Pharmacy's Resposibility to tell MD when store closes?

[Sparda29]

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So a MD called in a script for a patient who had surgery around 1-2PM(for Zofran I believe). 6PM rolled by and we closed, manager took our registers, and we locked up the gate, the idiot wife of the patient comes in at 6:15PM all confused(we didn't leave because of darn monthly waiting bin count).

She asks, "Are you open?"

🙄

I say no, we're closed, if you're dropping off it will be ready tomorrow, pickups are only by credit card right now. So she picks up the meds, and then goes into a tirade about it being our job to tell the MD that we close at 6PM.

Personally, I don't care if the hospital is in NYC, when they call the pharmacy, it will tell you whether we are a 24 hour store or not, if you actually think that a pharmacy is open beyond 6PM on a weekend, you're a *******.

Besides, even if the pharmacy closes and they don't get their meds, its not gonna kill them to wait another 14 hours to get medication. Or if they really need it, they can call the MD and have him call in an emergency supply at a 24 hour store.

 

[Phlame217]

With cvs, it says our hours as soon as the phone answers so the MD would know. I blame the patient, be more proactive. Just becuase the patient dropped the ball doesn't mean its either the pharmacy's or the md's fault.

 

[67echo]

Personally, I don't care if the hospital is in NYC, when they call the pharmacy, it will tell you whether we are a 24 hour store or not, if you actually think that a pharmacy is open beyond 6PM on a weekend, you're a *******.

your maturity and understanding is a real beacon of hope for us pharmacists! 🙄

 

[SELDANE]

Neither the pharmacy or the MD did anything wrong. Clearly the patient has the impetus to be aware of the pharmacy's hours. After all they are the ones that need the medication. So the lady lost track of time and forgot when your store closes, no big deal. The fact that she began to throw a tantrum after she received her medication basically spells out that she dosen't quite have her act together and that she should have known that you close at 6pm on a weekend. Something tells me that she knows she was at fault, hence the public fit for everyone's enjoyment.

 

[Old Timer]

If you wish to work with the public, in any capacity, you will have to learn how to turn a negative into a positive.

First, if you get any acute medication phoned in within one hour of closing (and be honest it doesn't happen often) you pick up the phone and say "Mrs. Smith, Dr X just phones in a prescription for your for Y, I just wanted to let you know we close at ZPM."

Second, in this case the patient could have been taken to the front register and paid any way they liked.

Finally, you will have to learn how to change a negative into a positive (which I admit is not always possible) when dealing with unhappy (and usually stupid) human beings.

I never get upset if people yell at me when they are being unreasonable. Just increasing the volume does not make them right, just loud...

 

[meister]

He just had a gnarly surgery and has some wicked nausea, the wife was spending the previous four hours cleaning up their carpet from all his vomit.

Well as someone who knows only 24 hour stores are open after 6pm on a Sunday, I wouldn't have called it into a random drug store. But I doubt most doctors know the intrinsic hours of non-24 hour pharmacies. Kind of the patient's responsibility to know their drug store hours, I would say.

They won't do it again though when the MD is forced to call it in to a 24 hour store and the patient has to pay cash for a few ondansetron tablets.

 

[bacillus1]

The doctors don't tell the patients when their hours are.
We have many patients expecting their doctors to be working at 6-7PM to call in their prescription. Hell, even if it's noon on a Wednesday they don't call it in many times.

 

[Jenny2009]

When there is a problem, you are responsible no matter what. Co-pay too high? The pharmacy is charging me too much. Side effects from a medication? The pharmacy should have warned me. Late to work because there is a line of people at the pharmacy? The pharmacy should have worked faster. That is retail.

 

[Sparda29]

your maturity and understanding is a real beacon of hope for us pharmacists! 🙄

No really, would you actually expect any stores to be open after 6-7PM on a Saturday other than a 7-11, Pathmark or a fast food store?

I bet the patient's wife excuse in this case would have been, oh the weather today actually got close to 50 degrees, I couldn't waste that going to the pharmacy.

 

[Praziquantel86]

No really, would you actually expect any stores to be open after 6-7PM on a Saturday other than a 7-11, Pathmark or a fast food store?

I bet the patient's wife excuse in this case would have been, oh the weather today actually got close to 50 degrees, I couldn't waste that going to the pharmacy.

I bet that it would have been that she was taking care of her husband who just got out of surgery.

If you're still in the pharmacy, what is your issue with dispensing the prescription? When you job is to take care of people, that means you can't always expect to punch the clock and forget about everything else.

 

[Sparda29]

I bet that it would have been that she was taking care of her husband who just got out of surgery.

If you're still in the pharmacy, what is your issue with dispensing the prescription? When you job is to take care of people, that means you can't always expect to punch the clock and forget about everything else.

Because if we allow one person to get their medication, we're gonna have to start allowing others to get their medication as well. Then corporate sees that we still have people coming in around 6PM, and they'll decide to extend the hours. They are already way too long as it is.

 

[Praziquantel86]

There is a simple solution to the 'problem' of filling medications for people: it's called doing your job. If you find it difficult to fulfill your professional obligations, I recommend a career change.

If your store hours get extended, it would be to fulfill a need in the community. Additional tech hours would also be provided to cover the extended hours. That way, the great burden of helping people in need might fall onto someone who actually cares.

 

[bacillus1]

There is a simple solution to the 'problem' of filling medications for people: it's called doing your job. If you find it difficult to fulfill your professional obligations, I recommend a career change.

If your store hours get extended, it would be to fulfill a need in the community. Additional tech hours would also be provided to cover the extended hours. That way, the great burden of helping people in need might fall onto someone who actually cares.

Well, if people see one person getting meds filled, more may come. And then are you supposed to fill theirs too, even if the line extends till 8PM (and you close at 6)?
I mean of course if this is some emergency life-saving med, yeah it could be filled. But if someone just needs some simvastatin, they can wait until the next day.

 

[Quiksilver]

Because if we allow one person to get their medication, we're gonna have to start allowing others to get their medication as well. Then corporate sees that we still have people coming in around 6PM, and they'll decide to extend the hours. They are already way too long as it is.

my community pharmacy job is at a 24h store. Pharmacies that have this attitude drive me nuts to no end because I then have to deal with these angry patients as to why their pharmacy couldn't take 1 minute to make a phone call and explain that they close early. So if you can multitask, you might be able to call while doing other things.

I am pretty sure that he wasn't prescribing zofran for the hell of it. I am pretty sure whoever needed it, really did need it. I also work at a cancer hospital, and to alot of people zofran is like jesus in tablet form. Secondly, getting out of the hospital/surgery and getting home may take an awfully long time because they certain suture you up and say "okay you can be D/Ced, go home." If it was a surgery, they have to wait for the anesthetic to wear off, and the doctor more then likely called it in while all of this is going on. Also, he already received a dose before leaving, and the soonest the spouse could be there is when she got there. If I was the spouse, and I am sure many people agree with this opinion, I would pick up that medication as soon as humanly possible. I think you should at least give people this consideration.

 

[Praziquantel86]

Professional judgment would have to apply. Obviously, you're not going to keep the pharmacy open to fill Folbee tablets. If a patient comes in right at closing and needs their Emend to take before a chemo round the next day, I think it's our duty to fill that prescription.

 

[Transformer]

No really, would you actually expect any stores to be open after 6-7PM on a Saturday other than a 7-11, Pathmark or a fast food store?

I bet the patient's wife excuse in this case would have been, oh the weather today actually got close to 50 degrees, I couldn't waste that going to the pharmacy.

On the flip side of things, we have to understand that not everyone knows or remembers that most retail pharmacies close after 6pm on the weekend. I didn't know until I first started working at CVS pharmacy.

If the lady wants to go into a tirade about anything, just let her. Just try not to let it get to you. Eventually, she'll run out of breathe and leave with her medications.

On the other hand, if a customer is being loud, and rude; using excessive profane language, you can kindly tell the customer to lower his or her voice and refrain from using profanity. If all else fails, you can walk away and let the pharmacy supervisor handle it.

 

[atticus27]

So a MD called in a script for a patient who had surgery around 1-2PM(for Zofran I believe). 6PM rolled by and we closed, manager took our registers, and we locked up the gate, the idiot wife of the patient comes in at 6:15PM all confused(we didn't leave because of darn monthly waiting bin count).

She asks, "Are you open?"

🙄

I say no, we're closed, if you're dropping off it will be ready tomorrow, pickups are only by credit card right now. So she picks up the meds, and then goes into a tirade about it being our job to tell the MD that we close at 6PM.

Personally, I don't care if the hospital is in NYC, when they call the pharmacy, it will tell you whether we are a 24 hour store or not, if you actually think that a pharmacy is open beyond 6PM on a weekend, you're a *******.

Besides, even if the pharmacy closes and they don't get their meds, its not gonna kill them to wait another 14 hours to get medication. Or if they really need it, they can call the MD and have him call in an emergency supply at a 24 hour store.

Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.-Albert Einstein

 

[Sparda29]

There is a simple solution to the 'problem' of filling medications for people: it's called doing your job. If you find it difficult to fulfill your professional obligations, I recommend a career change.

If your store hours get extended, it would be to fulfill a need in the community. Additional tech hours would also be provided to cover the extended hours. That way, the great burden of helping people in need might fall onto someone who actually cares.

My job ends when the clock hits 6PM. Appeasing the customers further encourages the idea that that pharmacists and pharmacy staff have no lives other than the pharmacy.

 

[Praziquantel86]

My job ends when the clock hits 6PM. Appeasing the customers further encourages the idea that that pharmacists and pharmacy staff have no lives other than the pharmacy.

I'm sure that your customers are very glad you have a life out of pharmacy. In fact, they might be so happy for you that they won't care they're vomiting last weeks lunch because you can't be bothered waiting around for five minutes after your shift.

I'm sure all the professors at your school love your dedication and commitment to improving people's lives.

 

[Quiksilver]

My job ends when the clock hits 6PM. Appeasing the customers further encourages the idea that that pharmacists and pharmacy staff have no lives other than the pharmacy.

they aren't customers they are patients. You wouldn't have to be in that position if you took 1 minute to give the patient a call. You create a thread whether or not its the pharmacy's fault for not dutifully warning the patient about closing time, and then you bitch when people don't agree with you. You are as stupid as you are apathetic. Your are not legally bound to be open, but your moral obligation is to your patients well being, whether you like it or not.

 

[mike36]

My job ends when the clock hits 6PM. Appeasing the customers further encourages the idea that that pharmacists and pharmacy staff have no lives other than the pharmacy.

Wow...your patients are lucky to have such a dedicated pharmacist as you.

 

[confettiflyer]

I'll side with sparda29 on this, 6pm means 6pm. Once you get stuck working at 7:30pm when your shift is done at 6, you'll feel the same way.

1) i have a life outside of work, kind of a weird concept for some of you naive pre-pharms and pharm students

2) i'm costing the company time-and-a-half and last i checked they'd rather us shut the door on peoples faces than incur overtime

3) you fill for one person at 6:01pm and the circus decides to convene in your line and you're stuck til 8pm because you granted one exception.

4) they ARE customers, you say "patients" to make your job sound more important. no, they're customers, you're in a RETAIL pharmacy. i use the two interchangeably.

I learned the hard way and if I had a line at 6pm....I shuffled everyone INTO the waiting area, locked the door, and told them to try to keep it down while we finished their Rx's. They usually understood and had a good laugh about it, and once I finished ringing everyone up, I took down the registers, turned off the light...and we all exited en masse.

It's not the pharmacy's job to tell you our hours, and it's certainly not our job to postpone the rest of our LIVES just so you can get your meds. If we wanted to do that, we would have become physicians with pagers; if it's truly an emergency, you would have gone to urgent care/ER.

 

[Praziquantel86]

I'll side with sparda29 on this, 6pm means 6pm. Once you get stuck working at 7:30pm when your shift is done at 6, you'll feel the same way.

It's happened to me many times. I'm not always happy about it, but I also understand that I have a responsibility to help anyone who walks through my door.

1) i have a life outside of work, kind of a weird concept for some of you naive pre-pharms and pharm students

I'm naive? The fact that I take the time to do my job right doesn't prevent me from having a life. If it means that I have to hit the bars 20 minutes later, then so be it. I'll just stay 20 minutes longer once I get there.

2) i'm costing the company time-and-a-half and last i checked they'd rather us shut the door on peoples faces than incur overtime

I think they would rather pay 15 minutes worth of overtime before potentially losing an entire family of customers.

3) you fill for one person at 6:01pm and the circus decides to convene in your line and you're stuck til 8pm because you granted one exception.

That's a judgment call. Obviously, Lipitor can wait. Actiq for breakthrough cancer pain might not be able to.

4) they ARE customers, you say "patients" to make your job sound more important. no, they're customers, you're in a RETAIL pharmacy. i use the two interchangeably.

I'll agree with you on that one, but it's still arguing over semantics. Either way, you have to do what's right.

It's not the pharmacy's job to tell you our hours, and it's certainly not our job to postpone the rest of our LIVES just so you can get your meds. If we wanted to do that, we would have become physicians with pagers; if it's truly an emergency, you would have gone to urgent care/ER.

And that's where the problem lies. Community pharmacy will never be able to get the amount of respect it deserves until those in it get past the 9-5 mentality. Putting in just a little extra effort will go an awful long way in advancing pharmacy.

 

[spacecowgirl]

I think I'm very patient-centered, but people need to take some responsibility for themselves too. My favorite quote in the pharmacy is "A lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part." I admire your idealism as students, unfortunately, it doesn't last. Be respectful but demand respect at the same time. I think what would "advance" our profession is to stop acting like one collective doormat that can't get our $hit together to even form any sort of organization that furthers our interests.

 

[PharmDstudent]

I agree with Sparda and Confettiflyer. Closing time is closing time. Anything dispensed or sold outside of normal business hours needs to be extremely urgent and necessary.

If someone needs special assistance because they aren't smart enough to have their physician call in their script to an accessible pharmacy, then a therapist will be able to help them - not the pharmacist who was twiddling their thumbs at 5-5:30pm waiting for people to pick up their scripts before closing at 6pm.
The fact that pharmacies are even open on Sundays should be blessing enough!


I hope all is going well Confetti...

 

[pmmdx]

I think what old timer said is very good. It should be done that way because the extra 30 sec you spend on calling the pt will save you 30 min of anger and cursing from an unhappy pt. In addition, it would be nice to do that. Aren't pharmacist supposed to help people in the first place? But the pt is also partially to be blamed for not taking note of the pharmacy hour. It's a mutual thing...both parties have room for improvement...although I don't think the patient side will improve very quickly.

 

[BMBiology]

I agree with Sparda and Confettiflyer. Closing time is closing time. Anything dispensed or sold outside of normal business hours needs to be extremely urgent and necessary.

Welcome back! I think we have discussed this topic before. I hope priapism will come back so we can get into another argument.

 

[PharmDstudent]

Welcome back! I think we have discussed this topic before. I hope priapism will come back so we can get into another argument.

Nah. No need to argue. It's just pharmacy... more importantly, I made an A on my first Therapeutics III test. 🙂

 

[BMBiology]

4) they ARE customers, you say "patients" to make your job sound more important. no, they're customers, you're in a RETAIL pharmacy. i use the two interchangeably.

Confettiflyer is right. Remember, you can't call someone your patient when that person does not see you as a healthcare professional.

 

[spacecowgirl]

Remember, you can't call someone your patient when that person does not see you as a healthcare professional.

Word.


Would you like to supersize that for 49 cents more?

🙄

 

[confettiflyer]

I hope all is going well Confetti...

haha...i'm doing just fine, i'm at an independent pharmacy that delivers, so all the patients/customers that have issues with pick-up times just get their stuff straight to their door. we do something on the order of 90-120 scripts/day.

I think they would rather pay 15 minutes worth of overtime before potentially losing an entire family of customers.

If you do the math, getting stuck for 90 minutes doesn't equal 15 minutes. Staying 15mins past your shift is standard, I think most people realize that there's some fudge at the start/end of a shift.

But have you worked for CVS? We got more crap about OT/meal penalties vs. script count. We had people tx out all the time due to lack of service, but we'd get the stern warnings re: OT/hours. Priorities for CVS based on these warnings were 1) OT/tech hours AND SSS scores (tie) 2) PCI calls 3) extra care card scan rate ..... 8) script count.

 

[PharmDstudent]

haha...i'm doing just fine, i'm at an independent pharmacy that delivers, so all the patients/customers that have issues with pick-up times just get their stuff straight to their door. we do something on the order of 90-120 scripts/day.

Cool. That sounds like fun.

I'm still working for "the man", but I'm thinking about babysitting instead. I gotta find a part-time job that's outside of pharmacy for whenever rotations start. There's no joy in working in a pharmacy from 8 or 9am 'til 4 or 5pm and then staying to close elsewhere until 10pm.


Just saw the first Mardi Gras parade of the season Saturday. It was the "adults only" parade, too. 😀

But have you worked for CVS? We got more crap about OT/meal penalties vs. script count. We had people tx out all the time due to lack of service, but we'd get the stern warnings re: OT/hours. Priorities for CVS based on these warnings were 1) OT/tech hours AND SSS scores (tie) 2) PCI calls 3) extra care card scan rate ..... 8) script count.

Right. Script count is a low priority compared to transfers, customer service scores, complaints, wait-time, and specialty add-ons like automatic refills and flavoring.
I don't really get their mentality, but they would rather cater to a few wishy-washy whiners than worry about increasing script volume. Go figure?

 

[confettiflyer]

Cool. That sounds like fun.

I'm still working for "the man", but I'm thinking about babysitting instead. I gotta find a part-time job that's outside of pharmacy for whenever rotations start. There's no joy in working in a pharmacy from 8 or 9am 'til 4 or 5pm and then staying to close elsewhere until 10pm.


Just saw the first Mardi Gras parade of the season Saturday. It was the "adults only" parade, too. 😀

Haha, great, you saw boobs, I saw snow...that's new to me! It's overrated, crunching around in it, that is.

Yeah I'm thinking about going back to "the man" for the summer, I need something flexible and the big pharma internships I want = I need to wait until next summer when I'm between P-2/P-3. I guess that's the saving grace of retail...the fact that it's flexible.

You should try dog walking or dog sitting, that's always fun. For some reason dog poo is easier to deal with than baby poo.

 

[PharmDstudent]

Haha, great, you saw boobs, I saw snow...that's new to me! It's overrated, crunching around in it, that is.

Yeah I'm thinking about going back to "the man" for the summer, I need something flexible and the big pharma internships I want = I need to wait until next summer when I'm between P-2/P-3. I guess that's the saving grace of retail...the fact that it's flexible.

You should try dog walking or dog sitting, that's always fun. For some reason dog poo is easier to deal with than baby poo.

Yeah. Retail takes in interns pretty readily, just as long as they're experienced. Maybe the independent can find more work for you instead of going back to regular-o retail.


Housesitting would be even better. No poop! I doubt that I would be so lucky though. If nothing else, I could live off of loan money, plus weekends at "the man". I'm pretty tired of my current job, just the bull**** that goes along with it actually, but even still, I don't really wanna burn myself out by adding rotations on top of it. You know, that's why I would love a 7 on, 7 off schedule. No bull****, i.e. managers, DMs, DOPs, drug reps, etc. telling me what I should do and how they always know what's "best". 😛

ETA: Good night! It's sleepy time. Nice talking to you. 🙂

 

[crossurfingers]

Most customers are so self-centered. Sometimes we'll get ER scripts 2 minutes before we officially close. I offer to route it over to a 24 hour store maybe a mile or 2 away and tell them it should be ready by the time they get there, but no, it's too much of an inconvenience for them. They would rather have you be inconvenienced by their stupidity of dropping off a script so late than them. Those people irritate me so much. People see them waiting and assume we're still open and line up behind them. Before you know it , it's 5:30 and you still haven't done your closing checklist. Then you get yelled at if you want to claim OT for it.

Once after a particularly horrid Saturday I stayed half an hour to catch up on some filling for the next day/clean up. Some guy sees me through the window at 5:30, proceeds to knock and gives me 3 prescriptions. I tell him we're closed and have been closed for half an hour but can have it ready tomorrow, but no, he wants them here and now (since I was still there apparently I should do it). After going back and forth as to why I couldn't do it NOW like he wanted (he didn't want to go to a 24 hour store), he decided he could wait till tomorrow. Ugh. What an *******.

 

[Sparda29]

Most customers are so self-centered. Sometimes we'll get ER scripts 2 minutes before we officially close. I offer to route it over to a 24 hour store maybe a mile or 2 away and tell them it should be ready by the time they get there, but no, it's too much of an inconvenience for them. They would rather have you be inconvenienced by their stupidity of dropping off a script so late than them. Those people irritate me so much. People see them waiting and assume we're still open and line up behind them. Before you know it , it's 5:30 and you still haven't done your closing checklist. Then you get yelled at if you want to claim OT for it.

Once after a particularly horrid Saturday I stayed half an hour to catch up on some filling for the next day/clean up. Some guy sees me through the window at 5:30, proceeds to knock and gives me 3 prescriptions. I tell him we're closed and have been closed for half an hour but can have it ready tomorrow, but no, he wants them here and now (since I was still there apparently I should do it). After going back and forth as to why I couldn't do it NOW like he wanted (he didn't want to go to a 24 hour store), he decided he could wait till tomorrow. Ugh. What an *******.

Drop-off is another thing. Unless it is like 1 script and its for a Zpak or a Medrol pack, or some easy thing, we don't fill anymore new scripts after 550PM on weekends. If there is an insurance problem that started at 5PM and doesn't get resolved by 6PM, we adjust the pick-up time on the script and get back to it the next day.

I think my boss prefers angry customers over an angry wife, I agree with him.

 

[Aznfarmerboi]

Sparda and Confetti is right on this one. If the pharmacy closes at 6, thats it. This person came in 15 minutes late. With that said, isnt waiting bin suppose to be done on Saturdays?

You do NOT get paid for overtime (Your stay was unapproved). If you stayed to 8, that is on your own time. In fact, security is going to call to ask why is your pharmacy still open.

 

[confettiflyer]

You do NOT get paid for overtime (Your stay was unapproved). If you stayed to 8, that is on your own time. In fact, security is going to call to ask why is your pharmacy still open.

Is that the overtime law in NYC? I know for CA, we get paid regardless since we're technically clocked in. It requires a manager override to change someone's punch time and our store manager made it clear he was NOT touching punch times due to the legal issues that could arise (ie disputes, etc...)

There was a time when we had no PIC and a few people quit, it was like...overtime bonanza over there. By the time things settled down, I think I had clocked several dozen OT hours. I think meister had the same thing.

Yeah, I'm sad to say some of my pharm student brethren are WAY too idealistic and will get their faces kicked in once they realize what we're saying is the actual reality of retail.

 

[MountainPharmD]

I think my boss prefers angry customers over an angry wife, I agree with him.

That says it all right there! I do not have to live with the customers or the store manager so screw them!

 

[MountainPharmD]

Sparda and Confetti is right on this one. If the pharmacy closes at 6, thats it. This person came in 15 minutes late. With that said, isnt waiting bin suppose to be done on Saturdays?

You do NOT get paid for overtime (Your stay was unapproved). If you stayed to 8, that is on your own time. In fact, security is going to call to ask why is your pharmacy still open.

This is true only for the poor saps that are on salary. I used to work for Kroger and we were hourly. I would stay late all the time because I got paid for it. The store manager would ask why I had OT. All I had to say was "a customers came up right at close and I had to take care of them". Nothing they can say about that. I averaged at least 1.5 to 2 hours OT every week.

My current job I am on salary. As soon as closing time hits I am out the door. We close at 6pm on Sunday and at 6:02 I am in my car pulling out of the lot.

 

[Sparda29]

Sparda and Confetti is right on this one. If the pharmacy closes at 6, thats it. This person came in 15 minutes late. With that said, isnt waiting bin suppose to be done on Saturdays?

You do NOT get paid for overtime (Your stay was unapproved). If you stayed to 8, that is on your own time. In fact, security is going to call to ask why is your pharmacy still open.

It is, but they don't like me to start up waiting bin too early. So I started at 445PM, the other tech left at 5PM, so it was just me and the pharmacist. So I was being repeatedly interrupted during the Waiting Bin and the final touches were being done around 6PM. Due to the damn Readyfill, the amount of scripts to scan have skyrocketed. We are pretty much out of room in our bins.

 

[Aznfarmerboi]

This is true only for the poor saps that are on salary. I used to work for Kroger and we were hourly. I would stay late all the time because I got paid for it. The store manager would ask why I had OT. All I had to say was "a customers came up right at close and I had to take care of them". Nothing they can say about that. I averaged at least 1.5 to 2 hours OT every week.

My current job I am on salary. As soon as closing time hits I am out the door. We close at 6pm on Sunday and at 6:02 I am in my car pulling out of the lot.

haha. I would love to stay on Sundays but with the exception of emergency fills, I get no help. Its a vicious cycle.

Emergency fills on Sundays are rare for us since we are not near a hospital. Pharmacies near a hospitals in NYC is usually 24 hours anyway.

 

[mike36]

Just to clarify my position, I am not saying the pharmacist should stay 30 minutes late, or even five minutes if there are customers that continue to come in at the last minute to fill something that can wait until tomorrow. I do believe though that the pharmacist should stay the extra few minutes to fill an emergency med.

 

[confettiflyer]

Just to clarify my position, I am not saying the pharmacist should stay 30 minutes late, or even five minutes if there are customers that continue to come in at the last minute to fill something that can wait until tomorrow. I do believe though that the pharmacist should stay the extra few minutes to fill an emergency med.

Right, but do you understand the issue of leaving your screen/door open while you finish this "last minute emergency fill" and telling others to leave? Sure, they might just need a statin or a maintenance med, but to them, it's an "emergency." Hell...if they can't get their benzos, that's an emergency to them.

Just curious have you ever worked retail on a Sunday afternoon that's not 24h? Or are you just saying how things "should" be in retail pharm.

 

[Quiksilver]

Just to clarify my position, I am not saying the pharmacist should stay 30 minutes late, or even five minutes if there are customers that continue to come in at the last minute to fill something that can wait until tomorrow. I do believe though that the pharmacist should stay the extra few minutes to fill an emergency med.

i'm right there with you on this one. I am not trying to stay an extra 2 hours, these people are misconstruing a possible extra 10 minutes on to a day and having a holy ****. Close when you normally do, close the gates, if someone catches you while ur leaving, and it is a med that it would seem necessary, fill it. It would honestly take less then a 3 minutes and cash them at the front register. I know this is possible. I've done it and in my 3 years of being a tech/intern, even in my 24 hour store, I have only come upon a handful of times where the medication was necessary and needed to be filled right then and there.

 

[njac]

Housesitting would be even better. No poop! I doubt that I would be so lucky though. If nothing else, I could live off of loan money, plus weekends at "the man". )

Through rotations I've just been working every Saturday on top of my loans.

I do have a housesitting business, and that pays pretty well. I've backed off quite a bit but still make $3-400 on a slow month from it.

 

[Praziquantel86]

But have you worked for CVS? We got more crap about OT/meal penalties vs. script count. We had people tx out all the time due to lack of service, but we'd get the stern warnings re: OT/hours. Priorities for CVS based on these warnings were 1) OT/tech hours AND SSS scores (tie) 2) PCI calls 3) extra care card scan rate ..... 8) script count.

I've worked for CVS for the last 6 years, and now that you mention it, the script count does show up fairly low on their list of things to shape up.

When I talk about staying late, I don't mean a few hours late...just a few minutes. The latest I've ever stayed after closing was about a half hour, and that was on an absolutely insane day.

I understand the point about not staying late to fill Balziva and Asacol all night, but there definitely are cases where it is our responsibility to fill the prescription right then and there. I don't think I'm being idealistic when I say that we sometimes provide the last place to turn to, and I don't think that is a duty to be taken lightly.

 

[confettiflyer]

I've worked for CVS for the last 6 years, and now that you mention it, the script count does show up fairly low on their list of things to shape up.

When I talk about staying late, I don't mean a few hours late...just a few minutes. The latest I've ever stayed after closing was about a half hour, and that was on an absolutely insane day.

I understand the point about not staying late to fill Balziva and Asacol all night, but there definitely are cases where it is our responsibility to fill the prescription right then and there. I don't think I'm being idealistic when I say that we sometimes provide the last place to turn to, and I don't think that is a duty to be taken lightly.

Right, 15 is fine...Getting into my car at 6:02pm is a bonus to me, I've come to expect 6:15pm as par for the course.

But do you see the issue with the incremental additions to the time clock? If you've got a steady stream of ambulatory patients at your pharmacy at 5:55pm (with varying degrees of personal emergencies), you're telling me me I'm gonna have to make like a short staffed ED and triage? At least in the ED, the patients can't/won't argue back with you (and when they do, what are they gonna do, complain? get in line).

I mean...everyone seems to be arguing that it's easy to fill one person's Rx while they're standing there and turn half a dozen people away. It doesn't actually work that way. Hell, when I did that "sneak the pt into the pharmacy and lock the outer sliding door" thing that one day I stayed an hour+ past, we still had people BANGING on the door or attempting to yank it open because they could see lights on/hear clicking/clacking inside.

I suppose you can stand your ground and do that, but what ends up happening is 1) you look like an a-hole to the people you're turning away WHILE you're filing that "emergency" Rx to the man/woman at the counter who clearly is not bleeding out or on the floor, 2) the next thing you know the pt is complaining to your DM, store manager, corporate, or what-have-you (wasting their time), 3) Not only that, you've just clocked overtime, which we get warnings for from not ONLY the DM, but the freakin Area VP, (i think they penalize your store's tech budget if this is the case?) 4) now you're late to the more important things in life....your wife/kids/etc...

so really, the only fair solution to EVERYBODY is to close up shop at 6pm and make no apologies. It's fair to the pt's, it's fair to your staff who have to deal with the consequences of staying late, and most importantly, it's fair to your family who'd like to see you for dinner. We take off our white coats, sneak out the back and through magazines, drop off registers, and take off.



Random story: Before the "ban" on taking coats home (which I ignored since I floated), I'd routinely just wear it out. Having people plead with you in the parking lot while you're on the phone with your girlfriend and keys in your hand while you're in a not-so-nice neighborhood got old after a while. Ugh.

This is why I prefer to work in 24h stores...higher volume, but not having to "close up" on Sundays with super thin staff was a nice bonus.

 

[Praziquantel86]

This is why I prefer to work in 24h stores...higher volume, but not having to "close up" on Sundays with super thin staff was a nice bonus.

I'll agree with you on that one...I miss working in a 24 hour store.

 

[Sparda29]

You guys have a ban on taking white coats home? Only thing happening here is that they pat down our white coats to make sure we're not sneaking drugs out, which I don't get because what if the person just puts some pills in their pants pockets, how are you gonna search that?