#moral of the story tho is plz be nice to ur pharmacists they r making sure ur fucking doctor doesn’t kill u

[moldybits]

I need to bitch for a minute here so hold on a sec

I understand most people don’t understand how pharmacies work. I don’t think corporations adding in things like drive thrus has helped retail pharmacy’s image either. But holy shit, this video (and especially the comments) fucking infuriate me

First off, I want everyone to know, a pharmacist has the 100% legal right to not fill your prescription for any reason. Now, normally when there is an issue with the prescription, the pharmacist will attempt to contract the prescriber to have something fixed, changed, clarified, etc. Rarely will a pharmacist ever outright refuse a prescription. I’ve seen it happen only a few times- and those few times came with good reasons. Remember, this is their license on the line. If they were to allow a prescription to get filled that could hurt or even kill you, and something did happen to you, then legal authorities come back at the pharmacist first for allowing it to be dispensed. I hate seeing comments like “this is between me and my doctor!!”. Your pharmacist knows more about medications and drug interactions than your prescriber. Your pharmacist is a healthcare professional. For the love of god they’re not fucking fast food workers that stand around and approve every medication they see.

Second, also in response to the comments, if you’re gonna complain about HIPAA, you better at least spell it right. It isn’t “HIPPA” 🙄. Anyway, yes a pharmacist can ask you any medical question they’d like. I can ask you any question I’d like as a pharmacy tech! I just can’t take your medical information and just tell the next random person in line. That is what HIPAA is. We’ve had a woman complain in the pharmacy that asking for her birthday- which is how we look up your medication in the first place- is a violation of HIPAA. It’s fucking not.

In response to the video- no one refused to fill the prescription. What most likely happened is this: Mounjaro is currently only FDA approved for type 2 diabetes. Not weight loss. Insurance rarely covers Mounjaro anyway. Won’t cover it at all for weight loss. There is a manufacturer discount card that can bring it down to $25 (this has changed). In order to bill the discount card, it basically needs to be billed thru insurance first, then be rejected, then billed thru the discount card which would usually bring it to the $25. They changed this for the new cards. Because of auditing, it now only covers the prescription if there is a type 2 diagnosis on the prescription. It will not cover it without it. So what probably happened is that the pharmacist tried to contact the prescriber for a diagnosis when the discount card didn’t go through, the provider didn’t get back to them, so they’re asking the patient (which they can legally do!) if they are using it for weight loss or diabetes. If course, a chain retail pharmacy can fill it for cash, if you’re willing to pay over $1000 out of pocket for it. Which I doubt the patient being mentioned in this video wanted to do. I specify chain pharmacy btw, because an independent might out right refuse to fill it solely based on profit alone. What if they order in Mounjaro, which has a huge cost, and you say you’ll pick it up for cash, but you never do? Now that pharmacy is out major $$$. Not as big of a deal for chain pharmacies, but it can hurt an independent. At the end of the day though, it wasn’t a refusal to fill, it just wasn’t covered and the patient didn’t want it. I’m sure had this woman just called and asked the pharmacist would’ve told her that. 

I do have 1 final point though. I’d like to point out this woman is a NP- Nurse Practitioner- and NOT a doctor. I know a lot of people don’t know the difference between PA/NPs and actual doctors, but I can’t emphasize enough that while she can diagnose and treat, she did NOT go to an actual medical school a doctor went to. Looking at her profile, she works at a place called “Lotus Healthcare and Aesthetics”, which while they say they offer physicals and vaccinations… it seems to me they focus heavily on “beauty and aesthetics” such as spray tanning and lash extensions…. Ya know, real medically important shit. If you wanna learn more about this shit just look over at r/Noctor and you’ll see what I mean

I’m not shocked this woman doesn’t know shit about pharmacies. But she spreads a message that I have to deal with every day at work. Pharmacies, as a whole, are not your enemy. Drug manufacturers and insurance companies will cause most of your headaches. Corporations that overwork and underpay both the pharmacists and techs are also the problem too. (Look, I’m not saying there aren’t shit pharmacists and you can’t have a bad experience. I’ve met awful pharmacists and techs. But most people I’ve met truly care about their work and their patients).