In my first message on this I said that the important part of my
question was answered. After thinking about it for a while I am not sure
that any of my question was answered. Here is what happened. One of the
medications I get from this pharmacy is insulin pens. My blood glucose
levels have been running high lately, so I thought I would check my
insulin?? to see if any of it had expired. I have the boxes arranged so
that I will use the oldest ones first and my dosage and the number of
pens in a box don't match real well, so I have been getting pens a bit
faster than I can use them and so I had accumulated a pile of them and
II keep them in order so that I use the oldest ones first. I had someone
look to see if the ones I was using had reached their expiration date.
Well, it turned out that there was an expiration date on each box, none
of which I had quite reached even though I was close on about two. It
also turned out that each box had another date on it that was printed on
a sticker that had been applied to the box. The stickers were dated more
than a month earlier than the expiration date and were?? discard by
dates. Those two boxes that were close to the expiration date had
discard dates that had already passed. So I discarded them. Then I got
to wondering if I should have discarded them. So this morning I called
the pharmacy, or at least I tried to call the pharmacy, to ask which
date I should pay attention to and why there were two dates. That was
when I got the woman in some other country who didn't know the first
thing about drugs. She could tell me when my next shipment was due and
what was in it and things like that, but she was not a pharmacist and
knew nothing about expiration dates. So she relayed my question to the
pharmacist and relayed the answer back to me. The answer was that I
should pay attention to the expiration date if the insulin was
refrigerated and if it was kept at room temperature that I should keep
it for no more than two weeks. I already knew that. I thought that the
part about paying attention to the expiration date answered the
important part of my question. However I got to thinking about it and I
realized that was just the standard answer to someone who didn't know
when to throw out insulin. I am not even sure that my question about the
two dates on the boxes got to the pharmacist. I think I will try this
again tomorrow. Relay questions and relay answers are not the best way
to get accurate information. Whatever the reason for this relay
procedure I think it had to be something that Amazon started when they
took over.
---
Voltaire
??? Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.
???
??? Voltaire,
On 7/1/2019 10:54 AM, Carl Jarvis wrote:
Roger,
It means that there are fewer well paid pharmacists on call. The
woman was supposed to run interference...for far less pay than the
professional.
When I was a member of Group Health, I would call my doctor's office
with a question. His receptionist would connect me with his nurse,
who could usually satisfy my question. Then one fine day I called and
learned that my doctor no longer had his own nurse. He had his
receptionist, a woman trained to be a receptionist, who now attempted
to answer my question, without troubling the doctor. If the question
was more than she could handle, she referred me to the "consulting
nurse". This was one nurse who spent her days fielding calls for the
entire group of doctors in that clinic. She was not trained in good
manners or patience. We began referring to her as, "the Insulting
Nurse".
Such changes are always billed as, "Streamlining", or, "Trimming the
fat". But in fact they are simply cost savings...at the expense of
the customer. I say customer because I no longer felt like a patient.
And there are still those who believe capitalism and democracy can coexist.
Carl Jarvis
On 7/1/19, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I'm in a complaining mood, so I hope you guys will indulge me. Remember
that recently we were talking about how Amazon seems to be taking over
everything? Well, I happened to mention that one thing they took over
was my pharmacy. I use Pillpack in Manchester, New Hampshire because
they ship my drugs directly to my door and some time back Amazon bought
them out. I said that I had not noticed any changes that Amazon had
made. Well, I think I have now noticed some changes just this morning. I
just called them with a question about the expiration dates on one of my
medications. When I have called them before I was connected directly to
a pharmacist. In fact, they even advertised that when you had a question
you would be talking to a pharmacist. This time I was on hold for a long
time and when my call was finally answered I found myself talking to a
woman with an accent heavy enough that I had to concentrate to
understand her. I couldn't tell what kind of accent it was, so she could
have been almost anywhere in the world. I think she had a difficult time
understanding me too because she had to ask me to repeat myself several
times. But I was able to ask her my question and then she had to put me
on hold while she spoke to a pharmacist. After another long wait she got
back to me and told me what the pharmacist said. She offered to connect
me to a pharmacist, but I declined because the important part of my
question was answered, but, in retrospect, I think I should have asked
to be connected to that pharmacist because I am still wondering why
there are two expiration dates on my medication. In fact, I just might
call back tomorrow and ask immediately to talk to someone who knows what
they are talking about. Now, if I called the pharmacy before and
actually got the pharmacy and now I call the pharmacy and get someone in
who knows what country who doesn't have a clue about drugs then I can
only guess that this must be something that Amazon came up with. What
was the point of this relay calling? If she didn't know the answer to my
question she should have connected me with someone who did on the spot
instead of relaying my question and then relaying the answer back to me
because there was definitely something lost in the relay.
--
---
Carl Sagan
??? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. ???
??? Carl Sagan
