I spoke with Moki's doctor this morning about an hour after the hospital opened up. After explaining that Moki's cough had returned on a regular basis, he agreed that a change of medicine was in order. The new medication, Baytril, is unavailable in a liquid form. Moki's cannot take pills. Which means we are back to having his medications compounded (turning a pill into a liquid form of medication.) So ok no big deal I thought to myself. I'll just pick up the pills from the vet and take them over to the compounding pharmacy located a few blocks away from my house...Simple, or so I thought.
When I got over to the vet office, they where very surprised that I had been able to get a hold of the compounding pharmacy. According to the office staff, they had been trying for weeks. Apparently, one of their clients came into the office and told them that the compounding pharmacy had shut down. This particular client was there the morning it happened. Basically the owner of the compounding pharmacy came in one day, without giving the staff at the pharmacy any advice warning, and told them that he was returning to his own country. He kicked everyone out, locked everything up, and apparently got on a flight that day and flew back to wherever he was from. Prior to leaving the country, the owner didn't bother to transfer any of the clients file, just locked everything up and closed the pharmacy indefinitely. Thus many clients at my vets office who used the compounding pharmacy, where left without their medications, or medical files.
Now here was the odd, thing. Prior to picking up Moki's medication from the vets office, I called the compounding pharmacy, and spoke with someone. They told me that they could indeed compound Moki's medication, but that they would need me to bring in the pills, since they didn't have them in stock. When I told the staff about this at my vets office, they assumed that maybe the compounding pharmacy had reopened since there had been talk about some of the employees wanting to reopen the pharmacy.
So I pick up Moki's medicine, and drive to the compounding pharmacy. When I get there I notice a note on the door. The note basically said that the pharmacy was closed down indefinitely. It listed the number of another pharmacy and said that they had transferred all files over to the new pharmacy. So I call the new pharmacy.
The new pharmacy tells me that they can indeed compound Moki's medication. So I hop back into my car and drive 20 mins to the new pharmacy. The lady behind the front desk asks me how she can help and I explain that I need to have these pills (I hand her the bottle) compounded. Upon seeing the pills she says, oh ya, I spoke to you over the phone. Ok so now it makes sense. The new pharmacy has taken over the business of the pharmacy that shut down. No biggie.
Here's where it starts to get annoying. The pharmacist, then takes the bottle of pills pours them into a new container, and hands them back to me, keeping the original bottle. I ask her why she is handing the pills back to me, and say tells me that they use a powder formula to compound this particular medication. Ok so then why did you ask me to bring the pills in? Ahhhh! So now I have to go back by the vets office to return the pills, because the compounding pharmacy wont use them, (they will only use their own powder formula.)
So I go back to the vets office explain what happened and tell them I want to return the pills. They cannot accept them. Apparently there is some regulation that would make it illegal since the pills where not in a sealed container. So now I am out thirty dollars and stuck with a bottle of pills we can't use! In addition to that I have to make another trip back to the compounding pharmacy to pick up Moki's medication, two hours from now.
Needless to say I am finding myself slightly annoyed at the moment...
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I'm back from the pharmacy, but I can't help but question, if what the compounding pharmacy did was legal? Essentially if you think about it, what the pharmacy did was give me an unauthorized prescription. By refusing to compound the pills that I brought in with me, (which where prescribed by Moki's vet because they could be compounded) and instead forcing me to buy their pills. Since I had the orginal bottle of pills now sitting at home without a label, when I picked up Moki's prescription, I asked them if I could have the original bottle back. I explained that they took the orginal bottle to fill the prescription, and left me with an unlabled bottle of pills. I wanted the original bottle back so that I could place the pills I bought from the vet back in it, since it had the dosage information on it. The compounding pharmacy then gave me back the original bottle with the prescription written on it, and the new bottle of liquid medicine, so essentially, they gave me an unauthorized prescription. (In other words, when I went to the pharmacy I had one prescription written by Moki's doctor without refills, when I left the pharmacy I had two!)
What is everyones opinion on the issue?
