IL pharmacists can no longer say NO to BC!!!!

GO ROD! Our gov, who recently also passed some groundbreaking probreasfeeding laws, passed a law yesterday DEMANDING that pharmacists in ILLINOIS have to fill any and ALL birth control prescriptions without commentary, lecture, delay or denial. GO ROD!!!!

IMO, if you won't fill a scrip, get outta the pharmacy business, and in ILLLINOS, this will now happen. YAY!!!!

 

Now, if we pain patients could get a similar law for our meds and refills.

 

That's great news, hopefully it'll catch on.

We don't really have situations like that in the UK. Unless the pharmacist is Catholic, but then they just get their supervisor or something. Though I'm basing this on anecdotes.

 

Sometimes it seems that Illinois has the govt. with the most common sense.

Those glorified retail workers should have to fill any prescription that comes their way.

 

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I had to take them for cycst on my overies. I guess he was gonna lecture me about the sin of protecting my overies lol.

 

WOW! I can't agree with that, at all! Pharmacists ARE healthcare professionals, with liability, and the ability to impact patient care and health outcomes.

The overwhelming majority of pharmacists don't feel as though they can refuse a prescription on moral grounds, though, and I agree with that. You morals have nothing (or close to nothing) to do with your profession.

Despite what this law says, though, a pharmacist can refuse to fill any prescription they want to. The easiest way, "I'm sold out of that. . . "

 

I think that less legislation, and not more, is the answer to this problem. . .

Pain patients have a right to receive treatment. It is the legal atmosphere that exists today that often hinders proper treatment.

 

Those glorified retail workers should have to fill any prescription that comes their way.[/QUOTE]_________
I have to add that while I can understand that some people may feel this way but it's not true. These people go to school for 6 years to learn this skill. They have to be both educated, careful and intelligent or than can cost you your life. I once had a medication to reduce couphing. (Pill form) It said that I needed to take 11 but I was really supose to take just one. it's not as easy as it looks so you have to know what you are doing.

 

Pharmacy (from the Greek ???????? = drug) is the profession of compounding and dispensing medication. More recently, the term has come to include other services related to patient care including clinical practice, medication review, drug information, etc. Some of these new roles are now mandated by law in various legislatures. Pharmacists, therefore, are the primary health professionals who optimise medication management to produce positive health-outcomes.


Pharmacists are health professionals who practice pharmacy. Pharmacists are highly-trained and skilled healthcare professionals who perform various roles to ensure optimal health outcomes for their patients. Pharmacists typically take an order for medicines from a physician in the form of a medical prescription and dispense the medication to the patient.

The basic requirement for pharmacists to be considered for registration is an undergraduate or postgraduate Pharmacy degree from a recognised university. In most countries this involves a four-year course to attain a Bachelor of Pharmacy (BPharm) degree.

In the United States, pharmacists complete a two-year pre-pharmacy undergraduate program. Following that, the pharmacist will then complete a four year pharmacy program. They will be awarded a Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) degree upon completion of the program. Then a pharmacist will complete an optional post-graduate residency or otherwise enter into the pharmacy practice of their choice, ex. hospital, compounding, nuclear, hospice, community, retail, etc. In the United States, people must pass the Naplex exam and an additional state exam before they can acquire a license to practice pharmacy in that state. It was created by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy¨ (NABP).


Pharmacists are trained in fields including pharmacology, chemistry, pharmaceutical chemistry, pharmacy practice (including drug interactions, medicine monitoring, medication management), pharmaceutics, pharmacy law, physiology, anatomy and biochemistry.

 

I knew that would piss somebody off......its the people who are refusing to dispense the pills that have tainted the whole profession for me.To be fair though, i don't respect anyone simply for what they do for a lving and I hate doctors too

I still say they are essentially retail workers, even though they are trained professionals. Their job is to fill and sell prescriptions

 

I do understand that there are people who try to scam pharmacists with fake scripts, and that hurts all of us, as well as makes the pharmacists drug shy. A good pharmacist is worth his or her weight in gold. There are a few pharmacies in our area I refuse to use, as the pharmacists are opiaphobes and think ANYONE with a C (controlled substance) prescription is a scammer.

I've never been to pharmacy schools, so I don't know what they are taught about looking for fake scrips (I am refering to pain meds here, not BC) but some are a lot more paranoid than others. What really sucks is a GOOD pharmacy with ONE pharmacist you just don't want on call when you have to fill your script.

What needs to be done, also, is to make the insurance companies quit telling doctors how to practice medicine. I am now REQUIRED to use ONLY the mail order pharmacy (in Texas) for all my prescriptions except my CII. They want my doc to write a three month supply of my regular pain meds. My doctor doesn't want to write a script that big and I can't afford to pay retail price. (Seeing him in a few days to discuss it again.) I LOVE my good pharmacist (although there is one at the store that I don't like to deal with) and I don't wnat to lose this person. This person knows me, knows my health, and doesn't harrass me about what I need. It took me a while to gain this person's trust, and I want to keep this person as my pharmacist, and now I am REQUIRED to use the mail order. I'm getting OT here, but Pharmacy Reform is a topic that needs to be discussed. Medications are just too expensive to pay for on your own (particularly if you take a lot of them) and restrictions and Birth Control Phobic or opiaphobic pharmacists or hard line "I don't fill scripts even ONE DAY early" pharmacists need to leave the professsion.

The good ones should stay, because we need them. They also need to know that they are appreciated.

I don't agree that they are "only" retail workers. They are highly trained Health Care Professionals, and should, then, of course, act like them.

 

I wish Photo was MY pharmacist.

 

This is a HUGE problem, and it is only going to get worse! I hate mail order. You take peoples chronic meds, and send all of them to a mail order pharmacy, and then when the person needs something short term, or an OTC recommendation, no one is screening for drug interactions. Pharmacist study medications for YEARS. Doctors take a handful of courses in medications, the rest of their info comes from drug reps.

Pharmacists also work closely with doctors and nurses, behing the scenes. There is no way the pharmacy in Texas can have the working relationship with your doctor that your local pharmacy has.

Unfortunately, most people do not realize the value of a pharmacist until it is too late. After a problem happens, then they realize a pharmacist with all of the patients history could have caught a problem, and made a clinical intervention.

 

Awwww, thanks Maggie!

Drive on over to Richmond, VA, I fill your scripts!

 

yay! i'm really glad this law was passed. maybe it will set a precedent for other states.

my insurance is real weird about how frequently they cover my birth control. so i once had a really awesome pharmacist who would hook me up with a few extra pills if i was going to run out before my insurance would cover it again. then i moved to this small town and things were quite different. it seems like half the time i go to refill my prescription the pharmacy just so happens to "be all sold out" of birth control that day, even when i phone the prescription in days in advance, to ensure that they arent sold out of it!

 

There seems to be a wide gap between the idealogical version of what a pharmacist is supposed to be and what you actually get when you go to the counter. Photo obviously has a lot of info on what a pharmacist is supposed to know and how much school they've been through, and i don't doubt that a lot of parmacists are very well trained and take their jobs very seriously and carefully...
but last week my g/f and i were at the pharamcy (London Drugs... big name) and i was surprised to find that the girl that was behind the counter looked to be about 19... she was definately younger than me or my g/f. My g/f was picking up her anti-depressents (she was in a bad car accident) and i was picking up some cream for a rash i had on my neck... well, i assumed that she was just working the desk, you know, entering peoples info in on the computers, taking their scripts. We sat and waited for our scripts to be filled and as she gave them to us, she mis-pronounced the names of the active compounds in the anti-depressent. What we DID get however, was a print out about the drug and information on drug conflicts, etc, etc... I got the distinct feeling that this girls expertise was highly in question, and that a computer program had taken the 'personality' out of any kind of 'relationship'.
Maybe this can be expained by the difference between Canada and the US. I don't doubt that a lot of pharmacists have gone to school for 6 yrs and have extensive knowledge in many areas of medicine... but how the hell does an 18/19 yr old end up filling our prescriptions?! To make matters worse, she would read the computer print-out and then put it into her own words, even though i doubt she understood it herself.
Where are all these highly trained professionals? Is it like one highly trained person can run a crew of high school grads? Do we expect more out of pharmacists than what they actually provide?
I don't blame just the pharmacists... i think the blame can be equally shared by doctors, pharmacists, drug manufacturers, government regulatory divisions.

After my g/f was in a bad car accident we had to deal with the medical profession extensively... and even though i went in with confidence in the system... i came away bitter and cynical of the 'image' of the health care system and where it actually was.

 

Does a person have to have a degree to fill perscriptions at a pharmacy? My aunt worked as a pharmacist for years (and was later fired for taking those drugs herself, on top of giving them out to friends and family - yikes!) and she had no degree in the field. She worked in a Rite-Aid phrmacy in this little town in the backwoods of Tennessee.

My pharmacist is great, in fact I haven't come across one in all my years of bad health that I did not like. They were all very knoweldgeable, helpful, and informative.

 

no, the person behind the counter filling prescriptions does not have to have a degree in their field. (but maybe this person doesn't have the official title of 'pharmacist' maybe theres another title for it? like apprentice?) the post i made a little bit above, where i talked about that awesome pharmacist, he was still an undergrad (and oddly enough, he was also at a rite-aid). so not only did he not have a degree in that field yet, he didn't have any degree at all!

 

quote: so not only did he not have a degree in that field yet, he didn't have any degree at all!


Thats what I thought, there is no way that all of those "pharmacists" in the thousands of drug stores that seem to built everyday have 6 years of schooling....some actually did get transferred over from being a cashier.

 

One cannot FILL a prescription, meaning make the decision, enter it into the log, (especially for controlled substances) Unless that person has a PharmD or I beleive, an RPH degree. There are Techs, who can read a script and fill it, but it cannot be released unless the REGISTERED PHARMACIST on duty OKs it. It is like a doctor and a nurse, kind of.

NO one goes from being a cashier to being a pharmacist without attending pharmacy school first.

I've thought about it, Photo, LOL. I don't think my doctor's IL Licence is good in VA, though.