I'm really starting to get annoyed with Walgreen's pharmacy crappy customer service.
I have been a customer for 11 years, I have been taking narcotic pain relievers for 10 of those 11 years, and getting them filled at multiple branches of their stores.
Sometimes I've gone to my closest and most frequented branch, and they won't have my med, so they call another one, and then I have to go pick up my med at that other branch, but I have always had my scripts filled with them unless there is an issue with the computers, the insurance, or they don't have my med in stock.
I'm a faithful customer thanks to my scoliosis and surgeries.
But here's what happened today.
My sister came down to take me to one branch of Walgreen's that always has a particular pain med in stock, my niece Skye was going to stay here with the teens while we went, but it should have only taken us 30 minutes tops, and I would have been able to come back and at least spend 20-30 minutes with Skye, see her smile, laugh, and fall in love with the stop motion classic Christmas movies I have.
The only movie the girls have seen is Frosty the Snowman, but I have all of the old classics, Rudolph, Santa Claus is coming to Town, and The Little Drummer Boy.
I bought them on VHS about 15 years ago, when my boys were just babies, and we have watched them every year at xmas.
It's far better to watch them on VHS when you have small kids instead of broadcast television, there are no stupid commercials in between.
Anyway, we were only supposed to be gone a half hour, tops, but after dropping my script off, being told it would be about 20 minutes, wandering around Walgreen's and buying stuff, the pharmacy tech tells me they can't fill my script for the oxys on a Saturday because they have to confirm the script with my surgeon, not his on call doctor.
I asked if this is a new policy, because I have been filling this script at their store almost every single month, on either a Saturday or a Sunday because my surgeon mails it out on Thursday, and I usually always get it on Saturday and fill it.
He said no, not a new policy, so I asked him to check last month's fill date and look up what day it was because I know it was a Saturday.
He checks, confirms that yup, it was filled on a Saturday but shouldn't have been, and now he has to report that tech for filling it on a weekend without speaking to the prescribing doctor.
So now I'm pissed, I don't have my pain meds and I need to have them because my lower dose pain meds will not be filled until Monday, and there is simply no way that I can go the weekend without the pain meds.
I cannot move without them, I can't eat or I get sick, I get wicked leg and back spasms, basically, my body goes into withdrawals, and let me tell you, it is not a pretty sight or a fun experience to go through pain med withdrawals.
You get very, very ill, very quickly, like as soon as they wear off, your body starts withdrawals and it is quite painful, and getting med sick is probably the most agonizing thing to experience.
I hate the withdrawals, and whenever we finally do decide to take me off all of the pain meds, if my doctors ever do decide to take me off of them, I will have to be given some type of help with weaning off of them, possibly even rehab because of how severe the withdrawals are.
My sister knows this, and so she asks me if there is any other pharmacy I can go to that won't have the same Saturday policy, so we head down to the Publix out on Bee Ridge and Cattlemen, and they had absolutely no problem filling them because I've been a customer there before, and the neck brace and downward facing head kinda give it away that I have a legitimate need to have the medicine.
They filled it, but it's now been another 40 minutes, we've now been gone for a little over an hour, much longer than we wanted to be gone, and my sister needs to take me home, pick up Skye, and go home herself.
She has things to do in her own life that don't involve her having to drive me to multiple pharmacies in the city because Walgreen's decided to be dickheads today.
She came down here from way up in north Bradenton, to specifically take me to get my meds.
It takes her about 30 minutes to get from her house to mine, and she was doing this as a favor to me because she knows I need the meds and don't have transportation all of the time.
When we got back here, Sebastian had already watched Santa Claus is coming to Town with Skye, she loved it just as I knew she would, I didn't get to take any pictures of her, hug her, play with her, nothing.
I very rarely get to see my nieces because of how far away from us they live, so time is very precious when they do come over, and thanks to Walgreen's being dickheads today, I missed out on another good visit with my niece.
I know that Walgreen's has filled this particular script on the weekends plenty of times before, not just last month, but for the last 3 months, since my surgery, and actually, well before that too because my pain doc also gives me this same exact med every month.
It pisses me off that they wasted my time.
They confirmed they had it in stock, said they would fill it, made me wait 20 minutes, then tell me they won't fill it even though they have been filling it every single month on a weekend before.
If they do indeed have a policy to not fill a certain class narcotic on the weekends, he should have never told me that they would fill the script.
He said absolutely nothing to me about having to speak to the prescribing doctor.
I'm going to just switch all of my meds over to Publix pharmacies because of this crap, and let them have all of my business from now on which is a whole lot.
I take 3 different narcotic pain meds every month, 1 blood pressure med, 1 heart med, 2 different muscle relaxers, and an antibiotic every month.
I spend a great deal of money on medications, some covered by insurance and some not.
One of my pain meds is not covered, and it costs me $238.00 every month to fill it, and the covered ones still have co-pays, so I spend about $350 per month on just the co-pay medications, the non-covered one is $238.00, and not to mention all of the general shopping I do while I wait for them to be filled which can vary from just a few dollars up to about $100 if they have things I can't get elsewhere, or don't feel like getting elsewhere.
If it isn't dumb shit like this so-called policy, it's downed computers, not being able to contact the insurance companies, refusing to fill because the insurance on file was mistyped by one of their own staff, all kinds of problems, so I'll just switch to a Publix pharmacy that I know doesn't have any of these issues, give them my business and my money, and Walgreen's can go fuck themselves.
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I have been a customer for 11 years, I have been taking narcotic pain relievers for 10 of those 11 years, and getting them filled at multiple branches of their stores.
Sometimes I've gone to my closest and most frequented branch, and they won't have my med, so they call another one, and then I have to go pick up my med at that other branch, but I have always had my scripts filled with them unless there is an issue with the computers, the insurance, or they don't have my med in stock.
I'm a faithful customer thanks to my scoliosis and surgeries.
But here's what happened today.
My sister came down to take me to one branch of Walgreen's that always has a particular pain med in stock, my niece Skye was going to stay here with the teens while we went, but it should have only taken us 30 minutes tops, and I would have been able to come back and at least spend 20-30 minutes with Skye, see her smile, laugh, and fall in love with the stop motion classic Christmas movies I have.
The only movie the girls have seen is Frosty the Snowman, but I have all of the old classics, Rudolph, Santa Claus is coming to Town, and The Little Drummer Boy.
I bought them on VHS about 15 years ago, when my boys were just babies, and we have watched them every year at xmas.
It's far better to watch them on VHS when you have small kids instead of broadcast television, there are no stupid commercials in between.
Anyway, we were only supposed to be gone a half hour, tops, but after dropping my script off, being told it would be about 20 minutes, wandering around Walgreen's and buying stuff, the pharmacy tech tells me they can't fill my script for the oxys on a Saturday because they have to confirm the script with my surgeon, not his on call doctor.
I asked if this is a new policy, because I have been filling this script at their store almost every single month, on either a Saturday or a Sunday because my surgeon mails it out on Thursday, and I usually always get it on Saturday and fill it.
He said no, not a new policy, so I asked him to check last month's fill date and look up what day it was because I know it was a Saturday.
He checks, confirms that yup, it was filled on a Saturday but shouldn't have been, and now he has to report that tech for filling it on a weekend without speaking to the prescribing doctor.
So now I'm pissed, I don't have my pain meds and I need to have them because my lower dose pain meds will not be filled until Monday, and there is simply no way that I can go the weekend without the pain meds.
I cannot move without them, I can't eat or I get sick, I get wicked leg and back spasms, basically, my body goes into withdrawals, and let me tell you, it is not a pretty sight or a fun experience to go through pain med withdrawals.
You get very, very ill, very quickly, like as soon as they wear off, your body starts withdrawals and it is quite painful, and getting med sick is probably the most agonizing thing to experience.
I hate the withdrawals, and whenever we finally do decide to take me off all of the pain meds, if my doctors ever do decide to take me off of them, I will have to be given some type of help with weaning off of them, possibly even rehab because of how severe the withdrawals are.
My sister knows this, and so she asks me if there is any other pharmacy I can go to that won't have the same Saturday policy, so we head down to the Publix out on Bee Ridge and Cattlemen, and they had absolutely no problem filling them because I've been a customer there before, and the neck brace and downward facing head kinda give it away that I have a legitimate need to have the medicine.
They filled it, but it's now been another 40 minutes, we've now been gone for a little over an hour, much longer than we wanted to be gone, and my sister needs to take me home, pick up Skye, and go home herself.
She has things to do in her own life that don't involve her having to drive me to multiple pharmacies in the city because Walgreen's decided to be dickheads today.
She came down here from way up in north Bradenton, to specifically take me to get my meds.
It takes her about 30 minutes to get from her house to mine, and she was doing this as a favor to me because she knows I need the meds and don't have transportation all of the time.
When we got back here, Sebastian had already watched Santa Claus is coming to Town with Skye, she loved it just as I knew she would, I didn't get to take any pictures of her, hug her, play with her, nothing.
I very rarely get to see my nieces because of how far away from us they live, so time is very precious when they do come over, and thanks to Walgreen's being dickheads today, I missed out on another good visit with my niece.
I know that Walgreen's has filled this particular script on the weekends plenty of times before, not just last month, but for the last 3 months, since my surgery, and actually, well before that too because my pain doc also gives me this same exact med every month.
It pisses me off that they wasted my time.
They confirmed they had it in stock, said they would fill it, made me wait 20 minutes, then tell me they won't fill it even though they have been filling it every single month on a weekend before.
If they do indeed have a policy to not fill a certain class narcotic on the weekends, he should have never told me that they would fill the script.
He said absolutely nothing to me about having to speak to the prescribing doctor.
I'm going to just switch all of my meds over to Publix pharmacies because of this crap, and let them have all of my business from now on which is a whole lot.
I take 3 different narcotic pain meds every month, 1 blood pressure med, 1 heart med, 2 different muscle relaxers, and an antibiotic every month.
I spend a great deal of money on medications, some covered by insurance and some not.
One of my pain meds is not covered, and it costs me $238.00 every month to fill it, and the covered ones still have co-pays, so I spend about $350 per month on just the co-pay medications, the non-covered one is $238.00, and not to mention all of the general shopping I do while I wait for them to be filled which can vary from just a few dollars up to about $100 if they have things I can't get elsewhere, or don't feel like getting elsewhere.
If it isn't dumb shit like this so-called policy, it's downed computers, not being able to contact the insurance companies, refusing to fill because the insurance on file was mistyped by one of their own staff, all kinds of problems, so I'll just switch to a Publix pharmacy that I know doesn't have any of these issues, give them my business and my money, and Walgreen's can go fuck themselves.
I stopped using Walgreens several years ago for pretty much the same reason! My kids have taken the same dosage of the same meds for several years, and we had their scripts filled at Walgreens faithfully. Then one month we went to get them filled and we get this new pharmacist who somehow thinks he has the right to lecture me about giving my children this medication and how there are many other ways to deal with ADHD. While he was somewhat willing to fill the script, I took it away from him and headed to Walmart to have it filled.
I used Walmart religiously for all of our prescriptions for more than 3 years, but this summer started getting the run around from them about the kids meds. First they were out of stock, then the next month they could partially fill it, but I would have to sign an acknowledgment that I would give up the pills they didn't have to fill the script. The following month they were out of them again, but sent us to Sam's Club, who filled it just fine. I finally said enough is enough. They filled the prescriptions for this med for almost 3 years with no problems then all of a sudden there's nothing but problems.
I now fill ALL of my prescriptions at Rite Aid, although I'm sure something will happen to change that eventually as well. And my Pharmacist, although nice, is a bit of a fruit loop...LOL! It's tolerable, at least he's not an asshat, but it's annoying! When I went to fill my prescriptions after having my toenail removed, he wanted to chat on and on about his dog and everything else under the sun. All I wanted was my pain meds so I could go home...LOL
There is one pharmacist at my usual Walgreen's who gives me dirty looks every time I have my pain meds refilled.
I swear she thinks I'm some sort of junkie or something by the way she looks at me, and she's snobby about giving them to me too. She says things like "Wow, you sure do take an awful lot of these every month. I've never seen anyone who takes as many pain killers as you do."
I told her that I had major spine fusion, skull to tailbone, now with 38 inches of titanium rods running the full length of my spine, 46 pedicule screws, 3 bone grafts, and will be having another fusion surgery to correct my head placement.
She still treated me as though I am a junkie.
One of these days, I'm going to rip off my neck brace, turn my back to her, and yank my shirt all the way up, and pull my pants down to right above my asshole, so she can gaze upon my 38 inch scar line, and then ask her if she's ever seen anyone with scars like that, maybe she'd like to touch my spine and feel the titanium through my skin, go ahead, give it a really hard press, and feel the rods, run your fingers down my spine and feel them.
Fucking bitch.
I hate her.
I really hate it when a pharmacist, whose job it is to fill our medications that our DOCTORS have given us because of our medical needs, start talking to us like they know better than our doctors do.
There's an ad on tv right now to go to school to become a pharmacy tech. It's an 18 month program, and then you can go get hired and be a pharmacist.
My surgeon went to school for 12 years, he still goes to seminars by other surgeons from around the world to learn even more about his chosen profession of orthopedic medicine with a specialty in spine deformities.
I'm pretty fucking sure that he knows far more about me and my medical needs for these medications than she does, so she needs to shut the fuck up.
Haha, sorry, but they have really been pissing me off for quite awhile now.
Wow, that's really crummy. When I see people having legitimate problems out and about, I get even more pissed at the people who come to my job and piss and whine about nothing at all for their $6. I sure hope the Publix pharmacy treats you better!!
You are right, that is really crappy. Just bad customer service. I wouldn't go back either.
We will come down again next weekend, and stay a little longer. It wasn't the best day. Jo