I don't want her to know.

A few days ago, a psychiatrist called in and asked to talk to a pharmacist. I'm usually pretty hesitant about taking these calls cause unless they're up front about leaving a new prescription with us, it's usually something complicated and drug-therapy related that I can't answer. But either way, my preceptor was away at the moment, so I picked up the phone.

He was a psychiatrist who worked for the county. He called in because we faxed over a PA request for Topamax for one of his patients. He told me that he hasn't got the PA thing sorted out yet with the insurance company. I asked him if he wanted to change the drug therapy (and secretly wished that he wouldn't ask me recommend something else like that last intern MD from providence that I talked to). He sighed and said. "well, I'd like her to keep taking this, so let's charge it on my card."

I thought he was crazy too. Charge his patient's meds on his card????

he then said.... "Put it on her express pay profile so it looks like the insurance went through and paid for it. I don't want her to know that I'm paying for them. If she finds out that her insurance didn't pay for them, she's not going to want to take them and she needs this medicine."

Reluctantly, I looked up her pay profile info and realized that his credit card was already in the profile. It's not the first month that this doctor has paid for his patient's meds.

The Topamax Rx was worth nearly 70$. That was a nice doctor.