Sep
Stupid Voicemail
Posted by The *Angriest* Pharmacist as Doctors, Lazy People, Me being a dick, Stupid Nurses, Stupid People, True Story, Work Sucks
I’ve never really bitched about this much, but the quality of the voicemails I receive has deteriorated to a point that I cannot take it anymore. I’m tempted to shut my VM system off and require all practicioner’s offices speak with a pharmacist. I have the powah! I can do it…
I’ve got a pretty good system installed. I can replay or even fast forward or rewind a second by pressing a button (many seconds if hit repeatedly). But, when nurses are calling in these fucking scripts as one long word, it doesn’t matter. Worst of all, no one spells anymore – Not patient names, not doctor names, nothing.
Case in point: Nurse today called in an Rx that sounded like this (read as fast as possible and slur the words together) — “Hey this is Ann calling from doctor Badduda first name Mowaffaq prescription is for Shalonda Teddleston date of birth 5-5-75 for Lortab 7.5 #15 taken 1 BID prn pain office call back number is 555-6969.”
Here’s what is wrong with this voicemail:
1. She works for a foreign doctor. You have GOT to spell those names. I could care less where they are from, but I’m not familiar with spelling of their names. If it were John Smith, I’m cool with it. It’s not. Spell the fucking name.
2. Patient’s name could be spelled multiple ways. Is the last name spelled with T’s or D’s — they sound the same in a crappily left message.
3. Birthday of May 5th? FIVE FIVE sounds like NINE NINE. Make sure you are audible!
4. Lortab was mumbled. I misheard it. I originally wrote down FORTAZ. Of course, once I reread it, it didn’t make sense. So, I read between the lines. (Fortaz is an injectable antibiotic and wouldn’t be given prn and it’s a 1g+ dose — not 7.5mg).
5. In a fast, mumbled message, BID can sound like TID. How much fucking more time does it take to say twice a day or every 12 hours?
6. Office number is always given so fast it’s pretty much inaudible. You know it by heart, I don’t. Would you fucking slow down?
As you can see, the voicemail system has given me 6 opportunities to screw something up in a 15 second voicemail. If the voicemail had been 30 seconds and the bitch had slowed down a bit, there would have been no problems on my end and no gripes.
There’s just no rationalization these fucking LPNs and RNs can give that makes this ok. It’s unsafe. They sound more retarded than they actually are, and they are putting our ‘healthcare team’ at risk for making a dangerous mistake…all because they don’t have an extra 15-20 seconds to speak slower. Way to go, bitches.
Now, the fun goes both ways. I’ve been known to leave a fast voicemail in my day — mostly in response to this kind of bullshit. Next time I have a refill request for this bitch, I’m gonna talk as fast as possible. She won’t get it. She won’t put one and one together (well, if she does, she’ll get eight).
Most of my calling has been converted to faxing. I’m pushing to move ALL of it there….because of this bullshit.
I’ll probably call her tomorrow and explain the situation to her…slowly. See if maybe I can reason with her. It won’t work, but maybe, just maybe, the hamster wheel in her head will turn a few times and she can spare 15 seconds for me.
-=+=-
Here’s a fun game I like to play. Some nurses call in and “want to talk to the pharmacist” to phone in a prescription. When I get fast talked, and I’m actually TALKING to the asshole –err– nurse, I always take my time. I write as slow as possible. I repeat everything, maybe even twice. I speak as if I’ve had a stroke and in a thick southern accent…think Deliverance mixed with Cleveland from Family Guy. I love it when they get frustrated and try to hurry up and get off the phone. “Just to make sure I get everything right, please repeat the prescription back to me again.” I end the phone call by saying that they need to slow down a little bit or the patient could be the one that pays for their haste. “Would you rather me fill your child’s prescription as fast as possible, or diligent and correctly? Only one can happen. Your haste makes mistakes. If you don’t have time to call in a prescription get a fax machine, hire more help, or call them all in at the end of the day when you have time. Your patients will wait, they have no choice, and they will rejoice that you are giving them Toprol rather than Topamax.”
I took one the other day off the voice mail. In deeply middleastern accent: “This is Dr Havzdedzma (what the hell?) from (a different state than the one I live in). For patient MadzienazGwhagagz (I swear to you that is what it sounded like) for Vicodin ES…
She didn’t spell the patients name or her own. she didn’t include her area code to call her back, all I knew was the state, not even the city she was calling from. Thankfully she left a DEA number and I did a reverse search tto get her name. I must have listened to that message a half-dozen times.
“Hut dut dut dut tut…”
Listening to the damn message over and over and over again is the highlight of my day!!
Oh, and when I am speaking directly to a speed talker, I say really rudely, “um…You’re gonna have to slow down..” and then take my time writing everything down. LOVE IT
100% agree. The worst part of my day is taking voice mail. Well over a quarter of them have some BS I have to deal with. If it were my choice the vm would be turned off and every idiot nurse who wanted to call in a script would have to talk to me. It would save me a lot of time if I could head off all their mistakes at the pass. Acyclovir 250 mg… you must mean 200. Zithromax 250/5… you mean 200/5 right. Having the nurse on the phone prevented me from having to track both those down today.
Yeah – gotta love those nurses who missed their calling to be auctioneers! I’ve called a few back to – kindly- ask them to please slow down in the future, suggesting that maybe they write what they’re saying as they speak, since that’s what I’m doing when listening to the voicemail. Each and every time I’ve done that, I’m met with total bitchiness.. That’s why I’m for faxes or e-scripts.
I just delete the message and move on. IF the patient ever shows up (as many of my RTSs are phone in rxs), I tell them they’ll need to have the MD call it in again since we didn’t get the first message. Sure, this inconviences the patient some, but I’m not wasting my time calling the MD office, holding for 20 mins to talk to an uneducated receptionist telling me that the drugs were lis-pril and hydrochlorzide.
not only they speak too fast as one word, most do not what the hell they are calling in, take for example “Metforminer 500 em gees”. or the ones that are calling from “dr. smith’s office”…oh yeah dr. smith the big shit that everyone knows. leave a damn first name and another identifier.
Nurses and doctors with heavy accents are the worst. Why don’t you just kill the patients while you’re at it.
Can you type a little slower? I had to read this post 3 times to get the point. Actually, nice work. When I leave messages I make sure to at least state my name twice and phone number twice, spelling my last name most of the time. Is it really that damn hard?
i wouldn’t even assume that all of them are RN’s or LPN’s by any means. A doctor can have ANYONE call in a rx, as long as the doctor has authorized them to. Hell, they could have their 16-year old freaking high school daughter call it in if they wanted (I’ve seen it happen-my mom is an MD). So perhaps that’s part of the problem.
That’s a GOOD point. I wish our Boards of Pharmacy would step in. People with medical training have no business calling in a prescription. Do we allow patient to call us and say, “Hey, I have this script. It says this, this and this. Have it ready when I get there, and I’ll give you the script then. Hell no we don’t!”
I had a VM yesterday that was so garbled that I called the office back and left them a VM to recall in the Rx because… “LIZ DIDN’T SPEAK CLEARLY AND SLOWLY ENOUGH FOR ME TO UNDERSTAND ANYTHING SHE LEFT ON MY VOICEMAIL EXCEPT FOR THE PHONE NUMBER OF THE OFFICE”.
Hilarious. I love the QuiltLady!
Doctor’s can fuck up other ways too. I had a doctor write for Lovenox 125mg qd #30.
He meant to write “Levoxyl.” The patient knew something was up when she opened her bag to find syringes instead of tablets.
But worst of all, it was a hand-written script. Not an e-RX that he could have clicked on wrong. This was kinda scary.
The patient was also shocked that her little thyroid pill had a price of $2500! Heh heh…
What a strange turn of events, since when the patient calls the dr.’s office and wishes to leave a message for his nurse, they are instructed to leave their full name (spelling both first and last), whether or not this is an emergency, their birthdate, their social security number, insurance information, home phone with area code, secondary phone number, the height & weight of their first born, their natural haircolor, their gender preferences, and oh yeah – the nature of the problem.
{{{ rolling eyes }}}
:-/
HA! I have no problem making those fast talkers slow down. My voice mail makes you replay the ENTIRE message so it can take 4-5 plays to get the whole thing. More if they are leaving 5 scripts! I usually find something wrong with it so that I can call the doctors office back for clarification. I usually tell them, if you are calling in that many, to please hit the option to talk to someone.
I am a veterinary technician, and when I call in the occasional prescription for a dog or cat (we carry most drugs in stock in our office), I always ask to talk to the pharmacist and give the prescription in person – would this be preferable to leaving a good message? I always wonder since I know the dosages and directions are likely to be a bit different, with all the species differences and such…
Also, a client brought in her dog’s bottle of Phenobarbital the other day that we had scripted out for her through a local pharmacy…I found the “do not drive or operate heavy machinery” cautionary label quite amusing for a canine prescription.
For Dogs and Cats, I would prefer to be spoken to…merely because if mom or dad isn’t in the computer, my hands are tied. And also for the reason you said — weird dosing schedules and regimens.
Perpetual Phoenix…I have noticed the same thing. Those voicemails always state at the end that if you don’t speak slowly and clearly or if you leave out ANY of the requested information your message will be deleted and ignored. Have they never heard of the golden rule?
And I would prefer that they leave me a voicemail simply because that is what I have to do when I call the office. Tit for tat!!
I would have to emphasize what jason said. My wife is a nurse. So, whenever I have a problem with doctor’s office personal I always ask for their credentials. I have never had a problem with an RN, only a handful of LPN’s, but mostly they are MA’s or just secretaries. In contrast, as you go up past RN (NP, MD) the problems also go up, probably has something to do with ego as well.
How about the drs calling in on their cells phones on voice mail? And every other word is dropped. I took one yesterday that the patients name, the drug and strength were all dropped. I call the office and of course its a friend of the dr so they have no idea about it.The nurse said the dr calls in for his friends on his way into the office all the time and she will have him call us when he gets in. Patient shows up and is mad at us….not the dr for leaving a crap message, or for not calling us back(4 hours later). Of course his cell phone is jabbed in my face 1 minute later with the dr on it. Who also has a attitude. Then I take the next order from a “nurse” and she tells me Neurontin 800mg 4 times a week……I call back to verify, she told me, very rudely,”that is what is written”. I told her go check it again its wrong. She comes back with the attitude and says “it must have been a typo, it is 4 times a day.” I hate voice mail.
Which is why I don’t touch patient’s cell phones. Those things are fucking gross, covered in ear wax and germs and shit…to hell with that. Here’s my card. Your doctor can call me and press zero. I’ll answer. Also, I have caller ID and can verify who actually calls…
Again, I’m just now scrolling through your archives, so forgive my late commenting….
I have no tolerance for nurses who ramble off orders half-assed like you mention. They must think for some reason that you, your techs, etc may be impressed with their mastery of medical lingo, or maybe they just want to underline the fact that they, as MD Minion du jour, are far too busy Running the Office to take the time to accurately communicate orders.
Either way, its a) rude, b)borderline negligent and c) eyerollingly obnoxious.
Feel free to deliver a verbal bitch-slap to these nurses on behalf of those of us who don’t feel the need to speed-dictate. Because in my state at least, if we (nurses) screw up meds (passing, ordering, transcribing, etc) it can easily mean our license.
(This may or may not be a passive/aggressive response to a particular nurse…Don’t judge, lol.)
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