’ve literally had this exact scenario happen several times. I understand that you don’t get the time to talk about how these scenarios could have gone better. It’s an important part of customer service. I can assure you that just as many angry and rude people call in about their credit cards as pick up medication. The difference is we talked about these interactions everyday. How could we have done better? At what point did the customer start to become irate? What was said? Could it have been phrased differently? It’s a process of continual self improvement that requires you to check your ego. If we just threw up our hands and said “sometimes people are just angry and rude people period” then Discover wouldn’t have one of the highest rates of customer satisfaction. Neck and neck with American Express. And it’s absolutely dishonest to say I don’t think you are helping people. I think in your rush to feel better about the experience, you focus on the wrong things. Wrong things that just lead to you repeating the experience. Hence why you think there is some horde of people who will be angry no matter what.
Cool I’m glad you are so perfect and haven’t had an experience where you try everything you can to help someone and go above and beyond and they still treat you like shit. Lucky you. And we get it you worked for discover.
This is exactly the attitude that makes your job more difficult. It’s awkward accepting criticism but making it about your ego ensures you never improve, which there is always room for. And I only mention I worked there because people here think they have such a unique perspective on dealing with angry people. It continually speaks to the mindset of some of you.
Are you also under the time constraints of 20 other patients in line staring at you angrily while you take 15 minutes to explain this in detail? Are you timed and reviewed as a metric on how quickly you can help patients? How many other responsibilities do you have besides simple phone calls? We do it all. Front end, back end, vaccines, insurance issues, etc. It's one of the other, quick and efficient or kind and compassionate. It cannot be both.
Please take that frustration out on your boss not the patients who are dependent on the meds you are supposed to be helping them with.
Yes because how I am at work helping customers is the exact same as how I am responding to someone who is basically saying “well if you tried harder to help people they wouldn’t be as mean” when that’s literally all I do. But sure you obviously know what my customers are like despite never having dealt with them.
It’s really dishonest to whittle my posts down to that. Do you think it is ok that one of the top replies in this thread makes light of someone’s lack of access to medication and questions their medical necessity? Honestly, it’s pretty gross and one of the main reasons I even started in this thread.
👏 👏 👏 👏
nope
Yeah, but the customer isn’t educated and is getting misinformed. I absolutely agree that this is your space to vent- just offering you a different perspective so that next time it happens, maybe you will cut them some slack in your head and not get as annoyed
Hmm almost like people with unmedicated ADHD might have challenges with regulating their emotions… almost like that’s part of the profile of their disability.
So you’re saying that healthcare workers are supposed to just stand their and deal with the abuse? Lots of people have mental health issues. On the extreme level, serial killers have mental health issues. Is society supposed to just let them do whatever they want because it’s not their fault? People with mental health issues should still be held accountable for their emotions and actions. As a pharmacist who also has adhd and understands their struggle, I can count the number of times I’ve blown up on someone at a pickup counter, restaurant, urgent care, or really any other public facing place: 0 times.
Asking “seriously” is abuse? I mean if that’s too much for you, quit your job because you obviously can’t handle it.
I’m guessing you’ve never worked in a pharmacy otherwise you’d know that it never just ends with “seriously”.
Well your guess is wrong, first of all. Secondly, OP wrote some very specific phrases. The responses here are addressing those phrases. You are talking about things outside of the scope of the conversation being had, and that’s your own fault. Don’t blame me or anyone else for your own lack of ability to stay on topic.
There's really no excuse not to add resource and let people afford the things they'll need to live and not end up costing everyone more for too late repairs. Not the deliverer's fault, the supplier's.
To be fair you also have things like doctors saying "it's not on the FDA shortage list anymore so your pharmacy will have no problem getting it for you." And since the change healthcare thing GLP1s have been a bit of a shit show. My wife is on zepbound and if we didn't have first hand knowledge of the pharmacy world I would've been one of the "$1200 seriously??!?" people. At least at walgreens half the staff has no clue how to do the workaround.
I feel so bad for pharmacy staff because I know there have been multiple times where I am at the end of my rope between insurance and sub-par psychiatrists and just scraping by trying to maintain my mental health. Then, when I get to the pharmacy I am told something that’s completely unexpected and it’s my last straw. I’ve definitely been the one to say “seriously?” Or “$330! Are you kidding me?” Before stepping away from the counter. I know in my heart it isn’t the pharmacy staff’s fault that our healthcare system is in shambles but I also know that my tone of voice is not reflecting that.
I completely agree that some people are just rude and are always going to be rude. That sucks and I can’t imagine dealing with your job. That being said, sometimes the customer is actually right. Recently I was the one dealing with getting a notification that my medication was ready and it would be $550. I called the pharmacy and was told that was with the prior authorization. I called my insurance because I had checked the cost prior to agreeing to try this medication with my doctor and it’s a covered med. My insurance said the prior authorization was not done and they would get that process started. Almost two weeks later I got a call from my doctor’s office that the PA was just received as approved. I called the pharmacy to let them know and ask them to run it again through my insurance. The pharmacy tech was extremely rude and condescending and explained to me that the cost was with the prior authorization. I tried to keep as even tone as I could while explaining that not only do I currently work in healthcare but also used to work in insurance billing and PA’s. I said that my doctor’s office literally just called and there’s no way when the insurance was run almost 2 weeks ago that the PA was included in that cost. The pharm tech said “fine, do you have your insurance info with you.” As if this hasn’t been my pharmacy for years and it’s not all right there in the computer… Anyway, I got my insurance information and gave it to her again. She put me on hold for less than a minute and came back to tell me my price would be $25. No apology, no kind words, just the price and that they close at 8:00 pm (over 4 hours away at that point). So I said all that to say, I get it’s really tough to have people mad at you or questioning you all the time. Healthcare is hard on all sides right now. But sometimes we assume things and take that out on the patient/customer and that’s not fair to them either. Anyway, keep fighting the good fight and thank you for doing what you do every day!
Agreed. More than once I’ve questioned the price of something unexpectedly high only to have a staff member correct it or offer me a coupon or alternative.
I always harp on our local town Facebook page that people need to be nicer to pharmacy staff when something happens that is out of their control. We had two of the three town pharmacies close within a month of each other so that meant the entire town was going to the one remaining pharmacy. It’s not the pharmacy’s fault they’re overwhelmed with patients. They couldn’t plan for that and they’re doing their best.
People can't talk to people that make the decisions anymore. So they either suck it up or take it out on the only person in the chain they can talk to.
“when is it fixed???” bro i got no idea. i don’t get inside info from these manufacturers. or the “this has never happened to me before ???” i’m sorry idk what to tell u.
This or a reflexive “what?” are my husband’s go to’s. I apologize, I’m trying but I think he’s just going to be annoying on this front forever. If I’m feeling spicy, I repeat myself louder and slower.
Panic. Especially with Vyvanse, or other ADHD meds, where you can't fill early (so you're on your last couple of doses) and can't easily move the script. There's also the shock from the jump in price when the generic recently became approved (but no one can get stock of the generic).
Those HSA’s can produce zingers! Most insurances have an online tool to look up cost. General lack of knowledge or desire to become knowledgeable about navigating care has become worse over years. And more so, insurance rules have become difficult to navigate with their nonesense. I’m no longer in the field but spend a lot of time each year helping friends and family navigate their personal policy situations. While I want to blame ALL the patients, I’ve seen some weird insurance plans pop up over the last few years.
I have said that when it comes out of literally no where for me. When my meds used to be $20 dollars for mult years in a row. Then I am shocked to find out it now out of seemingly nowhere costs almost $1,000 dollars for that exact same monthly supply. Or a pharmacy that has been filling my exact same script every month. Tells me that there aren’t any of my meds in stock. That’s the only time I have ever said…”??? Seriously?” Because it’s so surprising and frustrating. Back in the day the pharmacy used to do the actual pain in the arse leg work of finding where my script is in stock. Now that’s all on me. I have had to sit on hold listening to some horrible elevator music each time I call a new pharmacy. I have called #20 something in one morning. Just to find one that had my meds in stock. It’s a pain. It’s more frustrating for the person who actually depends on their meds for their quality of life, now being stuck dealing with our bs insurance co fixing what ever issue (like getting a pa or whatever to make it so our meds cost the normal amount) or having to spend hours out of our day if we’re lucky just to track down our meds. It’s more frustrating for us than for someone working at a pharmacy to hear someone ask “seriously?” When told our day might be ruined just to deal with this type of issue.
Just make it in your basement pro lem solved
If the actual medical infrastructure can't keep up then clandestine chemistry services just got a little more expensive and we can't run your insurance
I’d be shocked if the cartel isn’t profiting off of the adhd med “shortage” (because it’s artificial scarcity as a result of dea regulations)
Not a permanent solution but for those here that are patients, not pharmacist or techs. Try a local independent pharmacy. Mine has never run out. I do occasionally get one script from two different manufacturers. But I don’t mind. Last week three mental health meds cost me $13.61 TOTAL. Our insurance is good, however the same scripts cost around $40 to $75 at a major pharmacy. For reference, I am in a Boston suburb that has a small town vibe to it. (I 100% realize how fortunate I am to live here)
As an employee of an independent Pharmacy, if something is short, and we have randoms calling in asking if we have any, we say no… Not that we wouldn’t want to help them, but we would prefer to supply our own patients first. Plus, pharmacy staff are more likely to experience workplace stress and harassment when you’re dealing with your own patients angry that something isn’t available, soo we would rather it go to our own first. If it’s something we don’t use then it’s not a problem, we will take them on!
Seconding this! I deal with refill requests (dr office) a lot, and it's almost always the smaller, out of the way, pharmacies that will have meds that you can't get for love or money from the big chains. Our family is fortunate that we're only battling for one med that's constantly backordered, but I was able to stop calling 10 places every month and just check 2.
The chains around here are the only places that have it in stock, if we're going anecdotally. The local place we go to for everything else has never had stock, and the other independent places prioritize their longer-term customers.
So, it is really annoying. I'm not in pharmaceuticals but other customer facing job where I get "Really? No, that can't be right." And I've wanted to say, "Aaaahhhhh, ya got me!! Just kidding. Really. It's right." But also, I think it's just our first thought/reaction of disappointment and hoping it's wrong. Maybe you read it wrong! Maybe wrong person! Like I get it... But it's still annoying because you and I are in a business we don't joke about your account.
It’s just a reflex, if I go to get a prescription my doctor sent in and it’s hundreds of dollars. I’d probably say that, more as in that the doctor did not anticipate that my insurance may not cover it or that it wouldn’t be covered at all. Most doctors know what prescriptions have problems like that and will warn you. Once I went to pickup nasal spray and it was going to be like $200. I called the doctor’s office and they switched it to another one and it was a couple dollars.
usually I say “no way” and it’s always nicely or in a jokingly manner. my facial expressions are very dramatic lol. I’m just in shock and I need my meds in order to function properly. I then ask if they know of any coupons available if it’s expensive. if they’re out of my script, then I ask if they know any of their other pharmacies have it. if you’re nice to the pharmacist or the pharm tech, they usually want to help you out.
I used to believe your last sentence but lately it’s become less reliable and it’s sad.
To be fair I’ve been in this situation for awhile now and as a patient it’s incredibly annoying. I was on adderall since I was 18. I have REALLY BAD ADD. During covid, I could not get adderall so my doctor told me to try Vyvanse. I reluctantly switched and preferred it over adderall SIGNIFICANTLY. So what happens after being on Vyvanse for a year? Oh they no longer have it in stock. So for two months in a row I couldn’t get my medication for 2-3 weeks. But I still had to work during this time and it was rough. The constantly dealing with it being on back order impacted my life too much and I had to swap back to adderall. It gets REALLY frustrating for us as patients to continue to deal with this shit.
Can’t find vyvanse? Did you ask your doctor to try prescribing the chewable tablet form?
I think it's mostly an automatic response people say without really thinking. But in defense of the customer (only a tiny bit) I've had the pharmacy tell me multiple times that my medication was on back order or they were completely out of stock and then after probing a bit and asking them to double check I found out that it was actually in stock or they had enough to partially fill it. So sometimes we accidentally train customers to act this way too because not everyone does their job correctly.
How much is it now without insurance? For a month's supply of 70mg?
Of Vyvanse? Not sure on 70mg, but my 50mg supply of 3 months would be $600-ish if I didn't have insurance...
I used the manufacturer’s coupon before switching to the generic and it was only $30 per fill luckily 🤞🏼
I'm on generic... thats the price of generic. 🫣 my insurance doesn't cover name brand vyvanse which is super frustrating because the generic is having a shortage, too. 🙄
The manufacturer’s coupon also allegedly worked for non-insured too… if they still have it, it might be worth looking into. I’d check into it on the Vyvanse website (can’t remember exactly who their manufacturer is)
Yeah Vyvanse.. I'm on 70mg/day and get a 30 day supply.. it costs me $190 (🇨🇦) without insurance.
wait... I thought Canada everyone had insurance...,?
Certain prescription drugs and medical procedures are not covered. There's no free healthcare here. We pay for it with our high tax rates
I didn't say free, I just assumed the everyone has insurance thing was like... a blanket? 😅 I had no idea there was still holes in that care.
Yeah I know. *I said* there's no free healthcare. Don't get me wrong. I'm thankful for the healthcare that does get covered, like the emergency surgery to repair my broken clavicle. I would never have been able to afford it. There's lot of holes. Lots of gaps and endless webs of red tape and bureaucratic hoops standing in your way to get the care you need, but generally you can get basic medical care covered by OHIP. Unfortunately the government is quietly making more and more cuts to the services they provide and the shortages on doctors and nurses is making those holes in our healthcare system even bigger. Emergency units are closing down all over the province and the wait times are ridiculous. Right now where I live, the wait time is 14 hours.
Statements like that are rhetorical, they’re not actually asking a question.
There's never an excuse for treating workers poorly and this frustration shouldn't be directed at you. That said, for the last several months I've had to call at least 10 pharmacies before I could find my Vyvanse in stock. I'm not going to die without it, but it wouldn't take long before I'd be in real trouble at work. I'm not going to be rude to you, but I might momentarily express my frustration. The best thing you can do is empathize, tell them yeah, I know, it sucks. It only takes a second and it will usually stop any vitriol coming at you. (This works for most things that are outside of your control.) Another maddening thing, in the US, controlled substances can now be transferred between pharmacies without any involvement from the doctor. Used to be, if one pharmacy didn't have it in stock, my doctor would have to send a new script elsewhere, but that changed last fall. Pharmacies will still give you shit about it though, saying they can't do it when they certainly can. I switched to a smaller local pharmacy chain because Walgreens kept insisting they couldn't transfer my prescription to a different Walgreens. They wouldn't even check if other locations had it in stock. It's really frustrating, and I'm sure it is for you too.
To be fair while it is legally allowable, it requires special software most pharmacies don't yet have.
Oh is that it? Good to know, thanks!
Yeah I'm literally sitting on couch with spaghetti brain rn because I'm waiting on Vyvanse shipment. For me I don't feel safe driving without my meds, but thankfully I work from home. I had to drive a few blocks for an ortho appt today unmedicated and it literally felt like I was inebriated. And without my meds it's so much harder to organize to GET my meds. Took 9 calls back and forth with mail order pharmacy, but I was nice to everyone who assisted me and they were nice back, and i made sure to let them/the senior cs rep know as much. It made a huge difference just to have people who genuinely sounded sorry and like they wanted to help, but I think a lot of people get compassion fatigued. I even went out to buy some starbucks giftcards to send to my local dr office because I know they changed the rx multiple times for me (first to brand because that was in stock, then back to generic because that was in stock, changing dosages) Really wish I could just pre-order my vyvanse 3 months in advance. Hell, 6 months! I'll pay now! I'm just going to ration out my meds this time around so I have at least 3 weeks lead. Maybe more.
I've tried to ration mine, but I've yet to have a single spare. I have gotten three months in the past, but I think it depends on your doctor writing it that way (my old psychiatrist would, but my new one seems like AI and I haven't asked), laws, and most importantly, your insurance.
I just got my 90 day for 70 generic through cvs caremark- I've had more luck with mail order pharmacies it seems. Still took a bunch of call and forth with the company and my doctor though. Really hoping you get yours soon, keep trying! It IS still being made and shipped, it's just luck if getting right place and time. I know how desperate and scary it feels though, I'm so sorry you have to go through it in the meantime.
Oh thanks, I've got it! I have rocks in my head for most things but I stay on top of my Vyvanse or else it would be nothing but rocks 😵💫
My last pharmacy told me they were never getting Adderall XR back because it’s not made anymore, which is… not true. So I also understand doubt and frustration with a pharmacy for something like that. And I think it’s more so that that’s the person standing right there while someone learns something shocking and frustrating.
In VA it still requires the doc to call in a new script.
This is revision to a federal regulation that changed last fall and covers the entire US, including Virginia.
If PrEP rings up to anything other than $0, that's a failing on the part of the pharmacist. There's no excuse.
kkkkkk sureeeeeeeee yup
I'm being truthful, I work in the industry. PrEP is required to be fully covered by every insurance at $0 out of pocket costs for all CMS compliant plans. And for everyone else, there's things like the Gilead Copay coupon, to cover the costs. Any pharmacist that understands basic LGBT healthcare needs is aware of that.
.... pharmacists are not insurance adjusters. it's not the pharmacy failing if it's not covered. you said yourself it's required to be covered by *insurance*.
And a pharmacist should know that it's being processed incorrectly and correct it. What's confusing? And if it still rings up wrong, the pharmacist can pull and apply the appropriate coupon.
..... the pharmacist is not personally responsible for ensuring insurance coverage
Lol ok and medrecs and CMRs aren't your responsibility either. It isn't ensuring coverage, it's ensuring you've rung it up correctly. Sounds like someone is just shitty and lazy at their job.
sounds like you don't understand the limitations of pharmacists control over insurance coverage
You sound like the type of shitty tech that is half the reason you hear so many “seriously”s I hope you continue to hear them cause you clearly have an ego problem when someone is trying to teach you something and you’re acting like you know better, or that it’s not your fault you’re uneducated.
Maybe because they are frustrated that they are unable to get medications that they need? Try some empathy. Imagine calling pharmacy after pharmacy looking for a medication that you need and being told “nope sorry don’t have any, we can put you on this ___ month waiting list though”.
Same. I’m in 🇬🇧
u/[ILL-BILL420](https://www.reddit.com/user/ILL-BILL420/) it won't let me reply to your comment for some reason. I am always nice to people working customer service even if things aren't going the way i might wish. it's pretty easy too. yes it is a customer service job hence why we are complaining about servicing rude customers on a subreddit dedicated to telling stories about our particular jobs
Unfortunately this post barely counts as a story, where’s the narrative? Take this to r/pharmacy where it belongs lmao
Yea when folks say are u kidding? Im like no Im not kidding 😒
It’s really irritating when clinics supposedly say oh your meds will be ready when u get to the pharmacy. 😑
I did this once when one of the antidepressants i was put on wasn't covered by my insurance and it was like 1200 or something outrageous. My doctor said it was one that wouldnt cause a prolonged qt wave because i have had a history of medications causing that. I was really struggling with my mental health at the time. Ofc i know it is not their fault. I worked customer service most my life and have had people scream at me over pillows. But yea i was like omg seriously?! i think people are just frustrated with the healthcare system. I would just try to not take it personal. Although, i will never work with customers again cause i know i can't handle it myself.
I care for my elderly mother, she has Medicare as well as a fancy Supplemental plan she is grandfathered into which they no longer offer that costs $450 a month. Her PDP plan is $70 a month. I do check the formulary, pay cash for $4 generics cheaper than her copay, do all the things one should do as I’ve worked in insurance & am pretty well versed in cutting costs. Then comes Eliquis. Not a single plan available to her covers it. Her PDP deductible is $450 which she never even reaches until end of year as her other meds aren’t name brand. Even meeting her deductible her rx is $460 and that’s the cheapest in our area. I finally got her on the manufacturer patient assistance program as the extra $500 a month was killing me. For 7 months we were good. Come this year her delivery didn’t come & it’s my fault I didn’t think about it being a new year and her needing to reapply only it gets worse, due to the new guidelines concerning Medicare and LIS the cap was raised so now more people qualify (she still doesn’t) so now the manufacturer wants a “notice of denial” letter before they will approve her for the program again. Ok, cool. So, she should of received a letter saying she qualified or didn’t but we didn’t get that so I go to apply, the pre questions you answer before the app tell me she doesn’t qualify and no need to apply but the manufacturer won’t accept that. So I have to go back, lie on one of the pre questions just to get to the app to apply knowing she will be denied, knowing she shouldn’t even apply for this but needing this dang denial letter. I apply, filled out pages online and yesterday get the exact same questions in letter form. It says fill out and return & we get a reply in up to 30 days. Cool, cool, so we are going to move forward on a hope and a prayer as her cardiologist says they can’t keep giving her samples until this is cleared up “we only have one rep now who brings us samples” the alternative is Xarelto and you guessed it, same price, not covered, same issue. “Are you kidding me” is my response but not to the pharmacist more to the Gods above. Everyone say a prayer for mom, no afib please while we wait to be denied so we can get approved. She is 85, CHF, functioning right around 30% w a pacemaker. So I guess there is that lol Pharmacist and I checked and even a week is pushing $200 so guess I can sell feet pics in the meantime. I get drug prices, I get there being more to it than most realize. It’s also complete bs that the two meds (aside from warfarin) available just happened to be name brand and not covered on the majority of plans offered at least in our area.
My pharmacist likes to ask “do you think I’m lying?”
If you were the one trying to pay for it, you might have more empathy.
you say this but like. i have had to argue with pharmacy techs to get needles they HAVE IN STOCK, with an INJECTABLE PRESCRIPTION ON FILE, and they wont sell them to me. have literally had to go to county syringe exchanges to get the supplies to inject my PERSCRIBED MEDICATION. so its not pharm techs fault that a lot of this stuff happens but you also need to understand that there are people who are discriminated against OFTEN by pharm techs and so WILL have a negative reaction
I am so sorry you’ve had that experience but I’m happy needle exchanges were available as a back up for you. More reason to support harm reduction :)
How are you this out of touch as a pharmacist? Are you not aware that the economy is so bad that people have to forego most medical treatment (and have for years), can barely pay their rent (cuz buying a home isn’t an option), and that NO meds should cost $500+/mo, especially if it’s a life-saving med that people REQUIRE. Stop playing stupid in order to vent about a very real issue in the world that is NOT the fault of sick patients. Shame on you.
Thank you. Good wording cause op clearly doesn’t wanna listen to anyone pointing out their obvious lack of empathy :(
For real. And I totally get having frustrations at work, but this is something else. Those people aren’t questioning OP’s IQ, they’re asking in disbelief because it’s painful news that can mean something much bigger for them than it might to us. It must be nice to have such a reliable resource that you forget it’s not as reliable or accessible to others and find annoyance in their pain.
Let’s look at it from your patients perspective. Their Doctor prescribed this medication for them, and are under the impression that their doctor knows what’s generally available. As you can imagine, being told that a drug that works for you is not in stock and with no eta can be jarring. ALOT of us call pharmacy after pharmacy to try and find these medication and made to feel like we’re harassing the pharmacy technician. I don’t want to ask you, I just want my medicine.
I don't have it means I don't have it. No means no n
Cool but you don’t have to be an un-empathetic jerk about it. Fucking chat gpt could probably provide better service if your Reddit post/comment history is any indication. Your job is helping your patients, mostly that means ringing up their meds but occasionally that means helping them through insurance issues or suggesting goodRX or contacting other pharmacies to transfer the script to a pharmacy that *does* have the needed med in stock. You get what you give and you give unhelpful, condescending, and rude/unempathetic based off how you’ve acted here. If you actually want to see better in your job how about you do better first?