I am done using this place as a pharmacy.
What to say? Other reviews have suggested that this place has incompetent and slow staff. I really don't think that is the problem. I think this location just has Too Many Customers, and the corporate office should just start redirecting business to Whitinsville or Blackstone, or (heresy I know) advise would-be customers that CVS already has as much business as it can handle and you should go somewhere else.
I know the CVS system -can- work well, because I never had this kind of trouble at the CVS on Central Street in Foxboro before I moved out here.
CVS has a wonderful, sophisticated online and phone-based system where you can schedule a prescription for renewal, and request a pick up time (at least 2 hours later). The whole point of this is so you won't have to wait when you get to the store, right? Fuhgeddaboutit. I have submitted a refill request early in the morning, for pickup at about 3 or 4 PM. Nope, not ready when I got there. If you tell them you're waiting, they'll try to bump it in the queue but I've still seen it take 45 minutes for prescriptions to get done. If you tell them you're going to leave and come back later, you have chosen poorly, because your prescription goes right back to the bottom of the priority list and it -still- won't be ready when you come back.
As an experiment once, I submitted a renewal request online and decided I wouldn't even bother going to the store that day. I'd wait for the phone message telling me the order was filled. By the end of the business day: no call. By the end of the next day: no call. Early morning of the 3rd day the refill was ready. I'm convinced this location simply ignores online and phone requests until either A) you show up and get told to wait or B) a day or two has passed.
I have been with friends in the drive-through, when they were told the prescription would be ready in 15 minutes, so my friend said, all right, I'll come back later. She drove back an hour later and it wasn't done. This has happened to her more than once. OK, I guess I have to admit when the staff keeps lying or simply underestimating how long it will take for a prescription to be filled, that IS incompetence.
I have been in line with 3 or 4 people in front of me, and have overheard every single person in front of me told "Sorry, it's not done yet, would you like to wait?" or "It's in process". I love that last one. "In Process" is code for "We're completely overloaded up to our eyeballs and we haven't even looked at it yet".
Other things that make no sense with the setup CVS has devised:
At the pickup registers, the system is limited and if there's any kind of problem with your insurance or prescription, they can't help you there. They have to send you over to the "drop off" line to resolve the problem. I have seen people wait in a long line for pickup, get sent over to the drop off spot to fix a problem, and then get told to go back in line again at pickup to actually get their prescription. Why can't the computers at the pickup line handle everything?
The pickup area has three registers. Usually only one is open. I have never seen all three open at the same time, even with long lines of people waiting.
Refill reminders: I don't want them, I didn't ask for them. No idea how to turn them off.
Ready refill: I have had prescriptions refilled automatically when I never asked for that either.
I have had refills sent by my doctor to the store go ignored. They're in the system, but CVS didn't bother to actually fill them. Did CVS think my doctor sent the prescription over just for giggles?
There is a basic thing I think CVS could do to fix much of this trouble. Their online and phone systems should have feedback on the actual state of the pharmacy. If there's no way the store can get a prescription ready in two hours, the online system should not LET you schedule a two hour pickup. It should tell you what the minimum wait time will actually be, and require you to select an achievable pick up time. If the store is so backlogged it won't refill your prescription same-day, the system should tell you that and offer to redirect you to another CVS location.
And perhaps, for the next month or so, this CVS should not accept new prescriptions at all.
PS: The 'old guy' is not slow. He's friendly and hard working and can ring you up as fast as anybody else there. This store just has a completely broken and dysfunctional system. read more