Last Friday I allowed myself to get all publicly loud and black, if you will. Picture this… For those of you who have never been trapped in an elevator with this writer, you are most likely unaware that I suffer from IBS. If you don’t know what that is then go to Google and well, Google it. My primary care physician prescribes medication that coats, soothes and altogether relieves the problem.
Early Friday morning I dropped off the last refill prescription to my local pharmacy. Around lunch time I went to pick up the medication. I’m not going to lie, I was in a bad mood, one that had been impacted for roughly five days, if you get my drift. I gave my name to the cashier girly at the pharmacy and she could not find my filled order. After some searching she discovered that the order had not been filled because the insurance company only pays for prescriptions that are filled within the first six months of the original prescription/write date. My original prescription date was July 2010 and was good for several refills until July 2011. Why it’s only February, you say? I have had this problem before; the doctor writes a prescription that is good for a year and the insurance company only honors it for six months. After that the bound-up patient must get a new prescription because the pharmacy’s tail is wagged (like all of us) by those who pay us and in this case that would be the insurance company.
Anywho, as I stated I was in a foul mood to begin with when the girl told me to “go back to the doctor and tell him to give [me] a new script.” Her tone and demeanor were condescending. It was as if I were greatly her intellectual inferior and she had no patience (pun intended) for that . I tried to explain that I had been here before, and she interrupted and spoke slowly and loudly as if… Now, if there is one thing I hate it is being talked down to. The main reason is not because I am all snooty fancy pants (which is probably true) but, rather as an educator at heart it is about the most ineffectual means of communicating information that I know. It is just stupid. Especially stupid if you are less than half my age and can’t look me in the eye while behaving this way. Anyway, I said some things and while tempting was not disrespectful in any way. She parroted her original position louder each time. I found myself shouting that I needed the meds and did not understand that if this was a hard-and-fast rule why my doctor’s office seemed surprised when I asked them to refill an open prescription in the past. There were a half dozen people behind the pharmacy counter who stopped what they were doing to watch yet, none intervened. I was getting nowhere so, I turned on my heel and walked away. The girl was still parroting.
As soon as I got home I called my doctor’s office and requested a new prescription. It’s an automated system and I never know if it has worked until the pharmacy leaves me a voice mail message stating that my order is ready for pick-up. That message never came. Over the next four days I used over-the-counter meds that only worked a bit. I happened to be in the drug store on Monday afternoon and it suddenly occurred to me to check with the pharmacy again. I discovered that my order had been called in by the doctor and filled on the Friday before and had been sitting there for four days. As well, the new prescription is for a year starting with last Friday’s date. When I got home I embraced the meds like they were drugs.
In sum, there are three lessons here: 1. Never talk down to me. , 2. Did somebody say health care reform? (And most importantly), 3. Never yell at stupid people, they will get you for it every time.
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