Q. I recently had a problem with a pharmacy not filling a prescription and not calling to tell me that they weren't going to have time until the next day. When I found out they were too busy to fill this prescription (which was for a much needed pain medicine), I asked them to forward the prescription to another pharmacy (part of their chain).

I was told this was illegal, since the prescription was called in to them. Is this true? I know I have since changed pharmacies and all I had to do was give them the Prescription number (I brought in the bottle) from the old pharmacy and it was filled. What's the difference?

A. First, while it does take time to correctly and accurately prepare, check, and dispense a prescription and there may be numerous people ahead of you; a pharmacy should not be "too busy" to get a needed prescription ready in a reasonable length of time. And, unless it is almost closing time, - tomorrow is unacceptable for a needed pain medication.

For the second part of your question - until about 3 years ago an unfilled called-in prescription could not be transferred to another pharmacy. This has been changed and can be done.

Unfortunately some pharmacies are sometimes understaffed, uninformed, and over-worked, leading to the problems you encountered.