It is very rare for me to take precious time to leave a negative review but I am so distraught over how this pharmacy handle the situation at a critical time I feel a responsibility to let people know.
My spouse had eye surgery yesterday. We had noticed a steady decline in customer service SMC over the course of the last year, so we switched back to Mail order.
The night before the surgery postop medication had not yet arrived, so we the doctors office re-ordered the medication at Walgreens
That morning we had an email from Walgreens warning us. Some of the medication's were not in stock. At this point, I'm driving so the pharmacist is looking at his computer trying desperately to find another Walgreens that would have it in stock.
By the time we get to the doctor, I explained the situation and I thought well let's just try SMC one more time. I have their number programmed in my phone so I called them.
The doctor is next to me to tell them the name of the medication's, they are on speaker. The pharmacist at SMC check the stock, and confirms that they have all the medication's required. Yay! Problem solved! I don't worry about calling Walgreens back. We are in good shape.
NOT.
After three hour surgery, I can finally get my honey. It is about 2:30 I go get the car so they can discharge him (keep in mind he has been under general anesthesia for three hours. I am his soul caregiver. He cannot be left unattended.)
I call SMC to ask them to please have the medication ready as I will have my honey in the car and I need to get him back as quickly as possible. NOW THEY TELL ME the two most important medications are not in stock. In the two preop hours, and three surgery hours that it took from the first call to them, they couldn't find five minutes to reach out to me and let me know that they had made an error and did not have the medication in stock.
This could so easily have been not a big deal! They knew he was going in surgery, they talked to the doctor. They knew these were critical medication for him to have after the surgery. And yet...
Of course, it is up to you to be the judge as to whether this seems unreasonable to you, but I was infuriated. And scared. I find their behavior completely unethical,
Thanks to the way they handled their situation, I wasn't able to get my honey home until past 8 PM. (Yep, had to be chasing after these medication's in the thick of rush-hour, not the narcotics mind you (maybe important to comfort, but not so much to healing) but the medication's to prevent the eye from getting infected, and swelling up which were suppose to be administered ASAP.
At this point, you have all the information you need, but for those of you who would like a little more information, here goes.
After that, of course, I was quite upset, stunned actually .
In all fairness, I did raise my voice, I was in shock wondering why I had not been called. I couldn't believe that one person had checked the inventory and assured, both the Dr and myself that there was plenty of the medication on hand. And then there was not. Please check again. Surely there must be a mistake . I asked to speak to Manager.
Whether the guy was irate at me for reacting, or the call conveniently dropped, i can't say. But I can assure you I didn't get a call back to follow up or help in anyway.
After I'd had a chance to figure out where to get the medication, i called back to ask to speak to a manager. I think the same guy answered and recognized my voice, but that is speculation. The fact is I was put on hold, and 50 minutes later nobody had come to answer the call. I just hung up.
For the last few who would like Still more information, we had left SMC because There were constantly mixup with the refills and the timing of the calls for the refills. But in ways that don't make sense. It was just not worth going out of our way to do business with them anymore. They actually used to be a really great Pharmacy back in the day they delivered for free, even though they have a convenient parking lot they were on top of the medication's, There was personal attention. They looked at the person as a total if there were questions they would call.
In a world taken over by big businesses like Amazon and massive chains, my honey and I really prefer to support small businesses, Mom, and Pops stores, which are in danger of extinction.
Oh well...
PS: sparing you the photos of what I was looking at, which made the situation so high stress for me. They knew the surgery he was getting. But now I'm just repeating myself. if you're still reading, you are very patient person, and I appreciate the time you took and hope this was helpful. read more