Pharmacy

I have certain pharmacies I can use that are in my insurance network.

Sadly CVS is the place.

For whatever reason, I have been picking them up instead of mail order and I can't change mid stream unless the doctor sends a new Rx. 

I am seeing my doctor on the 7th or 8th of Feb and I'll have her be sure she does it correctly this time.

There is a price difference too - $3 if I go inside, $0 if mailed.

If there is an issue I have to go inside the CVS store.

Sadly there are always issues. And you can't use the drive-through. Some days someone is there, most days not there or they tell you to come inside so now I don't even bother with the drive-through.

Now all of my medications are covered except my thyroid medication.

It is not covered by any insurance. (it's not a big pharma drug is the reason why)

I had one refill left. I called to have it refilled. I went to pick it up and they said it wasn't available. But I did this 3 days ago, now I am getting low on my meds.

They tell me to come back. I came back on the day I was instructed, now having no pills left. I waited 20 minutes in line. Then the snotty young thing with dirty hair told me that they didn't have it. 

I asked, "You don't have it filled or you don't have the medication?"

She said,"yep"

OMG

So again I ask, do you have the medication in stock or was the Rx not filled yet? Again, she says, 'yep' and snickers.

I told her to cancel the Rx and she said okay and walked away.

I went to Walgreens across the street since it's using Good Rx. I stood in line for another 15 minutes and then got frustrated and left. I got in my car and looked up the goodrx.com site and saw that Walmart down the street has them. I then drive to Walmart.

I asked the pharmacy tech if I can transfer this Rx (showing her the bottle I had with me that was empty) and she said, "certainly" 

Then she proceeded to explain.  We can call CVS for the transfer, but they never answer the phone. We will text you and email you when we have it filled. You may also want to try asking them to transfer it as well.  

I tried to call CVS but no one answers.

I waited another 2 days for the transfer. Thankfully I had the pills in a higher dosage so if I cut them in half with my pill cutter it'd be the same amount. So that is what I did for two weeks while waiting for my Rx.

I went to CVS and told them I was trying to transfer and before I could finish she had me pulled up in her system and said, "we've already transferred it so there is nothing I need to do from here." I thanked her and go back to Walmart.

Walmart says they never got it. So she says to hold on. We both dialed them. They picked up for me. I said I had just been in there and was told that it was transferred but I am at the other pharmacy and it wasn't transferred.  She then proceeded to tell me that their fax was down that is probably why. (I doubted that) So I said, "here you can speak to the pharmacy"  I handed her the phone. The person in front of me says 2 words and then looks at me, "they hung up on me" 

She said dealing with CVS is pure hell, you may wish to call your doctor to just send a new Rx into us. 

I email my doctor and tell her I feel like I am caught in the middle. CVS won't transfer and is the most difficult to deal with. The CVS pharmacy says they got it, then they never got it, fax is working, but now the fax isn't working and they won't speak to the Walmart Pharmacist, can you please send a new RX for 30 days until I see you? Can you please send it to Walmart  - I gave her the address and phone number of the pharmacy.

Within minutes I get an email from WALGREENS telling me that my Rx is not covered by insurance but ready for pick up. 

OMG, now my doctor called the wrong place. 

I show this all to Rick and he said, "so now the doctor isn't helping the situation but piling onto this mess"  Yep!

I wrote back to the doctor and said that I appreciated her doing this on a Sunday but I did say WALMART as you can see in the earlier email thread. 

She apologized and immediately called the correct place.

All of this is for a lousy 30-day supply of thyroid medication.

I'd hate to think how this could affect someone who didn't have a higher dosage to cut in half for the last 2 weeks or if it were heart medication etc.

I called Aetna who is my service provider for prescriptions. I want all things done via mail so I don't have to go in there and there are a couple of the Rx's I couldn't change on my profile online. They helped me make the change to the ones I could. She asked why I was doing this. I told her. She apologized when I was through and said she hears this way too often. I told her I will likely go to another insurer next enrollment period because dealing with CVS is not worth it. She asked if someone called me would I share this. I said sure!

And get this, the good Rx price was higher than the negotiated rate with Walmart so now I only have to pay $12. Better than $25.

I was a pharmacy tech in high school for 2 years. We didn't have computers and the job wasn't easy but my goodness you could train a monkey to do better than what is going on at the local CVS!