Woman Suffering Asthma Attack Denied Inhaler

[Guest eriathomas]

It's cool, he's just doing what the entire US health care system does anyway, you know, denying dying people care because they can't fully pay.

[Guest errolwest]

^this. saying she could be exaggerating to "cheat" the system is ridiculous. it was 2 dollars. that doesnt really sound like a scam to me...

and even if this was a really shitty scam, if someone needs an inhaler that bad where they are trying to short you 2 dollars you may aswell just hand it over.

Just because it doesn't sound like a scam to you doesn't mean it's not. I assure you it happens far more than you'd expect. I wasn't there, so I can't say for sure what happened. But some of ya'll are automatically assuming that she was struggling and this guy was a dick. That's exactly the kind of attitude that these people feed off of. I know it's only 2 bucks, but if this person has a history of doing this then that $2 adds up. You don't know that she hasn't done this to the same pharmicist in the past and he gave it to her. This does happen.

yeah, but its NOT a scam. she is paying 20 bucks, and saving two, thats a very shitty buisness model if yooure trying to rip someone off.

im not saying people dont scam and cheat the system, but come on...

[blackswanns]

Unless you work in the healthcare industry you have NO idea how often people fake these kinds of symptoms expecting sympathy, attention and free stuff. It happens alot, a WHOLE lot. In fact, I'd bet that 80% of the seizure pts we make are not having (and have not had) a seizure. We still treat them as if they are sick for liability issues. I wasn't at CVS during this incident, but I'm sure none of you were either. So it's a little premature to jump the gun and chastise the pharmicist.

I agree and disagree with you.

I have worked for both Walgreens and CVS combined for over a decade. And not to show my self as bias I do not work for either anymore.

People fake symptoms, conditions, and some have whole acts that they do in order to get Hydrocodone, Codeine, Albuterol, etc, etc.

For example, my wife a Pharmacy Tech at Walgreens had a mother and daughter come through the drive thru panicking that her daughter couldn't breathe and that she needed her Albuterol inhaler. When my wife informed her that they did not have anything in the system she flipped out. She started saying I can't believe this I should have refills and my daughter is going to die because YOU can't find it. When my wife asked which pharmacy she dropped it off to she said she it was the CVS by the mall in town. After my wife said that this is Walgreens, to which this Walgreens is 10 miles south, south west of the mall, her daughter miraculously was fine and the mother was calm and all like "oh ok well we'll just go down the street to CVS." This happens daily to the extreme and not so extreme spectrums of crazy.

But then again there are times like the one in the story above where if the person is offering his wallet, phone and whatever else take it. Give them the inhaler and go from there. I have done stuff like this before for many people. Let them fork over collateral, i.e. ID, so that they come back for it. If they don't then you have identification along with their personal belongings in the wallet.

If you are in the same store for a while you will learn the bad apples from the good. And you will have times when people say they fell in your store because there was a puddle and they are going to sue you and a customer will walk up and call them out and let you know the person grabbed a water from the cooler and dumped it on the floor and acted like they fell. I know it's a run sentence.

Also understand that each pharmacist is different and each will react to the situation differently. SoME don't like giving people certain medications and will call doctors to have it changed, some will not care at all and do what ever the doctor says, and some plain out should not be back there. A Pharmacists final decision is FINAL. No one inside the store, including a store manager, can override the Pharmacist unless another pharmacist is there.

The world is a crazy place and it's only going to get worse but there are a lot of people out there looking for hand outs and then there are actual people in need of assistance. The only way to know how to spot them is to deal with it constantly.

Sorry if this is long. I have stories that I could tell and you would never believe me they were true but work a drug store and it makes for good story telling.

[circlingvultures]

Working in a pharmacy has just made me more disgusted in human kind instead of more sympathetic towards it.

[blackswanns]

Working in a pharmacy has just made me more disgusted in human kind instead of more sympathetic towards it.

The worst is in the beginning of the new year when everyone's insurance changes.

Co-pays are different, preferred drugs are changed and so on and the people get pissed at the pharmacy personnel as if it was they who told the insurance companies to change it.