Mr. Steve, may I ask you if a law changed with Klonopin refills recently? I’ve always been able to fill on day 30 from the previous fill. My doctor even gives me a script with 5 refills totaling 6 months. Now I’m being told by the pharmacy I have to wait until the 31st day. I’m in the 4th month of the 6. So it can’t be the provider. The “nitwits” in the past made me wait 31 days for my oral opiate prescriptions.
I found out yesterday my pain pump doctor agreed it’s time to ditch the Flowonix pump 16 months since being implanted for a Medtronic.
I hope you and the Mrs. are doing well! Thank you for all you do. I see how hard you work for us, and I only see a fraction and it’s been so helpful.
Whoever this Pharmacist is, must have missed a number of very important facts concerning Benzo & opiates… especially when it comes to withdrawal. How anyone got a PharmD degree and didn’t learn that cold turkey withdrawal from a benzos – depending on the pt’s dose – can be fatal and when the pt is forced to go thru cold turkey withdrawal from both a benzo and a opiate – the risk of it being LETHAL goes up SUBSTANTIALLY. Follow up from this pt, the pharmacy was – unfortunately – a independent and the Pharmacist/owner BLAMED the Rx dept software on the issue… it was the owner who purchased/installed the particular software package in their pharmacy and it was the legal duty of the Pharmacist in Charge to get the software company to get the software FIXED… or find another software package that will properly function.
Filed under: General Problems
When I still had a good pain Dr or one at all for that matter, he always told me fill 2 days early. Why? In case the car wont start, you get sick, have an emergency etc…you are not stuck out with no meds if you are on day 30 or 31. Lady in the pharmacy tried to give me a hard time about it once and you would not believe how hard it was to get her to understand if you give me 30 pills for a 31 day month then you can expect to see me before day 31 for sure and if it happens to involve a weekend and day 30 and 31 are Saturday and Sunday maybe even sooner will you see me. It is just common sense to let patients fill early enough not to put them in jeopardy.
actually it is smart to put pts on a 28 days cycle – that way the Rx is due for refill on the same day every 4 weeks… avoid weekends.. still have potential to deal with a few holidays
Except in some states like CA opioid scripts can only be filled every 30 days. Woe to the patient who asks for it a day early.
Woe is the pt… when the pharma is having a manuf problem, wholesaler is out of stock, pharmacy is out of stock or prescriber cancels the pt’s monthly appt. There is a natural disaster or abnormal weather event. But isn’t everything in CA is a “perfect world/life” ?