Here's some impatient patient experiences:
1.) I ring up an older gentleman (approx 55 y/o) who is buying meds for his wife.
Me: "May I have her month and day of birth?"
Customer: "It's on the prescription"
Me: "I would say so, but I need it to verify that I have the same [pt's name]."
Customer: "It's on the script"
Me: "I know it is, but my register requires that I enter it for a sale. We have many different patients with the same name. In fact, I'm related to a [person who has the same first and last name as a patient. Note: I am currently in school hundreds of miles from home]
Customer: "You don't need her date of birth."
Me: "May I have the patient's address so I can verify it in my computer system and get the date of birth from there?"
Customer: My wife and I live at [address].
I then go and look it up. He leaves after the sale and my pharmacist (who was four feet away) dies of laughter.
2)
Quite common:
Patient: I'm here to pick up a prescription for [any common last name].
(Do people expect me to sell them every script for anyone with a particular last name, much less a common one)
3)
This happened to a coworker at the drive through:
Rough-looking impatient patient: Picking up for [his name]
Intern: I don't have anything for you.
Patient: I dropped it off the other day.
Intern: I'll look it up in the system. May I have a date of birth?
Patient gives DOB
Intern: *Looks it up in the system and doesn't find anything* I didn't see anything in your profile.
Patient goes off on him, saying that we "are out to get [him]"
Intern then tells him he is going to check the hard copies for it.
Intern comes back after five or so minutes (the guy was parked at the drive through window)
Intern: It turns out we didn't fill it because you dropped it off in the tube [second drive through lane] and left before we could get a date of birth. We had several people with that date of birth in our system that lives in this town.
Patient: There's four [first and last names]; I know because three of us served time in prison together.
4)
Patient: I've come for a refill for a prescription.
Patient hands me an empty bottle with a Tussionex label on it with zero refills. Days supply on the bottle was computed by considering how many days the medication would last if the patient took it at the greatest frequency written on the label. Less than half the "Days supply" time had passed and the bottle was empty, implying that the patient had taken it at a much greater frequency than supplied. Remember that Tussionex contains Hydrocodone.
Me: I'm sorry, but you do not have any refills remaining.
Patient: It says that it is a _____ days supply and it has only been _____ days.
(By this time the pharmacist was right next to me)
Me or Pharmacist (don't remember): How often did you take it.
Patient: Whenever I needed it.
Pharmacist then went and explained that he should call his doctor to request a refill knowing full well that the doctor would laugh his tail off.
Don't even get me started on the drive through stories…
Sorry that this has turned into a huge (very common) story post.
I'd hate to imagine how many stories I'll have by grad day.
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