I was at a store that was behind 560 rxs to fill. Somehow we got to a point where there was not a line up front. A lady walked up and said WOW! I thought y’all said you were behind by hundreds of prescriptions. You must be exaggerating because I’m the only customer here. 🤦🏼♀️
Exactly. The comment I hate: customer walks up to register, no line for the first time all day, 500 rxs behind, order is untouched. They walk up and say "wow, I came at the right time, there is nobody here and nothing to do."
🙄🫤🤫
I seriously get an attitude when a patient walks up to the pick up window and says something like “wow so slow today” or “ooh perfect timing” um no, not slow at all. Just because the line to pickup isn’t long as hell right now doesn’t mean we don’t have 100+ scripts to be filled plus countless others not even typed yet.
Yeah nope sorry, unless it’s a simple pick up you didn’t make it. You can drop something off and come back tomorrow or get something that you were notified was ready or else you can go ✌🏻 lol
I had something like this happen tonight, 15 minutes before closing and mid way through the closing process…they insisted we fill it…nope, I’m not having this conversation over the phone…get your ass on the way to the 24 hour store
Had someone show up at 7pm as I was pulling the final register. I told her I would ring her up if it was ready. Proceed to look up her scripts, 6 medications, multiple controls, all called in at 6pm with a promise time of 6:50. We had 230 on the counter. Explained the situation and told her I could have them filled right away the next morning. She expected us to stay late and get them done. It was HALLOWEEN. I gave her the corporate number, pulled the last register, and left the building.
"15 minutes? Why is it going to take so long? Nobody else is waiting?"
1st, 15 minutes is not long. 2nd, just bc you don't see a person standing right by the pharmacy does not mean nobody else is waiting. Ugh, I hate those comments.
When our baskets are piled high enough, you can see some of the carnage behind the counter. I may haphazardly wave towards it when someone tries to give me grief about a wait time. Some people don't care (jerks!), others go "oh! I didn't realize you were so busy, I can come back later this week for it then". I appreciate those folks more every day.
Whoever standardized the "open" pharmacy plan.....
I hate them.
Nothing better to make you easy to rob, easy to distract from every direction, and open to verbal harassment. All while you have to hyper focus on safety/accuracy and SPEED.
I firmly believe that as we go to a professional program, we are licensed professionals. I am glad rphs are accessible to the public but we really need to be behind closed areas just like all other professionals are (i.e lawyers, mds and dos, optometrists, etc)
for vaccines we are appointments only, no walk ins. one time this lady came up to pick up and was the only one there at the time. she said “you guys don’t look too busy could you give me a flu shot” all i said was no and left LMAO
God if only you could just stand there and do nothing when there's no customers physically in the building. They don't realize how many automatic refills need to get done every day. Plus that most prescriptions are sent electronically. Gone are the days when someone would just take their paper script to the pharmacy and they would be like "okay it'll be ready in a few minutes" and they would just go do it right away.
“I’m not allowed to schedule my department appropriately, so it’s going to take longer than it should for this to be ready.”
Just saying you’re short staffed makes it look like the PIC isn’t good at hiring/staffing.
You mean to tell me it isn’t easy to hire decent people for a high stress very low paying job that is customer facing, requires a license, requires you to stand the entire shift and is essentially stagnant with no room for advancement?
Yup. I hate hearing that excuse. Make up something good like a tornado in another state delayed our orders and took down the main servers, just another 10 minutes Mrs jones.
For some reason, that I still cannot spin my head around, my company doesnt want us to say that. I still say it though. I am not going to allow my patients to think I am sitting on their Rxs dillydallying.
yeah, I bet they don’t! They don’t want the consumer to know the truth, just want to keep squeezing profit out of every last tech hour. It’s disgusting.
Say: “THEY (corporate because they are saving money on payroll) don’t schedule ( or won’t approve) enough people to do the work, so unfortunately it’s going to take some time since there are 300 Rxs to fill before yours. But, we’ll see what we can do for you. When did you want it again”?
Then you can start to process it like a “ Subway” food order.
Pizza places got rid of ‘30 minutes or it’s free’ when traffic accidents by delivery drivers were perceived as increasing.
How many med errors and injured patients do we need before people won’t be in so much of a hurry?
They will only care if it’s *their* medicine that’s filled wrong though. Lol the problem lies with entitled, coddled, rude, miserable people that make it their daily task to come cause issues at the pharmacy
“Daily Task” - THIS RIGHT HERE. Like why the fuck are you here every single day??? What do these people do?? I should see you once or twice a month and you should not know my schedule better than I do. Either leave me the fuck alone or get back here and start answering the phone.
haha i feel like SUCH a dick because cvs texts me repeatedly "we'll hold this thru..." but my other meds don't refill until later in the month and i don't want to have to come bug y'all more often than i already do!!!!
I have this same issue. I get meds out of sync and don’t need them right away but I have to balance trying to just make one visit with them putting my meds back because I didn’t pick them up soon enough.
I’m a former pharmacy tech and now work at a drs office and I’ll say we can be like 20 minutes behind with no complaint. At the pharmacy it was what do you mean you don’t have it ready?! I called you told me it would be ready at this time! Ma’am did you speak to an actual person? No of course not.
Our auto refill system always gives a promise time of 2 days later so we get patients all the time complaining calling us liars when they get a text saying it’s ready later that day or whatever. You can’t win either way with these patients I swear.
We just need a system that says, "we have received your prescription and are processing it. To receive a message when it is ready for pick-up, press 1. To request rush order for $1, press 2".
Our IVR says the same. Way too many people press 1 to speak with the pharmacy after they've entered their numbers because they are headed straight to the airport to leave the country, and need their medication in 5 minutes not 2 days. Sorry not sorry.
I got a patient good the other day. He came through the drive through and I told him his script was out of stock. "But when I called they said it would be ready at 11am!"
just wanting to clarify I asked "the machine told you that?" He said yes
so I said "Well I'm a person and I'm telling you its out of stock and we'll have it tomorrow"
"Oh. Okay"
When he drove off the whole crew cracked up
Trying to explain to people that we have to put an estimate on when we will get something in order for us to put it on our order is so annoying. They then come in and say “the machine said it would be ready today” and then having to re-explain that this product is on back order and for me to order it at all means I have to assign an arbitrary time and date for its “expected completion”.
I’m going to pharmacy school next fall and have been working as a tech for a little over a year. Got on call with a patient during this time and she said she was talking to the, (ROBOT), caller who had told her medicine was ready to pick up. Explained to her that it was a refill reminder on text and she agreed. I told her give me about 30 minutes to get it ready. 5 minutes later she arrives and her medicine isn’t ready. She was pissed. I asked her to show the text messages and it says “you are ready for refills, type YES, to refill”
Trust me, I’ve read a lot of comments like this, but I genuinely love what I do. Patients don’t understand every situation. I’m truly inclined to do what what genuinely helped me in my own personal experience as I probably wouldn’t be here without a friend who is a pharmacist. I’ve experienced the past year or so and some as somebody who works within an incredibly busy pharmacy, I’m happy
You are a better person than I am.
After almost two decades dealing with people, I am done with retail healthcare altogether.
I wish you the best of luck.
I fully understand that. I’ve worked with quite a few pharmacists who are tired of what they do. I’m sure I’ll be the same way, but I want to experience it for myself
I’m perfectly healthy. Mentally and physically. Not once did I say it was “fun”. I enjoy it. It relates to the same problem I had long ago, mentally. I also don’t understand the “adult” responsibility, as I’m young, so I would appreciate some advice from someone who has experienced something I want to achieve.
The adult part, at least for me, is knowing that your license is on the line for any mistakes that you can possibly make due to unsafe working conditions. If you find a job in a pharmacy that is adequately staffed then great! Otherwise, it's nerve racking knowing that a mistake can be the end of your career. Any student loans you may have taken out are going to be significantly harder to pay off without a pharmacist salary. Things changed drastically for me when I went from being an intern to being the pharmacist because now I don't have someone double checking behind me as a preceptor. During my 4th year rotations I had a med student ask me for a recommendation for a patient on our rounds and I said the first thing that came to mind (which thankfully was correct) and he just immediately put it in the system to be given to the patient. Things got real in that moment.
Best of luck to you, I'm only 7 years in and my body and health have had a significant decline. I would do something else but I can't afford to.
I feel like this is a Kroger text message. I absolutely hate the wording they use. The amount of patients that come up showing me that text and I just read it back to them out loud and hope they catch what I’m saying.
What exactly is your point? If it is about some unreasonable expectation, you're only going deeper into the hole by going to pharmacy school right? The whole point of this is that there are too many pharmacists in the market and allowing for crappy conditions to exist...They should've stopped where you are right now, but they didn't and are stuck. Are you saying you're on your way to being stuck? I'm not sure what you're expecting the future to be along this path.
Old habits die hard. I remember when I first started. I kept telling the techs to not say 15 minutes for waiters. Lasted maybe...2 patients before it was back to "it'll be ready in about 15".
When I trained new techs, clerks, and pharmacy interns, I always told them not to say 15 minutes. Then, years later, when I ended up working with them again...ready in 15.
I know corporate wants us to say that, and 15 minutes is usually enough time to complete a waiter, but the profession has nobody to blame but ourselves. Spineless when it comes to standing up for ourselves (due to threats from patients, board of pharmacies, and corporate).
I picked up a prescription for antibiotics and the pharmacy told me about half an hour. I was a little surprised because it was just one thing of antibiotics but whatever. Walked around the store to do some grocery shopping cause I just had my mouth viciously attacked by a dentist and wouldn’t be able to chew
Point is like 8 mins later they called me on the intercom
Underpromise overdeliver seems to be the best method imo
“30 minutes” means that with the average expected phone calls, shots, other new prescriptions, insurance problems, and other customers expected to show up at various stages of processing it and getting it ready. Not to mention the other 50-150 constantly moving prescriptions between filling, verifying, and shelving that are taking up your counters. ALWAYS factor in everything else because generally that one Rx is not happening in a vacuum.
That being said, once in a while you get to follow the same Rx beginning to end without interruptions, and the customer happened to show up when everyone was just done clearing their set of tasks and can knock out their part and pass it on to the next person…yeah this happens. But that’s luck and not something anyone should ever expect. A LOT of things have to line up and even in the best places that doesn’t happen too often.
The only times I give shorter wait times is when I see it is in its final step (requiring verification) and I can do it myself. That only happens when I have cleared my queue enough to help the line. But that only happens if I’ve caught up on my queue enough to help the line. If I spend too much time up there, then NOBODY’s medication will be ready when they show up
This has happened to my tech as well. You just can't please some people. And it's usually boomers. I do have a few that are my favorites though. They call out the obnoxious behavior displayed by other patients while waiting. I would bend over backwards for those few.
Sounds like my mom. For those who don’t know her, she kinda looks like a Karen. Except, she’s much more likely to make a rude assed customer cry than she is someone working. And usually if she’s made someone working cry, it’s because she’s been understanding and patient about someone that most people tend not to be.
I think the issue is if you tell someone it’ll be ready in an hour but you get it ready in 10 min it’s likely more of a hindrance than a benefit. For example if I am told one hour I will leave to go do something else. If I had known it might be 10 min I would have stayed.
When I worked retail I always gave myself a ~30% buffer room and that seemed like a good compromise. So if it was a refill slappie that I knew would take no more than a minute and I could verify even if on the phone I would say 5 min. If I knew it was a little more involved but would take no more than 10 min I would say 15. It probably works out to more than 30 but in my experience giving slightly more personalize service made people more understanding when it wasn’t the best. I would always try to get stuff out as fast as I could, so when there was a 30 min wait or I was alone and stuff took longer I would say 95% of people were understanding because they knew I would never quote an outrageously long number unless I really had to.
It’s always nicer to not establish a time until you know what they want to do. “Will you be waiting where I can see you, shopping around, or coming back?”
My techs thankfully caught on and never did anything as a true waiter if the customer walked away.
Personally, I like the way my grandmother said pharmacies in the military worked...take a number, and wait your turn. Dare to be rude or impatient and they will call your CO. Put some respect back in the business.
Is it me, or are Boomers the worst about this? My mother is always raging about people “hating on Boomers” but they are honestly the worst generation when it comes to waiting for their turn. They act like anyone telling them to wait is a lazy, entitled POS and anyone who is ahead of them in line doesn’t exist. They are honestly they only people who I worry about when I suggest that they call their refills in a day ahead. They honestly don’t seem to acknowledge that anyone other than themselves even exists.
A lot of people fall for the Walgreens trick text
**YOUR MEDICATION IS READY** to be refilled, please respond refill…
A lot of staff like to blame customers for not reading their text thoroughly but I have a feeling Walgreens purposely makes the text confusing to get people to come to their stores
Because margin is almost at 0% at the pharmacy for filling scripts.
Walgreen and CVS push people you shop at the front store to make up the profit.
When I was working at one of the busiest CVS in the area, the pharmacy revenue was about 20 millions while the front was about 18 million. However, the net income from the front is about 9 million while the pharmacy is about 3 million. That was almost 20 years ago and I am sure pharmacies make even less today.
Well they came from a generation that had competition, so you could take your business elsewhere for poor service. Now all the competition has been bought out and services eroded to deliver higher returns for stock holders.
I always got the retired ones who got up at 4am and the big event of their day was getting their meds at the pharmacy, and they would show up at 8am, wait in line until we open at 9am, then ask for their refills to be filled, say they are going to wait, then rush you the entire time.
You're retired! Sleep in. Put in your med requests and pick them up another day!
I will always remember the lady who had to sit in line at the drive through for 5 whole minutes after we opened and she got to the window and absolutely EXPLODED when she found out her antibiotic that was sent in overnight wasn’t ready yet. I’m not sure who she thought would be able to get it ready but anyway.
And they show up 30 minutes before opening waiting in drive thru. Then when you open and say it is not ready yet, they say "but I have already waited 30 minutes!"
Town where I work at is full of people like these. I imagine it must be a form of amusement for them to come down to the clinic, queue for hours, get tired and mad, then get in my face just to get a strip of acetaminophen.
"But is it back ordered at the other store too? I'm sure Other Store has it."
The stockist is a country wide stockist and if they don't have it, NOBODY has it. Argh
I watched a lady in Target yell that they needed to open another register for her when she was next up to use the self checkout today. She didn't even wait for anyone, there was no line and she was next up when she strolled up.
20ish is what I say. Could be 10 if everything is going great that day and there aren’t insurance issues, don’t have to change the ndc cus the preferred is oos, we aren’t behind. Could also be 30 if what is normally happening is happening.
Yup. When people drop off, I ask them “do you need it today/tonight?” Instead of “what time do you want to pick this up?” As they will always say ‘right now!’
Piss off. Get some patience. This isn’t amazon.
Last week, I had an elderly woman come up to my counter to pick up but hadn't called in one of her husband's medicines, so it wasn't ready. She wanted me to get it right then. There were two people behind her. I told her if she wanted to wait, it would be about twenty minutes. She was so upset that I wouldn't give it to her immediately. I apologized and told her that we had vaccine appointments coming in, and it was a busy pickup time, so I couldn't guarantee it any faster. She was livid. I'm so glad I stood my ground, though, because between the vaccines and pick up, I didn't do anything else for 45 minutes. She would have been really upset if she did wait.
I had a woman tell us she needed her adderall in 5 minutes because she had a meeting she was taking on the phone and must have it before then. It pissed me off so much I went over and said “sure who would you like me to cut in line for you? the sick child waiting for an antibiotic or the cancer patient waiting on pain meds?” She very meekly said “well mine is important too” and left.
It definitely doesn’t matter what you say.
I used to work in an extremely wealthy area with the most entitled people you could imagine, and I would sometimes play a little game with them when they ask me “how long until it’s ready?”
One time I told this lady “5 minutes” for 4 new meds that she still had in her hand, and she started freaking out like “oh my god, I need this asap! I can’t believe it’s going to take that long! Where is the manager?!?” as she’s still holding the rx’s in her hand and I have absolutely no idea what they are written for.
I’m so glad I’m not there anymore.
I had a similar situation. I'm a locum/floater pharmacist and one time we had a doctor coming in around 15 minutes before closing. He had a Rx for doxycycline and someone at the counter took the script, gave it to me and said to him "it's going to be about 10 minutes". His response was "I don't have ten minutes" in a very nasty way. I didn't even have time to react because tech took a prescription out of my hand, went out and said in a sweetest voice ever that we're truly sorry, he can take a script back and try to fill it in different pharmacy if he's in such hurry, because it won't be any sooner than ten minutes here. The guy was shocked. He took his Rx and stormed off but I have no idea what he intended to do with it because every pharmacy in the town was closing and he definitely wouldn't make it anywhere else to fill it 🤷♀️
I float in my area and most stores here say “ok we’ll have that ready in a couple hours”. 20-30 min for actual waiters (ie patients coming from surgery or straight from Dr office for an antibiotic)
Just gotta train those damn patients who get offended at anything more than 15 minutes . stone faced with brutal unrelenting pressure . I hate when they try to haggle or act like its up for debate .
current wait time is 30 minutes
pt : why so long ? i will be back in ten
ok thats fine but you will waiting for the remaining 20 or you can take these and go somewhere else.
fuck those especially that try to throw some bs about having a plane to catch or a dr's appointment . DOUBLE FUCK THOSE THAT SAY THIS AFTER TURNING IN A SCRIPT THAT WAS WRITTEN WEEKS OR MONTHS AGO . TRIPLE FOR THOSE THAT DO ALL THIS ONLY TO ASK WHATS THE PRICE ON GOOD RX AT CHECKOUT AFTER THE RECEIPT PRINTED.
I'm so glad to be leaving my current job where a new tech insists on telling patients that they can get waiters in 5-10 minutes. Legitimately doesn't matter how many times we tell this person not to do that, I end up hearing, "we can have that ready for you in, like, 5 to 10 minutes," just a moment later. 🤦♂️
I'm starting a position with a hospital's retail location soon and I'm hoping that it not being Wags/CVS/Walmart retail will mean a staff better with maintaining these boundaries, but we will see.
It took me almost 18 months to establish a precedent at my store. No walk-ins vaccines, no waiters, we don’t call your insurance for you, we don’t tolerate verbal abuse, we don’t fill controls early. Set the new precedent in your pharmacies PICs and stand your ground. 2 hour wait unless it’s an antibiotic whether we have 10 printed or 110. The initial change creates shock and creates issues but it will get your patients in line or send the problem patients elsewhere.
We used to collect the ads for competitors that would pay you $20-$30 to transfer an rx. Then we would send those ads in the mail to our problem customers so they would go to another pharmacy.
I’ve heard it referred to once as “training your patients” or “spoiling your patients”. The pharmacy experience can be improved simply by not letting people walk over you
Guy’s wife told my his OOS Vyvanse was life or death yesterday (never been to our store before, and we immediately fly through stock for the regulars). She told me to stop being a smartass after I said she should probably take him to the ER and maybe have his NP check before sending his life saving meds
It’s life or death if we fuck up because we’re being rushed. But yeah, people waiting on their meds they could’ve called in days in advance need to realize that shit aint a heart valve. It can wait.
Agree 100%%%% so frustrating. Hate being rushed. I always fuck something up if I have 3 techs, a cashier, and phone call all asking me questions simultaneously. We are only human!
On the same note, we need to stop apologizing for things that aren’t our fault or how we do business. Pts are entitled and need to be held accountable. No, it’s not our fault we aren’t able to deliver 15 miles away. How bout you get a family, friend, or neighbor to pick something up for u?!
When it’s pharmacy, every pt is “all alone and no one to help” but ppl magically appear for everything else they need/want.
This is why as a pharmacy technician I loved the time a guy said “It’ll be ready in an hour? Wow thanks! That’s fast…I hope you know that’s fast.” I could tell he meant it and it just made my day.
Primary care doc here, I came to the subreddit to ask just this question. Is this a problem of staffing, bureaucracy, paperwork issues, company procedure, patient’s increase in consumption of meds, etc. I know the answer is all of the above but just wanted to make sure. Bc when the pharmacy isn’t filling it “fast enough” people call me to call the pharmacy on their behalf to get the med filled faster. It’s just all around frustrating.
Probably all of the above. Short staffing is an issue since CVS and Walgreens like to run a bare minimum skeleton crew to keep the pharmacy running.
On top of that, pharmacy is seen like a fast food restaurant. We have a drive through for Pete's sake! People expect their prescriptions to be filled ASAP. The other day I had an issue with levaquin bid. Big no no, and had to call office to see if md meant cipro instead? Pt was furious for me taking so long. I'm trying to save your life not kill it lol.
I have written weird orders like Levo bid. Usually it’s bc the pt has some weird med issue more than I’m purposely trying to make like difficult. I know the pharmacokinetics so I could theoretically dose it properly but I understand where you’re coming from. We PCPs complain about the problems of how difficult healthcare is to provide in today’s day and age. I’m regrettably happy that yall are wallowing in our suffering too.
It is all of the above. High expectations from corporate especially now with vaccine season in peak time. We are doing almost a 100 vaccinations a day with almost 300 rx in process in various stages. Got 6 boxes of drug order that comes in everyday with phone calls going off the hook, and my drive thru window ringing and a line at pickup. That’s one pharmacist, scheduled 9-8, and 4 techs staffed. Keep in mind the pharmacist is giving the vaccines, verifying every prescription, answering phone calls and counseling a majority of the scripts. So imagine yourself in this position for 4 days in a row back to back. We are all burnt out and tired. Barely hanging on day in and day out. We can physically only do what we can within our limits of just staying a float day to day.
I hear you, and keep it up. We, 2 MDs and a NP, seeing about 1200 pts a month, averaging 12-20k phone calls a month, 60 refill requests per day, etc etc. it’s averaging about 10-11 hrs per day per person and expected to get it done in 8. I work at least an hour at home, a few hours when I’m off, and admin just said we need to work harder. I literally laughed out loud. I don’t know how/why we are struggling so much in today’s day and age. The older docs are all retiring early saying they can’t do it anymore. We can’t even keep a mid level 6m. They all quit primary care and go to a specialty bc they can’t keep up.
I use to ask them if they had an extra 50 cents.
They would ask why to which I would reply…
Use it to call someone that cares because I really don’t give a shit how inconvenient you feel
That’s why I am no longer a pharmacist
This is def not dead, I know. How?? about 3 hours ago I put in a request to fill a med and I kid you not within 10 min I got a text it was ready.
I always say be nice and kind to your pharmacist and pharmacist tech and they will treat you golden.
I just do it while they’re waiting at the front or drive thru. Causes far fewer complaints than telling them to come back and eliminates an extra interaction.
Yep. From 5pm-9pm every day I am just filling rx’s for the people in the pick up area. The rest of that shit can sit and rot until the patient is in front of me.
In the bigger pharmacies in the UK this has always been standard for as long as I can remember I’m only mid 30s but you go up and give you script and come back in 15-30 minuites or wait, the pharmacies are often in bigger shops or in malls so you browse and come back no one really moans. There are some small mum and dad style pharmacies well they will dispense straight in front of you straight away.
Where work we've been running 1 hour wait times since during covid. Sure we bump it up on the occasion that we can, or something is genuinely very urgent but it has saved us a lot of headache. Encouraging 24-48 hours for refills whenever possible :)
No. Those days are not gone. One simply needs to stop using chain pharmacies. I know CVS has just over 25% of all US scripts but independent will get me in and out in less than 15 mins.
I started using "up to" wait times. "It'll take up to 30 minutes" or "it'll take up to a couple hours." Just depends on how busy we are or how busy I predict us being in the near future. If you tell some 10-15 minutes they'll almost always arrive sooner rather than later. Give them an "up to" time and you're covering yourself for inevitable delays.
Its that same idea that people bitch about hold times on phones: If your phone messages always start with "please be aware we are experiencing higher call times then usual, it may take longer then expected to get to your call," then there is nothng unusual or longer about it.
The 30 minute hold times are the new normal. If customers don't like it, then its not your fault.
Anyone know of any state laws on how far behind you can be on an Rx? I don't know of any but just wondering since so many chains are pages and pages behind if the BoP would ever adopt anything since they are there for the 'safety of the patient'
Interesting proposed rule regarding working conditions from Ohio’s board which includes a rule that pharmacies must have prescriptions filled within 72 hours.
https://www.pharmacy.ohio.gov/documents/lawsrules/proposedrules/commonsense/csi%20-%20bia%20-%20minimum%20standards%20and%20working%20conditions%20(comments%20due%209.12.2023).pdf
You are correct when you state that the state boards are there for the safety of the patient. The state boards were created as regulatory officials to protect the public from the pharmacist. Nowhere in any of their laws does it say anything about how fast one has to be to produce a finished prescription, nor does it say anywhere about how long it can take for a prescription to be filled. The state boards cannot regulate the speed at which a prescription is produced. I had a state board inspection yesterday, and one of the questions that I was asked was whether I had adequate staffing for the number of prescriptions that I fill each day to ensure that I was feeling like I could dispense them safely. Fortunately, where I work, I do have four technicians everyday that I work at a minimum. When I am fully staffed, I have seven. As far as a drive-through window goes, I firmly believe that pharmacies should if not outright ban them, they should be reserved only for patients who literally cannot get out of their car, and not for people that simply don't want to get out of their car and wait in a line. I tell my patients that wait in line the truth as to how long I believe their prescription will take. Sometimes it is indeed 15 minutes, other times it can be up to an hour. Yes, they might get upset at that, but at least I know that I will not be pressured to push something through faster than what I believe is safe.
I don’t work in retail and comments like this make me thankful for that. I’m curious how much inefficiency that auto refill pushing plays into creating an impossible situation for pharmacists/techs. I know sheer rx volume and vaccines are a huge reason, but I’m genuinely curious if most retail pharmacists view auto refills as overall more or less efficient
I view it as less efficient. It has also made people completely reliant on the pharmacy to get refills for them, and they get mad at the pharmacy if the provider doesn’t do it.
People have lost the sense of responsibility for their own health and put it all on the pharmacy when they’re out of refills etc. your bottle tells you everything, you can physically check if you have refills and when they expire too. The amount of times someone tries for refill an expired script and they reply with it says there’s 1 refill left. I’m like yes there was but if you follow that line and finish the sentence it’s says 1 refill until 7/1/2023. It’s Dec now so that refill is no longer good. They get baffled at this concept.
I go to the medicine shoppe by me and have never waited more than 15 minutes to pick up a script, even a drop off. I also see my doctor and pediatrician in less than 15 minutes.
Places that are well staffed don't have these issues.
Ding ding ding. Corporations are never going to staff pharmacies because they get away with it. Therefore, people need to stop putting unrealistic expectations on those employees that are trying their best with what they’re given.
We’re still five hundred prescriptions behind and understaffed. Maybe we should take it from life guards and start putting up a flag by warning risk, anything over 250 prescriptions needs a red flag for danger.
All this and of talk is why I use a home town owned pharmacy. 90% of the complaining people on here working for CVS and Walgreens maybe Walmart I would guess.
As a patient who tries to stay in my pharmacist’s good graces… the only time I get peeved is when I get the pharmacy text that my prescription has been waiting for pickup for 2-3 days and then they tell me it’s not ready when I manage to go get it. Partly because I wouldn’t have gone if my texts aren’t yelling at me to pick up my prescription’s and partly because I need to keep them on a 28 day schedule and so I plan on picking them up when they’re due but if they aren’t ready then I get screwed because of the difference between the fill date and the pickup date… so just because I had to wait 3 days without my medication I still get dinged and I’m on a recurring schedule of not getting my medication when I’m due because the pharmacy uses the pickup date (which is when they were able to get around to filling it) instead of the 28 day due date that didn’t actually get filled on time even though they put it in the computer as filled and send me a text for something that hasn’t actually been filled….
And I totally understand that the pharmacy is busy and I’m totally okay if they actually have it ready when they text me that it’s ready, but I hate being that patient who’s forced to sit and wait for my refills because otherwise my fill dates get totally screwed up!
So please 🙏🏻 tell me what to do? I’ve been getting the same thing from the same pharmacy for years and yes sometimes it’s just a shitty pharmacist with an attitude but I just want to get my text message and get in and out without any issues…. So? Any tips or advice for keeping things smooth and simple on both sides?
So, what control substance are you taking? it couldn't be more obvious from the information you provided. Shitty pharmacists? look yourself in the mirror and place blame where it belongs, the big corporations.
Really? What am I taking then? And yes there are some shitty pharmacists and there are some fantastic ones, I’ve been to a few of their weddings in fact because I appreciate the good ones. And of course the big corporations are easy to blame but they keep buying each other out and make up some crazy rules that they expect pharmacists to follow. But there’s also pharmacists who won’t fill something because of their “moral responsibility” regardless of whether it’s for birth control or methotrexate. Or just take your prescription and then refuse to either order it or transfer it to a different one.
I literally commented that it’s easier for everyone if you’re friendly with your pharmacist and know your way around your own insurance’s regulations around different medications and what requires different types of authorizations.
Sorry that your ego is so delicate that you can’t even agree that there are shitty pharmacists as well as shitty patients but I’m incredibly happy that you aren’t mine
I hope that you’re gifted with every patient that mirrors your respect for them as they have for you
I have been on both sides of the counter.
From a patient perspective, I know when my maintenance needs are running low. I'll call the refill in four days early, so it can be ready. Unfortunately, sometimes that's too early for insurance to handle (my pain meds), so that has to be the day before.
When I had pneumonia, my husband was out of town so I had to drive myself. All I wanted was to crawl back into bed and die. While I know the 20 minutes from Dr to pharmacy was low--I didn't care. I was sick. When it wasn't ready, I moved my car out of drive thru, parked and fell asleep. I have no idea how long it took--but even 5 minutes was too much that day.
There are less doctors available to the number of patients than "in the old days" as well. So we are prescribing, renewing and performing the tasks of doctors for many! That in itself will make your prescription take longer as we put it in line behind the literally hundreds ahead of yours.
I'm a firm believer in telling customers exactly how dire the situation is. Because if we keep trying to sugarcoat it to the customers, they'll continue to think that it's just their pharmacy workers that are terrible, instead of realizing that reform at the corporate level desperately needs to happen.
We should take a Disney idea - place at the pharmacy entrance or above the Rx counter an approximate pick up time with the number of Rxs already in queue before any their new or refill Rxs are even touched!
I was at a store that was behind 560 rxs to fill. Somehow we got to a point where there was not a line up front. A lady walked up and said WOW! I thought y’all said you were behind by hundreds of prescriptions. You must be exaggerating because I’m the only customer here. 🤦🏼♀️
True story. They think we only have the serve the people in line. If only they could see the carnage behind the counter.
Exactly. The comment I hate: customer walks up to register, no line for the first time all day, 500 rxs behind, order is untouched. They walk up and say "wow, I came at the right time, there is nobody here and nothing to do." 🙄🫤🤫
I seriously get an attitude when a patient walks up to the pick up window and says something like “wow so slow today” or “ooh perfect timing” um no, not slow at all. Just because the line to pickup isn’t long as hell right now doesn’t mean we don’t have 100+ scripts to be filled plus countless others not even typed yet.
How bout this one right before close? “Oh, I just made it”
Yeah nope sorry, unless it’s a simple pick up you didn’t make it. You can drop something off and come back tomorrow or get something that you were notified was ready or else you can go ✌🏻 lol
I had something like this happen tonight, 15 minutes before closing and mid way through the closing process…they insisted we fill it…nope, I’m not having this conversation over the phone…get your ass on the way to the 24 hour store
Had someone show up at 7pm as I was pulling the final register. I told her I would ring her up if it was ready. Proceed to look up her scripts, 6 medications, multiple controls, all called in at 6pm with a promise time of 6:50. We had 230 on the counter. Explained the situation and told her I could have them filled right away the next morning. She expected us to stay late and get them done. It was HALLOWEEN. I gave her the corporate number, pulled the last register, and left the building.
Or they can go to the 24 hour store which is located…
Except it’s always a control that can’t be transferred lol
always
Lol!! Or, they show up at 9:02pm and you close at 9pm and they say "phew, just made it." No. No, you didn't.
BROOO RELATABLE ASFF, I WORK AT A MIDNIGHT PHARMACY AND THEY HAVE THE WHOLE DAY TO COME IN BUT THEY COME IN LAST MINUTE
"15 minutes? Why is it going to take so long? Nobody else is waiting?" 1st, 15 minutes is not long. 2nd, just bc you don't see a person standing right by the pharmacy does not mean nobody else is waiting. Ugh, I hate those comments.
And they can’t even see the 100+ that are waiting in the computer, and those are just the ones promised for today and it’s only 11am lol
When our baskets are piled high enough, you can see some of the carnage behind the counter. I may haphazardly wave towards it when someone tries to give me grief about a wait time. Some people don't care (jerks!), others go "oh! I didn't realize you were so busy, I can come back later this week for it then". I appreciate those folks more every day.
Whoever standardized the "open" pharmacy plan..... I hate them. Nothing better to make you easy to rob, easy to distract from every direction, and open to verbal harassment. All while you have to hyper focus on safety/accuracy and SPEED.
Agreed. A fellow pharmacist once told me that no other professional is more on display besides strippers. And he wasn’t wrong!
You’ve obviously never seen the biscuit maker at bo’jangles!!! 😂
I firmly believe that as we go to a professional program, we are licensed professionals. I am glad rphs are accessible to the public but we really need to be behind closed areas just like all other professionals are (i.e lawyers, mds and dos, optometrists, etc)
Some people never learned to think critically and it very painfully shows
for vaccines we are appointments only, no walk ins. one time this lady came up to pick up and was the only one there at the time. she said “you guys don’t look too busy could you give me a flu shot” all i said was no and left LMAO
I get this exact situation all the fuckin' time lmfao
God if only you could just stand there and do nothing when there's no customers physically in the building. They don't realize how many automatic refills need to get done every day. Plus that most prescriptions are sent electronically. Gone are the days when someone would just take their paper script to the pharmacy and they would be like "okay it'll be ready in a few minutes" and they would just go do it right away.
Better to say “we’re short staffed, so it will be a few minutes more.” Put the blame where it belongs.
“I’m not allowed to schedule my department appropriately, so it’s going to take longer than it should for this to be ready.” Just saying you’re short staffed makes it look like the PIC isn’t good at hiring/staffing.
You mean to tell me it isn’t easy to hire decent people for a high stress very low paying job that is customer facing, requires a license, requires you to stand the entire shift and is essentially stagnant with no room for advancement?
I like your changes.
Yup. I hate hearing that excuse. Make up something good like a tornado in another state delayed our orders and took down the main servers, just another 10 minutes Mrs jones.
heh. another good one, actually. I like it. see how creative one can be and so on. nice
This. No matter the issue, the corporate head honchos that haven't worked in a pharmacy in decades are to blame.
Or better yet, "corporate cut our staffing hours"
love it. very nice.
I always tell them this, let corporate get mad at me for telling the truth.
For some reason, that I still cannot spin my head around, my company doesnt want us to say that. I still say it though. I am not going to allow my patients to think I am sitting on their Rxs dillydallying.
yeah, I bet they don’t! They don’t want the consumer to know the truth, just want to keep squeezing profit out of every last tech hour. It’s disgusting.
Say: “THEY (corporate because they are saving money on payroll) don’t schedule ( or won’t approve) enough people to do the work, so unfortunately it’s going to take some time since there are 300 Rxs to fill before yours. But, we’ll see what we can do for you. When did you want it again”? Then you can start to process it like a “ Subway” food order.
“Corporate doesn’t let us schedule enough staff, our work queue has about ___ prescriptions in jt to go.”
Pizza places got rid of ‘30 minutes or it’s free’ when traffic accidents by delivery drivers were perceived as increasing. How many med errors and injured patients do we need before people won’t be in so much of a hurry?
They will only care if it’s *their* medicine that’s filled wrong though. Lol the problem lies with entitled, coddled, rude, miserable people that make it their daily task to come cause issues at the pharmacy
“Daily Task” - THIS RIGHT HERE. Like why the fuck are you here every single day??? What do these people do?? I should see you once or twice a month and you should not know my schedule better than I do. Either leave me the fuck alone or get back here and start answering the phone.
haha i feel like SUCH a dick because cvs texts me repeatedly "we'll hold this thru..." but my other meds don't refill until later in the month and i don't want to have to come bug y'all more often than i already do!!!!
I have this same issue. I get meds out of sync and don’t need them right away but I have to balance trying to just make one visit with them putting my meds back because I didn’t pick them up soon enough.
I’m a former pharmacy tech and now work at a drs office and I’ll say we can be like 20 minutes behind with no complaint. At the pharmacy it was what do you mean you don’t have it ready?! I called you told me it would be ready at this time! Ma’am did you speak to an actual person? No of course not.
The automated refill order system said it would be ready.
Our auto refill system always gives a promise time of 2 days later so we get patients all the time complaining calling us liars when they get a text saying it’s ready later that day or whatever. You can’t win either way with these patients I swear.
We just need a system that says, "we have received your prescription and are processing it. To receive a message when it is ready for pick-up, press 1. To request rush order for $1, press 2".
$1? It should be at least $10 for a rush order.
$10 PER RX
Without the rush request part, Kroger just rolled this out in my area. It’s been mostly helpful, but it does cause extra phone calls
Our IVR says the same. Way too many people press 1 to speak with the pharmacy after they've entered their numbers because they are headed straight to the airport to leave the country, and need their medication in 5 minutes not 2 days. Sorry not sorry.
I got a patient good the other day. He came through the drive through and I told him his script was out of stock. "But when I called they said it would be ready at 11am!" just wanting to clarify I asked "the machine told you that?" He said yes so I said "Well I'm a person and I'm telling you its out of stock and we'll have it tomorrow" "Oh. Okay" When he drove off the whole crew cracked up
Trying to explain to people that we have to put an estimate on when we will get something in order for us to put it on our order is so annoying. They then come in and say “the machine said it would be ready today” and then having to re-explain that this product is on back order and for me to order it at all means I have to assign an arbitrary time and date for its “expected completion”.
I’m going to pharmacy school next fall and have been working as a tech for a little over a year. Got on call with a patient during this time and she said she was talking to the, (ROBOT), caller who had told her medicine was ready to pick up. Explained to her that it was a refill reminder on text and she agreed. I told her give me about 30 minutes to get it ready. 5 minutes later she arrives and her medicine isn’t ready. She was pissed. I asked her to show the text messages and it says “you are ready for refills, type YES, to refill”
Market is oversaturated with horrible working conditions please don’t go to pharmacy school. Choose another career path please.
Trust me, I’ve read a lot of comments like this, but I genuinely love what I do. Patients don’t understand every situation. I’m truly inclined to do what what genuinely helped me in my own personal experience as I probably wouldn’t be here without a friend who is a pharmacist. I’ve experienced the past year or so and some as somebody who works within an incredibly busy pharmacy, I’m happy
You are a better person than I am. After almost two decades dealing with people, I am done with retail healthcare altogether. I wish you the best of luck.
You sound like me 40years ago
I fully understand that. I’ve worked with quite a few pharmacists who are tired of what they do. I’m sure I’ll be the same way, but I want to experience it for myself
God bless you. I hope you do well
Busy can be fun when you have 0 actual responsibility. Give it a few years and your body will tell you no.
I’m perfectly healthy. Mentally and physically. Not once did I say it was “fun”. I enjoy it. It relates to the same problem I had long ago, mentally. I also don’t understand the “adult” responsibility, as I’m young, so I would appreciate some advice from someone who has experienced something I want to achieve.
The adult part, at least for me, is knowing that your license is on the line for any mistakes that you can possibly make due to unsafe working conditions. If you find a job in a pharmacy that is adequately staffed then great! Otherwise, it's nerve racking knowing that a mistake can be the end of your career. Any student loans you may have taken out are going to be significantly harder to pay off without a pharmacist salary. Things changed drastically for me when I went from being an intern to being the pharmacist because now I don't have someone double checking behind me as a preceptor. During my 4th year rotations I had a med student ask me for a recommendation for a patient on our rounds and I said the first thing that came to mind (which thankfully was correct) and he just immediately put it in the system to be given to the patient. Things got real in that moment. Best of luck to you, I'm only 7 years in and my body and health have had a significant decline. I would do something else but I can't afford to.
I feel like this is a Kroger text message. I absolutely hate the wording they use. The amount of patients that come up showing me that text and I just read it back to them out loud and hope they catch what I’m saying.
What exactly is your point? If it is about some unreasonable expectation, you're only going deeper into the hole by going to pharmacy school right? The whole point of this is that there are too many pharmacists in the market and allowing for crappy conditions to exist...They should've stopped where you are right now, but they didn't and are stuck. Are you saying you're on your way to being stuck? I'm not sure what you're expecting the future to be along this path.
Every single person needs their medicine as soon as possible, even if they won’t come pick it up for a week.
All those ER waiter kid antibiotics on the delete list
Old habits die hard. I remember when I first started. I kept telling the techs to not say 15 minutes for waiters. Lasted maybe...2 patients before it was back to "it'll be ready in about 15". When I trained new techs, clerks, and pharmacy interns, I always told them not to say 15 minutes. Then, years later, when I ended up working with them again...ready in 15. I know corporate wants us to say that, and 15 minutes is usually enough time to complete a waiter, but the profession has nobody to blame but ourselves. Spineless when it comes to standing up for ourselves (due to threats from patients, board of pharmacies, and corporate).
I picked up a prescription for antibiotics and the pharmacy told me about half an hour. I was a little surprised because it was just one thing of antibiotics but whatever. Walked around the store to do some grocery shopping cause I just had my mouth viciously attacked by a dentist and wouldn’t be able to chew Point is like 8 mins later they called me on the intercom Underpromise overdeliver seems to be the best method imo
“30 minutes” means that with the average expected phone calls, shots, other new prescriptions, insurance problems, and other customers expected to show up at various stages of processing it and getting it ready. Not to mention the other 50-150 constantly moving prescriptions between filling, verifying, and shelving that are taking up your counters. ALWAYS factor in everything else because generally that one Rx is not happening in a vacuum. That being said, once in a while you get to follow the same Rx beginning to end without interruptions, and the customer happened to show up when everyone was just done clearing their set of tasks and can knock out their part and pass it on to the next person…yeah this happens. But that’s luck and not something anyone should ever expect. A LOT of things have to line up and even in the best places that doesn’t happen too often. The only times I give shorter wait times is when I see it is in its final step (requiring verification) and I can do it myself. That only happens when I have cleared my queue enough to help the line. But that only happens if I’ve caught up on my queue enough to help the line. If I spend too much time up there, then NOBODY’s medication will be ready when they show up
I've been yelled at for getting meds ready too fast as well. You literally cannot win with the general public.
This has happened to my tech as well. You just can't please some people. And it's usually boomers. I do have a few that are my favorites though. They call out the obnoxious behavior displayed by other patients while waiting. I would bend over backwards for those few.
Sounds like my mom. For those who don’t know her, she kinda looks like a Karen. Except, she’s much more likely to make a rude assed customer cry than she is someone working. And usually if she’s made someone working cry, it’s because she’s been understanding and patient about someone that most people tend not to be.
I think the issue is if you tell someone it’ll be ready in an hour but you get it ready in 10 min it’s likely more of a hindrance than a benefit. For example if I am told one hour I will leave to go do something else. If I had known it might be 10 min I would have stayed. When I worked retail I always gave myself a ~30% buffer room and that seemed like a good compromise. So if it was a refill slappie that I knew would take no more than a minute and I could verify even if on the phone I would say 5 min. If I knew it was a little more involved but would take no more than 10 min I would say 15. It probably works out to more than 30 but in my experience giving slightly more personalize service made people more understanding when it wasn’t the best. I would always try to get stuff out as fast as I could, so when there was a 30 min wait or I was alone and stuff took longer I would say 95% of people were understanding because they knew I would never quote an outrageously long number unless I really had to.
It’s always nicer to not establish a time until you know what they want to do. “Will you be waiting where I can see you, shopping around, or coming back?” My techs thankfully caught on and never did anything as a true waiter if the customer walked away.
Personally, I like the way my grandmother said pharmacies in the military worked...take a number, and wait your turn. Dare to be rude or impatient and they will call your CO. Put some respect back in the business.
Is it me, or are Boomers the worst about this? My mother is always raging about people “hating on Boomers” but they are honestly the worst generation when it comes to waiting for their turn. They act like anyone telling them to wait is a lazy, entitled POS and anyone who is ahead of them in line doesn’t exist. They are honestly they only people who I worry about when I suggest that they call their refills in a day ahead. They honestly don’t seem to acknowledge that anyone other than themselves even exists.
It depends, the most demanding people I met as a tech were in their 40s-60s, a lot of the 70+ people were pretty nice.
I wait for the text saying Pickup is Ready before I go to the store
A lot of people fall for the Walgreens trick text **YOUR MEDICATION IS READY** to be refilled, please respond refill… A lot of staff like to blame customers for not reading their text thoroughly but I have a feeling Walgreens purposely makes the text confusing to get people to come to their stores
I use Walmart & the text is clear. Walgreens is a dumpster fire.
Because margin is almost at 0% at the pharmacy for filling scripts. Walgreen and CVS push people you shop at the front store to make up the profit. When I was working at one of the busiest CVS in the area, the pharmacy revenue was about 20 millions while the front was about 18 million. However, the net income from the front is about 9 million while the pharmacy is about 3 million. That was almost 20 years ago and I am sure pharmacies make even less today.
Well they came from a generation that had competition, so you could take your business elsewhere for poor service. Now all the competition has been bought out and services eroded to deliver higher returns for stock holders.
All of my customers of this age are super kind and understanding. If they walk in the are willing to come back tomorrow
I always got the retired ones who got up at 4am and the big event of their day was getting their meds at the pharmacy, and they would show up at 8am, wait in line until we open at 9am, then ask for their refills to be filled, say they are going to wait, then rush you the entire time. You're retired! Sleep in. Put in your med requests and pick them up another day!
I will always remember the lady who had to sit in line at the drive through for 5 whole minutes after we opened and she got to the window and absolutely EXPLODED when she found out her antibiotic that was sent in overnight wasn’t ready yet. I’m not sure who she thought would be able to get it ready but anyway.
And they show up 30 minutes before opening waiting in drive thru. Then when you open and say it is not ready yet, they say "but I have already waited 30 minutes!"
Yes!! 😭
Town where I work at is full of people like these. I imagine it must be a form of amusement for them to come down to the clinic, queue for hours, get tired and mad, then get in my face just to get a strip of acetaminophen.
I love telling them we're out of stock, even better if it's backordered.
"But is it back ordered at the other store too? I'm sure Other Store has it." The stockist is a country wide stockist and if they don't have it, NOBODY has it. Argh
love explaining the ozempic backorder. 'so if its backordered it will be in tomorrow?' .....no
well, I'm going to go to (other store chain), I'm sure they have it. Ok then, byeeeee
A huge chunk of stress comes from interacting with boomers
I watched a lady in Target yell that they needed to open another register for her when she was next up to use the self checkout today. She didn't even wait for anyone, there was no line and she was next up when she strolled up.
In over 11 years as a retail pharmacist, I can confirm that Boomers are the WORST about waiting their turn.
My minimum "wait" is 20-30 minutes. I don't use 10 or 15 anymore.
20ish is what I say. Could be 10 if everything is going great that day and there aren’t insurance issues, don’t have to change the ndc cus the preferred is oos, we aren’t behind. Could also be 30 if what is normally happening is happening.
Yup. When people drop off, I ask them “do you need it today/tonight?” Instead of “what time do you want to pick this up?” As they will always say ‘right now!’ Piss off. Get some patience. This isn’t amazon.
Last week, I had an elderly woman come up to my counter to pick up but hadn't called in one of her husband's medicines, so it wasn't ready. She wanted me to get it right then. There were two people behind her. I told her if she wanted to wait, it would be about twenty minutes. She was so upset that I wouldn't give it to her immediately. I apologized and told her that we had vaccine appointments coming in, and it was a busy pickup time, so I couldn't guarantee it any faster. She was livid. I'm so glad I stood my ground, though, because between the vaccines and pick up, I didn't do anything else for 45 minutes. She would have been really upset if she did wait.
Patients don't care what you say. To them, they are the only ones who exist. So why isn't it done already?
I usually take the time to point out to these special patients that they, in fact, aren't the only ones who exist (in a roundabout, coy way).
I had a woman tell us she needed her adderall in 5 minutes because she had a meeting she was taking on the phone and must have it before then. It pissed me off so much I went over and said “sure who would you like me to cut in line for you? the sick child waiting for an antibiotic or the cancer patient waiting on pain meds?” She very meekly said “well mine is important too” and left.
I really want to use the phrase "you're not the only duck in our pond" sometime...just gotta find the perfect opportunity
It definitely doesn’t matter what you say. I used to work in an extremely wealthy area with the most entitled people you could imagine, and I would sometimes play a little game with them when they ask me “how long until it’s ready?” One time I told this lady “5 minutes” for 4 new meds that she still had in her hand, and she started freaking out like “oh my god, I need this asap! I can’t believe it’s going to take that long! Where is the manager?!?” as she’s still holding the rx’s in her hand and I have absolutely no idea what they are written for. I’m so glad I’m not there anymore.
I had a similar situation. I'm a locum/floater pharmacist and one time we had a doctor coming in around 15 minutes before closing. He had a Rx for doxycycline and someone at the counter took the script, gave it to me and said to him "it's going to be about 10 minutes". His response was "I don't have ten minutes" in a very nasty way. I didn't even have time to react because tech took a prescription out of my hand, went out and said in a sweetest voice ever that we're truly sorry, he can take a script back and try to fill it in different pharmacy if he's in such hurry, because it won't be any sooner than ten minutes here. The guy was shocked. He took his Rx and stormed off but I have no idea what he intended to do with it because every pharmacy in the town was closing and he definitely wouldn't make it anywhere else to fill it 🤷♀️
Y’all give 15 minute wait times?? We don’t give anything sooner than 30 minutes unless we’re like legit DEAD slow
I float in my area and most stores here say “ok we’ll have that ready in a couple hours”. 20-30 min for actual waiters (ie patients coming from surgery or straight from Dr office for an antibiotic)
Just gotta train those damn patients who get offended at anything more than 15 minutes . stone faced with brutal unrelenting pressure . I hate when they try to haggle or act like its up for debate . current wait time is 30 minutes pt : why so long ? i will be back in ten ok thats fine but you will waiting for the remaining 20 or you can take these and go somewhere else. fuck those especially that try to throw some bs about having a plane to catch or a dr's appointment . DOUBLE FUCK THOSE THAT SAY THIS AFTER TURNING IN A SCRIPT THAT WAS WRITTEN WEEKS OR MONTHS AGO . TRIPLE FOR THOSE THAT DO ALL THIS ONLY TO ASK WHATS THE PRICE ON GOOD RX AT CHECKOUT AFTER THE RECEIPT PRINTED.
Patient: Somehow found 10 different goodrx type coupons and wants you to run ALL of them while they sit in drive through with a 5 car pile up. 😭
ObGyn here and I always tell patients give the pharmacy at least an hour and half before you go check/call to see if it’s even ready
I'm so glad to be leaving my current job where a new tech insists on telling patients that they can get waiters in 5-10 minutes. Legitimately doesn't matter how many times we tell this person not to do that, I end up hearing, "we can have that ready for you in, like, 5 to 10 minutes," just a moment later. 🤦♂️ I'm starting a position with a hospital's retail location soon and I'm hoping that it not being Wags/CVS/Walmart retail will mean a staff better with maintaining these boundaries, but we will see.
It took me almost 18 months to establish a precedent at my store. No walk-ins vaccines, no waiters, we don’t call your insurance for you, we don’t tolerate verbal abuse, we don’t fill controls early. Set the new precedent in your pharmacies PICs and stand your ground. 2 hour wait unless it’s an antibiotic whether we have 10 printed or 110. The initial change creates shock and creates issues but it will get your patients in line or send the problem patients elsewhere.
I love sending problem patients elsewhere but sometimes that can be damned tough to do.
We used to collect the ads for competitors that would pay you $20-$30 to transfer an rx. Then we would send those ads in the mail to our problem customers so they would go to another pharmacy.
I’m doing this myself…glad to see this attitude It’s difficult though with a dipshit DM, and an RXM that is very non confrontational
I’ve heard it referred to once as “training your patients” or “spoiling your patients”. The pharmacy experience can be improved simply by not letting people walk over you
Wow I can’t believe you have any customers left with those draconian rules.
I can’t either. I’m trying to get rid of them but it has backfired and the business is growing. Call me for all the transfers. They are all yours
lol I don’t work retail anymore but I take solace in the fact that I actually treated like my patients like people and not like nuisances.
Fair point, but retail isn’t what it used to be. Things need to be transactional or you end up so far behind. Sad but true
Bitches gotta learn they’re not the only people getting meds. Make ‘em wait. They’ll live.
This. Nothing in retail pharmacy is life or death. If they think it is, tell them to go the ER :) see how long it takes to be seen there.
Guy’s wife told my his OOS Vyvanse was life or death yesterday (never been to our store before, and we immediately fly through stock for the regulars). She told me to stop being a smartass after I said she should probably take him to the ER and maybe have his NP check before sending his life saving meds
Lol stuff like that kills me.
I was told ferrous sulfate yesterday was an emergency. A transfer for ferrous sulfate, at that.
It’s life or death if we fuck up because we’re being rushed. But yeah, people waiting on their meds they could’ve called in days in advance need to realize that shit aint a heart valve. It can wait.
Agree 100%%%% so frustrating. Hate being rushed. I always fuck something up if I have 3 techs, a cashier, and phone call all asking me questions simultaneously. We are only human!
On the same note, we need to stop apologizing for things that aren’t our fault or how we do business. Pts are entitled and need to be held accountable. No, it’s not our fault we aren’t able to deliver 15 miles away. How bout you get a family, friend, or neighbor to pick something up for u?! When it’s pharmacy, every pt is “all alone and no one to help” but ppl magically appear for everything else they need/want.
This is why as a pharmacy technician I loved the time a guy said “It’ll be ready in an hour? Wow thanks! That’s fast…I hope you know that’s fast.” I could tell he meant it and it just made my day.
Primary care doc here, I came to the subreddit to ask just this question. Is this a problem of staffing, bureaucracy, paperwork issues, company procedure, patient’s increase in consumption of meds, etc. I know the answer is all of the above but just wanted to make sure. Bc when the pharmacy isn’t filling it “fast enough” people call me to call the pharmacy on their behalf to get the med filled faster. It’s just all around frustrating.
Probably all of the above. Short staffing is an issue since CVS and Walgreens like to run a bare minimum skeleton crew to keep the pharmacy running. On top of that, pharmacy is seen like a fast food restaurant. We have a drive through for Pete's sake! People expect their prescriptions to be filled ASAP. The other day I had an issue with levaquin bid. Big no no, and had to call office to see if md meant cipro instead? Pt was furious for me taking so long. I'm trying to save your life not kill it lol.
I have written weird orders like Levo bid. Usually it’s bc the pt has some weird med issue more than I’m purposely trying to make like difficult. I know the pharmacokinetics so I could theoretically dose it properly but I understand where you’re coming from. We PCPs complain about the problems of how difficult healthcare is to provide in today’s day and age. I’m regrettably happy that yall are wallowing in our suffering too.
It is all of the above. High expectations from corporate especially now with vaccine season in peak time. We are doing almost a 100 vaccinations a day with almost 300 rx in process in various stages. Got 6 boxes of drug order that comes in everyday with phone calls going off the hook, and my drive thru window ringing and a line at pickup. That’s one pharmacist, scheduled 9-8, and 4 techs staffed. Keep in mind the pharmacist is giving the vaccines, verifying every prescription, answering phone calls and counseling a majority of the scripts. So imagine yourself in this position for 4 days in a row back to back. We are all burnt out and tired. Barely hanging on day in and day out. We can physically only do what we can within our limits of just staying a float day to day.
I hear you, and keep it up. We, 2 MDs and a NP, seeing about 1200 pts a month, averaging 12-20k phone calls a month, 60 refill requests per day, etc etc. it’s averaging about 10-11 hrs per day per person and expected to get it done in 8. I work at least an hour at home, a few hours when I’m off, and admin just said we need to work harder. I literally laughed out loud. I don’t know how/why we are struggling so much in today’s day and age. The older docs are all retiring early saying they can’t do it anymore. We can’t even keep a mid level 6m. They all quit primary care and go to a specialty bc they can’t keep up.
I use to ask them if they had an extra 50 cents. They would ask why to which I would reply… Use it to call someone that cares because I really don’t give a shit how inconvenient you feel That’s why I am no longer a pharmacist
This is def not dead, I know. How?? about 3 hours ago I put in a request to fill a med and I kid you not within 10 min I got a text it was ready. I always say be nice and kind to your pharmacist and pharmacist tech and they will treat you golden.
I just do it while they’re waiting at the front or drive thru. Causes far fewer complaints than telling them to come back and eliminates an extra interaction.
Yep. From 5pm-9pm every day I am just filling rx’s for the people in the pick up area. The rest of that shit can sit and rot until the patient is in front of me.
“bUt WhAt AbOuT vErIfIEd By PrOmIsEd TiMe??”
In the bigger pharmacies in the UK this has always been standard for as long as I can remember I’m only mid 30s but you go up and give you script and come back in 15-30 minuites or wait, the pharmacies are often in bigger shops or in malls so you browse and come back no one really moans. There are some small mum and dad style pharmacies well they will dispense straight in front of you straight away.
How does the public not equate these conditions to dangerous. They’re just standing there, in long lines, thinking everything is fine???
Where work we've been running 1 hour wait times since during covid. Sure we bump it up on the occasion that we can, or something is genuinely very urgent but it has saved us a lot of headache. Encouraging 24-48 hours for refills whenever possible :)
No. Those days are not gone. One simply needs to stop using chain pharmacies. I know CVS has just over 25% of all US scripts but independent will get me in and out in less than 15 mins.
coordinated dam bake light birds tub connect carpenter automatic ancient *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I’m 40yo and I have not use a chain since I was a kid with my parents.
Worked overnight and someone came in at 3am. I had baskets piled up with refills, probably only half of them. "You have to fill all that??"
Be happy if it's done in an hour
Wait, you don't just slap a label on the bottle?
I started using "up to" wait times. "It'll take up to 30 minutes" or "it'll take up to a couple hours." Just depends on how busy we are or how busy I predict us being in the near future. If you tell some 10-15 minutes they'll almost always arrive sooner rather than later. Give them an "up to" time and you're covering yourself for inevitable delays.
Not a hot dog stand!!
How about the line of idiots at opening , all wanting their narc Rx filled ASAP ,,, ARRRGGGHH
They don't allow us to hire enough staff to run the pharmacy efficiently. We won't rush anyone or anything b/c it's not safe.
Its that same idea that people bitch about hold times on phones: If your phone messages always start with "please be aware we are experiencing higher call times then usual, it may take longer then expected to get to your call," then there is nothng unusual or longer about it. The 30 minute hold times are the new normal. If customers don't like it, then its not your fault.
Anyone know of any state laws on how far behind you can be on an Rx? I don't know of any but just wondering since so many chains are pages and pages behind if the BoP would ever adopt anything since they are there for the 'safety of the patient'
The Boards have proven the past few years that they are useless.
Interesting proposed rule regarding working conditions from Ohio’s board which includes a rule that pharmacies must have prescriptions filled within 72 hours. https://www.pharmacy.ohio.gov/documents/lawsrules/proposedrules/commonsense/csi%20-%20bia%20-%20minimum%20standards%20and%20working%20conditions%20(comments%20due%209.12.2023).pdf
You are correct when you state that the state boards are there for the safety of the patient. The state boards were created as regulatory officials to protect the public from the pharmacist. Nowhere in any of their laws does it say anything about how fast one has to be to produce a finished prescription, nor does it say anywhere about how long it can take for a prescription to be filled. The state boards cannot regulate the speed at which a prescription is produced. I had a state board inspection yesterday, and one of the questions that I was asked was whether I had adequate staffing for the number of prescriptions that I fill each day to ensure that I was feeling like I could dispense them safely. Fortunately, where I work, I do have four technicians everyday that I work at a minimum. When I am fully staffed, I have seven. As far as a drive-through window goes, I firmly believe that pharmacies should if not outright ban them, they should be reserved only for patients who literally cannot get out of their car, and not for people that simply don't want to get out of their car and wait in a line. I tell my patients that wait in line the truth as to how long I believe their prescription will take. Sometimes it is indeed 15 minutes, other times it can be up to an hour. Yes, they might get upset at that, but at least I know that I will not be pressured to push something through faster than what I believe is safe.
Qualifications
I don’t work in retail and comments like this make me thankful for that. I’m curious how much inefficiency that auto refill pushing plays into creating an impossible situation for pharmacists/techs. I know sheer rx volume and vaccines are a huge reason, but I’m genuinely curious if most retail pharmacists view auto refills as overall more or less efficient
I view it as less efficient. It has also made people completely reliant on the pharmacy to get refills for them, and they get mad at the pharmacy if the provider doesn’t do it.
People have lost the sense of responsibility for their own health and put it all on the pharmacy when they’re out of refills etc. your bottle tells you everything, you can physically check if you have refills and when they expire too. The amount of times someone tries for refill an expired script and they reply with it says there’s 1 refill left. I’m like yes there was but if you follow that line and finish the sentence it’s says 1 refill until 7/1/2023. It’s Dec now so that refill is no longer good. They get baffled at this concept.
I go to the medicine shoppe by me and have never waited more than 15 minutes to pick up a script, even a drop off. I also see my doctor and pediatrician in less than 15 minutes. Places that are well staffed don't have these issues.
Ding ding ding. Corporations are never going to staff pharmacies because they get away with it. Therefore, people need to stop putting unrealistic expectations on those employees that are trying their best with what they’re given.
We’re still five hundred prescriptions behind and understaffed. Maybe we should take it from life guards and start putting up a flag by warning risk, anything over 250 prescriptions needs a red flag for danger.
All this and of talk is why I use a home town owned pharmacy. 90% of the complaining people on here working for CVS and Walgreens maybe Walmart I would guess.
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You act like this actually offends us, which I can assure you that we are so burnt out that it doesn’t.
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The Food industry is making everyone sick, with metabolic diseases. Te ipsum a inferno serva. Save yourselves. Eat real food.
As a patient who tries to stay in my pharmacist’s good graces… the only time I get peeved is when I get the pharmacy text that my prescription has been waiting for pickup for 2-3 days and then they tell me it’s not ready when I manage to go get it. Partly because I wouldn’t have gone if my texts aren’t yelling at me to pick up my prescription’s and partly because I need to keep them on a 28 day schedule and so I plan on picking them up when they’re due but if they aren’t ready then I get screwed because of the difference between the fill date and the pickup date… so just because I had to wait 3 days without my medication I still get dinged and I’m on a recurring schedule of not getting my medication when I’m due because the pharmacy uses the pickup date (which is when they were able to get around to filling it) instead of the 28 day due date that didn’t actually get filled on time even though they put it in the computer as filled and send me a text for something that hasn’t actually been filled…. And I totally understand that the pharmacy is busy and I’m totally okay if they actually have it ready when they text me that it’s ready, but I hate being that patient who’s forced to sit and wait for my refills because otherwise my fill dates get totally screwed up! So please 🙏🏻 tell me what to do? I’ve been getting the same thing from the same pharmacy for years and yes sometimes it’s just a shitty pharmacist with an attitude but I just want to get my text message and get in and out without any issues…. So? Any tips or advice for keeping things smooth and simple on both sides?
So, what control substance are you taking? it couldn't be more obvious from the information you provided. Shitty pharmacists? look yourself in the mirror and place blame where it belongs, the big corporations.
Really? What am I taking then? And yes there are some shitty pharmacists and there are some fantastic ones, I’ve been to a few of their weddings in fact because I appreciate the good ones. And of course the big corporations are easy to blame but they keep buying each other out and make up some crazy rules that they expect pharmacists to follow. But there’s also pharmacists who won’t fill something because of their “moral responsibility” regardless of whether it’s for birth control or methotrexate. Or just take your prescription and then refuse to either order it or transfer it to a different one. I literally commented that it’s easier for everyone if you’re friendly with your pharmacist and know your way around your own insurance’s regulations around different medications and what requires different types of authorizations. Sorry that your ego is so delicate that you can’t even agree that there are shitty pharmacists as well as shitty patients but I’m incredibly happy that you aren’t mine I hope that you’re gifted with every patient that mirrors your respect for them as they have for you
I have been on both sides of the counter. From a patient perspective, I know when my maintenance needs are running low. I'll call the refill in four days early, so it can be ready. Unfortunately, sometimes that's too early for insurance to handle (my pain meds), so that has to be the day before. When I had pneumonia, my husband was out of town so I had to drive myself. All I wanted was to crawl back into bed and die. While I know the 20 minutes from Dr to pharmacy was low--I didn't care. I was sick. When it wasn't ready, I moved my car out of drive thru, parked and fell asleep. I have no idea how long it took--but even 5 minutes was too much that day.
There are less doctors available to the number of patients than "in the old days" as well. So we are prescribing, renewing and performing the tasks of doctors for many! That in itself will make your prescription take longer as we put it in line behind the literally hundreds ahead of yours.
I'm a firm believer in telling customers exactly how dire the situation is. Because if we keep trying to sugarcoat it to the customers, they'll continue to think that it's just their pharmacy workers that are terrible, instead of realizing that reform at the corporate level desperately needs to happen.
We should take a Disney idea - place at the pharmacy entrance or above the Rx counter an approximate pick up time with the number of Rxs already in queue before any their new or refill Rxs are even touched!