No fast food jokes. You have no idea of how many I hear at the drive thru. "I need to pick up my prescriptions.....oh! and can I also get a side of fries with that har har har???" gets old for the 100th time.
It takes a long time at the pharmacy because the pharmacist is the rate limiting step. There is only ONE on duty usually. If you go to Wendy's they can multi-task and do multiple orders at once. Think of it this way. When you go to the airport, it takes 30 seconds to walk through a metal detector right? Then why is there sometimes 30 minutes to 1 hour lines to get through security? Because each and every person has to be examined individually.
I have also rounded at a doctor's office. Average time the doctor spent with the patient was maybe 10-15 minutes. But it wasn't unusual for some patients to wait 1 - 2 hours. Why? B/c while the doctor was seeing that one patient, there were 5, 6, or 10 patients waiting to see that doctor. Or something serious takes up the doctor's time and everything gets behind.
Pharmacy is the same way. The pharmacist MUST look at every single prescription and every single drug on that rx and verify it. He MUST look at everything on the prescription and verify everything is accurately typed in - the doctor who wrote the rx, the phone number of the dr's office, the drug, the strength, the sig, the date, the name of the pt, etc. He has to make sure it is within the scope of practice of the doctor. He has to make sure the RX isn't expired. Then when the medication has been filled, the pharmacist again has to verify every prescription is filled accurately, one by one. If you don't think that's important? I've seen a script written for Coumadin 5mg #30 - take one tablet by mouth every HOUR. That surely would have killed someone.
Another reason is because pharmacys are most likely short staffed. At my work, there are 2 techs on duty and 1 pharmacist. When 1 person leaves to go on break or gets held up by a needy customer, that leaves only 2 people to do all the pharmacy duties. Here are just some of their duties:
1 tech responsible for filling, typing scripts, answering phone calls, resolving insurance issues, maintaining the filling machine. Phone calls are the major thing that will get this tech behind. Working with insurance and getting claims to adjudicate is also another time crunch. Unlike medical, pharmacies have to adjudicate before the script is sold.
The other tech is responsible for ringing up customers, drive thru, maintaining the OTC shelves, filing the prescriptions. Not everything goes smoothly. Insurance usually like to play games and do everything in their power not to pay. Guess what? When something isn't going through and the patient is right there waiting to pick it up, the tech has to fix the problem. Ringing up people isn't normally a problem, but when masses of people come, it is a problem. My pharmacy sells about 300-400 scripts in an 8 hour day. Now, each tech has to take a 30 minute lunch, leaving only 1 pharmacist, 1 tech on duty. And on top of that, 3 register drawers have to be counted by the tech and double counted in front of the tech by a manager before the pharmacy closes. 1 register takes about 5 - 10 minutes to count. So when there's only 1 pharmacist and 1 tech on duty, things get behind.
Now, the pharmacist has to verify each script that is scanned in and typed by the tech. He also has to verify the actual product after the tech has filled it. He has to address interactions that the computer alerts to. He has to handle transfers, take in new phoned prescriptions, call doctor's, and make sure the tech's aren't selling the wrong drug to the wrong patient. He also has to deal with the drug addicts that are demanding, yelling, and cursing for their narcotic prescription to be filled 2 weeks early. He has to deal with customers who are threatening the pharmacist that they will report him to the board of pharmacy because their insurance won't pay for their Brand-only prescription or that their co-pay is $50 and not $5 (while their insurance paid $350 of the prescription). Now the pharmacist also has to answer questions by customers and give flu, h1n1, and pneumonia shots. The pharmacist also has to check off that he has counseled each and every new prescription - either the patient accepted the counsult or rejected it.
I am sure I missed a lot of things. Even if you are the only one in the waiting room, there may be 20 - 30 other patients who said they would be coming in to pick up their script in the next half hour and they all have to be filled and ready.
Oh yeah, and the pharmacist also has to deal with corporate reports - calling pt's, making sure inventory is counted, file DEA 222 forms, file all the RX's in order, etc.
Next time you are at your physician's office and have to wait 30 minutes or more. I dare you to tell him, "What's taking you so long, doc?" with a look of disgust, "Does it really take that long to talk to a patient and tell him whats wrong with him??"
