My First UHC Experience (Pt 2)

My plan to arrive at urgent care a few minutes before they opened was a success.   I was in and out in no time at all.  My goodness my doctor was young.  I can safely say this is the first time in my life I've had a doctor who's younger than I am.  It was quick and relatively painless.  I only ended up paying $40 for the visit.  

It was interesting trying to explain my conditions with the language barrier.  Two were easy, the third...  I'm not someone to get embarassed about explaining medical conditions, but having to explain and eventualy write details down for half the clinic to try to translate left me very red in the face.

I was able to get a refill of one of my US medications.  I'm confused as to how future refills work.  I guess I'll find out when I see my PCP.  Lord, I hope they have refills here.  They must.  Right? 

I was unhappy to find out that one of the greatest medications ever invented is unavailable in Norway.  Even though it's insanely cheap in the US.  No Diflucan here.  Nevermind that the old fashion medication is almost triple the price.

This brings me to the topic of the pharmacy.  Firstly, I was delighted at how quickly pharmacies fill perscriptions.  With a cash only system, there's no need to wait for long periods of time for a perscription.  The meds are also all pre-packaged in blister packs which further streamlines the system.  I spend about $70 at the pharmacy for my three items.  This was expected.  Actually, my monthly perscription was cheaper than the gov't website said.  

After I got home, I noticed something about my monthly perscription.  I'm supposed to take half a pill twice a day.  But they didn't give me pills, they gave me capsules.  So, back I go to the pharmacy.  The pharmacist tells me I should open the pills, divide the contents in half with a knife and carefully swallow half the contents two times a day.  

Wat.  

This will be fun.  She then shows me the prices of the other drug strengths, and mentions that I might want to take two seperate pills in the future.  Two pills a day will be an insanely high price for no discernable reason.  One would think extended release would cost more, that's apparently not so.  One would also expect a smaller dose to cost a bit less, again not true.  Also, I found it interesting that the generic and the brand name were almost exactly the same price.  

She then goes on to tell me that I have to be very careful not to bite the contents because it's extended release.  Which was exactly what my doc didn't order for me.  I'm sure the extended release will work just fine, I'm calling my US doc to double check, especially since I recall her specifically saying she wasn't giving me the extended release.  This just seems like an accident waiting to happen,  I walked out of the pharmacy with a different percription than my doctor wrote for me.  No pharmacist came over to talk to me or double check the perscription.  The person helping me certainly wasn't a pharmacist.