There are plenty of troubles and frustrating things that happen behind the pharmacy counter. Please help your pharmacy technicians' jobs become a little bit easier. These are some things you should know.



1. We aren't just supposed to stand there and be a smiling face.

Pharmacy techs don’t just stand there, look pretty, and ring you up at the register. We type your prescriptions, we call insurance companies and doctors, and we count pills. Do not act like we are incompetent.

2. We have no control over the price of your medication.

Yelling at us about how the price went up or about how it’s not covered isn’t going to change the price of your medication. Call the number behind your insurance card and ask them what’s up. Unless it needs a prior authorization from your doctor, there is nothing we can do other than try to find the cheapest discount card, but if you scream at us, we might not even bother with that.

3. We also don’t have control over your doctors.

If we request a refill for you, we don’t know when they will get back to us. Once we send a fax and leave a voicemail, there’s nothing we can do to get a script here any faster. That being said, just because your doctor emails a script over and says it will be ready, doesn’t mean that it actually will be. They don’t know how busy we are. Don't yell at us.

4. When they give you a waiting time, don’t argue with it. Either wait or come back.

You may think it “looks slow” and yell that it’s just a refill, but we have an order to keep. You can’t see the other four people wondering the store waiting for their scripts, or the pile of faxes next to me, or the 40 online scripts that need to be filled. 20 minutes means 20 minutes. Maybe it means less, the longer you yell at us, the longer it’s going to take us to get back to work.

5. We cannot fill something if we can’t read the doctors handwriting.

This isn’t your fault, but it’s not ours either. We try our best but sometimes doctors write for strengths that don’t exist. Sometimes they leave out quantities. We can’t just make that up. Don’t yell at us.

5. We cannot fill your controlled medications early, no matter how much you complain & beg.

We are trying to keep you safe and follow the law. We aren’t doing it to “ruin your life,” we are doing it so you don’t become an addict and so you don’t overdose. We are doing it because there are legal restrictions that tell us we cannot fill them less than 28 days since the last pick up date. I’m not getting fired or fined just because you need your Vicodin. Sorry not sorry! Don't call me names for it!

5. Let us know you need a refill BEFORE you are completely out of the medication.

We don’t have an endless supply of drugs back there. They aren’t magical shelves that restock immediately. It takes a day, if not more for certain medications, to come in. Screaming at us won’t get the medication here any faster! It’s not our fault we ran out of the medication before you called in the refill. If there are no refills left, that gives us time to call the doctor!

6. We need space.

Please don’t stand and watch us fill your script from start to finish. We need room to breathe. We have private information and private policies so please stand away from the counters and away from the glass that is supposed to keep you back. If you make us nervous it’s going to take us longer. If you want to know what we are doing and how everything works, go to pharmacy school.

7. We can't remember every single customer by name.

We know you're a regular; we might know that your first name is John; however, we can't remember everybody's last name, date of birth, and medical history. Please forgive us if we have to ask for your birthday more than once. Please forgive us if we can't remember your last name or have to double check to make sure we aren't violating privacy rules. Please forgive us if we have to double check to see which blood pressure med you're on. We wish we could remember everybody's name, it would make our job easier too, but we can't, so please don't get frustrated when we don't know off the top of our head.

8. We are trying to help.

We wouldn’t purposely tell you that the insurance rejected when it hasn’t. We wouldn’t tell you a medication is on backorder if we actually had it in stock. We don’t make up lies just to avoid filling your medications. The moral of the story is, a lot of the things you scream at us for, isn’t our fault. So don’t shoot the messenger, we are doing the best we can to get you the medication you need.

9. We really just want you to stop yelling at us.