A minor rant, I know, but am I the only one annoyed by this?
I have one in particular, that comes from a specialty pharmacy. The prescription is written for twice a day, but I only take it as needed (with the doctor’s approval), so they end up calling me weeks before I need a refill. I’ll get an automated call on my cell in the morning which asks me if I want to speak to a pharmacist about refilling it. If I respond “no” then it tells me to call when I need it. Then, later in the day, I get a call from an actual person. Then, when I get home, there’s a message waiting for me on my landline. :rolleyes:
Then there’s my regular corner pharmacy that seems to repeatedly robocall me about every prescription I’ve ever had with them. Not literally, but last night they called with one I stopped using 6 months ago.
I know when I’m almost out of freaking pills and I will call you when and if I need a refill!
Huh. Not only does my pharmacy not do this, but they didn’t point out the last time I was down to my last refill (one-year Rx refilled monthly) and I didn’t notice either. Surely, however, your pharmacy can adjust your phone contact preferences?
Yea, they probably can if I ask them. I haven’t yet. It’s only recently gotten to the point that it’s annoying. Several calls a day and not taking no for an answer is ridiculous.
The robocall should give me an option to turn off all future reminder calls. Instead they give you an 800 number that you have to call to ask them to stop. They probably don’t make it easy because they don’t want to stop the calls. Ideally, it should be opt-in rather than opt-out.
The specialty pharmacy doesn’t seem to give an option but I’m going to request that they stop when I call for my next refill.
I had one pharmacy do this to me once. Same deal as the OP. The script was set to run out after a 90 days but since I take it as needed, it was going to last about 3 times that length. The first time they called, I just told them I didn’t need it then. After I refilled it, they called back about 3 (well, maybe 2.5) months later, but I recognized the number, so when they asked me to verify my SSN to discuss “Personal Medical Information”, I came back with “I’m not going to give out my SSN to some random person that called my cell phone number, can you tell me where you’re calling from or what you’re calling about”. I let that go around in circles a few times and ended it with “Well, I guess we’re not going to get anywhere, bye” and hung up.
I felt a bit bad, it wasn’t that specific person’s fault, but they really need to find a better way to mutually identify each other rather then “Hi, I’m looking for Joey P, oh, this is him, Could I just have your SSN to verify that…No, I can’t tell you where I’m calling from until you verify your SSN”.
Yeh… My pharmacy did this; I told 'em to cut it out. They also phoned me to let me know when my refills were ready to be picked up…and I made 'em stop that, too.
My doctor and dentist, alas, refuse to accommodate me on this: they say they must phone me to remind me of upcoming appointments. Pfui.
I hate to defend them, but in the situation you’re describing, the HIPAA privacy laws may prevent them from even saying that they are calling for Joey P from a pharmacy. That would be revealing that Joey P takes medication. I think they ask me for my address and birth date, which is better than asking for an SS number.
I had my parent’s pharmacy calling me about their prescriptions (yes, we all signed documents for this and I was dealing with a local pharmacist who’d known my family all our lives.). I was financially responsible for them and when that donut hole was coming up, they’d start saving off meds instead of taking them as prescribed. Since I lived 600 miles away, that was the only way I could make sure that their care giver and they were keeping up with what was prescribed.
I have no problem with them phoning. It would be nice if they automatically kept a secondary number to call if they get no contact from a senior patient. It might not be as important with how Obama closed the donut hole, but still. I’d rather know that the pharmacy (or anyone) wasn’t able to get my mom on the phone over a period of a couple days.
My pharmacy sends me emails to notify me to refill a prescription and then sends me another email to tell me it’s ready. They include the location of the pharmacy and the hours of operation. That seems a little redundant but if it makes them happy, i can live with it.
I don’t give out my email address or my cell number. If pressed, I will say that I have one of each, but I only give out the number to friends and family…and no business is my friend or my family. I’ve had one clerk say that I couldn’t do business if I didn’t give my cell or email address (at a chain pharmacy). I asked to talk to a manager, and I told her that the company was NOT going to get either my email or my cell info, and I knew that there were still Luddites who actually had neither one. I then pointed out that there was a competing chain just across the corner, and I could easily have all my prescriptions transferred over there, if this store didn’t want my business. The manager was able to find a way to simply use my landline number and street address for my files.
I can appreciate that a pharmacy is going to want some of my info. However, if I think that they want too much info, then there’s another chain of pharmacies, as well as grocery stores which will be more than happy to have my business, and my husband’s business, too.
I’m annoyed by it too. My pharmacy would call over and over again if I ignored them. I know when I’m low on pills because, well, I don’t have many pills. Please don’t contact me by phone unnecessarily, especially early in the morning.
I like that my pharmacy calls me as it lets me plan my post-work activities.
I absolutely loathe that some jerk who uses a pharmacy I have no ties to has entered my phone number as his contact number, resulting in me getting his refill reminders. It’s the perfect combination of things I hate: talking on the phone and fixing other people’s fuckups.
This. Our pharmacy only has our landline number, which is generally being used to access the internet, so I’d just erase all of their messages every so often. Then they started calling early in the morning and I told them to quit calling. That lasted about three months. The next time they wake me up, there will be a crater where the CVS used to be! :mad:
I quit using one local pharmacy after they started that practice - which was paid for my the drug manufacturer!. Supposedly they didn’t disclose my name to the manufacturer, just took bribes from the maker to nag all their clients who used that drug.