HOW I SEE IT: Pill-poppers: Declare your independence

A few days ago, I had the occasion to refill my Synthroid prescription by transferring it from one pharmacy to another to take advantage of a gift card promotion.

When I called the new store, its pharmacy personnel did not ask for the old store’s prescription number, or any of my identifying information except for my name. I volunteered my phone number for their use in case there was a problem.

And there was, but I received no message to that effect and was informed at the counter, at pickup time, that because the NDC number on their stock bottle did not match the one for the prescribed medication, my insurance had rejected the refill. I asked for a redo, and everything went through fine.

Obviously, at least one digit had initially been entered incorrectly to generate the rejection, and had I not had insurance, that most likely would not have been caught and I would have walked out with pills in hand, albeit the wrong ones.

As I checked out, I was asked, “Only one?” Yup, at almost age 55, only one, and in a decreasing dosage at that. Behind the clerk, a full wall was devoted to baskets filled with white bags of pills, sorted alphabetically, with many of the letters taking up more than one. In the quest for better living through chemistry, I was definitely the odd woman out.

This brief scenario, which due to the sheer volume of business reported, most likely repeats itself many times daily throughout the country, is illustrative of some of the problems endemic in our health care system — a dispensing pharmacy with little interest in accuracy associated with a corporate rapaciousness for sales.

Without the review of insurance — which in this economy is becoming scarcer — there’s an ease to get any drug you want, and maybe some you don’t. A glaring and gaping gap exists in quality and quantity control. And if you are among the increasingly “fortunate few” who have insurance, your physician undoubtedly knows that and will prescribe accordingly, primarily “cut and drug.”

While perhaps not at the reported “Wacko Jacko” or “street junkie” levels, there are many ordinary people driving around, barely functional, seriously doped up, which is just plain scary and dangerous.

Yet we increasingly accept that as the standard, and as the envelope gets pushed further, prescription pill dependence could easily become the new normal. The FDA’s recent action with respect to acetaminophen, OTC and RX, is encouraging, but just a baby step, against that direction.

For a week, we have publicly mourned Michael Jackson and begun to engage in the debate over a major overhaul of our medical system. Perhaps we should pause to connect the two as a teachable moment and look at “The Man (or Woman) in the Mirror” and how closely our seemingly more pedestrian lives parallel the celebrity we have been feasting on in terms of what we consume.

As we celebrate July Fourth, perhaps it is time for us individually, and as a country, to declare another kind of Independence Day, an independence from incentivizing a continuation of our pill-popping ways. 

DeLuca is a Virginia attorney, employed part time in Madison.