PSA #7

CPP: What are we discussing today?

CP: Back orders of medications. 

CPP: Again?

CP: Under the heading of PSA. 

CPP: Why?

CP: It occurred to ME that no one has properly explained what people, especially we in pharmacy, mean when we tell them asses a product is on back order. 

ME: For the last time, it's The Masses. 

MICE ELF: Tomato, Tomahto. 

CPP: You were saying?

CP: Back order - An item not currently in stock but to be sold or delivered when it becomes available; an order, or part of an order waiting to be filled. 

UT: Which means we have it on order but it is unavailable. 

CP: Yet people continue ask when it will be available. 

ME: I don't know. I don't make it. 

CP: When we will get it. 

MICE ELF: As soon as they make it. 

CP: Why some places can get it but others cannot. 

CPP: This is always a favourite of mine. There's a difference between "being able to get it and currently having possession of it". Yes, I currently have it. Once people find out, I will no longer have it because, like them asses, I cannot get it. 

ME: I give up. 
CP: We order from the same place. A pediatrician I have been working with the last few months calls me every Monday to check my inventory because I have been the lone star in town with Adderall, Concerta, Amoxicillin, et al. (Don't ask, I'm just awesome with my inventory skills.)

ME, MICE ELF, UT, CPP: <groan>

CP: Last week she called again and I finally had to tell her I was almost out of a couple items. She asked what to do now because "you have been my go-to for months". Yeah. I know. Which means you bled my inventory dry. As the last mainstay of these medications my provisions were bound to exhaust. 

ME They have ceased to be. 

MICE ELF: They are no more. 

UT: We are bereft of. 

CP: As for why some places HAD them, think about this. Can you buy a Pontiac? Packard? Oldsmobile? Sure. Used. Are they still making them? No. As long as someone has something that has been discontinued or is experiencing manufacturing issues, those that have it will continue to have it until they use, lose, or dispose of it. But it will not be replaced. 

CPP: “Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Heres Tom with the Weather.”

TOM: Don't bring me in to this.