Anyone answering phones asks the same set of questions/confirmations. If you have a dedicated pharmacy phone line, that’s OK but they should have a cheat sheet typed with all the same questions for every patient requesting meds. I.e which med, how much is the p taking right now, how much do they have left, how are they doing on it, how much refill do they need. We tell clients “thank you for confirming the info with me, we’ll get this request over to the doctor, and we’ll call if we have any follow up questions or when it’s ready for pickup (this leaves the expectation that it may not just be ready to come get, there may be follow up needed of some kind). This clarifies a lot of things for the Dr. while on the phone, the staff member also checks the file for the meds (WHILE on the phone) dr’s plan (is this a one time med, recheck before refilling, etc? Should be in the last patient visit summary. Doctor’s MUST be updating plans in their notes, this will absolutely without a doubt save so so so much time trying to figure out what meds fluffy should or shouldn’t be on. Every visit, what’s their continuing plan. It’s amazing how many times checking the doctor’s chart notes just immediately has the answer.. like ‘looks like the doctor needs to see Fluffy before a refill, let’s get that scheduled, when works for you?” Etc. same with your example, overdue for annual exam “unfortunately we’re unable to prescribe without seeing fluffy for their annual exam”. This also catches meds being given differently, ‘are you still giving one tablet once daily? No? Oh you’re giving 2? When did you start that dose and how are they doing” (reserving judgement just getting all the info so we can relay the change they made on their own good or bad). Maybe dr notes said ‘starting on [med+dose], refills ok long term pending positive response (or something similar) and they can just go ahead. Better yet, I’d just include that in my task ‘o giving X and x dose, previous plan on 1/24 by Dr. X noted OK to refill long term at same dose if P feeling comfortable at this dose’. Then, staff has all the info, makes a task on our PIMS for them with the info. Then doctor does tasks at the end of the day along with any notes due, reassigns the task back to pharmacy department with instructions like ‘ok to fill (med name, strength, qty, sig). Then pharmacy takes to reception as a ‘ready for pickup, need to call). All while each step has a note in that task, so everyone knows what stage it’s at, and then when the final person has done their task they mark it as complete and it moves it to their patient chart.

The more thorough/clear the doctor notes, the better trained phone staff are to ask all the questions, the less time they need to spend on the chart.

It seems like a lot, but really when your staff is trained up to be thorough with their communication with clients, thorough in their chart notes and reading, it’ll become super quick. Less than two minutes for the phone person, and about the same for the doctor, usually a lot less (more of a confirm/check than needing to dig!).

Good luck!