Yet another customer wants the limelight, this time due to cvs

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I am pretty skeptical that the pharmacist wouldn’t even give the prescription back to the patient. Weird.

But seriously, how dare the pharmacist try to find out why a patient would need a medication. Isn’t that a HIPAA violation?
 
So let me get this straight...


According to this person's account:

-A transgendered person presents to the pharmacy with a prescription for female hormones.

-The pharmacist asks the patient what it's for.

-The patient refuses to say.

-The pharmacist, with no real idea WTF is going on, refuses to fill it.
-----------
This alone seems not that bad...even in the one-sided version of the story.



And this is what probably happened:

-The patient came in, dropped off the script. The dropoff tech typed it in. The QP tech filled it.

-The pharmacist, upon checking it, got a gender/drug mismatch DUR and needed to document.

-The pharmacist then simply asked the person what it was for so they could document.

-The patient refuses to say because they think pharmacists' jobs are just to put the pills into bottles and that's it.

-The pharmacist refuses to fill because its against corporate DUR policy to blow by DUR hard stops without proper documentation.

-The patient thinks they were discriminated against.
------------
No idea why the pharmacist kept the script. That's kind of weird. I'd need to know that person's side of the story. And oddly enough, this was in suburban Phoenix like the religious weirdo Walgreens pharmacist that didn't feel like dispensing an abortificant to a woman with a dead fetus. Must be something in the water down there.
 
I'm thinking his refusal to give the prescription back is what got him fired. There is no reason to keep a prescription, and certainly it is illegal to do so.

As for why he didn't fill the prescription, I would assume he just wanted to make sure it was the right prescription for the right patient, errors since as the wrong person's name being put on a prescription due happen. Then again, generally doctors who do gender reassignment, that is their specialty, so the prescribing doctor should have been a clue as to what was going on (but maybe he wasn't familiar with the doctor?)

Overall, I have a feeling communication from both the patient and the pharmacist was pretty poor, leading to this bad scenario. And the commentators on-line who think pharmacists don't have a right to ask someone what they are using a prescription for are just stupid (although it probably would have went better if the pharmacist took the patient aside and said something like "the doctor ordered a medication for you that is used to normalize female hormones, but our profile says you are a male, I just want to check that this is the correct medication that you are to receive" Then this would give the patient the chance to say "that's incorrect, I'm female" (or something", and then the pharmacist could say "OK, I will correct your profile.")
 
ignorance and stupidity of the general public is why i quit retail...
 
Also, doctors who work in gender reassignment tend to have colorful disciplinary records, in my experience.
 
My biggest issue with these things like the Walgreens incident or the recent white people calling the police on black people is you may have been humiliated or treated poorly but going to the media and ending up getting the person fired or ridiculed by the public makes you a much worse and even a horrible human being.

Why would anyone want to get someone fired?
 
#1: Story sounds fishy to me. After all that, the patient contacted the doctor to complain, and docs office then called the pharmacist to clarify the situation... and pharmbro still refused to fill or give the script back? Hard to believe a pharmacist would be that stupid, but ultimately, nothing surprises me today.

#2: If any retail store isn't providing the pharmacist a private counseling room, whoever made the floor plan needs to be fired. Too much BS today with HIPAA and stuff like this to not have a private counseling room available.
 
PharmDBro2017 said:
#2: If any retail store isn't providing the pharmacist a private counseling room, whoever made the floor plan needs to be fired. Too much BS today with HIPAA and stuff like this to not have a private counseling room available.
Click to expand...

This is a great point and something that has always annoyed me. If you want me to not say things that other people can hear, you need to give me a mechanism to do that.
 
WVUPharm2007 said:
This is a great point and something that has always annoyed me. If you want me to not say things that other people can hear, you need to give me a mechanism to do that.
Click to expand...

Walgreens technically has its immunization room. Not sure what others have.
 
Questions, (which might show my ignorance), what do pharmacists do with a Rx that they think is fraudulent?

EDIT: or even a Rx they don't want to or cant fill?
 
NITRAS said:
Questions, (which might show my ignorance), what do pharmacists do with a Rx that they think is fraudulent?

EDIT: or even a Rx they don't want to or cant fill?
Click to expand...
Tell the truth or lie and give the prescription back. Whichever is easier... Use your professional judgement :-D
 
wagrxm2000 said:
My biggest issue with these things like the Walgreens incident or the recent white people calling the police on black people is you may have been humiliated or treated poorly but going to the media and ending up getting the person fired or ridiculed by the public makes you a much worse and even a horrible human being.

Why would anyone want to get someone fired?
Click to expand...
Because they're not merely doing a bad job, but screwing you over because they're racists. Remember the CVS guys called the cops on the black woman because they *thought* the coupon was fake (which it wasn't). Don't wonder why people shouldn't be fired if you haven't been on the receiving end of racism.
 
Our society has gone so soft that we report to authority and media outlets based on personal feelings. I don't feel good looking at darker people so I must call the police... lol
 
Goro said:
Because they're not merely doing a bad job, but screwing you over because they're racists. Remember the CVS guys called the cops on the black woman because they *thought* the coupon was fake (which it wasn't). Don't wonder why people shouldn't be fired if you haven't been on the receiving end of racism.
Click to expand...
See, you're making that Kafka-esque leap where you're presuming intent and participating in silly gate-keeping.

Racism is not some magical thing that needs to be experienced to be understood.
 
NITRAS said:
Questions, (which might show my ignorance), what do pharmacists do with a Rx that they think is fraudulent?

EDIT: or even a Rx they don't want to or cant fill?
Click to expand...

Fraudulent: Call the prescriber and verify. When it’s fraudulent and you tell the patient that you are calling to verify/clarify, the patient usually disappears quickly.
 
Goro said:
Because they're not merely doing a bad job, but screwing you over because they're racists. Remember the CVS guys called the cops on the black woman because they *thought* the coupon was fake (which it wasn't). Don't wonder why people shouldn't be fired if you haven't been on the receiving end of racism.
Click to expand...

Wow I'm not going to touch that last part.

So you think any person that experiences any inconveniences, slight humiliation, or racism should be fired? You realize how many people would not have a job? Look I'm not saying racism isn't a horrible thing but be the bigger person and not get someone fired. Instead you are being even worse.

Racism is everywhere the problem is calling racism when it has nothing to do with it. People are such snowflakes now. Going back to that CVS/coupon situation. Guess what? It wasn't racism. A person came out saying they were there and the woman followed the workers around, yelling at them. He was traumatized as you can see from the picture.

Not everything is due to racism.
 
wagrxm2000 said:
Wow I'm not going to touch that last part.

So you think any person that experiences any inconveniences, slight humiliation, or racism should be fired? You realize how many people would not have a job? Look I'm not saying racism isn't a horrible thing but be the bigger person and not get someone fired. Instead you are being even worse.
Click to expand...
Not experienced racism, but those who dish it out.
 
BidingMyTime said:
I'm thinking his refusal to give the prescription back is what got him fired. There is no reason to keep a prescription, and certainly it is illegal to do so.

As for why he didn't fill the prescription, I would assume he just wanted to make sure it was the right prescription for the right patient, errors since as the wrong person's name being put on a prescription due happen. Then again, generally doctors who do gender reassignment, that is their specialty, so the prescribing doctor should have been a clue as to what was going on (but maybe he wasn't familiar with the doctor?)

Overall, I have a feeling communication from both the patient and the pharmacist was pretty poor, leading to this bad scenario. And the commentators on-line who think pharmacists don't have a right to ask someone what they are using a prescription for are just stupid (although it probably would have went better if the pharmacist took the patient aside and said something like "the doctor ordered a medication for you that is used to normalize female hormones, but our profile says you are a male, I just want to check that this is the correct medication that you are to receive" Then this would give the patient the chance to say "that's incorrect, I'm female" (or something", and then the pharmacist could say "OK, I will correct your profile.")
Click to expand...

" I would assume he just wanted to make sure it was the right prescription for the right patient"

I think the pharmacist's motivations are more sinister here. Most likely it was a cis-hetero male who engaged in discrimination based on his personal beliefs that trans-people are not entitled to hormone medication, a secret political agenda he attempted to mask under the thin veil of mundane "corporate policy".

You know. The tables can turn so quickly in life. I'm surprised people don't have better table manners.
 
Goro said:
Not experienced racism, but those who dish it out.
Click to expand...

Racism is everywhere the problem is calling racism when it has nothing to do with it. People are such snowflakes now. Going back to that CVS/coupon situation. Guess what? It wasn't racism. A person came out saying they were there and the woman followed the workers around, yelling at them. He was traumatized as you can see from the video

Not everything is due to racism.
 
wagrxm2000 said:
Racism is everywhere the problem is calling racism when it has nothing to do with it. People are such snowflakes now. Going back to that CVS/coupon situation. Guess what? It wasn't racism. A person came out saying they were there and the woman followed the workers around, yelling at them. He was traumatized as you can see from the video

Not everything is due to racism.
Click to expand...
Says someone who's never been on the receiving end. Putting on Ignore.
 
WVUPharm2007 said:
Jokes on you, they put you on ignore.
Click to expand...

Yeah that hurt so much.

I hate racism and treat everyone equally but I also hate it when anyone who isn't straight and white says it's due to their race or sexuality.
 
According to their little title card, they are faculty somewhere. As we all know, I don't trust nor really respect those in academia. They work in an environment where people pay them to be subservient to them. They have no appreciation for the grind we deal with concerning the general public. If our customers go overboard in a ridiculous fashion, we can be fired. We work in a situation where the people with the money have all the power and mob rule via social media can ruin any of us instantly. If their customers do something they don't like, they are the ones with all the power and can do to them as they please. Fail them, discipline them, tell them to shut up and kick them out of the lecture they paid for. They basically get paid to torture people. We get paid to be tortured.

All I'm saying is that they need to check their academia privilege when engaging with us.
 
Goro said:
Says someone who's never been on the receiving end. Putting on Ignore.
Click to expand...
Well, I'm someone who has received it.

Taking a break from my position that you simply cannot know the heart and mind of someone else and that it is wrong and harmful to the equality and equity of PoC to do so,
Let's presume that you are correct, and . That the melanin in our beautiful skin not only protects us from the sun, but also grants us telepathic or empathic abilities.

If that is the case...

If the most traumatic racial oppression someone experiences is related to the use of a coupon, they've led a pretty charmed life.
At least compared to me and mine.

I reject this narrative. It directly harms my people
 
Oh, I actually remember being in a similar situation. I got a force pop-up to ask about a prescription for an older lady taking some type of testosterone. Turns out, she was using it for menopause symptoms that hadn't been adequately controlled by estrogen therapies. She didn't care in the slightest that I asked.

I also once had someone waiting in line when there was quite a crowd, and she simply informed me that she had a private question and wanted to wait for the line to thin out (it was a question about what OTC item she should use for awkward vaginal symptoms), so if this person had just asked the same, I'm sure most pharmacists would happily oblige without issue.

Also, if she was actually broken to near tears with humiliation simply because a healthcare person asked her a simple question, she's got a lot of hell to go through. (What? A pharmacist is a healthcare person??? Not a MickeyD's clerk??? MIND = BLOWN) She's going to have to go through an awkward transition phase with the hormones when she is essentially forcing her biology from male to female. It's going to be outwardly obvious to the whole world that she is in the process of transitioning. If she is SERIOUSLY concerned that the pharmacist is trying to 'out' her as transgender in front of random customers that don't give a flying s*** about her, has she considered that hormone therapy will by definition 'out her as transgender' to literally all of her friends, family, and everyone she knows?

Except that I don't think she's actually embarrassed at all, otherwise, she probably wouldn't feel comfortable posting a public picture of herself online and talking about her transitioning experience to literally the whole world.
 
I don't have private area at my pharmacy where I can talk to patients. If there is no one around, I'll just softly talk to them. If there is someone around the area, I'll tell them to go to the other part of the store until I tell them to come back.
 
wagrxm2000 said:
My Pharmacist Humiliated Me When He Refused to Fill My Hormone Prescription

Pharmacists really need to stop talking so loudly.
Click to expand...


I would like to know the other side of the story. I don’t know if I believe the pharmacist deliberately tried to embarrass the customer. I think they were asking for more information but of course customers think we have NO RIGHT to question anything. (But would be the first to sue us if we didn’t ask questions...) Just curious at the other side of the story. I truly feel like I have zero say/ professional judgement working in retail. Customers have no idea our responsibility and corporate will never back us up. Everyone goes to Facebook/the news if they don’t get their way now. Looks like I have to be a “yes” pharmacist now if I want to keep my job.
 
Every BOP should require a private consultation/counseling area that is floor to ceiling. Does anyone have a link where pharmacist was terminated or did I miss it?
 
WVUPharm2007 said:
According to their little title card, they are faculty somewhere. As we all know, I don't trust nor really respect those in academia. They work in an environment where people pay them to be subservient to them. They have no appreciation for the grind we deal with concerning the general public. If our customers go overboard in a ridiculous fashion, we can be fired. We work in a situation where the people with the money have all the power and mob rule via social media can ruin any of us instantly. If their customers do something they don't like, they are the ones with all the power and can do to them as they please. Fail them, discipline them, tell them to shut up and kick them out of the lecture they paid for. They basically get paid to torture people. We get paid to be tortured.

All I'm saying is that they need to check their academia privilege when engaging with us.
Click to expand...

I just enjoy them coming into y'all's forum spouting a bunch of nonsense and then getting butt hurt when called on it.

I don't really belong here either, but I generally try and behave myself since this is not the physicians part of the forum and I'm a guest here.
 
VA Hopeful Dr said:
I just enjoy them coming into y'all's forum spouting a bunch of nonsense and then getting butt hurt when called on it.

I don't really belong here either, but I generally try and behave myself since this is not the physicians part of the forum and I'm a guest here.
Click to expand...

I’m a medical student and I find many of the pharm threads interesting and educational. They might be the only non-Medical forum I don’t have on ignore on my new posts feed. I am a guest here too but appreciate the pharmacy forums.
 
I don't think we'll be seeing goro anymore. Can't cry racism then give an example that was proven wrong.

I did like how that person came out of no where then whimpered away. I wish I could see how many have me ignored, it's probably a decent number. People need to learn that there will be others with different perspectives then you.
 
So can you actually get reprimanded for counseling a patient/discusing phi that is in earshot of another patient? Even if you make an attempt to remain confidential? (Whether it be speaking softly or a short distance away from the other patients).

At my pharmacy we all pretty much talk to the patients from the counter. Obviously not about sensitive stuff, but about what rx they need filled or how many refills they have or if it was rejected, etc. I was unaware this is a HIPAA violation.
 
wagrxm2000 said:
I don't think we'll be seeing goro anymore. Can't cry racism then give an example that was proven wrong.

I did like how that person came out of no where then whimpered away. I wish I could see how many have me ignored, it's probably a decent number. People need to learn that there will be others with different perspectives then you.
Click to expand...
The majority of people as best I can tell don't use that function very often. But there are some who place on ignore anyone who disagrees with them...
 
Besides refusing to give the prescription back, pharmacist was 100% in the right. Honestly this story is more proof that the public doesn't respect us. We're health care professionals. Why would you even bring up HIPAA?
 
Though i do not know the whole story, we as rphs are treated like doormats. We get no respect from the public at all . A patient once called corporate to lie on me because i was questionning his high dose of oxycodone 30. And i know 100 percent that he is abusing or selling it. He told corporate that i violated his HIPAA. And i had to sign some random thing. It is us against the public and of course the public is always right.
 
So the pharmacist couldn't

-google the prescriber to see what they specialize in?
-research the drug to see why the patient would be on that combination?
-take the patient on a quiet side of the pharmacy or store to talk?
-if based on religious right just transfer the rx to another store?
-simply just tell the patient that they don't have the med in stock?


there is always a window of opportunity for the pharmacist to not escalate it. They just didn't take it

During school we actually got to sit for 1/2 the day at the board of pharmacy sessions where they were taking rph license away that session. Each scenario the rph had a window of opportunity that could've solved the issue but chose not to take because of pride or lack of empathy.
 
GodsSon2011 said:
So the pharmacist couldn't

-google the prescriber to see what they specialize in?
-research the drug to see why the patient would be on that combination?
-take the patient on a quiet side of the pharmacy or store to talk?
-if based on religious right just transfer the rx to another store?
-simply just tell the patient that they don't have the med in stock?


there is always a window of opportunity for the pharmacist to not escalate it. They just didn't take it

During school we actually got to sit for 1/2 the day at the board of pharmacy sessions where they were taking rph license away that session. Each scenario the rph had a window of opportunity that could've solved the issue but chose not to take because of pride or lack of empathy.
Click to expand...

Yeah...just lie!

Truth is, we don't know what happened. I wish we did know, I'd like to have the pharmacist's viewpoint.
 
They should not have withheld the prescription if they did so, that is both illegal and unprofessional. However, there are 2 sides to each story. If she complained to the board there is likely some public document regarding the outcome of the investigation. If the pharmacist was questioning why a biologically female individual needed testosterone though due to conducting a proper DUR that is legitimate and valid. They should go about it in a discreet and sensitive manner though with full respect for the patient.
 
wagrxm2000 said:
Why would anyone want to get someone fired?
Click to expand...

I don't think the main goal is to get people fired (maybe for some vindictive folks), but rather to stop people from harming other people, and be held accountable for the harm they've inflicted. It sounds like in this case the patient did a lot of things before going to the media (told the physician what had happened and the physician tried to intervene without reaching a resolution, called corporate to have this resolved and did not receive a response from corporate, etc.). It sounds like this experience was traumatic for this patient (whether justified or not, this obviously was a negative experience for her, and it is not my place to dismiss that experience), and she felt compelled to do whatever in her power to ensure no one else would have to go through a similar experience.

There is definitely a perception issue for pharmacists among the general public. But taking it out on our customers/patients won't help improve that perception. If people don't understand why I need to know why they are taking a medication, I do my best to explain why. If I treat people like they matter they are much less likely to feel like I am getting in their way and complain about me.

If anything, the comments to this article (and the comments to every similar news story) make me wish that APhA would do something useful like put together a large-scale national PSA about the role of pharmacists and why we need to know patient-specific indications for use. Better yet, it would be nice if there was some kind of streamlined communication system between prescribers and pharmacists that would prevent 99% of these incidents... One can dream.
 
The simple fact remains that we have no idea what actually took place.

Maybe Hilde walked in reeking of cigarette smoke.

Despite this, we still have both sides claiming, "snowflake!" / "perfect innocent victim of oppression!"
That's ridiculous.
We should be better.

We just don't know.
 
WVUPharm2007 said:
Yeah...just lie!

Truth is, we don't know what happened. I wish we did know, I'd like to have the pharmacist's viewpoint.
Click to expand...

Quick lie and still have a job.

I'll take that any day of the week

Also all other parts I mentioned would've left them with their job.
Their pride got them fired. Also being lazy to find a way to not escalated the problem. They are the professional and current the employee of the company. They should know there would not be a way the patient will be at fault unless its clearly theirs that the name of the game. Don't care if you don't like it you got to play it until it changes.

Again they got fired. You don't think CVS did an investigation?
 
Last edited:
GodsSon2011 said:
Quick lie and still have a job.

I'll take that any day of the week

Also all other parts I mentioned would've left them with their job.
Their pride got them fired. Also being lazy to find a way to not escalated the problem. They are the professional and current the employee of the company. They should know there would not be a way the patient will be at fault unless its clearly theirs that the name of the game. Don't care if you don't like it you got to play it until it changes.
Again they got fired. You don't think CVS did an investigation?
Click to expand...
If you wanna be a beta-pharmacist that "plays the game", that's your call.

And no, CVS probably didn't do an investigation, whatever that entails

They just did what any publicly traded corporation does in the 2010s when it hears the social justice war-drums: apologize, fire the employee, and promise to comply.
 
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