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?

Love Mail

Posted by The *Angriest* Pharmacist as Drug Seekers, Hate Mail, Patient Education, True Story

I recently got some love mail from a drug addict. Odd…but very respectable!

I just want to tell you, as a scum-sucking addict, how grateful I am for pharmacists who DO NOT cater to those in active addiction. Obviously, I used to HATE people like you, who were not only doing their job, but doing it well. I now attend Narcotics Anonymous meetings several times weekly, and I would likely not have gotten here if not for good pharmacists like yourself making it even more difficult to feed my addiction. I hope you continue to write informative and entertaining articles in this blog, and I hope that your day is a good one.

An addict that admits to their addiction and seeks help is not a scum sucker — and will not be labelled or treated as such by me. Addicts that act like addicts and lie, cheat, and steal get the requisite addict treatment from me…:-)

I’m glad that a pharmacist — or at lease the policing that we do — helped you on your path to recovery. Best of luck…

I apologize to my subscribers…

Posted by The *Angriest* Pharmacist as --Not Pharmacy--, Errors, Hate Mail, Me being a dick, Stupid People, True Story, store

Dear Angriest Subscribers (those of you that receive my emailed post notifications) — I am so sorry. I apologize for getting you tangled up in what I have declared ZAZZLEGATE. All I wanted to do was ensure that more people were able to view the “Angriest Store” and receive updates on when I create new shirts.

As you can see on the right, there are, as of right now, there are 266 of you. I let my guard down. I stopped being cynical for one moment. That moment allowed an inept online retailer do something so stupid, so brainless, so inconsiderate that it has essentially compromised all of your email addresses.

I exported the email addresses out of my database (where they are very much secure) to my computer. I then formatted them into a CSV and put them into a specific form (seen HERE) Zazzle advertises users utilize to popularize their marketplace. Rather than place these 266 email addresses into a BCC field and send them out 30 at a time (any more than that is rejected by servers as spam), ZAZZLE PLACED ALL OF THESE EMAIL ADDRESS IN THE TO: FIELD. I have a screenshot as evidence of this — using two email addresses I just previously created as the test. Sure enough, they were each visible to the other account.

Out of the 266 people who received the invitation to joining my “Zazzle Fan Club,” I received 7 complaints — I’m surprised it wasn’t 70. The first comment was from Brenden. Upon understanding what he was telling me (I couldn’t comprehend any company being so stupid), I went completely berserk. I thought about finding a phone number for Zazzle, but I decided that the language I would utilize and the harshness of its delivery would get me nowhere. I ended up sending them a snarky, pithy email — of which I have yet to receive a reply.

-=+=-

Subject: You’ve created a huge problem for me…

Well, you have really caused a problem for me Zazzle. I run a blog at TheAngriestPharmacist.com — and it’s quite popular. I have 260+ subscribers to my email listserv that notifies users of my new posts to the blog.

I wanted to “promote my gallery” to increase the size of my fan club, generate more sales, and make both Zazzle and myself a little bit more money.

So, I took the time to query my blog’s database, extract all those emails (it cannot be done from within my blog software), and input them in to the email field you have have created for me (Reference invite 1.JPG). I even took 30 or so minutes formatting the addresses correctly as they have to be COMMA separated rather than merely a vertical list. Then I had to pull them all out, put them in a notepad document, and delete the space in between each email. The point is — I spent a lot of MY time and effort on this….

Zazzle all but REQUESTS that I do this. You call it “a great way to connect to people.” You give me unlimited space to put in email addresses. You make it easy to share.

Then, how do you repay me? You put these email addresses on display for the world to see — all in the TO: field. You don’t even have the courtesy (or lack the common sense) to hide the email addresses in the BCC field. This means that every single person I emailed now knows the email address of every single person on my listserv. They can reply-to-all, sending spam, pornography, or anything to everyone else — all 260 of them.

Now I realize that making them all send BCC may pose problems — it may look like spam (most of your mail to me gets caught in the filter anyway) and it has to be sent 30 emails at a time (as far as I know). Regardless of the constraints, it doesn’t matter. It should have been done. All it would take is someone forwarding this message to a friend who forwards it to a friend/spammer — now every email in my database is compromised, and it’s indirectly my fault…for doing business with you and trying to grow my gallery/fan club.

I’ve received MANY complaints from my readers, who are pharmacists and very astute. They are not happy with me. They have lost trust in ME because of YOU, and that pisses me off.

I’m going to post a public apology on my website. I’m going to apologize for allowing this to happen (even though this is your fault).

I would like to post a similar letter apology from the Zazzle team beneath that.

I realize that most companies, especially ones that are as large and profitable as Zazzle, don’t care or listen to threats or angry customers. I also realize that my account is not that big of a player, only selling a few hundred dollars of shirts up to this point. So, you don’t have to listen or take me seriously, but I would hope you would.

I would also hope that you fix this issue immediately because you can bet that I am going to share it with the world.

If you do not understand the concepts of BCC, please see the website: http://www.BCCplease.com

If this pisses you off too (or your email address was compromised), you can get in touch with Zazzle in the following ways:

Zazzle, Inc.
1900 Seaport Blvd.
Redwood City, CA  94063
1-888-892-9953 or 408-983-2800
supportteam@zazzle.com

I will keep you apprised of how this situation turns out.

—————-UPDATE   February 1, 2009 ——————

“Randy” sent me an apology, albeit weak a few days ago.

Hello The Angriest Pharmacist,

Thanks for your email. We greatly apologize for the inconvenience and frustration in regards to this whole situation. We are always grateful for suggestions on how to improve our web site. In fact, I had notified our engineers of the situation and they are currently working on a solution to either hide the email addresses being sent or to include a BCC. Again, we apologize for the inconvenience this has caused.

If you have any further questions or comments, we are available to assist you by email, or by phone.
For frequently asked questions, or to email us, please visit www.zazzle.com/support.

To call us, please dial 1-800-980-9890
Mon-Fri 6am – 6pm Pacific Standard Time

Best Regards,
Randy
Zazzle Support Team

You know what fucking pisses me off about his fucking apology? THEY KNEW ABOUT THE PROBLEM! THEY KNEW IT! HE ADMITTED THEY KNEW. He was trying to make it seem like “well, since I am the fucking man, I told them to fix it so it’s not *MY* fault…”  What he did was, made the entire company look even more inept.   If they KNEW about the problem, they need(ed) to take the feature OFFLINE or put a fucking disclaimer on it so people know to send the motherfuckers one at a time.

It’s bullshit.

I pissed off someone with a T-shirt

Posted by The *Angriest* Pharmacist as Drug Seekers, Hate Mail, Me being a dick, Stupid People, store

As you know, I don’t give a flying fuck, but I figured you all should know about this.

Honestly, this isn’t me being offensive. This is the doing of YOU — THE READER! I received a request for a FATSOMYALGIA shirt. Here’s the request: http://www.theangriestpharmacist.com/2009/01/19/question-and-an-update/#comment-11663

At first, I balked cause I didn’t know what to do. A few comments later, someone pulled the trigger and gave me a moderately funny idea. So, I published it!

http://www.zazzle.com/fatsomyalgia_shirt-235816616102959384

Apparently, “Casty63,” took offense.

Rude Many people suffer from FIBROMYALGIA who are not overweight. How can you make fun of this real and devastating ailment, why did you choose a profession that works with people as you obviously hate people and your job. You are not doing anyone any favors! You need therapy!

Well, I’m sorry to have offended someone on the internet…wait a second, no I’m not! Fuck her. It’s my website, my t-shirts, and my opinions (in this case, an opinion that I borrowed). Anyway, I can saw and think whatever they hell I want.

Casty63 is right in saying that many that suffer from “fibromyalgia” (a disease which can neither be confirmed or denied as the diagnosis is done by ruling out all other diseases that make sense) are not fat.

She wonders how I can make fun of this “real and devastating ailment” — quite easily. I also make fun of AIDS, Diabesity (a.k.a. fat ass diabetics with high cholesterol and blood pressure), obesity, the uneducated, Parkinson’s Disease (I had a shirt that was much more offensive – Zazzle deleted it!), and about a half-dozen poking fun at addicts and addiction itself. And, yes, I sleep fine — as one of my t-shirts claims, I sleep on piles of money.

I chose a profession that works with people — again you are correct. But, I do not hate people, and I love my job. I’ll tell you what I hate — addicts and people that abuse the system. I live in a mid-size town with a hospital, Wal-mart, McDonalds — the point is, I don’t live in a tiny little one-red-light town. EVERY SINGLE PERSON THAT HAS EVER TOLD ME THEY HAVE FIBROMYALGIA HAS BEEN NOTHING MORE THAN A DRUG SEEKING, LYING, MALICIOUS DRUG ADDICT. I’ve seen these people refuse their blood pressure medicine because they only have enough money for their Soma — only to buy a pack of cigarettes on the way out.

That kind of shit is why I’m disenfranchised with the American public. That kind of shit is why this blog exists. That kind of shit is why many of my shirts target what you (someone on the outside looking in) would call an innocent, suffering human being. That’s why you don’t get it, won’t get it, and I don’t give a fuck one way or another.