Walgreens

[DailyDi]

Anyone having trouble with Walgreens recently?

Lately it has been taking 3-4 days to get a prescription refill.

[Little BabyDoll Christine]

I moved my proescriptions out of Walgreens because they once took a week to get deliviered when I was housebound this past summer. They attributed it to FedEX not picking the prescriptions up. That is unaceeptable. FedEx is a hired agent. The hiring company or person is responsible for the actions (or INactions of agents or othetr hirelings). If you are going to be in the pharmacy business, where you have a 90% chance of dealing with critical medicines, it is on you to arrange deliveracy to disabled customers. If necessary you send out a person to do so if it is in a reasonable distance to do so, like, say, 3/4 of a mile.  This failure to deliver happened a number of times. Also, the pharmaciy section is closed on weekends and the cupboard is pretty bare. They attribute all of this to "supply chain issuues". This is just "big corporation arthritis" and nobody stepping up. The local phramacy* I switched to has been tons better at this

*For those wondering why I use "pharmacy"  and not "drug store": I get meds at a pharmacy; for  me, a drug store is where they sell music gear

[~Brian~]

8 minutes ago, DailyDi said:

Anyone having trouble with Walgreens recently?

Lately it has been taking 3-4 days to get a prescription refill.

@DailyDi

I haven't had too much trouble with Walgreens recently because I had changed pharmacies to Kinny Drugs.

that said, the reason I had problems with Walgreens is because of a change in the way they would do business. when I was getting my diapers through them, they would deliver all of them at least once a month. I was able to get a total of 300 units every month So I would have plenty of diapers pads and other things, And most of that would be topicals and stuff that I would pay for, But they were providing me with the underpads and the diapers.

Then one day a policy change happened, and you used to be able to get that stuff and have them deliver it to you, And I found out that they don't provide the service that I used to have where they would deliver that to me because Medicaid apparently apparently for that is no longer accepted in that way. not only that, but I've had several times when prescriptions aren't exactly what they're supposed to be, and It seems to take longer than normal to get prescriptions.

So in order to take care of this problem with getting my diapers And my pads, I ended up starting to get those through Amazon through my supplier, then we decided that it would be easier to go through North Shore directly for all of the supplies that they can get for me. all I have to do is tell the lady what I want, and she'll order it i'm on those. This is a lot easier on me 'cause I don't have to ask them to deliver it, they can get it here quickly, and if I get it through the supplier directly Then going through Amazon where the supplier pays that using Medicaid funds, it's a lot easier to deal with it because she can decide where to go get the supplies from. I haven't had a problem with North Shore since, and I will keep it that way.

So that's why I change from Walgreens. I still go to Walgreens for the sundries that I need such as like headache pills and acetaminophen or something like that, that I need, but I don't get prescriptions to them, because all it is is a big messy diaper to deal with, and I don't have time to go from there and ask them for something comment and then get into a 20 minute discussion as to why something changed, when I'm down there I just want to get what I need and get out. I don't mind going out when I want to, but if you need your medicine, I need my medicine: there's a few times even when I've had to leave my medicine where it is because they don't seem to understand that when you need something you need it, And I've had it more than more than doctor sent in a prescription, and they can't find the prescription even when he called it in and told me to go right down and get it. I don't have time to be going halfway across town to be getting my prescriptions every day 30 days, so I've been using 90 day supplies since then.

This is not to say that I haven't had problems with my current pharmacy either. for some reason they made some change where they would deliver to you, but if you wanted something from the front end to the store, for example maybe a 2 liter bottle of soda maybe a box of crackers or something, they would add a $25 delivery fee on top of what you're spending if it does not have medicine in the order. This is to be able to recoup some of the loss for gas and other expenses which I don't mind, but I'd rather if I really need it but other than that, I wouldn't want to pay 25 plus the cost of what I was getting.

This cycle when I refilled my acetaminophen for example: I get 100 of them for 90 days. I see that I have a small bottle of acetaminophen. The label prints out and says I have 100 of them. When the pharmacy for some reason cannot supply me with 100 in the same bottle, they will say something like 1 or two of two, so you know what bottle it is and you're looking for your other. This time they used a small bottle, and I kid you not, the bottle said I had 100 pills. so I look at my current bottle of acetaminophen: it says 99 with a circle in pen. I go look at the bag that had my medicine in it, and I find 1 bottle that's very small, and inside that bottle was one acetaminophen tablet in one bottle! I almost laughed my head off and peed my diaper right there!

if I were a pharmacist and I wanted to make sure that I had enough room to be able to put all of the medicine into one container, I would change the size of the container so you're not wasting it and having to do exactly what they did having to modify the number of pills, I realize that they might not have had enough, but that was silly, because 99 pills are 100 pills do fit in larger bottles.

All in all, I'm glad I made a change, I don't want to have to worry about Walgreens in their stupid policies which don't make sense, when they used to be able to deliver to me with no problem. I also like the fact that I don't have to worry anymore about my supplies, because I can get them by making one call to the agency, or one call to my supplier, and they'll take care of it right there.

In other news I ended up having mail the other day. I looked in my mailbox and I had this official looking envelope from the UVM Health Network which is basically a bunch of practices in the hospital itself, align themselves with the UVM Medical Center, University of Vermont is a large college in Vermont, and it's well known for its medicine and other disciplines, as well as the medical library and other things.  so I look at the envelope and I'm like: what the heck is this? Then I open it, and I'm thinking to myself this maybe something that I reckon I recognize.

So with anticipation I opened the letter. I've gotten letters like this before, when one of my orthopedic surgeon nurse practitioners left that medical practice for something else. This commonly happens with patients that have doctors that move practices, or what I thought was the truth My doctor will retire as of midnight summer. The couple times I saw him, He was taken care of whatever it was that I asked him to take care of, And I finally said to him that he was a really good doctor, And if he ever retired I was screwed! Well, he will retire mid summer, and I have had him for a physician for over 25 years this year. I am happy and wish him well, but there's always this thing that tells me that things change, and that's something that I can't change, but I accept it. I also made a calculation.  Since I had done the math: 2023 means that I have had him as a doctor for 25 Years: I a new doctor, from the same practice, And there was another doctor that retired as well, so they lose two doctors, but they gained three. so anyway, when I did the math, he had been my doctor for 25 years, and if the same thing happens again, and I have this doctor 25 years, I will have attained the age of 75!

when I think of that I'm like holy smoke I'll be older than heck, but hopefully I'll still be as spry as I am today, may be a little bit slower but still spry!

Brian

[littlecait]

Lots of drugs are hard to source right now so might not be Walgreens fault. You could always ask them why.

[DiaperedJoe]

3 hours ago, Little BabyDoll Christine said:

They attribute all of this to "supply chain issuues".

Way too many companies nowadays use that as a general-purpose excuse for poor service or incompetence.

They started using it coming out of the pandemic as things were re-starting in the economy. . .and it's become a convenient catch-all.

I get less and less accepting of that excuse every time I hear it.

[Crinklz Kat]

Sad part is that for most people, you're limited to either Walgreens or CVS.  Around here, nearly all of the independent pharmacies are gone.  Even some supermarket chains have eliminated their pharmacies.

[Little BabyDoll Christine]

6 minutes ago, DiaperedJoe said:

Way too many companies nowadays use that as a general-purpose excuse for poor service or incompetence.

They started using it coming out of the pandemic as things were re-starting in the economy. . .and it's become a convenient catch-all.

I get less and less accepting of that excuse every time I hear it.

In the early days after the vaccines came out, later '21, that made sense, but how come places like Standard Pharmacy, a local outfit, and a local one in Westort/MA can get it done? I understand the local CVS is pretty good

BTW: we are not out of the pandemic yet. Beiden wants to declare it over in May but it seems the republican leadership wants to keep it in effect

[beallucanb]

I gave up on Walgreens some years ago because they were shorting my pain meds.

At the end of the month, my bottle would be empty, when I should have had pills for a few more days.

I confronted the druggist his excuse was all of our pills are counted on camera.

I said that is good, why is my bottle always a few pills short, no answer was given.

Next time I walked in they told me they were not handling my drug any longer.

I have been with a local independent pharmacy that handles all insurance company's, in my area ever since that problem with WG

[FretaBWet]

My fiancee has 10 different prescriptions and I have 2. I am on Medicare and pay for part D prescription insurance. There is a deductible of hundreds of dollars per year and the insurance doesn't pay anything until I meet the deductible. Both of my prescriptions are generics and I never meet the deductible. Because I have the part D insurance I have to buy my mess through a "participating pharmacy" which essentially means I can't just shop around to get the lowest price and the participating pharmacy prices are marked up. My fiancee currently has no health insurance but all her meds are generics too. We heard about the company Mark Cuban started that sell generic meds for cost plus a flat rate for shipping. This is the real deal and I highly recommend checking it out. It took some legwork to set everything up. We had to have our doctors write new prescriptions for the generics we take. We had to set up an account with the company. The prescriptions have to be written correctly but it is worth the effort. My fiancee's 10 prescriptions we pay out of pocket for come to around $45 a month. On the insurance company scam they came to over $400 per month. I pay my prescription insurance every month but pay out of pocket through Mark Cubans company. I am keeping the insurance in case I have something happen where my med cost go through the roof which can happen when you get older. The company sends our prescriptions U.S. mail for a flat $5. Doesn't matter if it one prescription or 10, it's still $5. The entire insurance, pharmacy and drug company industries are designed to bleed everyone including Medicare. I'll never go back to pharmacies. Here is a link to the website for convenience:

https://www.markcubancostplusdrugcompany.com/

Hugs,

Freta

[Little Cub Pants]

7 hours ago, Crinklz Kat said:

Sad part is that for most people, you're limited to either Walgreens or CVS.  Around here, nearly all of the independent pharmacies are gone.  Even some supermarket chains have eliminated their pharmacies.

That's really sad.???

[willnotwill]

I was a regular at Walgreens because it was next to my house and they seemed responsive (I had to do a special deal where a prescription for my mother was faxed to mine and I had to pick it up and FedEx it to her in Canada).

Now the local grocery store (Publix) is closest and I just go there for most things.