Unfiltered Story
#194923
IOWA, PHARMACY, USA | UNFILTERED | MAY 25, 2020
(I’m a Certified Pharmacy Technician. It’s a pretty busy day at the Pharmacy. An older –but not elderly– woman walks up to pick up her prescriptions. I start taking care of her and then she explains she needs to get her insulin syringes refilled as well. I look at her profile to get the syringes refilled. As it turns out, it’s about 17 days too soon to get them refilled. I explain this to her)
Customer: No, that’s not right! I’m all out.
ME: Well, you’re using them once a day, correct?
Customer: No, the doctor told me to use them twice a day.
ME: Right, well, we need that as a new prescription from him.
Customer: But he told me..
ME: Yes, ma’am, I understand that he told you that, but your insurance won’t let us put it through until we have the new prescription with the correct instructions. So we just sent a fax requesting the new prescription from your doctor with new instructions.
Customer: Well, what am I supposed to do until he approves it? I’m all out!
ME: Well, we sell a ten pack of insulin syringes for $7 if you’d like to buy some.
Customer: Yeah, I’ll take the box then.
ME: No, ma’am, I can’t sell you the entire box without a prescription. I can only sell you a ten-pack from the box. That’s ten syringes for $7.
Customer: No! That’s too expensive!
ME: (obviously weary. shrugs)
Customer: Well, what am I supposed to do?!
ME
weary smile) Buy a ten-pack for $7? (Customer leaves after paying for her other prescriptions which she also gave me a hard time about. Claiming that they needed to be paid for on separate cards even though she had not informed me of this. I’m so sorry ma’am. I must have forgotten to turn on my telepathic abilities for you!)
Pharmacist: $7 too expensive for 10 syringes?
ME: The tweakers that come in here never gripe about paying $7 for clean needles.