Cancer patients being denied medications by pharmacists
From the article:
When it comes to denying legitimate patients their prescribed pain meds, how far is too far? Contact 13 has uncovered another group of patients in critical need.
One cancer patient was denied her pain medication shortly before she died.
The couple loved to travel the world together but Rose’s last months on earth were a world of pain.
Oxycodone was prescribed to manage Rose’s pain, but Carl said several pharmacies refused refills.
“I guess some of these people make judgments about whoever’s walking in to get a prescription. They’re too suspicious.”
Quality of life is all Carl wanted for his wife last Christmas, “All Christmas Eve and all Christmas Day, she was in pain, screaming in pain.”
On Christmas Eve, he went to Walgreens on Farm and Durango, “And they refused me. I went back 2 or 3 times.”
That’s because he kept getting different answers from different staff members but ultimately, no relief. With no meds to manage Rose’s pain, their holiday became a nightmare.
“They don’t really care, you know.”
Rose finally got her pain pills after the holiday, but with the next refill it was more denials and delays at other Walgreens locations, CVS and Target.
Professional discretion ??? or phobias and biases ??? Denying a DYING CANCER PATIENT !!! REALLY ?
Filed under: General Problems
Excuses,excuses, the chains are linked if you believe the t.v.commercial. In my state we have the great narcotics red sheet that anyone in healthcare or law enforcement can pull up to verify what schedule medication has been filled for the past year. None of the 6 that turned me away even looked at it, including where I usually go. Shameful.
It normally boils down to two reasons.. under staffing and lack of access to the internet.. when you are already under staffed… having to take time to run a PMP report.. just makes the under staffing that much more critical.. so if the corporation is not providing enough staff.. the easiest thing to do is to JUST SAY NO !
The pendulum has swung the wrong direction. It used to be that treating the patient and not the prescription was the proper thing to do. A terminal cancer patient should have been treated like any other hospice patient! Having to jump through hoops to get adequate relief is insane! Why don’t pharmacists know that only 3% or less, of real chronic pain patients are addicts? It is probably less in terminal cancer patients!
Brenda don’t give up, I’m facing a similar situation and am scared of the pain pump and stimulator. With all the new Superbugs that people now catch from going in to the hospital for surgery even the most powerful antibiotics cant get rid of ,its happening now in the U.S. and all around the world according to U.N.’s (WHO).
These superbugs are able to evade the hardest hitting antibiotics class of drugs called carbapenems. Stay safe and don’t add to a already bad situation.
Thank you for telling Rose’s story. Brings tears as I think of my own father’s passing. I am a chronic pain patient that has tried everything except machines. I refuse despite threats of losing my pain medication. Some have been helped but too many have been harmed by the simulators. My medication is enough that I can get to Dr apt and bathroom. Before FDA decided in Tennessee that my meds needed to be cut 1/3 I was able to see grandkids and a occasional game of theirs. I am already being pressured into injections and can’t get medication filled locally. What am I to do after next surgery or injury if pharmacists continue to refuse to fill medications? How can they continually ignore doctor orders? What should the patient do and how can we stop this? I will not survive another cut. I cry daily from pain, can’t sleep and am a burden. I won’t be here if there is not a alternative.
I smell bullshit all over you William, the lady was dying and should have been on a morphine pump, 15 mgs of Oxycodone isn’t going to do crap for a person about to die. You know that ,early refills my ass. Get your head out of your butt.
let’s not get personal, pain. if she’s not getting adequate pain relief she needs to talk to her doctor about it. as a pharmacist i will fill the rx as written. as a patient she needs to take the drug as ordered. nice of you to decide that she needed to be on a different med than her doctor prescribed.
i see plenty of terminal patients as well as chronic pain patients in my practice. each and every one gets high quality service and care. but they all have their own responsibilities as well. follow doctor’s orders. control your controlled drugs. be honest with me and i will be happy to help.
I’d like more details to be sure, but I smell bullshit all over this. Multiple visits to the same walgreen plus a different walgreen plus cvs, plus target? I’m sure all those different pharmacists did not have the same bias and phobia. Maybe there was some other reason they all knew about and that’s why they all refused to fill her ‘legitimate’ rx. lots of patients think its ok to exceed the dose on their pain rx’s. after all, if there is any pain it must be time to take another pill, right? it sounds like rose had to wait a few days to get her med. does the rejection ‘refill too soon’ ring any bells? sorry, but if your rx was for a 30 day supply, you shouldn’t have used them up in 2 weeks.
This is probably a little bit cynical for my preference, but there are valid questions to be asked here.
Was this woman out of town? If so, why did she not think to fill her pain medicine, which I think every single person on C2 medications knows now are a little bit more difficult to obtain than just showing up and handing over a prescription, before she left town? If she wasn’t out of town, the question still stands, why in the world would she wait until Christmas Eve to fill the prescription?
I had a pair of sweet 70 year old patients who I trusted immensely, went to a reputable doctor, etc. and each showed up every 28 days for their oxycodone prescription. On a whim one day, after having filled for them for months, I checked the PDMP when it was still relatively new to the state. They filled at a different pharmacy every week, four times a month. I sympathize for this lady, but as a pharmacist who is under scrutiny for every narcotic I fill, I’m not going to say “oh it’s Christmas” and just become a pill dispensing vending machine for a patient I don’t know.
Here is another article about Rose..
http://www.reviewjournal.com/columns-blogs/your-health/celebrating-sweet-life-long-it-may-last
apparently she lived in Clark Co which is where Las Vegas is located.. So it would appear that this was all local people trying to deal with local pharmacies.
@william.. apparently you have very little experience with end of life cancer pts.. I have seen these pts in a nursing home setting that are given 10 mg – 20mg Morphine conc liq (20mg/ml) sublinqual every hr AND PRN.. pain at the end of life cancer.. can be highly variable.. and it is impossible to “nail down” a particular dose.
I have not been denied my own medication. But CVS refused my daughter Vicodin, Ibuprofen and Flexaril because of two many red flags. He wouldn’t even try to call the Urgent care who wrote the prescriptions. I am over that. What worries me now is that the Fry’s food store where I get my pain meds told me that if I have them filled at any other location including another Fry’s, I won’t be able to have them filled at that store again. This includes if they do not have my medication in stock. I have to wait until they get it in or find another pharmacy permanently. Why can’t we find a better way to verify scripts?
Nothing surprises me anymore when it comes to prescribing and filling much needed opiates for people who need it the most. This thing about Walgreens prescribing opiates at their own digression is ridiculous when a suffering people cant reason with a person at Walgreens pharmacy that has no morals. Your better off talking to the wall.
If my Mom was suffering with cancer and a pharmacist refused to fill her script of opiates because they think their digression is telling them otherwise , I would not be responsible for my actions. And the general public wonders why certain people lose control of their patients. I’m fed up with stories like this.
We must be willing to get rid of the life we planned so is to have the life that is waiting for us. If its a life of cancer or chronic pain , I don’t see the difference in which the pain consumes the body ,must we suffer our life away. What happen to care and compassion in this so called free country we live. We’ve lost sight of what really matters now days.