This was a SavOn pharmacy in a Albertsons grocery store
I recently herniated a disc in my back a little over a month ago that has not only caused me great pain but has also made me unable to work at the business I own without pain medication as I am on my feet for at least 5 hours, and do not have employees
My doctor prescribed me 40 Percocet but when I went to pick them up the pharmacist said I could not get them unless my doctor called in a prior authorization. Eventually they allowed me 28 instead of 40 without the prior authorization. The next week I was getting low and asked for another prescription from my doctor and he sent in another one. I got the same story about how I cannot pick it up without the PA but this time they didn’t even allow me to get the 28 and said I could not get any without it due to my insurance and that I could not pay cash.
I called my insurance and they said they didn’t have any problems with me paying cash for it and that it’s the pharmacist that makes that call. I called the pharmacist and he tried again to tell me it was all my insurance doing it before finally saying that it was him that didn’t want to fill it without the PA. This all happened on a Friday and now my doctor is gone for the weekend and I have no options to get relief.
From your website it does not seem like this is legal, as there are no reasons why I should be denied if he’s still willing to prescribe them if I get insurance to cover it, but won’t if I just want to pay cash. I am 29 years old and feel as though he is discriminating against me because of my age but cannot confirm that is why. I don’t know what to do but to lay in agony until Monday to get my doctor to call in on my prior authorization. It makes no sense to me why this needs to be the process when my doctor approves my treatment and I am willing to pay myself for it, and that the pharmacist repeatedly told me it was my insurance holding me up and his hands were tied until I talked to them and found that wasn’t the case, and he admitted it was him that didn’t want to prescribe it.
I would like to file a complaint but am not sure if my case is legitimate and if so where to file the complaint.
Thank you for your time,
Filed under: General Problems
Percocet is inexpensive….. You could have paid for your Rx out of pocket. We patients are not slaves to our prescription insurance. This “bullying” towards patient AND prescriber is why I always use a privately “Mom & Pop” brick and mortar pharmacy instead of a “chain”.
This nasty crazy-making began circa 2013, several years before the CDC “Guidelines” were published (secretly written without board certified pain specialist).
Pharmacist Steve is right on target: pharmacy school involves science, biology, etc. But it is not medical graduate school. Pharmacy students do not examine cadavers in first year anatomy courses! See this link for the physiological details – Bravo to decent persisting med students who achieve their MD or DO degrees! And are healers with their training, whether GPs or surgeons or oncologists or rheumatologists, etc.
https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2016/09/cadavers-help-teach-medical-students-that-the-patient-comes-first.html
OTOH, medical school might not help. I’m IgA deficient & have a lifelong history of recurrent bronchitis. My normal PCP was booked out thru August so I took a vid appt with somebody else. My regular guy knows that if I stomp on the bronchitis right away with (1) prednisone, & (2) an effective cough suppressant (i.e. not OTC), it won’t go into pneumonia, which otherwise it’s guaranteed to do. I nearly got into a virtual fistfight with the stand-in b/c they SWORE, up, down, & sideways, that codeine is NOT a cough suppressant, it does nothing but make you sleepy, & is (of course) a dangerous narcotic which shouldn’t be prescribed anyway.
I knew the truth already, but took a pharmacist poll anyway: the looks on their faces of the pharmacists when I asked if codeine was a cough suppressant were priceless…I might as well have asked if water was sometimes wet. They were all appalled that a doctor did not know this. One of them called the office, explained some basic facts, & convinced the person that prescribing cough medicine was appropriate for…..coughs. I actually did get some.
So; I have been very angry at pharmacists for a while for making pain patients’ lives MUCH more difficult….but the good ones are great.
ADA complaint.
BOP (board of pharmacy) complaint
The pharmacist jobs to make sure that a prescription is written for a legitimate medical purpose. If he suspects it is not been then he needs to call the doctor and have the doctor make sure that it’s legitimate. The controlled substance act is active there.
Could this person sue the pharmacy and/or pharmacist? Hit them in the wallet if you can…
I definitely wouldn’t be using that same pharmacy. After the first time, I would use a different pharmacy.