Monday, March 28, 2011

Public Service Announcement (UPDATED)

I feel like a total idiot, but I need to share this with you all just in case you are as un-observant as I am.

I was cleaning out my fridge this weekend and organizing my crisper full of Gon.alF by expiration date and I made a discovery.

The expiration date on the pharmacy's prescription sticker was NOT the same as the expiration date on the actual box the pen came in.

Big revelation, huh? I hadn't even realized there was a date on the actual box. I only saw the one printed on the pharmacy sticker. My pharmacy is part of my health insurance company. Those sneaky bastards put an expiration date FIVE FULL MONTHS earlier than the one printed on the box. And the most recent batch of meds I received... the pharmacy sticker has a date that is THIRTEEN months earlier than the date on the box.

Anyway, the moral of the story is check your prescriptions carefully to be sure of the expiration date. Don't let the insurance bastards put one over on you.

UPDATED: (re: Rx expiration vs Meds expiration) Excellent question C, and one I asked myself at first as well. But no. I know this because when I called the pharmacy in January to order a refill, they told me the Rx had expired and I would need my RE to call in a new one. The last box of medicine I had left over from the previous Rx had an expiration date of 3/01/2011 on the pharmacy sticker. More than two months after when the pharmacy told me the Rx had expired and yet five months earlier than the date printed on the box.

9 comments:

  1. That is outrageous! Thanks for the heads up!

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  2. Wow, what scrubs. Good to know.

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  3. That seems illegal or something.... bastards!

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  4. omg no way, that sounds outrageous, surely they can't do that!

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  5. 13 months??? Holy holy. I actually heard a story about this on NPR. They were saying most prescriptions actually last longer than what the pharmacy tells you. If you're ever in doubt, you can go right to the manufacturer's website. But 13 months? Outrageous.

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  6. Really!? Good thing I read your post! We think they do the job, right? Guess we have to be checking the work they do huh? Helpful post you got it here!!

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  7. Just a question: is that sticker referring to the expiration date of the meds or the expiration date of the prescription? It could be referring to when the prescription expires and cannot be renewed, as opposed to when the meds expire.

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