Dumb Medicine

From a meditation book I have, I have learned that such people are spiritually sick. Add soul sickness to their other maladies, and you understand where they are coming from: a world of pathology. They are like the title of that Michael Moore film: “Sicko.”

I forget which drug company gave us a stress ball, but I like to squeeze it when I get shit from customers. I try to put myself in their shoes. It’s hard, but it pays the bills too. Holding your tongue definitely pays off, in independents anyways. Great blog!!

When I figure it out, I’ll let you know.

Oh, yeah, I remember. I smile sweetly at them, nod, and flip them off under the counter.

I personally like to cut them into shreds with razor-sharp wit and lash them with my ability to instill guilt as inherited from my dear mother.

I would be nice to be able to occasionally perform a German Suplex on some of the assholes I meet.

This is why I work in a hospital. We fill only outpatient scripts for investigational drugs and for the indigent (per O.K. by our Social Services Department). To the person, they are greatfull patients. I grew up in a company-owned mining town, which contributed to my bad temper. Kids had stilettos in pre-school, so it doesn’t take too much to get the veins to pop out on my forhead. I would take this guy outside and drag his balls over 5 miles of broken glass. With 35 pharmacists, they can avoid scheduling me in outpatient.

Remember the mantra that violence solves nothing and despite the short-lived satisfaction a frontteethectomy may bring you have resorted to the lowest form of communication.
Read some psychology books and figure out how to torture someone through passive aggressive baiting and leading questions. Amazing.

Like a previous comment, I got the passive aggressive baiting route. Starting a fist fight isn’t going to get you anywhere but arrested and possibly unemployed, but if you can break their brains it’s even better.

If they’re being impatient, do whatever you can to make them wait longer. Put a complicated compound in front of theirs. Make sure their insurance doesn’t go through first try. Heck, if you’ve got to ring them through the cash, drop their visa. Bag each item like it’s made of crystal. Watch their faces turn red.

If they’re getting mad at you, hand them a card for an anger management service and make a “professional suggestion” that they call them up. I love this one….perfect if you wanna see someone go from a little mad to screaming mad in about 1/2 a second….and they don’t really have a legitimate complaint since it is a completely professional suggestion.

Or my personal fave…..also for if someone starts getting mad at you….just very calmly ask them when their last bowel movement was. We all know constipation can have profound psychological effects ….maybe they just need a big ol’ fleet. This one is also very good for collecting complaints that have no teeth.

ren

Have to agree with Ren’s comment though it sounds like “Ass wash for Asswipes!”

I usually give blame to the insurance (which is responsible in delaying most of the scripts I fill from 15-30 minutes), and tell them what I exactly did to get their script filled. I would tell them the full price of the Rx in question and that we would have greatly sped up the process if they wish to pay cash for it (the higher the cost, the greater the effect).

Then I try to embarrass/scare the hell out of them (make sure that everyone in the pharmacy can hear you) by mentioning every major adverse effect and reaction to their condition. Try to get responses like, “What do you mean I’ll crap my pants when I take zetia/cholestipol!?” or “I never hear of my piss turning the color of coke by taking a statin!?” and so on and so forth.

Technically you are doing your job (people can’t complain too much). It’s effective in my area, but you have to tailor your answers to particular crowds.

Good luck!

I had one such jerk last week. I told him 20 minutes but gratefully I was done in about 10. You’d think he’d be thankful but Nooooo, he wanted to whine. “what If I had taken off? YOU (my emphasis) would have wasted MY time since you were done in 10 minutes.
My tech was marvelous. ” We build in a few extra minutes for interruptions and problems. we would rather under promise and over deliver than the other way around. We never know what might happen between when you drop it off and when you come back, and our pharmacist doesn’t feel its safe to rush. She wouldn’t want to make a mistake.”
So there pinhead.

I prefer the laugh or smile in their face method, as to suggest “as soon as you leave, i’m going to make fun of you”

Oh, if I’m in a good mood, I’m disgustingly sweet and perky. I love the look on the middle-aged-mom faces when I pull that shit.

If they’re pissy before their scripts are done, I turn away from them and quietly give my techs permission to spit in the vials. They never do, of course, but it gets us laughing, which always helps. If it’s after everything is done, I tell them to take their business somewhere else - I don’t put up with a lot of shit.

I just let it wear on my soul until I am just a husk of a human being. Worked for me for the last 13 years.

I had one recently screaming at me because he phoned and wanted his Vicodin and Ritalin on day 6 when the doctor wrote for every 7 days. I told him no and was about to suggest he call his doctor to get an early release. Patient started screaming. Loud enough to be heard at the counter 10 feet away . I told him to stop yelling or I would hang up. He kept yelling. I hung up. He called back. Kept yelling. Same warning. Same result. Called back. I put him on hold for 10 min. then told him to call his doctor. He did.

@The Ole’ Apothecary

indeed

@Carol
But then the doctor ALWAYS ok’s the early fill. That aggravated the crap out of me.

admin :
My favorite so far though is telling them the actual price of the drug and that it’d be faster if they just paid that.

That’s my preferred method. “Well, the acutal filling and entering of your prescription only takes about 10 mins. the other 5 - 10 is for dealing with insurance. If you want it faster, we can always skip that step…”

I had this one patient who kept calling me about her RX the doctor was supposed to mail. Multiple times a day. (which he did, a full week after she started calling about it). After the third day, I started calling her every morning when we opened, and told her the RX was not here yet. She kept demanding why I kept calling her to tell her that. I then asked her why she keeps calling me, when I told her I’d call her when it came in.

She finally got the hint on day 8… Her RX arrived to days later, written 3 days before.

we do enough scripts that my boss lets me tell ppl that if they’re not happy, to go to another pharmacy and we’d be more than happy to transfer out their scripts. they’re usually back in 2 months and never bitch about the wait time ever again.