I'm routinely on hold for 15-30 minutes AND THEN DISCONNECTED while waiting to speak to a…read morepharmacist, and I have been on hold for 1.5-2 hours out of sheer stubbornness in the past. I'm a senior citizen without regular access to a car. I take a lot of medicines that change occasionally, and I frequently have questions that can't be answered because THEY WILL NOT PICK UP THE PHONE.
One day when I had spent hours waiting on the phone, I was furious at all my wasted time, so I went in person and waited in line to speak clearly and without swearing or a raised voice but with evident anger in my voice and face. I expressed my frustration and was told, "Okay." Then the pharmacist just stared at me with a blank expression on her face. Said nothing else. Not "That sounds frustrating," or "Sorry you've had a bad experience." It was at that point that I flipped my lid and stormed off, swearing. Not my finest moment. But they pushed me to the edge:
Basically, if you want or need to communicate with your pharmacist, this is NOT the pharmacy for you. They are slow, uncommunicative, with about 75% bad customer service. There is one nice lady, max, and she's not always there.
And when my doctor sends in a new prescription for a medicine I've taken for a long time at the exact same dose as usual, they switch to the new prescription at refill time instead of finishing up the original prescription that has 1-2 more refills on it. I'm at the point where I'm going to ask my doctor for paper prescriptions so that my prescription history isn't littered with old prescriptions with only 1-2 refills on them.
They also have tried to fill an old prescription that has zero refills left WITHOUT checking to notice the NEW prescription on file; then there's a delay while they needlessly try to request a new prescription from my doctor's office, who refuses because they had ALREADY sent in a new prescription. This causes medication delays. That's why for a while I turned off auto refills. But I had to turn them on again because if I wait until I notice I'm almost out of a med, their supply chain is SO SLOW that I have missed days on my medicine before.
And today I asked for smaller bottles because the giant ones they use are overflowing my small medicine storage space, but I was told today that the giant bottle is the standard from the warehouse. So I asked if I could request a transfer to a smaller bottle at pickup time, but I was told that it depends on their workload and staffing at that time. So eff me I guess.
I also refused a highly overpriced prescription and asked the pharmacist to reshelve it so that my husband picking up my meds doesn't innocently and accidentally grab that medicine and pay their ridiculous fee at pickup. The pharmacist failed to do as requested. The medicine stayed as pending pickup for days, so I had to go down there, stand in line, and make them remove that medicine from the pickup bin. It's almost like they are trying to make it easier for a mistaken pickup to happen so they can charge me for a medicine I don't want to pay for.
Walgreens sucks. Out loud.