Confessions of a Pharmacy Technician

It hurt to hate a job that I really loved.

* I found the work to be challenging but not overwhelming.

* I enjoyed being part of the health care system because I was helping people and seldom had to see blood or open wounds.

* I loved the customer contact - even though they seldom felt well. I miss each and every one of my customers.

* I loved the people I worked with. We all had a great deal of compassion.

* I loved the company I worked for. It was the largest retail drug store chain in the nation, CVS. They were Number One and I loved being on the winning team.

It is difficult to explain what would make me leave the field I loved although that explanation is actually rather simple. The emotions that come with the telling are poignant and painfully difficult.

I witnessed first hand an awful truth about the state of health care in America.

The cost of medications and the availability of medication are generally controlled by the insurance companies and/or the drug manufacturers. We've heard it all before

Drug manufacturers are simply trying to recoup their research and development costs. But, in many cases it was obvious that advertising costs were also being rolled into the rising prices. Rising prices were passed along to the patients and/or to the insurance companies.

For many patients, their insurance company dictates whether a drug is dispensed or not.

A qualified physician prescribes the drug but the insurance company can cancel the dispensing.

This process was frightening and demoralizing. I was a part of it. I knew as well as the patients that they or someone had paid good money for a licensed physician to diagnose and treat their physical bodies. Yet, an insurance formulary could diminish the quality of individual human lives without so much as a consultation or second opinion.

It was heartbreaking to witness the reactions of people when their insurance company would reject coverage of a new medication or cease covering a medication prescribed for decades. The price of the new medication would be printed on the patients receipt and the cashier would, in all innocence, ring the sale without consultation.

It is not easy explaining to a businessman or woman, with remarkable insurance coverage, that their insurance company denied the claim. It was difficult to explain that the new miracle arthritis medicine was not covered but that ibuprofen was the recommended drug in that category.

A consultation with the patient would lead to a phone call with the doctor. The decision to be made was between the patient's ability to pay the price or the doctor's willingness to change the prescription to something else that was covered. It felt to me as if the insurance companies were writing the prescriptions.

I began to feel like scum. I was working in an industry shackled by powers outside our control. It was extremely frightening to see them exercise control over the doctors.

Decisions about changing prescriptions were hard enough for the educated and privileged class who frequented our stores. But, there so many of our clients who were unable to pay for life-improving or life-sustaining drugs and went with out.

The worst experience came each time an elderly woman would ask for her medications and for her husband's medications. Upon discovering that she had only enough money to buy one order and not the other - she would do without. And her bag of medicine would sit on our shelf until being returned to stock. The scenario would repeat itself month after month as we witnessed the suffering and shame.

Some patients would lower their quality of life to the point that they lived on peanut butter and canned tuna (or cat food) - day in and day out - in order to afford their drugs.

I rang up a sale for a prescription customer one day. She had a case of cat food to ring with her order. Being a cat lover, I asked her to tell me about her cat. She hadn't any. These cans would provide her dinner for the coming week. There was nothing I could do.

I could not handle being "on the front lines" of the cost of drugs war any longer.

Pharmacy Technician is a great title and an honorable certification.

I cannot recommend it for the softhearted.