I'm not in any way asking for medical advice. I'll make that clear by not even using any specifics.
I work BMT/heme onc. Given the complex nature of our patients we do not discharge on holidays and have meds delivered to the hospital for discharge, where we make sure they have everything and help fill their pill containers for them.
This weekend I got to be on the other side of the bed with a fairly acute, very serious if left untreated condition. I was discharged at 1:30pm today. My pharmacy is open til 5pm today so I went right there to fill the new med I was discharged on. They both don't have it in stock, and it requires prior auth which my insurance has no one doing on the holiday. I was suppose to take the first dose tonight.
I'm wondering what other hospitals do to prevent issues like this from happening when discharges are done on holidays? Do you think you see more readmits as a result? If I were feeling worse, older, or less health litirate I'm not sure what I would do. Probably just skip it and get the first dose whenever the prior auth goes through and the order comes in, which will probably be some time on Wednesday, at which point I'll have missed 4 doses.
Rarely are meds supplied by the hospital. This only occurs when there is not insurance coverage and it is cheaper to give the patient the meds to be able to discharge them than it is to keep them in the hospital.
Hospital pharmacy here in the UK generally supplies 14 days worth of medications on discharge. Patient then visits their own doctor if they need to continue for a repeat prescription. Do hospitals not supply discharge meds in the US?
Nope. Patients need to get their meds from retail pharmacies.
Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
I was really surprised this happened actually, because I saw a case manager twice during my 4 day stay. I figured she was on it. She was, in some ways, I guess. The issue got resolved today, literally twenty minutes before the pharmacy closed. I got a partial fill using a free trial coupon. It took two trips to the pharmacy, a call to my insurance (unsuccessful- closed), two calls to the drug company, a call to the hospitalist group (no answer), and a call to the unit I was on (then two return calls from them). My discharge instructions included no phone numbers to call with questions, so I was Googlkng things and talking to operators. I can't imagine most people recently discharged being up for this.
Tomorrow I get to look forward to scheduling follow up appointments with 4 different doctors and a test.
I would write a polite letter to the CEO (CC: CNO; Nurse Manager of your unit; Attending) detailing exactly what you described above. Ask him/her how an elderly patient who doesn't have the knowledge a nurse does would fare trying to deal with this mess.
Your facility and your providers let you down in so many ways. Suppose going without that medication would have caused you harm, possibly even resulted in a fatality.
It's a sad state of affairs when a patient who was discharged from the hospital has to Google information that should have been provided at D/C.
Carolina Southpaw
22 Posts
Rarely are meds supplied by the hospital. This only occurs when there is not insurance coverage and it is cheaper to give the patient the meds to be able to discharge them than it is to keep them in the hospital.