Health Care Crisis Averted

January 20th, 2010 · No Comments

Welcome back!

Through an unknown number of SNAFUs, I spent the last ten days struggling with the lack of a must have medication I have taken since the beginning of 1983. Between my doctors office, the pharmacy, and my own attempts at trying to get a much needed refill prior to my doctor’s appointment, my health was placed at risk. The reason I am even saying anything on this website is to remind everyone to keep track of all medications, when the refills will run out, and what information the pharmacy has regarding your prescription.

For some reason, when I called the pharmacy to refill my prescription I was told there weren’t any more refills. I called my doctors office on January 6th and told them I had an appointment January 20th, but was running out of the medication. They transferred me to a voice mail within their office so that I could leave information regarding the prescription. Several days later, not yet out of the pills, I again called the pharmacy using their automated system to see if my prescription was ready or not. The system said there was no prescription ready for pickup.

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A couple of days later, called the pharmacy again – no prescription.

Knowing I had postponed my appointment more than once, and was belatedly going to the appointment, I assumed the doctors office had decided not to renew the prescription until I got to the office. By the way, due to several moves, my doctors office is approximately 50 miles from my new home but I am not yet ready to find someone new. I like my doctor and really don’t want to change if I don’t have to.

Out of needed medication

Finally, the prescription ran out 10 days before the appointment. When I got to the office, I was shocked to find my blood pressure was at 164/96 (resting). I have never been over 130 and am usually in the 110-120 range depending on what is going on in my life. My doctor told me I was working my way to a stroke. The high blood pressure was directly due to my lack of medication. The doctor assured me he would never withhold medicine someone needed. If I had only needed two or three days worth of that particular medication, he would have given me those pills. We could not figure out what went wrong, although we thought the fax he sent to the pharmacy might have been lost.

Surprise pharmacy visit

I went to the pharmacy to drop off the prescription and found they had two months worth on hold for me to pick up and also the script had five more refills. I didn’t even need the new script.

Probably my mistake was not going to the pharmacy in person to check on the prescription, but instead used the automated system to check on refills and availability of the prescription. Now I have my current medication, 6 refills, and a brand new script. Also I need to spend the next week getting my blood pressure back down to normal.

Not real sure why I am sharing this today except to say beware of prescription SNAFUs. I don’t really know where to place the blame, but I am sure the crisis could have been averted somewhere along the line. For now, I will accept that I could have handled the crisis a little better than I did. Please be aware of where your prescription is, how many refills you have left, and get thee hence to the doctors office when you are supposed to rather than dragging your feet. In my case – lesson learned.