dispensing meds???

[travel50]

When a skilled resident goes home, we do not send their meds with them. We keep them to be destroyed. (I think that is ridiculous). I get a new patient in at 7PM on a Saturday nite. I will not get their meds from the company pharmacy until Tuesday around noon. That is b/c our pharmacy closes at 6 pm and does not work on Sunday (I know that no one needs meds on the Lord's day). I can't get the orders to our pharmacy until Monday. They don't deliver Monday b/c they got no orders on Sunday. So they will come on Tuesday. The local back up pharmacy is only open till noon on Saturday, and they seem to agree that people do not need meds on Sunday, so they don't open until 9ish on Monday morning. Now I refer back to the skilled resident who went home. Add that to the 10 other ones who left. (We do alot of rehab). Between all those dc'd residents' meds, I have all the meds I need for the new resident. But if I use those to give to the new resident it is illegal b/c I am dispensing meds????!!! So the resident is just supposed to do without? My boss said to call the doctor and get a substitute that we have in the ekit. Great idea, but there is just not much to substitute for lovenox (coumadin was ineffective), or 360 mg of lasix a day (the ekit only has 240 mg total), or SL morphine when someone has pain from bone cancer (a previous resident went home with hospice). Furthermore, my boss says that giving meds (untouched and undammaged) that had belonged to another person (meds just waiting to be destroyed) is dispensing meds b/c they were not specifically labeled for the new patient. But the meds from the ekit are not specifically labeled for the new patient either, so isn't that dispensing meds also?????

And the above comment about the Lord's day is not antireligious. Please don't think that. It is just hard for me when I need meds on Sunday and can't get them.

[morte, LPN, LVN]

1) Bigger Ekit

2) No admits after noon on Friday

that will will solve your problem!......unless the hospital is going to send the meds, it would seem unethical for you (the nursing home) to take the admission.....because you can not provide the services the patient requires

[Dixiecup]

Since they have two sets of rules based on medicaid versus medicare, and these rules have nothing to do with the question on hand (medication for resident); I would look at it this way: You said the facility pays for the meds. That makes the leftovers part of the "house stock". Use them on Sundays. Saves money for the facility and the resident does not have to go without medicine.

I believe that is still illegal. Those meds are labeled with someone elses name. We are not allowed to re-lable or use them for stock.

[Dixiecup]

When the residents are skilled, we pay for the medicines. Therefore, the corporate office tells me I cannot send them home with them. None of them. Not even if they go home Saturday at 1pm, with me knowing the pharmacies don't open until Monday morning at 8:30. If they are medicaid or private pay, I am to send their meds with them. So these meds for the skilled residents who have left just pile up until I destroy them. They can be in a bubble pack, untouched, good for 2 more yrs, but I am to destroy them. I am told that if I send them home with them, then I am dispensing meds and could lose my license. I don't understand why it is not dispensing meds if they are medicaid, but is if they are medicare.

Well, I don't mean any disrespect either, but people get sick 7 days a week. I know we live in a rural area, but still it poses a hardship on us for the pharmacy to be closed after 6pm and then from noon Saturday till Monday morning. I mean, even gas stations are open 7 days a week.

That's the rule for our facility also. If they are medicare we pay for them. If the bubble pack has not been touched, we can send them back for credit.