Doctor's new med refill policy has me steaming!!!

[Guest guest]

It seems that I spoke too soon about the pain, I guess it was just

a reprieve for a few days, cause it's back now, and I ran out of

meds on Thursday. My doctor has come up with this new

assinine policy that we have to call his office on a special

pharmacy request line, order our refill for our narcotic

prescriptions, and then they will MAIL the prescription to the

pharmacy. The nurse said to allow " a couple days " for this to go

through. For regular prescriptions, we are supposed to have our

pharmacist call the doctor's request line and leave a message to

request a refill, and then they will call him back with

authorization.

I'd like to wring the neck of whomever the goofball was that

thought up this scheme, because it certainly doesn't work! So

now I'm stranded without meds on a weekend, no less. And,

quite understandably, my pharmacist said that he doesn't have

either the time or the staffing for him to personally call the

doctor's office, leave a message for a refill, and then wait for

authorization at a later time from the physician's office. He said if

he had to do this with every prescription that he fills for his

customers in one day, that he'd never have enough time to do

his work. It's a real screw up.

I had called in the request for my Percocet refill last Wednesday

morning, and my pharmacist still hadn't received the prescription

in the mail by Saturday's mail.

Does anyone else have a doctor's office that works this way? I'm

so steamed about the whole thing that I have typed up a letter of

protest, which I plan to take to my doctor's appointment tomorrow

and personally speak to the doctor about, and make sure that my

complaint is put in my chart. My husband read it and said that it

passed his review, he was surprised that in my irritated anger,

that I could prepare something that was, as he said, " calmly

factual and reasonable " ...hahaha!!!....I think he thought I was

going to cuss someone out in the letter or type something

equally angry and offensive.

One of the things I said was that I felt it was the doctor's

responsiblity that requests for refills of regular, daily, required

medication be accessable to the patient in a timely manner, and

that a wait of 6-8 days for necessary medication was

unreasonable. I plan to explain to him also, that my pharmacist

refuses to cooperate with this " have the pharmacist personally

call in and leave a message on the machine for a refill, then

await a call back with authorization " policy. Do y'all think that's

unreasonable? I'm afraid that if he won't bend the rules with me

about this policy that I'm going to be on the road looking for

another GI, again!

So, in order to get through the weekend I've had to break open

the emergency stash......thanks, again, Poncho..... Hopefully I'll

be able to get all of this straightened out tomorrow. Just doing

that will relieve the stress, that I'm confident will also relieve the

pain. It's just amazing what a little bit of negative stress seems

to do to me. I hope everyone else has had a stress-free

weekend and there's more to come.

With hope and prayers,

Heidi

Heidi H. Griffeth

South Carolina

SC & SE Regional Rep.

PAI, Intl.

Note: All comments or advice are personal opinion only, and

should not be substituted for consultation with a medical

professional.

[Guest guest]

I haven't come across this particular problem yet fingers crossed,

but to they put the same rules and regulations towards patients with

heart problems, blood problems etc? or is this just a " pain

management specialist " and this title needs to be used very lightly

towards some of them...One thinks why on earth they chose that

specialty in the first place, or they don't switch to another field

if they are not satisfied with all their patients only going to them

because they require PAIN MANAGEMENT..sheesh..

Good for you to write this letter, and I'd be trying my hardest to

get a petition signed by many of his patients, or put a complaint

into somewhere...

[Guest guest]

Heidi,

I have to have the prescription refill walked over to the pharmacy, but

it isn't much of a problem for me since the pharmacy is onsite with the

doctors office since I have Kaiser insurance. Because it's a narcotic,

we have to have a special triplicate form filled out for refills instead

of just having a phone call with the pharmacy with most refills. My

doctor's nurses usually walk them over for me, but if they can't, they

let me know and I'll come pick it up and walk it over to the pharmacy

myself. It isn't much of a walk since, like I said, the pharmacy is onsite.

Kimber

--

Kimber

Vallejo, CA

hominid2@...

Note: All advice given is personal opinion, not equal to that of a licensed

physician or health care professional.