This store seems to get a lot of grief by reviewers, but I think some of that is because the store is open 24-hours. I know that is not an excuse, but an explanation. Heck, why am I defending them, I don't work there? But I think we all need to be fair. When a prescription isn't filled in time, sometimes it is the fault of the doctor not authorizing it. Until that happens, sometimes the pharmacy's hands are tied. Most doctor's offices don't respond to refill requests from pharmacies very promptly.
I know, I used to work in a doctor's office. We were so slammed by the phone ringing constantly, and patients right there with us, that authorizing prescription refills was LAST on the list. We cared, we were just slammed. Sometimes we would work through lunch (sometimes I would do that unpaid, just because of the peace and quiet to think to be able to solve problems, if only for 45 minutes!) A refill request authorization from a doctor's office goes like this:
*Request is from the pharmacy or patient & left on doctor's voice mail.
*An employee at the doctor's office has to write down each message. There are often 25 or more messages by the way.
*All those have to be listened to, then the appropriate patient file needs to be pulled, the request clipped to their file, and the file put in the doctor's IN box. If it is an office with 4 providers like ours, then the employee also needs to make sure the refill request and folder goes in the correct doctor's IN box.
*Doctor has a full day of patients, barely gets time to eat.
*An employee runs out and gets him a Wendy's chili and a baked potato.
*Doctor tries to eat lunch while returning calls to other doctors and urgent patient needs.
Note: medication refills are not urgent needs. Urgent needs are patients who are bleeding. It wasn't that I didn't care that you needed a refill of Ibuprofen 800, it's just that 3 other patients might have to be admitted to the hospital and an elderly woman's entire reproductive system fell out of her body (yes, not kidding) while she was on the toilet.
*If 4 pm patient is a no-show, then the doctor could authorize your refill then. Keep in mind it is not just initialing your file and saying yes. The doctor has a lot of patients and will need to look inside your file, see when the last time was that he/she saw you, see if a refill is indeed appropriate, and if you have added any other medications that could make authorizing a refill unsafe for you. This is an important step to not poison you.
*In interest of time, the doctor or his staff may reorganize the patient files/concerns by whatever the situation is. Obviously a post surgery patient having pain problems and having a reaction to the pain medication that was subscribed is going to go FIRST. The doctor may even need to call that patient right then, which means the rest of the authorizations will sit while he makes that phone call to speak to the patient. This is the kind of attention YOU WOULD WANT and deserve if you had been the surgery patient, right?
*If the doctor gets through the stack in record time, especially if he was able to work on some of it during lunch, at the very end of the workday, he will go through the rest of it. He wants to get it done as badly as you do, because he wants to go home....and have a life....and we the staff want it all done too. It does not help us get your refill faster for you to call us and complain about it.
Continually calling just slows down everything. If you left a voice mail, then PLEASE do not call to get through...because then an employee ends up trying to work on your concern AGAIN when the voice mail has been retrieved, which means trying to do the work twice. At the very least, if you DO decide to call in and you get a live person to help you, PLEASE let that office worker know that you ALSO left a voice mail, so that the staff member can let the person working the voice mail retrieval know that it has ALREADY BEEN HANDLED.
PLEASE do not wait until the last minute to get your medications refilled. If you take a medication regularly, I've found it helpful to keep a week's worth of the medication in an extra medication bottle with the same label, and that is the RESERVE stock. When you have to go to that Reserve bottle for medications, that is your signal that it is time to request a refill. This is how you can prevent that last minute panic. THINK AHEAD if you are planning a trip.
DON'T BLAME THE PHARMACY STAFF if your insurance doesn't pay enough or the prescription costs too much. It is YOUR insurance policy, not theirs. Those folks have to deal with coupons, ExtraCare cards, ExtraCare Bucks, Discount cards from pharmaceutical companies, etc.
They don't like that they're short staffed either. They don't make the decisions, corporate office does
This is not my favorite CVS by any means, but it is good to have a 24 hour ANYTHING around these parts, where we roll up the sidewalks when the sun goes down. read more
