In LA

What is it that they do at the pharmacy between the time they accept a prescription and the time they dispense the medication? Tonight I went to a CVS pharmacy, gave the pharmacist at the “drop-off” desk a prescription, and even spotted the medication on the shelf for him. He grabbed it, poked at a computer, and told me to come back in 20 minutes.

So I wandered the store for a while, then returned. There were 3 pharmacists working behind the counter and about two other customers waiting for their meds. I waited and waited, and finally it was my turn. The pharmacist asked for my info and went looking for the bag containing my medication on the rack. He looked for a while.

I mentioned to him that I’d just submitted my prescription 35 minutes previously, and then he saw the bag containing my medicine over by the drop-off counter, charged me for it, told me to use the eye drops twice a day and to not fill a squirt gun with ‘em and go shooting neighborhood dogs in the eyes. I agreed follow the instructions and left with my package, finally.

I’m curious why the pharmacist at the drop-off counter, who had my prescription and meds and had entered the data into the system , couldn’t have just sold me the meds right then and sent me on my way. What exactly happens in those magic “20″ minutes that elapse between the time a prescription is accepted and the time it’s actually given to the customer? Is there a federally mandated cooling-off period to make sure the customer really wants the meds and isn’t going to regret the purchase?

Technorati Tags: medication, pharmacy

This entry was posted on Friday, April 11th, 2008 at 12:34 am and is filed under Entitled Ranting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.