1 to 6 of 10+ Things Your Pharmacist Won’t Tell You

Posted by The *Angriest* Pharmacist as Doctors, Education, Errors, Government, Hate Mail, Insurance Companies, Me being a dick, Me hating others, Money, Patient Education, Politics, Stupid People, TPA, True Story

BlueTech shared this article with me. I’m going to respond to each point, and I might even add a few at the end.
Update (5/14/09@0055): Yahoo! must have seen the amount of hits pouring from my site to the above link and removed the article. (Or perhaps I think too highly of myself and there’s just an error). Fortunately, Google allows nothing to disappear permanently. http://www.smartmoney.com/spending/deals/ten-things-your-pharmacist-wont-tell-you-3937/ (I believe this to be the site of origin anyway. There are some comments on this page that hints at original publication in the Wall Street Journal. I HIGHLY doubt that it ran in the print version, but the website, SmartMoney.com is a part of the WSJ.com “Digital Network.” Wow….

1. “I’m overworked and stressed out…”
- “In 2007, 3.8 billion scripts were filled. 3.3 Billion were filled in 2002.” — The REAL Numbers does a good job of explaining how safe pharmacists really are in the grand scheme of things.
- “Some physicians are prescribing unnecessarily…it’s easier than explaining to patients why they don’t need an antibiotic.” — This is obviously your pharmacist’s fault! [end sarcasm] This is the reason the world is going to end some day — inappropriate antibiotic prescriptions are going to create a superbug that is going to ravage the world and result in about 4-5 billion deaths. Sore Throat? Zpak. Throwing up? Zpak. Swine flu? Zpak.
- Then some doucher ‘veteran pharmacist’ (he must have fought in a war) talks about how is independent store pharmacists fill about 80 to 100 prescriptions per SHIFT. When they go out of business in 6 months, you won’t catch me hiring them….cause of their affiliation with Frederick Mayer, doucher extraordinaire.
- “One side effect [A PUN!] is that most pharmacists don’t have time to offer the counseling federal and state law require with each prescription. It’s not just a formality — a pharmacist’s recommendation for how and when to take a certain medication can go a long way…in decreasing adverse side effects of medication.” — There are so many things wrong with this statement I don’t know where to begin. First off, the mandate (called OBRA ‘90) is that we have to counsel each patient….it’s that we make the OFFER to counsel….and I’d be willing to bet the VAST majority of our pharmacies are compliant with this — “Do you have any questions for the pharmacists?” — “No, I’m a schoolteacher!” — The problem here is that people HAVE questions and they don’t ask them. No pharmacist is too busy to answer a legitimate question for a patient. People just assume they know it all, go home, take a handful of Norco, then ask questions later when they are throwing up!
- Let’s be honest here — every working person in America would tell you they are 2 of the following 3: overworked, underpaid, and not appreciated.

2. “…which means I’m more error prone.”
Bullshit. Read The REAL Numbers. Who’s error prone? Me or the Washington Nationals? California had 433 complaints. Oh my wooooorrrrrd! Are you serious? How many of the 3.8 billion scripts do you think were filled in our most populous state? And we’re up in arms of 433 complaints? Talk about sensationalist conversion of numbers!
- “Things get so busy,” Mayer says, “that I have no time to look at the computer screen, or even to look inside the bottle and make sure that the pills I’m giving out are the right ones.” — Are you fucking serious right now? I’m not sure who this fuckwad is, but if he is too busy to accurately check prescriptions, and he’s filling less than 100 prescriptions per day, he needs to fucking retire. He’s worthless. I just figured out why he’s worthless. FREDERICK MAYER’S PHARMACY LICENSE WAS ISSUED IN 1954. He got pharmacist’s license before either of my PARENTS were born. Sorry Yahoo, but this 70 year old man is not an accurate representation of pharmacy — nor should he be looked at as our spokesman.

3. “I don’t understand all my merchandise.”
Again, this is bullshit. No one can know everything about all 10 thousand drugs they have on hand. Not the smartest pharmacist in the world. That’s why they MAKE Facts and Comparisons, Remingtons, Clinical Pharmacology, and Micromedex. If it were possible to know it all, these books would be unnecessary. What does Yahoo use as an example? Fucking Herbals. NOBODY KNOWS ABOUT HERBALS. This is not the fault of the pharmacist — it’s the fault of your LOYAL FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION exacerbated by your federal government and their underfunding of the FDA. The FDA needs balls to go after and regulate the herbal market and the teeth to bit them in the ass for selling shit product (which is currently not illegal).  Again, the souce here is Varro E Tyler FORMER professor EMERITUS! Capital words being key. He used to work for us every now and again. Pitiful…“Don’t buy dietary supplements, period,” says Larry Sasich — finally someone says something intelligent. [But don't worry, in the second post over this article, this Sasich guy really says some IGNORANT THINGS!.]

4. “My drug swapping could make you sick.”
- Here they are talking about manufacturer change. What do they say? Most of the time it’s fine except those on epilepsy, thyroid or HEART medication. As if people didn’t have enough to bitch about at the counter…”THIS MEDICINE IS FOR MY HEART AND MY DOCTOR TOLD ME TO NEVER MISS A DOSE — DO YOU WANT ME TO DIE? DIE RIGHT HERE ON YOUR COUNTER? I WILL WITHOUT MY HEART MEDICINE!” — “Ma’am, you will not die without your baby aspirin tomorrow…I promise”
- Of course, they focus on the epliptics. Frankly, I can accept the fact that these people should stay on the same brand/manufacturer. Same with coumadin brand/generic as well as Levoxyl, L-Thyroxine, and Synthroid. I don’t argue with them, and I just keep them where they were. But they really are going over the top here.
- “Most people can use any manufacturer’s version of a product without problems, but there’s a small but significant number of people that cannot,” says Sandy Finucane, vice president of legal and government affairs for the Maryland-based Epilepsy Foundation…..”and a drug from an unfamiliar manufacturer can lead to unexpected side effects including seizures, blurred or double vision, or severe headaches.” — What they are failing to realize here is that these drugs cause these ADRs on their own accord. The side effect of high blood pressure medication is NOT high blood pressure, but the side effect of seizure control meds is quite often seizures. Now they want to pin this on generics.
- What their doing a shitty job of here is explaining why this is. It’s not because there’s something in generics that is bad. It’s not because the drug is different. It’s because they drug is going to achieve different levels of active ingredient in your body and that may push you out of your threshold where you need to be. It’s unlikely. But, you can bet someone’s going to have an issue and bitch about it. They won’t tell you about the doses they missed though — just that they had a seizure. They missed doses on the old drug and didn’t have a seizure — they just got lucky. Not so lucky on the generic — must be because that new drug and worth shit.

5. “Frankly, your private records aren’t all that private.”
This statement and this entire section is complete and utter hogwash. It’s fucking bullshit, and I demand a retraction. It’s pathetic fear-mongering. Your data is safe. The data that is sold for marketing purposes is AGGREGATE data that has been washed of private info. It’s only used to monitor prescribing habits of areas of the country. I seriously doubt any pharmacy allows refill requests to be generated by a manufacturer anymore. I honestly thought that was illegal — it may just be in my state.  Their sources here? Two bitches from Political Action Committees…fucking lobbyists. Give me a blowjob break.

6. “I can be pretty sneaky sometimes”
- Gotta make that money while the makin’s good! Ask the oil companies. It gives two examples of tricks. “Pay cash and get it immediately or wait 30 minutes for insurance billing.” I usually make better money via cash customers, but I am unsure of how this would work. I’ve never heard of this scam, seen it, or can I understand it. It’s silly.
- The second is a statement of “unethical druggists who will charge someone a 10 dollar copayment even if the retail price is less than that.” I can tell you right now that there is no drug that TRULY COSTS less than 10 dollars when you take into account dispensing fee, acquisition, etc. Now, you can sell this shit for 4 bucks and lose money….that’s fine.
- Anyway, I get the second part. I *honor* the 4 dollar scam list. I don’t do it automatically, however (I have one pharmacist who does, and I’m going to kick the shit out of him if he doesn’t stop — or I’m going to lay him off!). If someone asks and they don’t have insurance, I will try and talk them into doing three months for 10 dollars (less dispensing fees, I make a little money). If they cannot be converted, I’ll do the 4 dollar deal. If they have insurance, you can bet your ass I’m still billing their insurance. I then just price over-ride their copayment to 4 dollars and eat the difference. The acquisition cost I get paid from the insurance plan plus the 4 dollars turns a small profit (apparently, this is ILLEGAL in some states — not mine).

Click to read #7 through #10

Why do we suddenly transform from a lick-and-stick-pill-counter to trained, respected Healthcare Professional when there is a problem or error for which you want accountability?

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