Ugh. Stories like this make me very glad there is a pharmacy in my doctors building.
GASP
SPUTTER
WALGREENS??
WALGREENS???
I spent several years as a Walgreens customer at 3 differnt stores and they were all the same.
I won’t get into the plethera of stories with them…but they have to be the absolute slowest pharmacy in the universe. I am not kidding or embellishing…if you walk in and see EVEN ONE other customer there, turn around and leave. It will take them over 30 min to get your already phoned in prescription.
Heck, if there are NO other customers there, you are lucky to get out in 15 min.
I’m at CVS now and they are great, though it is most likely because they just opened up a store nearby and have few customers.
Maybe a pharmacist can check in to give their understanding of the rule, but I’ve personally refilled a script for a sleep med that was a Schedule IV controlled substance a few days before the insurance approval date, by paying cash for it. Pills had fallen down the drain, you see.
I’m not sure what if Lortab is Schedule IV or what, but when I was taking it for my back (and subsequent addiction), I wasn’t able to do that. But that could just be my particular insurance company’s policy.
If I had paid cash, maybe I could have done that. It’s been a while since I’ve taken narcotics, but that’s what I recall.
This is similar to what happened to me not long ago: my Cardiologist suggested that I double one of my medications, but did not write a new script for the increased dosage. I simply took two pills a day instead of one. Because of this, my supply ran out way too early. I phoned in a refill, but when I got to the pharmacy, the refill was not ready and I was told that they couldn’t refill because insurance would only refill once every thirty days. I asked if I could refill without using insurance and they told me yes. It cost me more than it normally would have, but I did get a refill.
The med was not a Schedule IV controlled substance, however.
No, they shouldn’t, and yes, she did. She always got it straightened out, but sometimes it would take days. And it was always a struggle, because by that time she was extremely confused and befuddled.
I’ll stick with my local CVS. They’re pretty good. They’ll tell you it’ll take 20 minutes and it ends up taking 10.
The one in my old neighborhood, though? Bloody geniouses there. “Sir, it’ll take an hour before we can give you your percosets. Would you like to come back tomorrow?” Under what conditions would I need percosets tomorrow but not right now? Moron.
CVS has always been perfectly reasonable with me and my family. We go through lots of prescriptions including some controlled ones. At the Drop Off window, I ask to see the pharmacist, I explain that I am out early or still need to talk to me doctor but need a refill right away. They have given me up to a 4 day supply of several different drugs. They fax the doctor. The best part is that they don’t charge me for it. They simply deduct it from the full refill and submit it to the insurance company when the actual prescription comes through. It is so easy that I tend to get a little lax about making sure I have everything taken care of the normal way.
I see you go to my Walgreens. 
I dropped off a prescription for antibiotics for my son’s ear infection once at 10:30 after a doctor’s appointment. I asked for the prescription with flavoring because the medicine is nasty and chalky and disgusting, and I was tired of trying to shove the dropper in his mouth just to have Augmentin flung all over me. I told them I’d pick it up at 12:30, but wasn’t able to get back like I thought I would.
My husband picked up the prescription at 6 PM that night. It still wasn’t ready. He waited ANOTHER 30 minutes while they prepared the prescription and then flavored it.
A few weeks ago, I had to have the same prescription, again, flavored. The only reason I used Walgreens was because it is right next to my son’s daycare, and after dropping him back off at daycare, I needed to go back to give him his first dose (we were flying the next day, and he had a double EI - we were trying to clear it up quickly, per the ped’s instruction). It took an hour :rolleyes: . And they had SIX people behind the pharmacy working. Had I not heard their incompetence with my own ears (the prescription was passed from one to another with “What do I do with this one?” at least twice, the girl flavoring it asked the pharmacist what flavor, then me, then the pharmacist AGAIN, and it sat, ready on the counter for another 10 minutes while she tried to figure out the label.), I would have passed it off as them just being busy.
On another note, I’ve never had a problem getting my full prescription - I have a current prescription there for my anxiety/ADD meds, and several times, have had to have a split prescription from them. No biggie. I get as much as they have, and then go back and get the rest when they call me and tell me its’s there.
Not nearly as slow as the Giant Eagle DrugStore that told me it would take two hours to fill a birth control scrip. They don’t even open the foil pouch, take the pill packet out, and stick it in the little holder. All they do is put a sticker on the foil pouch and put it in a paper bag.
And they wanted TWO HOURS. I took back my script and went to Target next door. They had it done in 2 minutes.
And then there was the pharmacist that told me I couldn’t get a refill until at least 30 days after the last date. For birth control pills.
They come 28 in a package and you have to take them every day…think about it.
Sometimes when I’ve had surgery, they’ve given me the prescriptions for painkillers to get filled a couple days before so I don’t have to deal with it after.
My dentist does that. But my surgeon? Nope. The floor nurse told me to go straight home and lie down and don’t move for at least a week. Oh, and take the percoset as directed. Here’s the scrip.
The strangest experience I’ve had at a pharmacy was dealing with the pharmacist who just didn’t understand me.
“What’s your last name?”
“Jones.”
“Hendrickson?”
“Jones.”
“Throat Warbler Mangrove?”
“Jones! J-O-N-E-S.”
“Q-W-smiley face?”
“J-O…”
“P-Z…?”
Did you get the impression this was purely incompetence/stupidity, or that they might’ve been actively trying to discourage you from filling your birth control there out of (e.g.) some overzealous religious conviction?
I recall going to a mom & pop pharmacy (actually more like grandma & grandpa - one of the last ones I can remember, which is now of course long driven into extinction by the big chains) with my girlfriend in our late-stage teens, and while the old lady didn’t refuse to fill her birth control script, she sure looked daggers at me the whole time we were there.
My Walgreen’s is awesome. Just sayin’.
No it was just stupidity. He couldn’t understand why I’d need a refill of a month’s supply of a drug after 28 days. He kept saying that any scrip written for a month had to be refilled no less than thirty days after the last date it was filled. I tried telling him that it’s birth control pills, but he said that in order to prevent drug abuse you can’t get refills early. It was as if he thought everyone who needs a refill in less than 30 days is trying to get high.
After a while the other pharmacist explained it to him and I got my pills.
At Walgreens, I get to order my refills online. So calling, no being on hold, no mixups…
I just have to say that I’m glad it’s Friday. Big party tonight. I’m going to be downing birth control pills like there’s no tomorrow.
I just hope I can deal with the hallucinations.
The withdrawls are a bitch. Stock up on air conditioners and electric blankets. You’ll need both.
I’ve never had a problem with any script, except for the time that we were going on vacation ( 3 weeks) and I needed to have my meds and my husbands blood pressure meds filled before the usual time.
It took a phone call to the evil insurance company and that was it.
We primarily go to Meijer Pharmacy because it is close to us, but will use Walgreens or CVS ( open all night pharm, for those 2am craptacular sinus infections my kids seem to get.)
Never had a problem. Of course, I would rather not go to the doctor in the first place because IMHO whenever I am sicker than sick I am poo poohed for being SUCH A FUCKING WUSS and and when I go in for something minor, it’s You’ve Got CANCER AND A TUMOR AND HALITOSIS!!!11111!!! ok, I am exaggerating, but when I am well, they try to find something wrong.