I wondered the same thing! I have been on this med for 10 years now, and its a brand name so they are always ready for me with the special hidden supply. They drag it from a special cabinet and fill it then and there. I always wait for it, and never leave it to be filled another day. I signed the silly CC looking thing that asks if you want to consult with a pharmacist or do you have any questions about your meds, so it MUST have scanned in to trigger that event on the reader, yes? its also a double counted med, so you know that watch that closely, yes?

btw, my copay is $6. its not a big deal. Its $3 for generic, but the principal was the thing. It is extremely uncommon to be able to walk off with a narc without paying for it, being given the stink eye by the pharmacist and having to show your license to prove its you picking it up, yes? I was asked for my license, so...I dunno. my memory has holes large enough to drive a truck thru it.

The old pharmacy that gave me a hard time was a local mom and pop style place. This new one is a big chain store that is always Rite and ready with Aide. It was taken over from a mom and pop and turned into the big chain store 2 years ago. I find mistakes are common, and the turn over of staff is incredible. One girl could never remember my name. I finally asked her to stop trying. Just say "hello, how are you today. What can I help you with?" instead of "oh its ms ....um...oh...dont tell me" games.

I am extremely honest and that bugged me that someone accused me of walking off without paying. I was insulted. There were much better ways to handle that whole event, and perhaps I would have been happy to have rerung it, but to start off playing games like I would run down for extra pills and get caught...not fair, and insulting! Several times I have asked for Mometesone cream and I get there and its something else. The clerk on the phone just doesnt listen. she hears the first part of what you say and jumps to the end. She needs to go home.

RA's pharmacy computer is a double scan system. Errors of wrong pills are less frequent. Only way to get an error now is to key in the wrong drug in the beginning. But they even scan your hard copy so finding an error is easier. They even have a thumb print activator for IDing the pharmacist who dispensed each RX. Can't fudge that either.

CII's like yours are inventoried on the spot as each RX is filled.
It is quite difficult to scam the system now. But not impossible.

Double scan means the pharmacist checks the RX and scans in the UPC bar code from the bottle the pills came from and then scans the RX container to see if they match. Many places do this now.

I do think you were scanned at the register because the signature capture box activated. So I don't know WHAT is going on there. CVS still uses tags for signing, and WalGreen's has no capture box at all.

You could always contact your insurance to see if the claim went thru. Give it 2 weeks since the date on the RX tho to see.
That might show "something" if things are hinky there.

that sounds very odd. my pharmacy has its customers sign for an rx when a med is picked it up.

I always pay with a credit card when I get my meds, mostly because my dad pays my medical bills, and plus we get points on my credit card for everything we buy. My dad uses Quicken to track all of my medical expenses too. So, he can tell me when I bought something. (doesnt mark down what my meds are on Quicken tho)

I bet tho, that I could get receipts from my credit card company and use information from my credit card charges to go back to any store I've gone to to prove that I purchased something if I ever had a question about something.

Dej, did you pay cash or did you use a credit card? If you used a credit card, you might be able to get the info from your credit card company on the transaction. (at least the exact time it was rung thru, so the Aide of Rite can check their computers and see what transactions went thru at that particular time)

I did look at the CC online, but it only shows the total of items sold, not the breakdown of how much for each item.

I do plan on calling the insurance company, but again worry. if they double billed, will they then chase me? I dont need new cans of worms.

I just want to be able to get my meds without fear that the clerk behind the counter isnt up to snuff. This constant new employee game lately worries me. I know tons of folks in the dead end town and several are either on drugs themselves or married to folks that abuse, or have cousins, neighbors and so on that are. The risk is too high for some of these folks to be behind the counter. I mean what if employee X tells her cousin where I live and what meds I take? I am considering going to Target in the big city.

The insurance companies rely on their customers to alert them to potential fraud issues. If no one ever spoke up, stealing would be more rampant than it is already.

It should not affect you at all.

What may happen is an internal audit of that store. Sometimes the insurance sends in auditors who look at MANY files... so many you wouldn't believe. Any irregularities...and they will cancel payments for up to a year on each infraction(going back a year). Blue Cross does that, and I've seen some HMO's too.
The audit looks at the hard copy of the RX. In the case of RA, it might use the scanned electronic capture. If one is not done, they will pull the original RX.

If you did not get DAW on each RX however, the store just giving you brand because you requested it, the payments may be denied.

I've seen payments denied even on refills, all sorts of minor infractions, in the past.

But I don't think they would do an expensive audit, unless they see other things of suspected sloppiness.
Some insurances send payment bill copies to their customers.
That is how Blue Cross caught an independent pharmacy not far from me several years ago, filling scripts no one picked up. (this was before the "fraud" cases against CVS and Walgreen's.)
Today this is less likely to happen. Customers of Blue Cross got those statements, and realized they never picked up those RXs and reported it. In the end people went to JAIL over it and the store lost its license, etc. It involved hundreds of thousands of dollars of fraudlent billing!

What I did learn once when I reported RX diversion to our state over a decade ago, about a doctor diverting drugs for personal use. When I gave my deposition, involving maybe 50 incidents I reported, they showed me a computer printout they found of the REST.... it was inches thick involving thousands of RXs....
The auditors told me what is found by accident is almost always the tip of a huge mountain of real activity. That situation was a real eye opener for me!

But the bottom line is that chain pharmacies are less likely to be involved in complex fraud, than independents. But it still can happen. A colleague I ran into at a conference, last year told me of a huge internal theft of OxyContin not far from us. It was a big chain and the thieves covered it cleverly. Security did a spot audit on them in person and discovered it, finally. So it can happen. Morphine is a little less common, but brand name may be easier to sell on the black market.

It is your decision in the end, Dej. Living in a small community is not like the big city where I am. So you have to consider more things which may fall out than I would. In my case, whistle blowing is written into our public health code. If another professional does not report, they can be charged if a coverup is suspected...so some responsibility lies on many shoulders in the end.

I will call on Monday. You are right. Something is really funny about this one, and if it was Cipro I wouldnt be upset, but this narc is handled too carefully for this type of slip. I got upset when the big girl hosp billed me for full body radiation, and some bone marrow thingie I never had. I made sure it was investigated. I was told "your insurance paid, so its no big deal" well YES it IS a big deal. I have life time limits on my plans! if I eat them up with full body radiation I dont have, what happens when I need surgery and it goes over? So, yes I watch my EOBs like a hawk. I get a yearly readout of my meds in January. Its not monthly. Actually they send it to me to show how much money i would have saved to use their mail in service.

Thanks!

Dej, my best friend got Prilosec (Omeprazole ) instead of Prozac. Just the opposite of your Mom. Different state or I would wonder who got the wrong one in my friend's case.

She was to up her dosage to 40 mg, from 20 mg of Prozac. So the pills were new looking to her. She didn't know what they should look like. She took them all month.

She went into depression after a month of cold turkey from not only not increasing Prozac, but getting none at all. She almost lost her job due to this Mom and Pop Pharmacy.

She has the bottle, with Prozac on the front store printed label (all correct info) and on the side is the generic, original full bottle for Prilosec (Omeprazole ) imprinted and instructions under the label they stuck on it for her insurance info.

Instructions came with it for Prozac, yet the full new bottle was Prilosec.

So this med switch and lack of the pharmacy double checking, caused many bad issues for my friend. One other thing good, and one bad.

She didn't have any heartburn for that month that was the good, but it inhibited the making of hydrochloric acid in her body, so she had terrible heartburn for two months after, and never had a problem with spices before.

So it can snowball, to a mountain, a mistake.. to be many problems, even death in some cases.

On News TV.
That young girl who got cancer medicine, instead of her Anti-B's, while in the third month of pregnancy. She now has to worry about miscarriage or her baby being injured now. I haven't read anything recently about her, has anyone?

The FDA put up a list similar to RW.
http://www.fda.gov/Safety/MedWatch/S.../ucm243850.htm