CVS

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

Have any of you had trouble with the CVS pharmacy in Davis? They seem really disorganized, and I wonder if it's just my bad luck to always go in at a bad time. They haven't given me the wrong medicine. I'm just concerned about how many times I phoned ahead to refill a prescription, and they didn't have it ready. They couldn't do anything at all because the computer is down. Or I needed to wait half an hour while they scrambled to fill the prescription (something like 27 hours after I called in the refill and 90 minutes after I said on the phone I'd pick it up.) Or my doctor's office had just sent over a prescription, and they couldn't figure out how to send it to the Porter Square CVS which has the medication they're out of.

It's not a problem for a pharmacy to be out of a particular medication and tell me I need to wait until the next day, or the next day after midafternoon. I don't expect any pharmacy to keep everything in stock. It's a problem when they tell me on Thursday they will have something on Friday, and on Friday when they tell me it will be there on Monday, and it's REALLY a problem when on Monday they tell me it will be there Tuesday. This problem, thank goodness, only happened once.

The pharmacists and their assistants aren't rude to me, and I don't think they are deliberately dishonest. I just can't tell if I've had a run of bad luck in dealing with them (aggravated by the fact that I use a bunch of different meds and refill the prescriptions at different times of month,) or if they are incompetent enough that I should take my business to another pharmacy.

I used to be fairly happy with the CVS at Porter, though since they built one at Davis, I resent that the one in Porter is so far away. (When the weather is reasonable, I can walk to Davis, but not to Porter.) I refuse to do business with the East Arlington CVS--the pharmacy staff there is narrowminded, dishonest, rude, and viciously selfish, as well as incompetent.

Comments

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

It doesn't surprise me that CVS management treats their employees badly. A lot of big corporations are like that, and it's awful. (It should be obvious that I don't just mean corporations related to health care in any way. This is all OVER modern business.) You get what you reward, and that's some minimal standard of measurable quality, maximum speed, and tolerance for abuse. Driving away their most careful and caring people (or pushing them to be less careful and caring) can't be good for business in the long run, but it looks like they don't care about the long run.

As far as our role in the health care community, if a doctor makes a mistake on a script and I fill it, we are equally liable. If you fill a script for 100 Percocet with Walgreens, then come to my CVS with a script for 50 Vicodin one week later, then OD, I'm liable. I lose my license. If I know a doctor isn't doing something safe and don't do anything to stop it, that's my license on the line. If it involves narcotics, I can be prosecuted by the DEA. Unfortunately the name of the game anymore is to cover your ass legally

I was not sufficiently clear, in my earlier comment about philosophical differences with some pharmacists. I didn't mean to condemn you and your well-meaning colleagues who are just trying to avoid filling invalid or mistaken prescriptions. My problem is with pharmacists who say there's no reason for anybody to ever use a particular drug, or stigmatized class of drugs. (Stigmatized drugs tend to be things that are often a bad idea, but occasionally the least bad option available.) My problem is with pharmacists saying anyone giving a child stimulants for ADD is abusing that child. Or that anyone taking methadone is a dangerous drug addict who should not be allowed in the store. Or that the only legitimate use of narcotics is for surgical pain, or terminal cancer. Or that hormone replacement therapy is an outrageous interference with a natural and healthy process. Other hormone prescriptions can be even more controversial, as I'm sure you know. I don't want a pharmacist to second-guess me and my doctor on the grounds that the FDA will eventually come around to share their opinion.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

I do not mean to accuse the Maida pharmacists of holding all the problematic beliefs stated above.