Let me talk more about the Kafka-esque nightmare of the healthcare system, EVEN WITH reasonable insurance and a doctor’s office down the street from me. I don’t even want to think about what would/will happen if/when the system we do have is dismantled and replaced by something worse…
I guess this was precipitated back in March when I needed a typhoid vaccination…in that the pharmacy that had the oral typhoid vaccine is going to come into play in this story.
So my prescription for Zoloft (correction: for generic Zoloft, AKA sertraline) is written by my general practitioner (though that’s not any one person, as there’s constant turnover at the office I go to), after initially being prescribed by a psychiatric nurse practitioner. The doctor’s office usually writes it with 6 or 12 months of refills. At the end of May, I was out of refills and coming to the end of my month’s supply, so I called to get an appointment to have the prescription rewritten (the other benefit to this particular practice is that, in addition to being a five-minute walk from me, it’s generally easy to get an appointment for the next day or at worst a few days later, especially if you don’t care which doctor you see). This time, though, the appointment line told me that their earliest appointment was…for two weeks later. When I would not only be out of medication but also out of town.
Plot twist!
No matter–since I’ve been going to this practice for a long time, and since I have extenuating circumstances of traveling soon, the doctor on call can call in a new prescription for me.
She did call it into the pharmacy that I got the typhoid vaccine from, not my regular pharmacy, but whatever; it was $7 more for the prescription and only four subway stops away.
And it seemed they had done me a favor until I ran out of pills last week, called the pharmacy for a refill, got confirmation that my refill was ready, went to pick it up…and was told I couldn’t have it yet, because it was too soon. (Side note: if pharmacies can automate calling you to tell you you’re due for a refill…and that your refill is ready…why can’t they automate the “sorry, it’s too early to refill this prescription!” notice?)
So that was when I realized that the doctor – whom I’d never met in person – had written the prescription for the wrong dose…which is, yes, something I should have checked when I initially filled it, but I was so happy to have it that I didn’t examine the bottle too closely. Thus what was written as a three-month supply was actually only a two-month supply with the actual dose that I take. Even with the pharmacy’s “leniency,” I wouldn’t be able to get a refill for another week (and then it would still be the wrong amount of medicine). I asked them what I could do. They said I could call the doctor’s office and it would be fast and easy–just have the doctor call them and change the prescription! Oh, but if it’s a different dose, then it has to be a new prescription so that we can run it through your insurance again…
If it had to be a new prescription, I was going to have it sent to the pharmacy down the street. So I left and went home to call the doctor…to begin this “easy” task of having my prescription rewritten.
to be continued so I don’t start laugh-crying.
