Provided by The Pharmacy Chick
You dont know Dr CC, and I haven’t actually met him personally, but I love him. WHY? Because I rarely, if ever have to fax his office for a refill request. And if I do, most of the time I get a denial anyway….which I actually expect but since some of his patients are slow learners apparently, I go thru the motions.
You see, Dr CC issues all of his prescriptions on full sheets of paper. All of them follow the same protocol and he has them computer printed so they are very easy to read and understand. Best of all there is a disclaimer or EXPLAINER at the end of each on in bold face capitals that says the following ( paraphrased)
ALL PRESCRIPTIONS FROM THIS OFFICE ARE ISSUED WITH ENOUGH REFILLS TO LAST UNTIL THE PATIENT’S NEXT SCHEDULED VISIT. ALL PATIENTS ARE REQUIRED TO BE SEEN TO BE ISSUED ADDITIONAL MEDICATION REFILLS, AND REFILLS WILL NOT BE AUTHORIZED VIA PHONE OR FAX UNLESS CERTAIN CRITERIA HAVE BEEN MET
WE DO NOT ISSUE PRESCRIPTIONS FOR ANY MEDICATIONS ON THE WEEKEND. WE DO NOT ISSUE REFILLS FOR CONTROLLED MEDICATIONS OVER THE PHONE OR FAX
What this means to me is that if I get a refill request from a patient on a medication from Dr. CC that has expired, the patient has most likely either 1) skipped his appointment or 2) taken too much of his medication and run out before his next scheduled visit.
Dr CC has done it pretty well I think, and I wish more Dr’s would follow with some kind of refill policy, the most important of which is this: Issue enough refills to get your patient thru his/her next scheduled visit. It would make my life ( and his/hers too) much easier. I have this one patient who gets only one prescription: Synthroid. EACH friggin month the dr only ok’s it one time….for 30. WTF? I feel bad for her because not only does she have to ask for a refill every month on a maintenance med that has O refills on it, but this Doc takes 3 days minimum to send back his auth.
Now, yes I understand that sometimes you want to TRY a med on a patient to see if it works. Im OK with that. AND if you aren’t sure if a patient is abusing a med, put a date restriction on the fills ” may only be filled every 30 days”. Ive never met a pharmacist who wouldn’t honor a request like that.
I also used to work for a pharmacist who originated from a state in central US. He was amazed that the patients went to the pharmacy to request a refill. In HIS state, the patient had to call the DR when he/she was out of refills. Then the doc took care of the request…called the pharmacy…which seems like a pretty logical procedure. How did we become the step-n-fetch-it?
The Pharmacy Chick is a retail pharmacist in the Western United States, gutting it out in fairly busy store. She ticks off each day as one more day closer to retirement, after 22 years in the biz. She remembers typewriters, rolls of labels, want books, and everybody paid cash. Now all she wants to remember is what all her passwords are!
The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.
RECOMMEND THIS ARTICLE
You must be logged in
to recommend articles
| 
