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Why do we need a pharmacy when it can be delivered by postal mail. I for one welcome our postal overlords. Is it not self serving for the JAMA to fund a study
by CaffeineLD50 2y ago
Why do we need a pharmacy when it can be delivered by postal mail.
I for one welcome our postal overlords.
Is it not self serving for the JAMA to fund a study on a lack of pharmacies but not on, say,medical incompetence, fraud, or corruption?
Luigi wasn't applauded because he seemed to decry a lack of pharmacies afaict.
- rtkwe 2y agoOne big thing pharmacies do is answer questions about drugs to educate the users in ways the doctors prescribing them often don't and also check for drug interactions to protect patients. Sometimes you wind up getting prescriptions for two things from different doctors and one doesn't notice or ask to find out that your prescription from doctor A has a bad interaction with drug B they're prescribing. Also the US mail is also being actively degraded so the ability to reliably get mail delivered to the entire US guaranteed may just disappear soon.
- gruez 2y ago>One big thing pharmacies do is answer questions about drugs to educate the users in ways the doctors prescribing them often don't and also check for drug interactions to protect patients. That can easily be done over the phone.
- rtkwe 2y agoIt /could/ be but we also all know how great remote call centers do actually caring about the people they're supposed to serve. The real outcome will be fewer people servicing more customers for less money.
- CaffeineLD50 2y agoI've had uncaring in person pharmacists
- rtkwe 2y agoOk. It doesn't counteract the high likelihood that trying to go to a centralized call center style is doing to degrade that experience even further.
- CaffeineLD50 2y agoPoorly managed and trained people are the same in person or on the phone
- CaffeineLD50 2y agoI've had many prescriptions and the pharmacist was pretty useless about side effects. It would be after I researched the new side effects I'd have that I trace it back...to the drug I was prescribed. Your second point is probably more salient. But we do have UPS & FedEx.
- rtkwe 2y agoThey're not required to deliver your package where USPS is and can be done for flat rates. It's the problem with spinning out government services and trying to run them like a business, they're not there to make money they provide a service.
- WarOnPrivacy 2y ago> Why do we need a pharmacy when it can be delivered by postal mail. Answer: We need them for prescriptions that aren't routine refills. We need them where mail is less predictable and for addresses that are at risk of non-delivery. We need them for new medical events. We need them when the last med didn't work and the next 2 might not either. We need them when our local pharmacist is literally the only one who cares enough to keep our meds stocked (me+now).
- harimau777 2y agoOne issue is that for controlled substances mail order often isn't an option.
- CaffeineLD50 2y agoGiven we have an epidemic of controlled substance abuse (driving its postal theft) I'm not sure this is such a bad thing
- fma 2y agoHave you never been sick enough to go to the doctor/urgent care...and get prescribed medicine to take the same day?
- CaffeineLD50 2y agoThe urgent care gave me the meds or shot.
- rapjr9 2y agoMany pharmacies also do minor medical procedures like vaccinations. You can not get vaccinated by mail.
- selimthegrim 2y agoTry getting Medicaid to pay for a vaccination at a pharmacy
- fzeroracer 2y agoThis to me is like a classical junior software engineering design fallacy. Why do we need to do things this old way when we can just do things this new way. If you ever find yourself thinking like this: you should always step back and figure out why something is actually done a certain way.
- CaffeineLD50 2y agoUhm. What? Why not state why something is done a certain way instead . Mail order is cheap and efficient. Building a pharmacy in Sparks, Nevada or Tokio, Texas just to fix a "pharma desert" is expensive and inefficient. My junior developers analyze why things are done a certain way and don't blindly advocate or prefer "new" methods.
- fzeroracer 2y ago> Why not state why something is done a certain way instead . Because everyone else did that for me in responding to you. And if people are telling you you're wrong, you should be able to step back and analyze why people are telling you that and determine why it might be the case, even if it's for validating your own argument. > Mail order is cheap and efficient. Mail is cheap and efficient in areas that are not part of the Last Mile problem. The people without pharmacies are in the the areas most expensive and most inefficient for mail. This should be obvious. And for medications that are critical or same-day, you cannot rely on mail order in these areas which is a deadly problem. This is also without going into things like reliability and/or theft in lower income areas. > My junior developers analyze why things are done a certain way and don't blindly advocate or prefer "new" methods. And where is that analysis here?
- CaffeineLD50 2y agoPutting a pharmacy in Tokio, Texas to solve a last mile problem is stupid. You live in a small remote town you use mail & phone or you drive to civilization.
- r00fus 2y agoEver try to get a scheduled medication (ie, some sleep and or anti-psychotics) through mail-order? You can't.
- CaffeineLD50 2y agoI don't doubt you're right but the irony is illegal drugs go through the postal mail by the metric fuck tonne.