3 steps to keep your pharmacist from killing you

Picking up an Rx at a pharmacy counter seems so simple — a quick transaction you probably don’t think twice about.

After all, pharmacists are highly trained, right? And since prescriptions are mostly sent electronically these days, they no longer have to decipher your doctor’s scrawl!

But every year in the U.S., over 2 million mistakes are made when prescriptions are filled (and that’s just outside of a hospital!). And while some are caught and many might be considered minor, others can be deadly.

That’s why you can no longer just assume that what you’re handed at a pharmacy, any pharmacy, is exactly what your doctor ordered.

A new investigation into pharmacy blunders for just one state – Texas — has uncovered over 200 disciplinary actions taken against pharmacists for Rx mix-ups in the last two years.

So, checking on what you’ve been dispensed is probably one of the most important things you can do to protect yourself from a disastrous slip-up.

Thankfully, three easy steps can help keep you and your loved ones from becoming another statistic in this epidemic of errors.

Prescription for peril

Chanda Givens thought her Walgreens pharmacist was giving her a bottle of prenatal vitamins. Instead, she was handed a chemo drug, something she didn’t find out until after she suffered a miscarriage.

The family of 8-year-old Jake Steinbrecher blames his death on a pharmacy mistake, too — an ADHD drug dispensed at 1,000 times the prescribed amount. Although Jake was rushed to the hospital, the damage caused when his brain started to swell ultimately took his life several months later.

Some of these errors have to do with drug names that are ridiculously similar, even though the conditions they treat aren’t. For example “cetirizine,” an allergy drug, can be easily confused with the antidepressant “sertraline.” Or “hydralazine,” a med for high blood pressure, has been known to be dispensed instead of “hydroxyzine,” an antihistamine.

The lion’s share of these mix-ups, however, are being blamed on “production metrics” — the speed at which a pharmacist is expected to get the job done.

One druggist tells how some chain stores have a light on the counter that turns red when it’s taken too long to fill an Rx. That could mean that the pharmacist will be given fewer hours or moved to another location. Some pharmacists even refer to their job as “racing the red light.”

And when you think about the sheer numbers of prescriptions that get filled every day (around 300 for your typical pharmacy), it’s probably a miracle that even more mistakes aren’t made!

The truth of the matter is that most pharmacists aren’t incompetent or uncaring. In fact, they do care, very much. But the assembly-line working conditions they’re operating under are practically designed for disaster.

The fact that chains such as Rite-Aid, Walgreens, and CVS, as well as the pharmacies in big-box stores, put their employees through the wringer and our lives on the line just to make more money should be criminal!

But while we can’t change how these big companies do business, we can fill in some of those holes by taking three simple steps:

#1 Try not to fill an Rx at the beginning of the month (when pharmacies tend to be extra busy… said to be caused by Social Security checks coming in). In fact, mistakes rise during the first part of the month by a giant 25 percent above the usual numbers.

#2 Don’t leave the pharmacy counter until you open the bag and check what you’ve been given. Look for your name on the bottle, the name of the drug and the dose. Also look at the paperwork that’s stapled to the bag for the pill size, color, and number and match that against your drug. Every med has a unique imprint, so knowing exactly what you’re about to take should never be a mystery. If anything at all doesn’t seem right, ask to see the pharmacist.

#3 If you’re being prescribed a generic drug with an unfamiliar name, ask at the counter what that med treats and if it’s the same as the brand name you’re familiar with.

But here’s an even better idea: Be savvy about your prescriptions starting in your doctor’s office. That’s when you should ask your doc the name of the med… what condition it’s treating… and what the dose should be.

Of course, taking as few drugs as possible is the very best way of all to stay safe!

“Who makes more mistakes, bank tellers or pharmacists?” Joe Graedon, June 8, 2018, The People’s Pharmacy, peoplespharmacy.com