PHARMACIST STEVE

Hey Steve,

Today my fiancé and I saw our psychiatrist early due to the state of emergency and lift on the 30 day refill restrictions in order to prepare for hurricane Irma. We live in a beach town in Northeast Florida so as you can imagine the area is in a state of frenzy as are we. We went to drop off our medications, all of which were early but the statements we heard from the governor said it doesn’t matter how many days early it is, just to get prepared for the worst. All 4 of my medications were denied. The pharmacist took 3 of his medications but denied his adderall refill. His mg stayed the same this month but the dr changed him to 3 a day instead of 2 a day. So being a new rx shouldn’t they have seen it as a different prescription anyway? So we left the pharmacy and went home. I decided to call my insurance company and he decided to run back out and double check that he couldn’t get it filled before the storm hits. My insurance company checked all of my prescriptions by mg and by when I had them filled last and said that yes I had authorization for all of them to be filled early due to the Florida statutes that allow early refill during a state of emergency. One of the prescriptions is the exact one my fiancé was being denied for at the pharmacy, adderall. When he went back to the pharmacy he recorded the events that took place and the pharmacist basically said he could come back at a later date and that even if his dose changed that he should still have 9 days left that she doesn’t care. When he told her she was being recorded she freaked out knowing she messed up. I also believe he was discriminated against bc he has tattoos and piercings but this man doesn’t even drink alcohol. I ended up speaking to the managers and they basically told me that I could try another Walgreens but this pharmacist wouldn’t fill his prescription. I informed them they might end up on the news but thanks that I’d try somewhere else. What rights have been violated here and who can we reach out to?

  A “front end store manager” in these chain stores have NO AUTHORITY over the prescription dept… you are wasting your time talking to one.  The prescription dept has a “Pharmacist in charge”  (PIC) that is legally responsible to the Board of Pharmacy for the legal operation of the prescription dept.  Even when the PIC is not in the store they can be held responsible for anything that is done in the Rx dept that is not legal.

We have a very serious – and growing – pharmacist surplus in the USA and if the chains did care about their employed pharmacists refusing to fill legit/on time/medically necessary prescriptions… they could replace them… in a “New York Minute”…

There are abt 22,000 independent pharmacies and here is a website that will help a pt locate one by zip code http://www.ncpanet.org/home/find-your-local-pharmacy

Where a pt will be dealing with the pharmacist/owner… and generally is more focused on caring for the pt’s needs rather than fabricating reasons/excuses for refusing/denying a pt their medically necessary medication.

Filed under: General Problems