The New York Drug Law Nightmare

The saga continues. You may remember the Prescription Refills on the Road story of June 30 (New York Journey) when I described the difficulty we had getting our prescriptions filled in New York. Those issues continue to haunt us even in southern Ohio. Since that initial episode in Geneva, NY, we have had problems with every refill. One time we were told Gene could not get one of his prescription transferred because the new prescription had never been filled. Something about a law in NY which requires a prescription to be filled at least once at the pharmacy of origin. It was 200 miles back to Geneva. That would be a 2-day journey and roughly $150 worth of diesel fuel. We called the doctors office for a new prescription.

Now in Ohio, we once again needed our medications. Off to Wal-mart we went. Gene has found that he is more successful at getting the pharmacy tech to understand about transferring prescriptions if he is talking to him/her in person. On Thursday we stopped by the pharmacy and explained in detail what we understand about New York drug laws and asked that our prescriptions be transferred. This is not as easy as it sounds when the bottle clearly states there are no refills left. Calling and transferring usually takes some time so we elected to come back on Friday to pick them up.

On Friday, a full 24 hours after our discussion with the pharmacy tech, Gene goes to the pick-up window only to be told they were not there. Next, Gene asked her to check the computer to see if the prescriptions had been requested. That wasn’t possible from the pick-up side of the room. That computer does not have the same information as the one on the drop-off side. The only reasonable thing to do at this point was to pray. And patience is truly a virtue. It might be a God-given gift bestowed only upon the apostles and perhaps saints. One thing for sure, it is not something we have in abundance. Over at the drop-off side of the room, Linda was there to help. She, too, confirmed there were no drugs to pick-up. Linda didn’t happened to be the same person who got the detailed information about transferring from NY, so Gene set into the story again. Once again explaining why the bottle says “NO MORE REFILLS” and, including this time, all she had to do was look in the computer to see where the last prescription was filled and call that store. The extent of Linda’s help was, “well, I guess they didn’t get ordered”. Gene was at the window so long Terrie came in to work. She is the one Gene had spoken to on Thursday and she was also eager to help. Oh yea, she could make that call and have the prescription transferred in 20 minutes. After more prayers for patience, we did not make some sharp remark about how she could have done that yesterday or climb over the counter to wring her neck, but instead smiled and politely asked to be called when the medication was ready to be picked up.

When we came back, we were happy to be handed another month of medication. We thought about asking for some blood pressure medicine to go with the cholesterol meds, but I guess that would have been inappropriate. After called the pharmacy in New York, Terrie learned that state law prohibits the transfer of more than 1 prescription per person per day so she had to call the doctors office for a new prescription. Last month, when we went through this ordeal, that Walmart pharmacy failed to fill our insurance and charged us full price. So this time, Gene asked about the price before paying. He noticed that one of the drugs, which was usually $4 was $7. So he inquired about the difference. We discovered that for this particular drug, tablet is $4 and capsule is $7. They had decided on their own to give him capsules.

In two weeks we go to our doctors. We are going to get all new prescriptions and take them to our local Walmart in Nashville. Hopefully, that will be the end of the New York drug law nightmare.