Timothy W.
pharmacist overstepping his discretionary bounds...
I’ve been very patient with this pharmacy...and generally the staff is decent but the new pharmacist at the Walgreens on eureka in redding completely oversteps his/her bounds and inconveniences my doctors office and myself. I recently needed to fill a pseudocontrolled med (not an addictive med but one that apparently is sold to weightlifters or something back east). I take it for a well documented genetic disorder aggravated by active kidney cancer as my pharmacy is well aware (though I am in the medical field myself and have always wondered why the pharmacists get so involved when they have had no training on pathology or clinical expertise). But I have endured this in silence until this. My physician sent an appropriate message that I may fill 2days early (something I have never done before). My MD is well aware it is because we will be out of state for the next two weeks. The pharmacy at first lied and said they didn’t receive anything...then when I went there in person, a more helpful employee explained that they received the faxed message from the MD but wouldn’t honor it unless they sent a new one saying “...because of vacation”. A doctor wouldn’t send something like this without a good reason and is the only one qualified to really know which patients are abusive and which are sincere due to an ongoing in person clinical relationship. To be clear...this IS NOT something the state or insurance requires...but is somehow left to the flimsy whims of the pharmacist’s discretion (the one person who never meets me, doesn’t know anything about disease (many PharmDs fail even pharmacology when they try to switch to an MD track as I saw firsthand) and doesn’t do any measure of fill history obviously to differentiate the few people who sadly abuse the system to the vast majority of the rest of us. Air has consequences for the patients...and I think it is high time there was some accountability and consequence for those pharmacists who abuse this loophole or simply don’t have the judgement to make this kinds of decisions accurately. It gives good pharmacists who are trying to work WITH doctors and patients a bad name...and needs to be checked by some form of oversight. For this time, I will have to take my injection 3-7d late and have my doctor send a completely new RX to a pharmacy in Oregon (the closest to my remote family reunion is over an hour away). All because the pharmacist this Friday August 2 wanted the words “for vacation” added to the doctors ORDER to fill today on August 2 for what they knew to be a valid reason. I know the system is imperfect and most people are doing their best. I have endured this pharmacist filling my meds up to a week late numerous times and never raised a fuss. But at some point....enough is enough.