Every rare blue moon some company does something so good it blows you out of the water, and I like to tell people about it when it happens. I encountered one this week. I was required to buy a particular medication for my dog from a compounding pharmacy. Not just any pharmacy, I was told. “A **compounding **one. Here, use this one, they carry it.” Ugh, pain in the ass… but anyway…
I sent that pharmacy the rx and filled the first bottle of med. This week I needed to refill it. I looked all over for the little box that had the rx number on it and couldn’t find it, so I couldn’t refill it online. My bad, kicking myself. (I hate using the phone.) Pick up the phone and here’s how it went:
Pharm: Stokes Pharmacy, how may I help you?
Me: Hi, I need to refill a prescription.
Pharm: (barely a 2 second delay) Is it the neomycin for Loki?
Me: (picking my jaw up off the floor) … Yes, yes it is!
Imagine that… a company that actually connects caller id to their computer system database and uses it for the best customer experience!
Not necessarily. Parents can still handle medical stuff for their children, guardians for their wards, and so on; it has to be some kind of formalized relationship which fits into the law, but if we’re imagining the dog Loki as a human under the care of JcWoman, it would likely work out much the same way.
I thought they were referring to the giving out of name and prescription information to someone they haven’t identified apart from knowing their caller ID, which is easily spoofed and doesn’t really identify a specific person anyway, even if it wasn’t.
I don’t know enough about HIPAA to know for sure, but it seems like a reasonable thing to be concerned about.
Well no, I’m not saying it would certainly be one - I call in for & pick up prescriptions for my kids all the time. But they verify my identity first, by more than just the phone number I’m calling from. I’d expect a pharmacy to err on the side of caution. I would be pretty pissed if I called and said nothing but “I need to refill a prescription” and the pharmacy rattled off the name & medication of every person in my household.
I suspect that if there were multiple rx’s on file they’d not have just blurted them all out, waiting for me to say “stop! that one!”
I also don’t think they’d list all the rx’s on file for multiple people. They’d have at least asked me who it was for, first.
Now that you mention it, my other pharmacy that refills my personal rx’s doesn’t ask me for my name either. They just confirm which drug it is and the shipping address. (and then the credit card info, of course)
Last year, about this time, we were packing up to move 900 or so miles, and we contacted (for the first time) a moving company to load the truck. The supervisor came out a few weeks earlier and quoted us 5 hours (I thought more like 6-7) @ $X/hr. Seemed reasonable to me. Moving day comes and the guys were a half hour early (they scoped out the job and started on time–almost to the minute). Friendly, hard-working, careful with our stuff; I was impressed. When they finished and pulled down the door, we got together to settle up and they billed us only 3 hours work! :eek: I told them not to rip themselves off, they were hired for 5 hours. Nope, we worked 3 hours, we get paid for 3 hours. Of course, a big tip awaited them and we would have bought them lunch if they hadn’t been so fast at their job. We still offered to treat them if they’d follow us to the pizza joint, but they declined, being happy that they could get a 3 hour jump on their afternoon gig! They also complimented me on having so much of the house packed/boxed up and making that part of the gig go smoother.
When was the last time you only paid for actual time expended and not for the booked slot? I was/am stunned!
There’s a Humphrey Bogart line from the (1954) movie The Caine Mutiny: “Remember, on board my ship excellent performance is standard, standard performance is sub-standard and does not exist.”
I remember hearing this back on TV when I was a teen and thought it a bunch of hooie. But once I turned 30 and realized how often “standard” performance was mediocre I decided the Bogart line was something to aspire to. So I, like JcWoman respond to great customer service when it happens. I try and get the names of those involved in the transaction or service and write a U.S.P.S. letter to them and their supervisor expressing my appreciation for the experience. Nothing scores more points for an employee like a “great service, thank you” letter to their supervisor.
I’m not sure if the HIPAA laws apply to pharmacies and pharmacists, or not in the same way as to doctors and medical venues. It might be looser like that. Anybody know for sure how this plays?
Our local family-run Chinese restaurant does the same thing. The first time I encountered it, the cashier answered my call, “Hello kayaker, what you want?” before I’d even said a word. I was gobsmacked. Then I figured it out.
