My pharmacy has been growing more miserable by the year, and now is bankrupt, having been caught selling opioids illegally. They tell me my doctors have to issue all new scrips to somebody else. But how to choose a new pharmacy?
I used Express Scripts briefly, mail order, and it was a nightmare. They arbitrarily fought one scrip or another, provided “insurance” for which the co-pays were higher than the out-of-pocket would have been, failed on deliveries, and required filling smaller quantities more often.
I’m slightly complicated, perhaps, because I have Medicare D for some scrips and Worker Compensation for others.,
I’m in Canada, so it may be a slightly different experience.
I was with one of the two mega pharmacies up here for years. During the pandemic, they basically fell apart. Unanswered phone calls, missed delivery dates, long lines. They ended up replacing their computer system in the middle of this which meant their app was completely unavailable.
I gave up on them and switched to the other mega chain about 2 years ago. Better app, the rest of the experience was the same. It came to a head last month where they could not get my Ozempic refilled. Yes, I understand supplies are short and that you are waiting on the supplier. SO TELL ME THAT. Instead the app says “Pending - It will be ready at 10AM last Tuesday”.
I called around and found a small pharmacy about 3 blocks from my house. Not a chain, owned and operated by the pharmacist. No app, no fancy cosmetics, not open until 10PM or on Sundays. But they answer the phone and seem to have stock the chains don’t.
I’m on a bunch of meds, but they are all chronic and don’t really change.
So my vote is for customer service. I will see how this works out.
I think first you have to decide what you want. The pharmacy I used about 30 years ago sold to Rite Aid. I decided to stay with Rite Aid at that time because the neighborhood pharmacies closed at 6pm and were closed Sundays while the Rite Aid pharmacy was open until 7 or 8 and was open Sat and Sunday. That Rite Aid closed a few months ago. I’m retired , so it no longer matters to me if the pharmacy is open late or on Sundays. They transferred my prescriptions to another chain pharmacy a couple of blocks away but that one has the disadvantages of independent pharmacies - the store is open 7 days but the pharmacy is closed both Sat and Sunday. I decided against an independent because more than once, my husband has forgotten his meds when we travel and he was able to get a few day’s worth from another Rite Aid since they had access to the prescriptions. (no controlled substances though, I’m sure that’s different) so we ended up with the next closest Rite Aid location. If I needed delivery, I would have chosen an independent.
It sounds like the OP has two distinct problems: mail order and local. Which may require two distinct answers.
My current Part D is accepted by all the big boys but is more connected to Walgreens than any of the others. My prior insurance while working was more connected to CVS, and before that Express Scripts for mail order.
I’ve found Express Scripts & Walgreens mail order to be rock solid, while CVS’s was always just a bit awkward to use & dumb stuff happened more than I’d expect for a fully computerized business.
In person I’m “blessed” with about 5 CVS and 5 Walgreens stores all within reasonable driving distance. The difference between the best and worst of the 10 is night and day. But there’s no systematic difference between CVS or Walgreens. The best of each are great; the worst of each suck mightily. I much prefer CVS’s website over Walgreens and slightly prefer their notifications and updates if there’s a problem. But that’s small beer and probably more a matter of personal taste than any objective difference of merit.
Changing pharmacies always requires the hassle of new scrips from the doc, so just accept that that’s a built-in part of the process.
If you want to mess with a MomNPop pharmacy the one thing I’d suggest is asking them if subscribe to e-scrip or if they only take scrips as little slips of paper or as faxes from your doc. If your doc(s) are computerized and your pharmacy is not that will produce no end of headaches. The opposite situation, paper-only doc(s) and a modern computer-equipped pharmacy is bad to, but IME not nearly as bad.
I’ve never had to change pharmacies for a regular prescription; they won’t transfer it from pharmacy A to pharmacy B? What about for involuntary transfers, like when pharmacy A shuts down & they transfer your to pharmacy B but you don’t want to deal with pharmacy B for whatever reason; you don’t like that chain or they’re not convenient for you. You can’t call them up & say send my remaining prescription to pharmacy C?
If you call up your doc & say I need a new prescription for ____ at pharmacy B does your doc then call up pharmacy A & void out your old one?
I had to do that this time - but only because Old Pharmacy was going to transfer prescriptions to Walgreen’s and although I tried to get them transferred to New Pharmacy instead, they were still transferred to Walgreen’s. Aside from that , I’ve never had trouble getting prescriptions transferred from for example, and in -hospital pharmacy to the one I actually use.
Nice to hear the inter-pharmacy transfer seems to be a solved problem at least for some folks some times. I’ve had challenges with it, but that was also with a transfer to the CVS mail order that was itself a shit-show.
I don’t have any regular prescriptions except for my HRT, other than that it’s just the occasional anti-biotic. I’ve always used Walmart. I’ve never had any issues and prices are good.
My boxer takes Apoquel for allergies. It’s $86 from the vet and $76 at Walmart. I tried Sam’s club - $56!!! $30 savings!! So if I ever have to take a bunch of expensive medications, I’ll go to Sam’s.
My parents are old and on multiple meds (particularly my father). My mother gets most of them filled at the local CVS and has one of their loyalty cards. I was with her over the holidays when she bought a gallon of milk and a package of two tubes of Colgate toothpaste and ended up paying just over a dollar after cashing in eleven dollars in discounts and coupons.
So if you’re also willing to play their games with the ridiculously long receipts (which include coupons and discounts), email messages (more coupons and discounts) and loyalty cards, you can save money on non-prescription items.
I use OptumRx online for most of my prescriptions and have had no problems with them. My doctor also recommended I look at the GoodRx app when I want to find drugs not covered by my insurance. It aggregates drug prices at local pharmacies and shows you where the bargains are. You may want to look at that.
My one objection to CVS is that they are aggressive about refilling before you really need it, and have just recently given you an option to cancel a refill if you are away, for instance. It’s not a big problem for me since 2 of my 3 meds are covered by my Plan D provider at no cost to me and the other is not very expensive.
During Covid they mailed prescriptions to you for no cost, which was nice. I used to do mail order the normal way, but now I prefer to go to the store, which is in walking distance from my house.
The Walgreens near us, which is next to the hospital, is kind of a mess.
For my one non-covered prescription I use GoodRx and go to Costco, which is cheaper than any of the alternatives.
I used OptumRX for several years before being forced to change to CVS Caremark (both are mail order).
I was a little miffed, because I was very satisfied with Optum. Then, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Caremark also had prompt delivery and easy and effective phone support.
So here we go again. Because I changed my Part D for 2024, I have to now drop Caremark for…OptumRX.
I hope they’re still good.
BTW I messaged my PCP via my patient portal asking them to re-submit all my prescriptions to OptumRX, which they did the following day.
Anyway, I would go with Walgreens or CVS, since they are everywhere (or whatever pharmacy is everywhere around you. I’ve had to fill scripts at vacation locations a few times now when I’ve forgotten my meds, and there was always a CVS nearby.
Just following up with where this has wound up for me. I had some good experiences over the years with a small independent pharmacy near me, and did some hunting around online but found no problems with them. So I called them and asked if they’ve been selling narcotics illegally, were going bankrupt and closing, et cetera. A very polite lady there giggled and promised they weren’t doing anything like that.
And now all my scrips are transferred there, or at least the requests are in at the doctor’s offices.