excessive oral prescriptions

[labcoatguy]

I'm not sure if this is a widespread issue but recently, I'm getting A LOT more oral prescriptions than usual. It's for typical maintenance drugs like HTN, DM, etc but for some pt's they're oral RXs for over a year. Would this become an issue for audits? My store got fined a lot of money over a missing date on a noncontrolled, so if they are that strict about trivial nonsense, I'm concerned they would give us trouble over this.

And sometimes it's for drugs with a narrow therapeutic index that the pt never took before like warfarin, digoxin, etc. God forbid the pt has a bad reaction or needs a hospital stay from the new drugs and if the pt wants to sue, the doctor could simply lie and say he never authorized it.

At least with electronic and written RXs there are clear records but with oral rxs, the doctor could choose not document anything so he'll be in the clear. Phone records aren't that suffice because what the doctor says is not recorded. I've asked those doctors plenty of times to mail me a hard copy or eRX but they never send it, some even claim that they don't even have eRXs set up. Is this commonplace for you people?

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[pharmd201389]

That's why a lot of people I know just fake oral rx's sometimes for people they know, because, in the end it's the office vs the pharmacy. Nobody can prove something wasn't called in and likewise, nobody can prove that something WAS called in.

On the same token, I know a lot of pharmacists that won't take oral prescriptions for new patients or for controlled substances for people they don't know. It's a tricky situation, and I wish they would just axe the availability of oral scripts except for EMERGENCY situations.

Wait until may 2015 in NY when all scripts have to be electronic. They're going to go crazy on phoning things in because they're too lazy to e prescribe.

 

[owlegrad]

We just had a patient caught calling in their own ultram scripts. But I think having weird rules like "no oral scripts for new patients" is just asinine. Great way to inconvenience new patients though.

 

[Old Timer]

Very High ***** levels in this thread. Have you guys been pharmacists for more than 15 minutes?

 

[Dr Wario]

I'm not so worried about the liability as I am just tired of the massive amount of my time it wastes each day. The doc gets his/her office janitor to call in these scripts (doctor's representative right?) and most wouldn't know an HCTZ from a M&M.

 

[BidingMyTime]

I'm not so worried about the liability as I am just tired of the massive amount of my time it wastes each day. The doc gets his/her office janitor to call in these scripts (doctor's representative right?) and most wouldn't know an HCTZ from a M&M.

The bane of retail, "Hi I'm calling from Dr. Hire The Lowest Common Denominator's Office with a NEW prescription for Jane Doe, she needs um, I think its X-an-ex, twenty-five milligrams, um, I can't read the rest, so just give her whatever you usually would. The office will be closed tomorrow & over the weekend, so if you have any questions, call us Monday."