Dealing with modern pharmacy chains

[braumeister]

We've had good service for years at our local Kroger pharmacy, but about a year ago Kroger decided to stop doing business with ExpressScripts (who handles our drug coverage). So we started going to the CVS located in the Target store next door to Kroger and they have been fine.

 

[Another Reader]

Love the Safeway pharmacy here. Very service oriented and competent. Would not go back to CVS. Walmart and pharmacy also seem to be a poor match. No customer service.

 

[pletal]

I don't think it's a great time to be a pharmacist.

It’s not, my father and grandfather were both pharmacist. Service is out the window

 

[MC Rider]

I have been happy with the local place named "The Drugstore".
For haircuts it is "The Barber Shop".

 

[Koolau]

My drug insurance recommends their mail order. It's saved me a bunch of money but virtually every order needs me to call them. I have two addresses on file and they can't seem to get it straight that I'll tell them when to change between the two. What a pain - but I figure I'm saving about $50/hour for my time on the phone. Oh, and that's tax free! And I don't have to wait at CVS. Nice.

 

[FindingForward]

But.... last August my doctor put me on insulin injections instead of Ozempic, and ever since then my Walgreens has been absolutely nightmarish! They will say it is too soon to refill, that my insurance doesn't cover it yet, that my insurance will never cover it so it will be almost a thousand dollars, that I have no more refills available to get, that they are out of insulin (!) and can't get any locally, any excuse that you can possibly imagine so that I can't get my insulin. This has gone on for three refills. Mostly I have had to deal with it by calling my doctor and getting him directly involved, but he has other things to do.

You have described my EXACT experience with CVS Specialty/Caremark! I get all these messages constantly in the past 2 years I've been on this specialty RX.

Every refill is a problem, plus they screw up needed supplies (wrong size needles, abruptly canceled shipments with zero notice) in addition to the medication hassles.

I see other posters had good Caremark experiences. I think my issue is that my RX is from their "specialty" pharmacy. CVS Specialty is a diff team vs. CVS Caremark vs. CVS regular pharmacy vs. CVS mail order. My RX must be processed thru several of those divisions - none of which communicate with one another or the customer - all have diff 800 service numbers and everyone's favorite line is "we don't handle that in our area/can't see any of that data - let me transfer you". Serious corporate silos.

My insurance requires me to only use them, so can't shop around. A gigantic PIA.

 

[pjigar]

We had a nightmare situation with every chain for our DS's ADHD medicine (controlled substance). They will take prescription first and then order the medicine without any definitive ETA (*every time). It was ridiculous. Then we found a local privately owned compound pharmacy. Even if we are the only one who buys this medicine, he will stock a month supply without fail every month and fill it right on the spot. We switched every other prescription in our family to our friendly pharmacy the very next week. They have grown significantly from staff of 2 to staff of 6 in last 7 years but still the same timely and friendly service.

 

[Koolau]

We had a nightmare situation with every chain for our DS's ADHD medicine (controlled substance). They will take prescription first and then order the medicine without any definitive ETA (*every time). It was ridiculous. Then we found a local privately owned compound pharmacy. Even if we are the only one who buys this medicine, he will stock a month supply without fail every month and fill it right on the spot. We switched every other prescription in our family to our friendly pharmacy the very next week. They have grown significantly from staff of 2 to staff of 6 in last 7 years but still the same timely and friendly service.

Yeah, I miss those days, but I'm "forced" to deal with my mail-order pharmacy because they are significantly cheaper than even CVS and WAY cheaper than the corner independent drug store. It's sad, really. My insurance company all but dictates where I buy my pharmaceuticals. I even had to change one drug (with approval from doc) as the mail order dropped it from their formulary. GHAAAAAhhhhhcccck!

 

[Mansderm]

When I went on Medicare and had to obtain part D coverage, I told the agent my only mandatory requirement is that I can go to Costco. The pharmacist has always taken time if I had questions. They text when it's time for refills. They text when my script is ready for pick up. I get all my immunizations there and they are always professional. There isn't a constant turnover of people working there. They are all interconnected so I can get refills while traveling. They do a 90 day supply. If you need something not covered by your insurance, they have a discount for members comparable to GoodRx. The only downside is I spend money shopping in the store!

 

[Dash man]

I used CVS at our local Target for years and Caremark for mail order. Their apps were qwerky and didn’t interface well causing some problems. The staff at CVS were great and always helpful.
I recently switched to (UHC) OptumRx mail order and Walgreens because Aetna raised the price of one asthma drug to a ridiculous amount. So far so good with OptumRx. They take a day or three longer since the medications come from Kansas City and Caremark had a distribution center in PA.

 

[Cerys]

Years ago I had to get something filled, and CVS had just take it over the local pharmacies that we had, and my doctor sent the prescription to the CVS. I went in a couple of hours later thinking by now it had to be filled and there must’ve been 20 people waiting in line and and sitting in the prescription area. When I finally got up to the window I asked about my prescription and the woman picked up like a half a ream of Faxes and went through and found the prescription and said will fill this it’ll be about a half an hour.

I couldn’t help myself and said why the hell didn’t you fill it? And she said see all these faxes some of them are a month old. They stopped filling prescriptions until you came in to pick it up because they were filling prescriptions and they were sitting and they had to be returned to stock or thrown out depending on what it is. That’s what I learned that people are not compliant with their meds. And that I never want to go into a CVS again. What they replaced in the bay area were useful little drugstores that had all sorts of things that people needed. But CVS appears to be as corporate as corporate can be, they all look alike if you walk into any of them you know exactly where you’re going and what you’re gonna find. Kind of like Howard Johnson used to be.

 

[Mr._Graybeard]

Our local Kroger-owned supermarket has a great pharmacy that is my go-to. I hardly ever have to wait in line at the counter or drive-up. I've received flu and COVID vaccines from the pharmacist, a nice young guy. Also, it's the closest pharmacy to my home.

Every Walgreens I've dealt with has a bunch of people sitting around waiting for someone to give them their pill bottles. I have wondered whether it's down time so that customers get bored and shop elsewhere in the store.

 

[Koolau]

When I went on Medicare and had to obtain part D coverage, I told the agent my only mandatory requirement is that I can go to Costco. The pharmacist has always taken time if I had questions. They text when it's time for refills. They text when my script is ready for pick up. I get all my immunizations there and they are always professional. There isn't a constant turnover of people working there. They are all interconnected so I can get refills while traveling. They do a 90 day supply. If you need something not covered by your insurance, they have a discount for members comparable to GoodRx. The only downside is I spend money shopping in the store!

I can't vouch for service at all other (big) chains, but I think they all do most of what you have mentioned here (questions, text/call for refills, text when ready, shots, (hopefully) professional, relatively low turn over, 90-day supply, not sure about GoodRx, etc. but I'm guessing so.)

IOW, you can probably shop for price or service at individual locations and come out just about as well. In my case, my insurance more or less leads me to CVS if I want the best in-person price or OptumRX for THE VERY best price. Of course, YMMV.

 

[Koolau]

I used CVS at our local Target for years and Caremark for mail order. Their apps were qwerky and didn’t interface well causing some problems. The staff at CVS were great and always helpful.
I recently switched to (UHC) OptumRx mail order and Walgreens because Aetna raised the price of one asthma drug to a ridiculous amount. So far so good with OptumRx. They take a day or three longer since the medications come from Kansas City and Caremark had a distribution center in PA.

I finally switched to OptumRx because of price (had used CVS with reasonable success.) But OptumRx has glitches too. EVERY script I've received, I've had to call them to confirm my address - they have two addresses for me (which is okay) but can't seem to get it through their heads that I'll let them KNOW when to switch to the other address. They're simply incapable of dealing with this issue. But for the savings, I have to do it. YMMV

 

[becca]

We gave up on CVS, several bad experiences. We now use Costco and very happy with their pharmacy. We are members but you do not have to be a member to use their pharmacy. I realize not everyone lives close to a Costco.

 

[mathjak107]

when my new endocrinologist put me on trulicity for my diabetes it was in very short supply because it is also considered one of the weight loss drugs .

CVS told me they weren’t sure when they could get it .

a local mom and pop pharmacy has it readily available

 

[Dawg52]

I use CVS and they do fine for the most part. They will occasionally put all my prescriptions on automatic refill which I don’t like. But overall I haven’t had a horrible experience with them. Just lucky I guess.

 

[sengsational]

Does anyone else see a trend here? A small business, like a pharmacy or a doctor's office, that has a stable set of employees, good customer service gets bought up by a conglomerate (or the conglomerate opens a nearby outlet). This new entity is driven by the corporate overlords to increase efficiency at the expense of customer experience. Customers have to deal with ineffective online tools, as do the employees. Everyone is a slave of "the system"; it "won't let me" is the usual refrain. The employees come and go, probably trying to find a less horrific workload. Meanwhile customers can't talk to anyone; phoning "the local outlet" goes to India first (who must get paid more for keeping you on the line the maximum number of minutes before actually doing nothing and forwarding you to a REAL real person). And get off my lawn.

 

[target2019]

Sure do see that. They call it capitalism.

My wife's uncle sold his family pharmacy in a shore town to some conglomerate. It is a CVS now.

 

[Yipper]

Sure do see that. They call it capitalism.

My wife's uncle sold his family pharmacy in a shore town to some conglomerate. It is a CVS now.

It's called "greed" and when we get TOO greedy we all suffer poor service in order to pay the shareholders. Healthcare for profit is immoral.

 

[target2019]

It's called "greed" and when we get TOO greedy we all suffer poor service in order to pay the shareholders. Healthcare for profit is immoral.

You're entitled to that opinion.

As I see it, if you dedicate most of your life to building a small business, when you retire you owe it to your family to get the best possible deal.

Did the hard work required and investment scare off potential buyers? Did the mean old megacorp screw everyone?

I don't have an answer. Maybe the ship will turn around with future legislation.

 

[aja8888]

It's called "greed" and when we get TOO greedy we all suffer poor service in order to pay the shareholders. Healthcare for profit is immoral.

They teach you in business school that the main reason for opening and making a business successful is to sell it at the top.

 

[sengsational]

Sure do see that. They call it capitalism.

It might just be me, but it seems to have become harder and harder to vote with my feet. Capitalism does well only if there's true competition. When the government has a hand in things, competition is often lost. In the realm of pharmacies, you're going to be forced to use "in network" pharmacies or have your insurance company not pay. Government writes these rules and then the big business of insurance and the big business of pharmacies collude to shut off options. I'm sure "new business model" pharmacies, like Amazon are glad CVS and Walgreens pharmacies suck. There would be no reason to complain if the current situation was working, but with chain pharmacies, it seems to be a race to the bottom, from a service perspective.

I've got to go...I need to figure out which in-network pharmacy has the least worst customer experience.

 

[Yipper]

They teach you in business school that the main reason for opening and making a business successful is to sell it at the top.

I think I wasn’t quite as clear as I could be. I come from a family that built, owned and sold a couple of small businesses so I 100% agree with getting the best price. I was not referring to the sale of the mom & pop shop but the large corporate operating principles.

See, the beauty of the small business is that doesn’t absolutely NEED to keep growing like a public corporation does. It can get to a manageable size, stable employee group and well served customers without continually needing to squeeze out increased profits each year.

 

[Another Reader]

Years ago I had to get something filled, and CVS had just take it over the local pharmacies that we had, and my doctor sent the prescription to the CVS. I went in a couple of hours later thinking by now it had to be filled and there must’ve been 20 people waiting in line and and sitting in the prescription area. When I finally got up to the window I asked about my prescription and the woman picked up like a half a ream of Faxes and went through and found the prescription and said will fill this it’ll be about a half an hour.

I couldn’t help myself and said why the hell didn’t you fill it? And she said see all these faxes some of them are a month old. They stopped filling prescriptions until you came in to pick it up because they were filling prescriptions and they were sitting and they had to be returned to stock or thrown out depending on what it is. That’s what I learned that people are not compliant with their meds. And that I never want to go into a CVS again. What they replaced in the bay area were useful little drugstores that had all sorts of things that people needed. But CVS appears to be as corporate as corporate can be, they all look alike if you walk into any of them you know exactly where you’re going and what you’re gonna find. Kind of like Howard Johnson used to be.

Try Safeway pharmacy in the Bay Area. My local store has great pharmacy employees, very conscientious and helpful. No long lines and reasonable hours.

ETA: I, too, miss the old Longs Drugs...