Alright, so this is partially an "off my chest" post, but I want to bounce this off some pharmacists outside of my circle/company before I say anything to anyone of importance.
I'm a retail technician and I worked an 11-7 midshift today. At 5pm, a woman approaches and says that she received a call that her specialty order had arrived, and that it was in the refrigerator. Usually, our specialty orders come in plastic bags and have some paperwork with them that the patient has to sign, and we keep them by the pharmacist's station. I turn the fridge upside down looking for it and nothing is in there. I ask my pharmacy manager (not just a staff pharmacist -- she runs the show), and she tells me she doesn't know anything about it, and tries her best to ignore me and let me sort it out myself. She finally takes a peek in the fridge and doesn't see anything, and she texts the morning pharmacist and two technicians and gets no response. Another harried ten minutes of looking and no luck. She goes back to ignoring the problem, and these people are getting pissed. I ask her what to do, and she says "well what do you think we should do?" So yeah, these people are pacing the waiting room, I tell them we're waiting to hear from the person who must have called them, and they're upset.
Lo and behold, I go to fill something while I'm waiting, and I find a big box tucked in the back of the pharmacy filled with a whole cornucopia of fertility drugs. There was tape across the top saying to open immediately, and I figured out that the morning tech had called her to ask permission to do this, but didn't call back to tell her that nothing was to be refrigerated. So now I have this open box full of syringes, patches, vials -- a ton of stuff. Another ten minutes goes by while my RXM ignores me and the box, and they stare at me from the waiting area. She finally gets off the phone and I'm like "what do you want me to do? We don't know if morning tech left everything alone, or if there's something more to this, or what." She's like, give them the box.
So I walk it out to the waiting area, and tell him the drugs were packed with fridge packs to keep them cool while traveling, but none need to be refrigerated any longer, and that's why they weren't in the fridge. I explained the whole box fiasco and why I couldn't find it, and he was okay. He's like "everything is here, right?" and I said "yes, it should be" to which he replied "okay, well I'll go home and check the invoice and I'll call you if there are any problems."
I then thought to myself this is fucking wrong. This is an unverified package leaving the pharmacy, and I'm going to be responsible for it because my RXM won't do her job and step up and address this. I asked him "would you be okay if we go through this package, inventory the stuff and make sure you're getting everything, and I'll have the pharmacist sign off on it?" and he said "fine, I'll come back tomorrow, just as long as it's here." I walked the box back inside and told my RXM that we were going to wait until after we verify it, and she said "that's a good plan," and then lamented how dumb the system is.
I'm just beside myself right now when I think about what position she put me in. I had to take point on this whole fiasco, and if these people went home and decided they didn't feel like paying for their next round of Lupron and called back saying the box was open and it was missing -- how do we contest that? Yeah, we handed them an open box, didn't verify the contents, didn't do any paperwork, just winged it.
So yeah, this RXM has been on the hot seat lately for a ton of stuff. Tons of drama about scheduling and our patient satisfaction scores and losing a tech after two months of training because this woman ripped her in front of customers. I've kept my mouth shut and tried to just stay out of it, because I don't her coming after me.
My questions for you guys -- did I handle this well? Should I just keep my mouth shut, tell no one and go about my business, or should I talk to my store manager or district manager, or another pharmacist? I just really feel like the position I was put in was wholly inappropriate and I felt super uncomfortable following orders, and then having to choose to ultimately defy those orders. Thanks for whoever takes the time to read through all this.
Submitted September 20, 2017 at 07:39AM by I_luv_twinks http://ift.tt/2wvQjSY pharmacy
