First week of the month is always super busy. Mondays in general are busy, and since some of the doctor's offices were closed for Good Friday, tomorrow is probably going to be brutal.
If you do need to pick up a prescription, it is a really good idea to drop it off or call it in a day ahead of time. It allows us to work your order into our day and try to iron out any issues with insurance or to order the drug if we are out of stock. What doesn't work well is to walk up to the counter with a plastic bag full of bottles, dump them on the counter, and expect to wait on them.
Much as I wish it was Mayberry in 1966 and we could sit down at the drug store counter with Miss Ellie, the lady druggist , and have a soda, that just isn't the way it is anymore. The pressure we are under is intense, and even though the chains are saying they are "bringing the pharmacist out front", what they don't tell you is that when we come out front, there is nobody in the back. Nothing can go out without our okay. Sometimes we are the only one working in the pharmacy for hours at a time.
Some tips to help you help yourself (and us!) :
1. If you have refills, call them in a day or more ahead of time. The touch tone systems are hard to use, so it is ok to use the voice mail Please use the patient message option, not the doctor line.
2 . If you must speak to a staff member, please have your prescription numbers ready to read to us. Do not try to pronounce the drug names. We just need the numbers. After you give us your order, please give us a specific day and time you will be picking them up. Sometime today or tomorrow is not helpful.
3. Do not call and ask to speak to the pharmacist , and then proceed to read off a list of refill numbers. The technicians can handle this task. AND PLEASE PLEASE USE THE NUMBERS! A leisurely stroll thru your prescription profile causes us no end of frustration. It's pink and I don't know what it is for, or just fill everything that is due, are 2 other phrases that make us want to bang our head on the counter.
4 . Do not say you will be in at a certain time, and then show up early because you were in town, and expect your order to be ready. And don't add the cherry on top by getting upset with us because it is not ready.
5. We have made a "contract"with the patients who have called in and asked for their prescriptions later in the day, or later in the week. We work in sick kids, sick adults, and people with bloody gauze stuffed in their mouth or wrapped around an extremity because these are unplanned events, and because it is the right thing to do, Please do not be rude to our staff or other patients because you dropped off refill bottles and they are not ready in 15 minutes. If you make an appointment to have your car serviced, and the service department allows people to come in at will and get their car serviced without an appointment, and your car comes out after theirs, are you going to be happy?
Remember, patience is a virtue. If you come to us and we tell you the wait is an hour, do yourself and us a favor and go get a cup of coffee, take a walk, do another errand, or go home and stop by later. Staring a hole in our head with your eyes, tapping your fingernails or keys, sighing, coughing , leaning over the counter and asking if yours is ready yet, is not going to make us work any faster. In fact, it upsets us and makes us nervous. It is distracting and can lead to errors, and actually makes your wait longer because when we are hassled we have to fight to concentrate and keep our emotions under control.
Now I am going to bed early so I can get through tomorrow.
BP
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