what do pharmacist do anyway? Every time I go to the pharmacy, I see a lineup of people behind the counter doing something I’m sure they’re counting up pills, but did they do anything else?
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US pharmacist here 🙂
When a community pharmacist (the ones you see at a grocery store or a retail pharmacy like CVS or Walgreens) gets a prescription your doctor wrote/called in/faxed/ sent electronically, it sets off a chain of events. First we make sure the that the prescription has all of the information we need to fill it. Then we check to make sure the medication is being used or dosed correctly for a good reason, the directions makes sense, and that it wont harm you (which includes making sure it doesn’t interact with any other meds you might be taking). We also try to see if you insurance covers your medication or if they need more paperwork or a different medication, or if not we can see if there might be a coupon. If any of those steps has an issue, we have most likely have to call the doctor’s office or insurance. This is all before we even put the pills in the bottle! After this, we try to fill the medication, but if we don’t have enough or don’t have the medication in stock – more phone calls (!) to either change the medication, order it for the next day, or transfer it to another pharmacy. Finally, we make sure that we wrote on the label matches is what we gave you in the bottle. Then, when you pick up the medication, we counsel you to make sure you know how to take the medication, let you know any side effects, and answer any questions you might have on the medication your picking up or even any medication question you have. We do this for every prescription that we fill. And that doesn’t include the other things we do! We give vaccines and can make recommendations on which ones you might need, answer questions on meds you can by over-the-counter, follow up with you to see how you’re doing on a new medication and, in some states, we can also prescribe some medications like birth control.
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