This rant is dedicated to the motherfracker(s) that decided to introduce coupons into the pharmacy setting. Thanks for making us the fast food of the healthcare industry moron(s).

It’s coupon week! The week (or 3 months in the case of CVS) that all pharmacy employees dread. It means a bunch of extra work and lots of arguing over what constitutes new prescription and/or transferred prescriptions.

So, what is a new prescription? A new prescription is one that has been called in directly by your doctor (or doctor’s representative) or has been written -only by your doctor and presented to us to be filled. If you give me a new prescription and ask me to put it on hold that does not count. Yes, it’s a new prescription but you didn’t fill it. I am not giving you $10 because you gave me extra work assface. No, you cannot use the $10 gift card to pay for the prescription. No, I will not give you $10 on your refill because you threaten to leave. (Leave, less work for me and I won’t have to see your undoubtedly annoying ass anymore.)

Now on to an transferred prescription. Simply put, a transferred prescription is one that has been filled at another pharmacy and still has refills. We have to call the other pharmacy and move it to our pharmacy to fill it. This does not include new prescriptions called in by your doctor to our pharmacy. This does not include new prescriptions you have called into other pharmacies which we have to retrieve. Nice try, but that is a new prescription, it has not been filled.

Personally, I do not care if these people get $10 from my employer. Hell, they can afford it or they wouldn’t be doing it. It’s the people that abuse the system that annoy the crap out of me.

Transferring back and forth every month is actually quite dangerous. Every time you do this, you risk something being misunderstood. Many drugs sound alike, it’s really hard to distinguish them from one another. Strengths get confused, directions are taken or given incorrectly or some idiot intern from an inferior pharmacy school botched the entire transfer. We are as careful as we can be, but mistakes do happen and coupon weeks just add to our workload.

Highlights from my workday yesterday:

• Coupon person comes in with 6 prescriptions, wants us to only fill the $4 generic drugs and call her later about the rest. We do as we are told and I think (I wasn’t really paying attention) that she told RPhGuy to transfer the one that wasn’t $4 -most likely to CVS for their damn $30 coupon. Note this was a new RX to us, if it was CVS, I hope the RPh doesn’t give her the $30 because their coupon specifically says transfers only.

• Coupon person comes in with 3 prescriptions, only wants 2 one of which is a sleeping pill with a really high dose (Ambien 10mg BID) and is way too soon. Note in the computer from another store that she tries to get controls early.

• Coupon person comes in with new RX but has never filled with us. RPhGuy has her fill out an information sheet, but of course she doesn’t have her insurance card. She tells RPhGuy that she always goes to Walgreens and didn’t bring it because they have it and she switched wallets or something like that. How one is related to the other is beyond me. She then says to him “You just call Walgreens and get it from them.”

• Person that pissed me off the most is a habitual coupon person, works for a doctor and just gives herself and her mom new $4 generic prescriptions every time we have a coupon. She comes in to get her prescription and I don’t have anything for her. She says it was faxed in so I check the computer and see that she faxed it to another store. I told her that we hadn’t received any faxes or filled anything for her. She realizes she faxed it to another store and tells me that she has the hard copy in her car and can bring it in. I explained that since she faxed it to another store that is no longer a valid prescription. Blank stare so I explain that she is using the same prescription twice and that is fraud and we will not accept that from her. Suddenly she decides to go pick it up at the other store. I might ask RPhGuy to speak to the doctor to let him know what his staff is doing.

I know that there is more, but I need to start on my French homework since I have a 10 hours shift tomorrow and won’t get any homework done then.