Phun at the Pharmacy

Last month, Adam and Lily had a well child doctor's appointment, things went well. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I have a vague recollection of Tara saying something about the doctor's office sending prescriptions directly to the pharmacy, so we wouldn't have to worry about losing the prescription. Or I dreamt that part.

With 8 people in our family, I am over at the pharmacy more regularly than I would like to be. (I really should switch a couple more of my prescriptions to mail order...) The pharmacy people know who I am. (They call me Mr. Payne, sometimes it bothers me when they know me on sight.) I have been over there a few times since the prescriptions were sent over, but I didn't know/remember to ask, and they didn't offer. On Monday, they called and reminded Tara that there were 3 multivitamin prescriptions sitting on the shelf waiting for us.

Tara and I went over there Tuesday night. (We had a babysitter, I went to the Stake center, Tara went to the library. We got home at the same time, and decided to sneak off to the store together. We are rebels.) We got to the pharmacy at 9:04pm. The place was closed.

I went on Wednesday evening. There was a lady in front of me. There was something wrong with her prescription. The pharmacist ended up on the phone for about 10 minutes talking to someone about it. In the end, she got a bunch of stuff, and spent a full 5 minutes trying to get exact change out of her purse to pay for it. (I only had 45 minutes to get over there and back, and had Ruth and Adam with me.)

I told him I had a bunch of stuff to pick up. He wasn't listening well, and said "Just the one thing, right?", I had him look again, I had two prescriptions for me in there, and wanted the pile of multivitamins. He found my other prescription, and eventually found the other pile. Then he tried to add Adam to the computer to authorize his vitamins with the insurance. He kept getting a "Not on insurance" error, or something like that. I had him check the birthdate, which was right. Clearly this wasn't the pharmacists night. I had about 6 other people waiting behind me, so I told him to set it aside. He asked if I could call my insurance and get it figured out, and indicated that he would be in all day Wednesday. This was fine, I didn't want to pay $20 for the vitamins. All told, the prescriptions totalled $50. I got to use my new flexible spending debit card. Sweet, no more reimbursements to submit.

Yesterday, I called the insurance company. They saw 5 authorizations for the thing that got denied, and one after 7:30pm that was approved. (I left the place at 5:45pm) I called the pharmacy, they said the thing was all ready to go, $5.

I went over there this afternoon, and the other pharmacist was there. He couldn't find the prescription on the shelf. Now, I like a good running gag, just as much as the next guy, but this was getting silly. I tried to explain what happened on Wednesday, but they weren't listening. The pharmacy tech offered to refill the prescription, since it was from Dec 16th, and the pharmacist went to find the vitamins. I told them they wouldn't be able to refill, it would get rejected by the insurance, since the first fill had just been done on Wednesday. The pharmacy tech went over and found the prescription on the shelf.

Why do we need prescriptions for multivitamins you ask? Because the people around here (I assume it is 'seasoned' people in the community) voted down adding flouride to the water last time it was up for a vote. They didn't want poisons added to their water. Clearly these people are not drinking the water from the fountains at my office...