I work for a large company and they use CVS Caremark for their employee’s prescriptions. I have only one prescription that I will likely have to take it for the rest of my life. I have nothing against CVS, and have it set up so that my prescription gets renewed by my doctor automatically and a 3-month supply arrives at my door every 90 days or so.
I take one pill a day, and I never miss a day. What’s strange is that over the years I have ended up with a lot of extra pills that I haven’t needed. So many extra pills that I now have a separate bottle full of them. If they send me 90 pills every 90 days, and I take one per day, I shouldn’t be accumulating pills.
Are they sending me more than 90 pills at a time? I have never bothered to count them. Do they not account for the fact that months don’t all have 30 days? Does this happen to anyone else? I keep stockpiling the pills in case I lose my job and need them in the future.
They don’t account for the amount of days in a month, you’re getting 90 pills every (if I had to guess) 60-72 days. After enough months of that, you end up with a backlog.
I don’t do mail order but I get mine refilled every 90ish days. I have extra pills. I won’t swear very hard that I am not forgetting some days. But I do think that CVS is filling the prescriptions more often that every 90 days. They definitely need to send your prescription a week or two ahead of time. If they count 90 days - two weeks to fill the next one you are getting more meds than are needed.
What’s already been said. You’re not getting more than 90 pills. Heck, my CVS just slaps the label onto unopened 90-count manufacturer bottles, so I know I’m not getting more than 90 for sure, and I also have extra.
Something you will want to do - rotate your extras into your new stock. When you get your new pills, count out from those the number of extras and put those aside, replacing them with the older extra stuff. That way if you ever do need to dip into the reserve, it’s fresher stock and not 5 year old expired stuff that may or may not work any more.
Or rather, just rotate them like a grocery store does (FIFO). Have the ones you use, then when the next one comes put them in the cabinet to use next. One the next one comes, put it behind the one already in the cabinet so you grab the older one first. That’s what I do.
Right now, put all your bottles in the cabinet in a row, when the next one comes, put it in the back so you grab one from the front first and start getting rid of the oldest ones first. If you don’t have the space to do this, put today’s date on all the bottles you have and date each new bottle as it comes in, always grabbing the one with the oldest date first. Like SeaDragonTattoo said, you don’t want to end up with a 5 year old bottle. It’s not bad to have some on reserve for whatever reason, you just don’t want it to be really old.
Also, if you’re going to end up with pills for 6 months or a year, you shouldn’t keep them in the bathroom (if that’s what you’re doing).
I remember hearing once that the bathroom is the worst place to keep pills since it’s warm and humid instead of cool and dry. When I heard that I started keeping mine in a linen closet.
I just keep all my old and new pill bottles (for the same scrip) together. When I fill my weekly organizer, I take from the oldest bottle I have on hand., So my stash is never more than 3-6 months old at any given time.
And seconding / thirding how you wound up with a backlog. I can get my scrips refilled after 70 days or thereabouts, and I make a point of filling them as soon as possible. Some of my medications are ones that I can skip sometimes, so that adds to the backlog. I’ve got at least 6 months worth of pretty much every one, as a result.
I didn’t go on automatic refills for just this reason. They want to refill early, just in case, and you get a backlog, which seems wasteful. Refilling on line only takes a second.
When my company switched from one on-line pharmacy to another the old one really pushed me to refill before they got kicked out. More pills in your house, more money for the pharmacy.