Refill Faxes

My question is - does anyone else do this? I've always worked in hospitals and skilled nursing facilities and I've never done anything but shuffle these refill requests from the fax machine direct to the shredder box at all other places.

In my experience patients only get enough of a med when released from the hospital for 1 fill or to see them through until they can see their own PCP/ specialist. There was nothing we could do if we did get a request, so we put the requests in the shred bin too.

Working in an office is totally different- refills are not uncommon. I worked in a pharmacy many years ago- sometimes those refill requests are automatically sent by the system (and a refill really isn't needed), but a lot of times we would purposely send the request for the patient. The requests are meant to avoid the panicked last minute calls at 4:55pm or after hour calls of "I need a refill TODAY- I'm totally out!!!".

It feels like 90% of them are automated... but yeah, there's those few times where it turns out that someone does actually need this refill. I don't like the last minute stuff (I don't want to be at work on hold 20 minutes after my shift ends!)

It seems there's no good way to discern if it's a human-created or an automated system fax. I reckon it's just a matter of drudging through the pile, eh?