What Smith sees as one of the challenges of the profession is dealing with the changes in the insurance industry. This presents somewhat of a problem for the physicians as well as for the pharmacists. Yet we're fortunate that many of us have insurance programs available to us, but they are getting more and more restrictive. Another challenge of the profession is helping people to understand why it takes time to fill a prescription. People don't understand that the checks and double checks we attempt to exercise on every prescription are necessary to insure the prescription is indeed correct.
Prescriptions can be difficult to interpret.
We want to be sure the person is getting what the physician has intended for him to have. If there's ever any doubt, we call. That's part of our job is to catch any oversights that may occur. Smith said the computer system has been very helpful in keeping track of what medicines a patient is taking. It's a great aid for us in interpreting drug interactions.