You Have to Advocate for Yourself

I needed a prescription today. My dr. Is very old fashioned and called it into the pharmacy. The Dr’s Assistant called me and told me they left the prescription on the voice mail of the pharmacy. We both knew that meant they might not listen to it for a while.

I waited three hours and checked the online system. No prescription for me in the system. So I went to the store. I waited to be helped and told them my prescription was on their voice mail. The clerk said she could see two voice mails on the system, but the pharmacist had to listen to them. I watched as three people without appointments walk up to get vaccinated before the pharmacist listened to the voice mail.

The clerk told me they then had to check to see if they had the medication in stock. Ten more minutes. She said they had the generic and the pharmacist had to approve the change to generic. She finally did that ten minutes later. At this point I was the only person waiting in the store.

The secondary clerk old me it would be another 30 minutes and that I should sit in the chairs and wait. I politely said I would stand to wait. She then told me to sit down. You can imagine that did not go well with me. I said I was fine standing, but it was five hours since my prescription had been called in and it should take priority over walks-ins with no appointments as it was for an actual illness, not preventative.

So I stood. Standing worked and it was only 15 more minutes, making that visit a total of almost an hour because they didn’t have time to listen to the voice mail without my going there to tell them it was waiting for them.

When the number of pharmacies exploded a number of years back adding one on every corner, they did not expand the number of pharmacy students in the same ratio. There are not enough people to man all these pharmacies. Considering how long it takes to get a degree in pharmacy and then what a terrible job it is to stand in the store with horrible people like me waiting I don’t think things are going to get better anytime soon.