Can a pharmacy retain my narcotic script at it's discretion?

Factual Questions
1

Long, but there is a question coming, but I need to explain a bit first.

I was at the pharmacy with a prescription for Lortab 10/500, which is a schedule III narcotic due to the Hydrocodone in the medication. I waited the hour they said it would take (which was rude for them not to call me sooner to let me know they wouldn’t fill it, they had my cell number and I asked them to call me if there was any trouble) and when I came back and asked for it, the people behind the counter started acting weird, walking around with a lost look on their face and some even walking completely away.

Finally the pharmacist calls me over and hands me a copy of my real prescription and states that my insurance company said it was “too soon” for my script to be filled because I had some filled three weeks ago at another pharmacy. So they were going to keep my real prescription and give me a copy of it instead.

I was getting really mad at this point. I told them that I had a script for twelve Vicodin filled because I had some teeth taken out three weeks ago. That didn’t matter to them, I still had some filled three weeks ago and they weren’t going to give me my script back.

I actually had to make a scene before they gave my real script back to me. I told them I needed my medication filled due to two degenerative discs and needed my medication for pain. Why do pharmacies do this sort of thing. I see a pain management doctor once a month and get a narcotic script once a month and every month, I get some kind of trouble from the pharmacy, it never fails.

Now, in Maryland, were they legally allowed to do this to me, if so, why can they do this to me? Could they take my script, give me a copy (why give me a copy, I don’t know) and keep my real one?

2

diggleblop, that sucks. I research state pharmacy laws at work so I will try to see if I can find anything about this tomorrow (it is way past my bedtime now). But it probably has to do with some sort of prescription monitoring program… programs like this have been expanding and are designed to catch people (addicts) who “doctor shop” for narcotic prescriptions, or who fill different prescriptions at different pharmacies. Clearly that is not what you were doing, and they should not have treated you so rudely.

I would contact the MD Board of Pharmacy and inquire, and make a complaint.

I will check back tomorrow with more info!

3

In the meantime, here are a couple of links with more info:

National Alliance for Model State Drug Laws:
http://www.natlalliance.org/prescription_drug.asp

DEA - A Closer Look At State Prescription Monitoring Programs:
http://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/faq/rx_monitor.htm

National Conference of State Legislatures -
Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs:
http://www.ncsl.org/programs/cj/pdmp.htm
I have a hunch that they were probably NOT allowed to keep your original prescription… I would definitely consider calling the state board of pharmacy and filing some sort of complaint. Here is the MD BOP’s site:
http://www.dhmh.state.md.us/pharmacyboard/

4

One more link!

Here is where consumers can file complaints about a pharmacy or pharmacist:
http://www.dhmh.state.md.us/pharmacyboard/forms/complaint.htm

5

As a patient with bad back and neck discs and kidney stones and miscellaneous surgeries, I’ve also accidentally triggered problems in the weird parallel universe that sits beside medical and pharmaceutical services. After the fact, I generally can imagine why the system flipped out, but I never see it coming (because I’m in pain and maybe groggy and worried about other things). But the steady stream of people coming to the pharmacy for narcotics has big portions in the “patient” and “scammer” category and, I guess, even a fair bit in the category of “legitimate patient who is also somewhat inclined to abuse narcotics and is growing more so, either consciously or more likely somewhat unconsciously”. Figuring out which one you are, especially for some underpaid and overworked chain pharmacy employee who is afraid of legal trouble, is gonna be somewhat error prone.

6

There was a thread a while back asking a similar question (but it was about birth control). The answer seemed to be that the prescription is the property of the doctor. There were some other related links in that thread, such as this and this.

I would still like to see some legal reference, however…

(And I agree, they way they treated you sucks and the drug laws, even for prescription meds, are insane.)

7

Here’s a PDF file from the MD atty general about prescription drug abuse in Maryland. There may be some info in there (I don’t have time to read it right now).

8

They started their monitoring program in 2006. Here are links from the maryland.gov website (mostly pdf files).

9

Most of the trouble I had was, because of the insurance company, and them having the rules like that. They want to save money and that’s the reason they say no. Please note the pharmisist said the insurance company said it was too early for a refill. The insurance company has to be gotten hold of and the situation explained to a higher tier person. You would have gotten the same turn down from the next pharmacy. The pharmacy could have filled it, if you paid and didn’t use the insurance. Who has that kind of cash laying around? I know how excessively expensive pain medicine is. They don’t have the right to keep the script if you need to go somewhere else and get the refill. It really wasn’t the case though, because it was that you’re insurance wouldn’t pay for it. I also know how hard it is to get your prescriptions, because the doctors have to follow extra stringent rules about writting the prescriptions. They may only write a prescription for 30 days or less, and maybe give it to you a couple days before the last one is gone.

10

Generic hydrocodone by Watson is pretty cheap – from $0.10-$0.25 per pill last time I checked.

Of course, name-brand pills like OxyContin can be horrifyingly expensive.

11

In the last few years, the DEA has gotten all excited about abuse of opioid prescription pain killers such as oxycontin, vicoden, percocet, etc. I’m sure that the DEA is leaning on pharmacies to look out for prescription drug abusers. One sign of prescription drug abuse is when the patient has multiple prescriptions for opium derived pain killers from multiple doctors. So your situation probably raised a red flag for the pharmacy.

I would guess that the pharmacists were afraid of being blamed somehow by the authorities for giving you your prescription back and letting you get your fix elsewhere.

12

I’m not sure if they have a monitoring program in effect… two bills proposing a monitoring program were vetoed by the governor last year: SB 333 and HB 1287.

13

I looked at the state regulations and I don’t see anything that would have specifically allowed or disallowed the pharmacist to refuse to give you back your prescription. It seems to me that if it was really a matter concerning your insurance company, they would have just told you that you could pay cash, or to call your insurance company and work it out with them. Instead, they acted weird and suspicious. Here is one possibly relevant pharmacy regulation - maybe this is what they were doing:

10.34.10.08 Refusing to Dispense a Controlled Substance.

Here are a couple of other relevant regulations:

10.34.10.03. Patient Privacy.

10.34.20.02 Requirements for Prescription Validity.

10.19.03.07 Prescriptions.

10.19.03.09 Controlled Substances Listed in Schedules III, IV, and V.
I still think you should make a complaint. Those pharmacists are supposed to be professionals and they treated you in a very rude and unprofessional manner. Let us know how it goes!

14

Um, from the pharmacy perspective, no, no, no, no, and no.

If you’d had a prescription filled for vicodin for #12 pills for the purpose of a dental visit, your day supply would have been between 2 and 3, not 30 unless there was an error.

The reason they didn’t fill it is because the insurance alerted them to the fact that you’ve been getting hydrocodone at another pharmacy and it was too soon per the insurance, yes, but if it’s a controlled medication you are still not getting it even if you pay cash for it. As to them not giving the prescription back, I don’t know about the legality of it but if it were me, I would have written the date the prescription was due to be filled in big numbers on the top of the script so you didn’t take it somewhere else to be filled for cash.

I think there’s probably more to this story than you might be letting on. There is really only one way that it would have been something out of your hands, if the person who entered in the ‘dentist visit’ hydrocodone put something larger than necessary in the day supply field and the insurance believes 12 pills is supposed to last 30 days.
Besides the case of deja-vu that this is giving me, I think I’ve heard this same story from another poster here. The EXACT same story, in fact.

This happens to me nearly every day. I catch somebody trying to fill their hydrocodone early, they’re pissed because I make it so they can’t take it to some pharmacy they’ve never been to to pretend like they don’t have insurance and pay cash for it.

You say in your own story that you get the same prescription from the same pain management clinic every month. I’m betting that the issue was not the stuff you got from the dentist’s office, but that you were more than several days too early from the last script you got, and nobody had the stones to tell you so.
I’m withholding judgement until I hear the rest of the story, but considering I encounter people that give me this story and a thousand others every single day, my response is :dubious:

ETA: Also, I think the cries that you were treated unfairly and should complain are utterly ridiculous. I doubt anybody was rude to you, especially considering you were the one making a scene about the issue, and there is probably more here than meets the eye, but we can still pretend like the Pharmacist is the bad guy, right?

15

I also would like to say that the issue the pharmacist had was not that your insurance wouldn’t pay for the medication, but that you were clearly trying to get it filled too early. The reason pharmacists are a little wary about that kind of stuff is that when you OD on Oxy, they come first to the pharmacy and say “Why the hell did you fill this, you knew it was too soon?”. We’re just as liable as the doctors are for your stupid decisions.

The reason the DEA and FDA are getting all “excited” about “opioid abuse” is because it’s the becoming the leading form of drug addiction in the US. I’d say they have a right to be “excited” about the situation.

And chorpler is right. Hydrocodone is very cheap, not prohibitively expensive like Percocet which makes the average abuser more likely to pay cash for it then waiting until it’s due to be filled.

I’m changing my :dubious: to a :rolleyes: .
ETA: Is this a new occurance, diggleblop, or do you find this happening on a monthly basis?

16

Please let us know if you ever acquire a medical condition that puts you in severe chronic pain. God, wouldn’t that be the cat’s ass?

17

The point is not denying people legitimate medication. It’s keeping people who abuse pain medication from filling new scripts when they still have two weeks left of the same medication according to the doctor’s directions, and no increase in dosage. Thanks for the snark, but we are not talking about the same situation.

18

Future conversation:

**ladyfoxfyre:: ** Doctor, this pain (scream) is unbearable, please give me (scream) something to help

**Doctor:: ** Sorry, the DEA is excited about opioid abuse and I don’t want to get in any trouble. And could you please tone it down a little.

19

Way to completely miss the point, Ring. Good job.

20

Maybe Ring isn’t aware that there’s a different definition for both the word “use” and the word “abuse”.