i would ban oxycontin.
but that's beside the point and really has nothing to do with what i want to talk about. except that i really like the new angels and airwaves song "secret crowds." also i listened to mates of state for the first time tonight and think they rock. i will be doing further investigation to see just how much they rock. i also bought the new Ludo cd a couple days ago. i've only listened to it once and not very closely, at that. it sounds pretty good though.
so question for any pharmacy people who happen to read this. has anyone heard of adderall xr going generic? my pharmacist has heard rumors about it, but we haven't seen anything concrete until today when i went to fill a prescription through Community Care RX for adderall xr and rejected it, saying that the "amphetamine sr" was preferred. unfortunately CCRX was closed when i tried to call them, so i don't know what's going on. i checked our wholesalers and none of them are stocking the generic. so if you know anything about this, i would greatly appreciate the info.
lastly, the only person who really bothered me today was the following. a man called in today asking if a hormone replacement drug that we compound was ready. it was, and for some reason or another, his name stuck out to me. i remembered who he was a couple hours later when he came in to pick it up. because his name rung a bell, i also remembered that he had never filled this prescription before, and had never filled anything with us before. i made a point of specifically asking him if he had any questions for the pharmacist. he told me no and walked away. 20 minutes before we closed, we got a call from his wife. she said she had some questions for the pharmacist about his medication as he didn't ask for any literature and the pharmacist hadn't offered to consult him on his medication. to which i replied i remembered clearly asking him if he wanted to speak to the pharmacist and he turned it down. she then brushed it off with a "oh, well, that's just like my husband." i hope she yells at him tonight for blaming us for his not being informed and making her look like an idiot.
Showing posts with label copay. Show all posts
Showing posts with label copay. Show all posts
Monday, May 19, 2008
Friday, May 16, 2008
i never thought i'd say this...
...but obviously congress is LISTENING!
YES!
for the past few months we have been receiving several calls at the pharmacy regarding the FDA's ban of estriol-containing medications. since the FDA decided to follow the advice of wyeth (insert appropriate swear words here) and decide that they knew better than all of europe, where estriol has been tested and tried for YEARS, insurance companies have been refusing to pay for any hormone replacement therapy billed under an estriol NDC.
and our government is actually telling the FDA that they are wrong. i have since become even MORE excited to learn that the house's resolution has moved on to the committee on energy and commerce, of which my house representative is a member. my rep is ALSO a member of the health subcommittee. make no mistake, i will be writing to him immediately.
as for wyeth pharmaceuticals, can you say HYPOCRISY? so apparently estriol is dangerous for american women, but you feel quite happy about your decision to market not one but TWO estriol containing medications to european women? i suppose you're just more concerned about americans. that or you're all gigantic TOOLS. oh, and what was that other little thing? oh, that's right. wyeth is also the company that manufactures PremPro and Premarin which, unlike estriol, have been PROVEN to cause heart disease, strokes, and cancer. thanks for marketing THAT.
on the other hand, unlike wyeth's SYNTHETIC hormones, estriol has been found to not only be quite safe, but may actually make estrone and estradiol safer to use than if they are used on their own.
as you can tell, i'm a bit worked up. if you want to read up more about the estriol "controversy" (a.k.a. the FDA and wyeth having their heads shoved up their rear ends) i recommend the following sites:
The House Resolution
wyeth's amazing ability to be complete tools
Oxford study on safety and efficacy of estriol
our own NIH's research
a study done in california on estriol safety FIVE years ago
see if your representative is on the health subcommittee
now, do your research. become informed. and then tell your house rep that you don't want big drug manufacturers telling you (or the special women in your life) what you can or cannot take.
(oh, and as an added bonus, estriol might also help relieve symptoms of MS!)
if only commissioner von Eschenbach could change from a 67 year old man to a 67 year old woman suffering from hot flashes. maybe then he'd think twice before listening to ANOTHER middle aged man (bernard poussot, ceo of wyeth). trust me guys, i've seen 50 and 60 year old women when they can't get their HRT right then. they get mad. if i were you, i'd go into hiding.
last of all, a big DUH goes out to the study funded by GSK that showed people who have higher copays are more likely to be noncompliant with their drug routines. so when i tell my patient that they have a $50 copay for some new brand diabetic drug, i'll then tell them that the drug companies charge pharmacies an arm and a leg and those high costs are then filtered down to the patient. but don't worry! that $600 a year is going to research and funding studies! just like this one. next time GSK, just come ask me. i could have told you that in five minutes. and i would have only asked that you give me a month supply of one medication free, instead of spending millions to fund this "study."
YES!
for the past few months we have been receiving several calls at the pharmacy regarding the FDA's ban of estriol-containing medications. since the FDA decided to follow the advice of wyeth (insert appropriate swear words here) and decide that they knew better than all of europe, where estriol has been tested and tried for YEARS, insurance companies have been refusing to pay for any hormone replacement therapy billed under an estriol NDC.
and our government is actually telling the FDA that they are wrong. i have since become even MORE excited to learn that the house's resolution has moved on to the committee on energy and commerce, of which my house representative is a member. my rep is ALSO a member of the health subcommittee. make no mistake, i will be writing to him immediately.
as for wyeth pharmaceuticals, can you say HYPOCRISY? so apparently estriol is dangerous for american women, but you feel quite happy about your decision to market not one but TWO estriol containing medications to european women? i suppose you're just more concerned about americans. that or you're all gigantic TOOLS. oh, and what was that other little thing? oh, that's right. wyeth is also the company that manufactures PremPro and Premarin which, unlike estriol, have been PROVEN to cause heart disease, strokes, and cancer. thanks for marketing THAT.
on the other hand, unlike wyeth's SYNTHETIC hormones, estriol has been found to not only be quite safe, but may actually make estrone and estradiol safer to use than if they are used on their own.
as you can tell, i'm a bit worked up. if you want to read up more about the estriol "controversy" (a.k.a. the FDA and wyeth having their heads shoved up their rear ends) i recommend the following sites:
The House Resolution
wyeth's amazing ability to be complete tools
Oxford study on safety and efficacy of estriol
our own NIH's research
a study done in california on estriol safety FIVE years ago
see if your representative is on the health subcommittee
now, do your research. become informed. and then tell your house rep that you don't want big drug manufacturers telling you (or the special women in your life) what you can or cannot take.
(oh, and as an added bonus, estriol might also help relieve symptoms of MS!)
if only commissioner von Eschenbach could change from a 67 year old man to a 67 year old woman suffering from hot flashes. maybe then he'd think twice before listening to ANOTHER middle aged man (bernard poussot, ceo of wyeth). trust me guys, i've seen 50 and 60 year old women when they can't get their HRT right then. they get mad. if i were you, i'd go into hiding.
last of all, a big DUH goes out to the study funded by GSK that showed people who have higher copays are more likely to be noncompliant with their drug routines. so when i tell my patient that they have a $50 copay for some new brand diabetic drug, i'll then tell them that the drug companies charge pharmacies an arm and a leg and those high costs are then filtered down to the patient. but don't worry! that $600 a year is going to research and funding studies! just like this one. next time GSK, just come ask me. i could have told you that in five minutes. and i would have only asked that you give me a month supply of one medication free, instead of spending millions to fund this "study."
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
one week down....
well i'm back to working full time again, now that school is out. it's been kind of insanse, actually. i forgot how draining working 3 9-hour shifts in a row can be. here's what's been going on at work:
the pharmacy was broken into last thursday morning, at around 1 a.m. we have surveillance tape of the robbery, but we can't tell who it is, as the person is wearing a mask. we know that they have been in the pharmacy at least once, however, as they went directly to the shelf that had oxycontin. luckily we have a gate and they couldn't climb over the back. however, they started randomly pulling ready prescriptions out of the bins and stuffing them in to a bag. they mostly got away with just compound hormone replacement therapy, but they also got a klonopin and a valium, as well as some pretty expensive non-controlled drugs. everything's back to normal now. we do have our suspicions on who we think it is, but no solid proof. so it looks like we'll just eat our losses and continue on.
there haven't been any extremely crazy patients lately. just a lot of picky ones. today in particular. especially with duragesic patches, it seems. one person wanted 2 boxes of one brand and one box of another. another lady's insurance wasn't paying us enough for one brand so we tried to substitute it for another, cheaper brand, and she freaked out. yet another lady told me i gave her the wrong lamictal, although i verified that we really did give her the strength the doctor ordered. she still didn't believe me and is going to see her doctor tomorrow and ask him about this.
apparently insurance companies hate lovenox just as much as i hate trying to make them pay for it. one man's copay came back as well over $500 for 3 boxes of it. another lady's insurance is raking us, her, and the doctor's office over the coals to try and get the prior auth done. the nurse told us the patient may just have to pay out of pocket. except i'm pretty sure her only income is her social security check, so i have no idea how that is supposed to work.
i love when people call me who already have a thick accent, then they have a lot of background noise, so their yelling at me. especially when i'm trying to get their information down so we can properly fill their medication and don't end up killing them. okay, so maybe that's an exaggeration. getting the wrong address won't kill you. but getting the wrong drug allergies might. regardless, it's still annoying. i'm not saying speak english flawlessly. i'm just saying, if you know you have an accent, try to go somewhere quieter and speak in a normal register so you don't have to repeat everything 20 times.
i also love when girls who are my age come in to get prescriptions filled and are obviously trying to look like they're still in junior high. not that i'm old by any means. i've just matured enough to the point where i know it's not okay to where a whole thing of glitter on your face. it wasn't even okay in junior high, but for some reason we thought we were hot.
stupid man at the gym is driving me insane. every time i go there, he asks me "your membership is up for renewal, can i do that for you now?" i've told him repeatedly that i might not be in this state next year, depending on pharmacy schools, so no, you cannot renew my membership until i know what i'm doing. and that won't be for a while, friend.
i think my brain shuts off once school is out. i mixed up 2 patients yesterday. it wasn't a big deal, no drug mix ups or anything. just told one person they were getting something delivered when they really weren't. luckily they were very nice about the whole misunderstanding. i also forgot to get a dr.'s DEA# about 5 times today while calling on the above lovenox PA. it was basically one of those days where you just want to throw in the towel and go lie down for a bit. we weren't even really that busy. i guess i was just having an off day.
the oxycontin filling has been pretty average this week. no crazy addicts to tell you about. they're my favorites. you always need at least one completely insane person each day to give you something to laugh about and get you through the day.
we did have one guy call us saturday who was speaking to my pharmacist and was very worried that we had given him morphine instead of his roxicodone "or roxicets, as they're known on the streets, in case you didn't know. that's a nickname for them." really. i totally wouldn't have known that. thank you for enlightening me with your druggie knowledge. i did open up the first bottle of oxycontin 15's this week. it actually made me kind of sad. pretty soon it's going to be like baskin robbins. "31 flavors of oxycontin!"
well, those are my exciting experiences for the week. pretty soon i'm starting summer classes, so we'll see how often i'm able to get on here and write.
the pharmacy was broken into last thursday morning, at around 1 a.m. we have surveillance tape of the robbery, but we can't tell who it is, as the person is wearing a mask. we know that they have been in the pharmacy at least once, however, as they went directly to the shelf that had oxycontin. luckily we have a gate and they couldn't climb over the back. however, they started randomly pulling ready prescriptions out of the bins and stuffing them in to a bag. they mostly got away with just compound hormone replacement therapy, but they also got a klonopin and a valium, as well as some pretty expensive non-controlled drugs. everything's back to normal now. we do have our suspicions on who we think it is, but no solid proof. so it looks like we'll just eat our losses and continue on.
there haven't been any extremely crazy patients lately. just a lot of picky ones. today in particular. especially with duragesic patches, it seems. one person wanted 2 boxes of one brand and one box of another. another lady's insurance wasn't paying us enough for one brand so we tried to substitute it for another, cheaper brand, and she freaked out. yet another lady told me i gave her the wrong lamictal, although i verified that we really did give her the strength the doctor ordered. she still didn't believe me and is going to see her doctor tomorrow and ask him about this.
apparently insurance companies hate lovenox just as much as i hate trying to make them pay for it. one man's copay came back as well over $500 for 3 boxes of it. another lady's insurance is raking us, her, and the doctor's office over the coals to try and get the prior auth done. the nurse told us the patient may just have to pay out of pocket. except i'm pretty sure her only income is her social security check, so i have no idea how that is supposed to work.
i love when people call me who already have a thick accent, then they have a lot of background noise, so their yelling at me. especially when i'm trying to get their information down so we can properly fill their medication and don't end up killing them. okay, so maybe that's an exaggeration. getting the wrong address won't kill you. but getting the wrong drug allergies might. regardless, it's still annoying. i'm not saying speak english flawlessly. i'm just saying, if you know you have an accent, try to go somewhere quieter and speak in a normal register so you don't have to repeat everything 20 times.
i also love when girls who are my age come in to get prescriptions filled and are obviously trying to look like they're still in junior high. not that i'm old by any means. i've just matured enough to the point where i know it's not okay to where a whole thing of glitter on your face. it wasn't even okay in junior high, but for some reason we thought we were hot.
stupid man at the gym is driving me insane. every time i go there, he asks me "your membership is up for renewal, can i do that for you now?" i've told him repeatedly that i might not be in this state next year, depending on pharmacy schools, so no, you cannot renew my membership until i know what i'm doing. and that won't be for a while, friend.
i think my brain shuts off once school is out. i mixed up 2 patients yesterday. it wasn't a big deal, no drug mix ups or anything. just told one person they were getting something delivered when they really weren't. luckily they were very nice about the whole misunderstanding. i also forgot to get a dr.'s DEA# about 5 times today while calling on the above lovenox PA. it was basically one of those days where you just want to throw in the towel and go lie down for a bit. we weren't even really that busy. i guess i was just having an off day.
the oxycontin filling has been pretty average this week. no crazy addicts to tell you about. they're my favorites. you always need at least one completely insane person each day to give you something to laugh about and get you through the day.
we did have one guy call us saturday who was speaking to my pharmacist and was very worried that we had given him morphine instead of his roxicodone "or roxicets, as they're known on the streets, in case you didn't know. that's a nickname for them." really. i totally wouldn't have known that. thank you for enlightening me with your druggie knowledge. i did open up the first bottle of oxycontin 15's this week. it actually made me kind of sad. pretty soon it's going to be like baskin robbins. "31 flavors of oxycontin!"
well, those are my exciting experiences for the week. pretty soon i'm starting summer classes, so we'll see how often i'm able to get on here and write.
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
people who i wanted to slap today (and yesterday)
weather: 73°F
reading: love @ first site
#1. the airport lady. seriously. if you can't survive the ONE hour plane ride from here to colorado without your ambien, you should have gone to the doctor YESTERDAY and gotten your script filled YESTERDAY as well. don't show up at 10:05 AM asking me to hurry it up when there are already 5 people in front of you. it's not my fault your plane leaves in 10 minutes.
#2. the clerk. your main job is to help customers, namely ringing up their scripts and collecting money. the techs and pharmacists are all busy trying to get those scripts ready and don't really have a lot of time to be spending working the cash register. that is what you are hired to do. so don't bite MY head off when i ask you to ring up somebody so i can fill the script for the other person that's sitting there waiting. and especially don't snap at me when the reason you aren't already up front helping people is because you're on your cell phone. for the second time that morning.
#3. everybody who asked me for a price quote on oxycontin. or a price quote period. from now on all non-controlled substances go for a flat rate of $500. CV to CIII's go for $800. narcotics are going for $1500.
#4. the armour thyroid lady. okay, while some say i may be lucky since my pharmacy doesn't have a drive-thru, i DO get a whole different batch of idiots because we do compounding. such as the following. this lady decides that she wants her doctor to prescribe her a compounded thyroid that is EXTREMELY similar to armour thyroid. the main difference? the compounded one is a capsule, the armour thyroid is a tablet. the whole reason she wants us to compound it is because she believes the capsule absorbs better. .....WHAT??!?! okay, who has been feeding my customers this load of crap? why do people assume that capsules magically make you absorb medicine SO MUCH better than tablets? they just absorb DIFFERENTLY, one is not superior to the other. and shouldn't your doctor tell you if something would work better, not you tell the doctor? anyway, so we run the script for her and the copay comes back as $35, about 7 times as much as normal armour thyroid. so the other tech tries to call her and warn her about the cost, but when the lady answers the phone she says "i'm really busy right now, i'll call you back." so obviously we hold off on filling it because we don't want to make something especially for her when she might not want it, and then we've wasted money AND time. so yesterday she FINALLY calls us back. then she starts chewing us out asking why it costs so much more. okay lady. armour thyroid is made by a MANUFACTURER who can make it in bulk, lowering the price significantly. we have to SPECIALLY make this dumb capsule for YOU and only YOU. why do you care how much your insurance is paying? let's put it this way. without it, you're paying more. got it? and, no, we are not going to just "go ahead and fill it" while you shop around. you just said that you might not come get it. then what? we've just lost money. i'm assuming she found somewhere else that would make it cheaper because she hasn't called us back.
#5. lady with the baby at the movies. need i say more?
reading: love @ first site
#1. the airport lady. seriously. if you can't survive the ONE hour plane ride from here to colorado without your ambien, you should have gone to the doctor YESTERDAY and gotten your script filled YESTERDAY as well. don't show up at 10:05 AM asking me to hurry it up when there are already 5 people in front of you. it's not my fault your plane leaves in 10 minutes.
#2. the clerk. your main job is to help customers, namely ringing up their scripts and collecting money. the techs and pharmacists are all busy trying to get those scripts ready and don't really have a lot of time to be spending working the cash register. that is what you are hired to do. so don't bite MY head off when i ask you to ring up somebody so i can fill the script for the other person that's sitting there waiting. and especially don't snap at me when the reason you aren't already up front helping people is because you're on your cell phone. for the second time that morning.
#3. everybody who asked me for a price quote on oxycontin. or a price quote period. from now on all non-controlled substances go for a flat rate of $500. CV to CIII's go for $800. narcotics are going for $1500.
#4. the armour thyroid lady. okay, while some say i may be lucky since my pharmacy doesn't have a drive-thru, i DO get a whole different batch of idiots because we do compounding. such as the following. this lady decides that she wants her doctor to prescribe her a compounded thyroid that is EXTREMELY similar to armour thyroid. the main difference? the compounded one is a capsule, the armour thyroid is a tablet. the whole reason she wants us to compound it is because she believes the capsule absorbs better. .....WHAT??!?! okay, who has been feeding my customers this load of crap? why do people assume that capsules magically make you absorb medicine SO MUCH better than tablets? they just absorb DIFFERENTLY, one is not superior to the other. and shouldn't your doctor tell you if something would work better, not you tell the doctor? anyway, so we run the script for her and the copay comes back as $35, about 7 times as much as normal armour thyroid. so the other tech tries to call her and warn her about the cost, but when the lady answers the phone she says "i'm really busy right now, i'll call you back." so obviously we hold off on filling it because we don't want to make something especially for her when she might not want it, and then we've wasted money AND time. so yesterday she FINALLY calls us back. then she starts chewing us out asking why it costs so much more. okay lady. armour thyroid is made by a MANUFACTURER who can make it in bulk, lowering the price significantly. we have to SPECIALLY make this dumb capsule for YOU and only YOU. why do you care how much your insurance is paying? let's put it this way. without it, you're paying more. got it? and, no, we are not going to just "go ahead and fill it" while you shop around. you just said that you might not come get it. then what? we've just lost money. i'm assuming she found somewhere else that would make it cheaper because she hasn't called us back.
#5. lady with the baby at the movies. need i say more?
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