Sure, I guess I’d complain about this too. From Rob Stephens.
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Can you even buy dot matrix printers any more?
To be fair, that’s a pretty good representation of the sound they made.
Yeah you can. They’re far faster, more ink-efficient, and cheaper to maintain than anything else. If you need to print a lot of text you can’t beat them. You just rarely see them at retail because people there want to print photos of their grandchildren rather than a hundred thousand pay stubs every day.
Dot matrix printers are (still) standard equipment in just about every doctor’s office and pharmacy in Germany. They have the advantage that they can be used with the standard prescription forms that have a “carbon” copy on the second page. The computer systems are very well calibrated, so that the receptionist (or nurse) just inserts the form, clicks enter, and the generated text output is perfectly aligned with the preprinted form.
P.S. The German health system is planning to switch over to “electronic” (digital) prescriptions, but they have been planning this for years, and it is still more theory than actual practice.
I think every ink jet printer I’ve ever owned sounds like this when I first turn it on. But most of the printers I’ve had have been Canon, so maybe this is unique to that brand? Anyway, when it starts up, it goes through some sort of cleaning operation that sounds exactly like what the customer describes.
How long the operation takes depends on how long since it was last used. It probably wastes ink, but it does do an excellent job of keeping the nozzles clear.
I think they sold him a Hayes Smartmodem instead of a printer.
I print things so seldom anymore that I stopped trying to maintain a printer years ago. When I needed to do something I’d go to FedEx and use the pay printer. The fancy new apartment complex I’m slowly moving into has a business center on every floor, so I will be able to print things there.
Last Friday night I was exploring the common area, where I found a group of young guys playing a card game. They informed me that it was “Yu-Gi-Oh!” At first I wondered what young guys were doing playing games on a Friday night, then recollected that my friends and I did as well, although that was well before the advent of the collectable cards. We just played Hearts and such.
The thing about our all-in-one-printer that always catches me off guard is that when it finishes scanning something, it plays a tune I associate with death: Dun-dun-de-dun da-de-dun-de-dun-de-dun.
Your printer plays Chopin’s Funeral March?
Kilby – NYS switched to digital (direct from doctor to pharmacy) prescriptions some years ago for security purposes. It works okay – but not great.
Sometimes when we get prescriptions there is a still refill or two on the old one, so when we next pick up prescriptions (pharmacy automatically fills all that come in) we have to tell to them to reverse it until we call when we need the refill again.
Also, sometimes the doctor’s office gets the renewal wrong and we have to deal with not taking the renewal and contacting the doctor’s office to correct it and then go again to pick up the, hopefully, correct prescription – if we had the paper form in hand we could check it as we used to do.
Plus lately we are picking up some of husband’s prescriptions at a different pharmacy then the one we normally use (has been 1 prescription, is about to be 2 of them at 2 different other pharmacies) as those particular prescriptions are less money if renewed off of our medical insurance using a service such as GoodRX at the other pharmacy(ies) than at our main one with our insurance. So I have to indicate same on the lists of prescriptions we hand the doctor’s office and hope what I mean is understood.
Only doctors who do not need to use this system are veterinarians.
Meryl says: Only doctors who do not need to use this system are veterinarians.
My vets like to dispense meds themselves, right at their office.
And the Pet Desk portal app has a “Request Refill” button at the ready.
Mitch4 – Have no pets, just know that all other doctors need to use the system.
I understand their reason for the requirement in trying to fight the drug problem, but it does lead to problems.
When we used to get our prescriptions for renewal after our annual visit (or after occasional needed visit during the year for illness, etc.) we would look through the paper prescription forms we (I) were (was) handed and check that we had all of the ones we needed and that all were correct. (We schedule our annual checkups together and both of us are in the same exam room at the same time- and mostly take the same meds in the same or different dosages, so it can get a bit confusing.)
With this new system when we pick up our meds we may find that some are missing – after our recent one his Thyroid med had not been sent in. Before calling the doctor’s office this led to a “discussion” between us over what dosage he takes, especially since he was panicking (he panics over everything these years) at not having a renewal. I told him I some left in his old bottle and we take the same dosage of the same med and he could borrow from me if there was a delay in the renewal. This led to a 40 minute discussion about how his med is higher dosage – even as I showed him the dosage from last bottle, before I could call the doctor’s office to get his renewal called in to the pharmacy. Also sometimes we do not need the new renewal yet and the pharmacy has to cancel it out if we do not want to take home early (especially with his insulin as we do not like a lot of same at home in case we lose electricity long enough for those in the fridge to need to be used more quickly then he will do so) .
And for even more fun in this – all of his meds except two (and all of mine) are called into our main pharmacy. He found that 2 of his meds are cheaper if they are bought - off of the insurance – through 2 other pharmacies on Good Rx than if we buy them through our insurance so doctor has to call each of those meds to the other 2 pharmacies. (I say call in – they are probably sent through a computer system for same.)
In the law when it was written, for some reason, veterinarians were specifically excluded from the requirement.
And then we had to go to all 3 pharmacies to pick up the meds – before it snowed the next day, so he did not panic over not having done same even though we had meds to carry us through and beyond.
Comics I Don't Understand 
Can you even buy dot matrix printers any more?
To be fair, that’s a pretty good representation of the sound they made.
Yeah you can. They’re far faster, more ink-efficient, and cheaper to maintain than anything else. If you need to print a lot of text you can’t beat them. You just rarely see them at retail because people there want to print photos of their grandchildren rather than a hundred thousand pay stubs every day.
Dot matrix printers are (still) standard equipment in just about every doctor’s office and pharmacy in Germany. They have the advantage that they can be used with the standard prescription forms that have a “carbon” copy on the second page. The computer systems are very well calibrated, so that the receptionist (or nurse) just inserts the form, clicks enter, and the generated text output is perfectly aligned with the preprinted form.
P.S. The German health system is planning to switch over to “electronic” (digital) prescriptions, but they have been planning this for years, and it is still more theory than actual practice.
I think every ink jet printer I’ve ever owned sounds like this when I first turn it on. But most of the printers I’ve had have been Canon, so maybe this is unique to that brand? Anyway, when it starts up, it goes through some sort of cleaning operation that sounds exactly like what the customer describes.
How long the operation takes depends on how long since it was last used. It probably wastes ink, but it does do an excellent job of keeping the nozzles clear.
I think they sold him a Hayes Smartmodem instead of a printer.
I print things so seldom anymore that I stopped trying to maintain a printer years ago. When I needed to do something I’d go to FedEx and use the pay printer. The fancy new apartment complex I’m slowly moving into has a business center on every floor, so I will be able to print things there.
Last Friday night I was exploring the common area, where I found a group of young guys playing a card game. They informed me that it was “Yu-Gi-Oh!” At first I wondered what young guys were doing playing games on a Friday night, then recollected that my friends and I did as well, although that was well before the advent of the collectable cards. We just played Hearts and such.
The thing about our all-in-one-printer that always catches me off guard is that when it finishes scanning something, it plays a tune I associate with death: Dun-dun-de-dun da-de-dun-de-dun-de-dun.
Your printer plays Chopin’s Funeral March?
Kilby – NYS switched to digital (direct from doctor to pharmacy) prescriptions some years ago for security purposes. It works okay – but not great.
Sometimes when we get prescriptions there is a still refill or two on the old one, so when we next pick up prescriptions (pharmacy automatically fills all that come in) we have to tell to them to reverse it until we call when we need the refill again.
Also, sometimes the doctor’s office gets the renewal wrong and we have to deal with not taking the renewal and contacting the doctor’s office to correct it and then go again to pick up the, hopefully, correct prescription – if we had the paper form in hand we could check it as we used to do.
Plus lately we are picking up some of husband’s prescriptions at a different pharmacy then the one we normally use (has been 1 prescription, is about to be 2 of them at 2 different other pharmacies) as those particular prescriptions are less money if renewed off of our medical insurance using a service such as GoodRX at the other pharmacy(ies) than at our main one with our insurance. So I have to indicate same on the lists of prescriptions we hand the doctor’s office and hope what I mean is understood.
Only doctors who do not need to use this system are veterinarians.
Meryl says: Only doctors who do not need to use this system are veterinarians.
My vets like to dispense meds themselves, right at their office.
And the Pet Desk portal app has a “Request Refill” button at the ready.
Mitch4 – Have no pets, just know that all other doctors need to use the system.
I understand their reason for the requirement in trying to fight the drug problem, but it does lead to problems.
When we used to get our prescriptions for renewal after our annual visit (or after occasional needed visit during the year for illness, etc.) we would look through the paper prescription forms we (I) were (was) handed and check that we had all of the ones we needed and that all were correct. (We schedule our annual checkups together and both of us are in the same exam room at the same time- and mostly take the same meds in the same or different dosages, so it can get a bit confusing.)
With this new system when we pick up our meds we may find that some are missing – after our recent one his Thyroid med had not been sent in. Before calling the doctor’s office this led to a “discussion” between us over what dosage he takes, especially since he was panicking (he panics over everything these years) at not having a renewal. I told him I some left in his old bottle and we take the same dosage of the same med and he could borrow from me if there was a delay in the renewal. This led to a 40 minute discussion about how his med is higher dosage – even as I showed him the dosage from last bottle, before I could call the doctor’s office to get his renewal called in to the pharmacy. Also sometimes we do not need the new renewal yet and the pharmacy has to cancel it out if we do not want to take home early (especially with his insulin as we do not like a lot of same at home in case we lose electricity long enough for those in the fridge to need to be used more quickly then he will do so) .
And for even more fun in this – all of his meds except two (and all of mine) are called into our main pharmacy. He found that 2 of his meds are cheaper if they are bought - off of the insurance – through 2 other pharmacies on Good Rx than if we buy them through our insurance so doctor has to call each of those meds to the other 2 pharmacies. (I say call in – they are probably sent through a computer system for same.)
In the law when it was written, for some reason, veterinarians were specifically excluded from the requirement.
And then we had to go to all 3 pharmacies to pick up the meds – before it snowed the next day, so he did not panic over not having done same even though we had meds to carry us through and beyond.