After enjoying a glorious four days off I’m back to clinicals.

Clinicals have been going well. I label prescription medication and put it away, label and put away OTC medications/items, occasionally fill prescriptions, add new patients to the system, etc., etc. It’s interesting seeing what people are taking. Can’t talk about my patients, though, because of HIPAA.

I gained a new co-worker which has been a bit vexing because she does not bathe regularly. First day, first thing that hits me is the scent of old sweat when I meet her. The day she did bathe I felt so much nicer towards her but that went away because that was the only time she smelled clean. I used to look forward to going to clinicals, now I get annoyed so much because it took her four days to figure out that our medication that is in tablets or capsules is sorted  in alphabetical order according to the trade name (e.g. Prozac). I’d catch her wandering in the R-Z aisle when the trade name of the medication in her hands starts with an A… even if medication isn’t even generic and its trade name is in big letters across the front.

It’s been frustrating. I know being new is confusing but ask if you need help instead of wandering around while I’ve processed two medications during that time. I asked and still ask plenty of stupid questions because I don’t want to waste time and I don’t want to make bad mistakes.

It’s better than being like the idiot at the Walgreens who lied to my face and told me that Walgreens does not take secondary insurance. He then asks his other two techs-in-training if they take secondary insurance and how to process it right in front of me. They don’t know so he turns to me and says again that they do not take secondary insurance. I thought everybody knew secondary insurance existed and is taken by the major chains (at least the ones I’ve been to).  The first one who helped me also mistook my Medicare card (my secondary insurance, given to the elderly and disabled), which was in their system, for Medical (given to those on welfare) when they look nothing alike and the card says Medicare in big letters across the front. Meaning, I had to go home and get my card — yeah, I was dumb and didn’t carry it — and then was told that they needed my other card, which I had been carrying the whole time.

The funny thing is, if the denial from Medicare had been sent to my doctor when I first attempted to use it the way the pharmacy is supposed to I could have been getting my medication at a little over $2 instead of $120 or so — originally $160 or $170 co-payment.