What Really Happens Behind the Pharmacy Counter, need to listen to this question is just for pharmacists or anybody who works in the pharmacy field why does it take hours to feel a prescription like what is happening why does it take 5 hours to put 30 pills.
in a bottle and I’m standing right in front of you and there’s no one else here this is why AI is taking over jobs because there’s no way that I that you can’t go right in the back open the the bottle take the 30 pills out and put it in another bottle scan it and hand it to me in about 5 minutes there’s there’s just no way it.
takes more time than that so help me understand hey Steve I’m ethanal pharmacist I would be happy to explain it to you so I really apologize for your parents for a teacher that never told you that the world does.
not revolve around you though it may look like that there is no one waiting for their prescriptions at the pharmacy there are hundreds to thousands of people who are filling their prescriptions there every single day but you know what I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt because you probably have never worked.
in a pharmacy before I want to explain to you and other people who may not know what actually happens behind a pharmacy account so I created a nice little outline for you that we can go through together and we can get a little bit more in depth as well step one you and several other people will.
drop off your prescription at the pharmacy this could be either a written prescription your doctor could send it via fax or they could call it in before we even do anything with your prescription we need to make sure it’s a valid prescription.
so we have to make sure that it’s a legitimate doctor that’s prescribing it and that you are who you say you are or that you’re dropping off a prescription for one of your loved ones and then if if it’s a controlled medication we need to make sure that that doctor is able to write those then we probably need to update your profile.
depending on how frequently you visit our Pharmacy if we have a brand new patient who just stopped by we’re going to need to know all your information your allergies your medical history as well as your.
A Day in the Life of a Pharmacist (You’ll Be Surprised)
insurance information and I’m sure you’re wondering why does my Pharmacy need to know all this information well because when you’re getting multiple prescriptions from maybe multiple doctors they may not all communicate with each other so if there is an allergy we’ll be able to pinpoint it out right away.
for you then the next step we’re going to try to process your insurance so we need to make sure that your insurance is correct then once we make sure we have the correct insurance for you because sometimes some patients.
have no clue what their insurance is we’re then going to type up your prescription and we have to be careful when we’re typing that up because if there’s any issues or any errors you’ll get dispense the wrong medication or the wrong directions that’s when after we type the prescription we’re going to bill your insurance.
and we’ll either find out if it’s covered or if it needs something what’s called a prior authorization if it needs a prior authorization you’re not going to probably get your prescription today.
because your doctor is going to have to fill out paperwork to tell your insurance that you need to be on this medication but if it goes through your insurance that’s amazing so now that we’ve typed it up now it’s going to be my job to review the prescription that was just typed in this is to make sure that you.
know there’s no drug interactions that this medication is okay for you to take and whoever typed the prescription that they typed it correctly but if there are any issues we got to stop that prescription and I need.
What Pharmacists Actually Do All Day
to call your doctor to make sure that everything’s okay and then we can try to fill it if everything’s okay and then I finish verifying it it’s going to print out of our printer then once your prescription prints out of the printer we’re going to make sure that we have the correct medication to fill but.
sometimes we don’t have the medication so we’re going to have to make a note to order it at the end of the day so then for this time you’re not going to get your medication today then we have a final check so once someone fills the.
prescription it’s going to come to me the pharmacist and I’m going to make sure you know that the correct pills are in the bottle but for some reason if it’s the wrong pills I have to send it back and it needs to get redone that’s the process for one whole prescription but of course other people go to our Pharmacy.
so they’re going to be picking up their prescriptions that means when a patient comes in I’m going to get pulled aside because I need to counsel them on the new medication or if a patient has any questions I’m going to be there to.
answer it for them and then if there’s any vaccines it may be delayed even more but then when all said and good the patient will pay for their medication and they’ll go off on their merry way.
