As a pharmacy tech, there are A LOT of reasons this could happen, even with a simple script. There are about nine different steps required to fill a prescription and something can go wrong in every one. That alone can hold up a prescription, but when you get multiples going, all with their own problems that you have to sort out one by one, in the order they come, it gets to be a lot. Plus, most pharmacies are cutting hours and techs so we physically donāt have the manpower to run a pharmacy efficiently, because the foremost priority is always helping at windows, but it everyone is at windows, thereās no one to type, count, double count, check, preverify, verify, call doctors for clairifications, fight with insurances, or any of the other things that we have to do like routine maintenance, go backs, clinicals, conversions, even just fucking faxing things, so it all piles up.
AND TO BOOT, itās sick season, and holiday season, so we tend to have about double the workload as we do in the summer, not including the vaccinations. AND customers are more abusive during the holiday season as a rule. I know things take forever sometimes, but weāre doing our best to keep up with everything despite having fewer techs, fewer pharmacist, more duties, more scripts, and angrier people, plus the end of the year insurance hassles that are just fucking CONSTANT.
Sorry to reblog and just rant, but I just got off a 10 hour pharmacy shift where I got screamed at three times for things that were out of my control (Medicare DME problems, Dr. not calling in a script properly, and the counting machine fucking up) and had to keep helping other customers with tears streaming down my face, and itās just a stressful and terrible job and thereās a lot that goes into it that people donāt see unless youāre in the pharmacy.....