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Imagine working at a pharmacy. Obviously, you couldn’t fill a prescription for a patient if you don’t have the prescription information from the doctor. What would you do if the nurse refused to send you the information?

In this story, one pharmacy is very aware of which nurses are trouble, and they dread their calls. Here’s one example of a time one of these awful nurses called and refused to do the very basic task of sending over the prescription from the doctor.

The call escalated to the point where the nurse’s supervisor was arguing with the pharmacist. Let’s read all about it.

Apparently sending a fax is “too hard” so my PIC verbally destroyed a nursing home supervisor

We have this nursing home that is well known in our pharmacy for the nurses being giant jerks except for two people; when we see them on caller ID its like Russian roulette.

My coworker picked up a call from them today and there was a patient who needed a controlled med, but we had no script on file.

We faxed the facility back saying to send it to us, because he’s a new admit and they never put it on his med list. They have it in their system, all they have to do is fax us.

Apparently that wasn’t something “they do,” and told my coworker that we have to call the doctor for the script, and of course she said “uh, no we don’t.”

The supervisor is even worse than the nurse!

So she hangs up, and they call back 10 minutes later. Lucky me picks up the phone and the nurse gives me the exact same story.

Me: We don’t call the doctor for scripts that we don’t have. We have absolutely nothing to go by, plus it’s controlled. If you have the order, you can just send it to us.

So I guess that ticked off the nurse because this is the second time shes being told this so she puts her supervisor on the phone.

Supervisor: Yeah, actually, you guys do call the doctor to request new scripts. Are you new? Maybe you should get retrained on your policies.

Is the supervisor new? He clearly doesn’t understand how this works.

Me: I’m not new, thanks, but if we don’t have it, we can’t call about it. We have no information about dose, frequency, quantity, etc.. so if you have the script, send it to us so we can fill it.

Supervisor: You’re set up with our PCC system, what we have YOU should have.

Me: … No, you guys aren’t set up with us yet. We’re still waiting for your guys’ IT techs to install the software so it syncs with ours, so for now you have to fax us.

Then the supervisor makes another demand.

Supervisor: I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO FAX. I WANT TO TALK TO YOUR PHARMACIST.

Me: sees the RPH on messenger who is known for being cutthroat and not giving a single care about doing so … Absolutely 🙂

So I give the call to the pharmacist, who just rolls his eyes and picks up the phone, and I went back to my seat and listened to the greatest RPH ragequit of my life:

Here’s how the pharmacist handled the situation.

“Yeah, like they told you, we don’t call the doctor about stuff we don’t have, that doesn’t even make sense……

No, we have never done that for ANY home……

So what, is sending a fax REALLY that hard? Do you WANT your patient to have a seizure while we attempt to contact a doctor on a script we dont have on a SUNDAY?!?! …

… Well that’s too bad they all quit, but I wouldn’t want to be an on-call MD either at your home if this is what they deal with everyday, and if you cant reach one, how are WE supposed to?

The pharmacist was insistent.

…. Yeah, you ARE being unreasonable. Just send us the damn fax instead of wasting our time arguing about this, I have other homes to check scripts for. And also, no, before you ask, I am NOT dispensing an ER supply for those three patients on oxycodone, you ALL know we need MD approval for ANY supply. Stop wasting our time and make sure everyone knows our policies and the LAW, please.

… we can send it tonight if you fax us

… yes. Fax us. I’m not repeating reasoning again… yup, bye.”

SLAM.

I don’t work with him often and sometimes he can frankly be pretty aloof, but man I have mad respect for him now. Hopefully that roughhousing will shape them up a bit, but I’m sure it won’t. One can only hope…

I had to go back and check what year this was written. This story is 7 years old. I don’t think I’ve sent a fax in like…20 years maybe? Maybe that’s why the nurse and her supervisor found the request unreasonable. Regardless, policies are policies, and you don’t want to mess up someone’s medication.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this situation.

This person thinks nursing homes are the problem.

A paramedic weighs in.

An assisted living employee explains why nursing homes are a problem.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who got back at slacking coworkers with fresh-baked treats.

Everyone is bashing nursing home employees!

I’m sure it takes a special type of person to truly enjoy working in a nursing home or assisted living community. It’s too bad it sounds like most of the employees in these types of environments either hate their job or aren’t very good at it. High turnover rate is a big problem.

I hope the nurse finally sent the fax.