I just called them back and the very first thing I said was to ask to be
connected to a pharmacist. The answer I got was better, but it still did
not make complete sense. He told me that the expiration date on the box
was put there by the manufacturer and the discard date was put there by
the pharmacy. The expiration date is the date by which they should be
used or discarded if they are kept refrigerated and the discard date on
the sticker is the discard date if they are not kept refrigerated. The
trouble with that is that the time that the insulin will be good if not
refrigerated is two weeks and the pharmacist verified that. I already
knew that. I have not been a diabetic for this long without learning
something about it. What still does not make sense is that even though
the discard by date is more than a month earlier than the expiration
date, when it arrives at my door it is still way in the future, much
more than two weeks. I tried to explain that to the pharmacist, but he
didn't seem to entirely know what I was talking about, so I just dropped
it. After all, I think I got the most important information. That is the
date that I am supposed to pay attention to is the expiration date, not
the discard date. I still think, though, that the information on the
boxes is confusing and the answer I get by calling is less than clear
too. And I also think that Amazon has changed the call policy and it did
not change for the good.
---
Voltaire
“ Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities. ”
― Voltaire,
On 7/2/2019 9:19 AM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
But why a discard date that is sooner than the expiration date? Is the reason
for that to get people to buy more medicine before they need it?
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On
Behalf Of Roger Loran Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Monday, July 01, 2019 10:39 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; Carl Jarvis <carjar82@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Did Amazon do this?
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
