I feel like the only people who get that angry at pharmacists are the ones getting narcotics. I saw a guy push over a shelf because they didn't have his Adderall.

Yep, CVS pharmacy will suck in 2023 just like it did in 2022, and 2021, and ………. 1984

Hah, CVS pharmacy techs are the only rude retail workers Ive ever met. I assume they're just getting bitched at all day and that's why.

Also the pharmacist at my local CVS is a piece of work. Super rude for no reason. I gave them a januvia coupon (I'm sure you know of this racket) and he seemed so put off by it.

Try Amazon Pharmacy. All on the app and they handle insurance issues. Ships to you.

First, Adderall is not a narcotic. It is a controlled substance. One of the main things it is prescribed for is adhd. Adhd can cause emotional disregulation when untreated. There has been a national Shortage of Adderall, with little to no information going to patients. Going off these meds cold turkey can cause increased symptoms. People who need these medications to function are being told 'sorry no luck, try back tomorrow ' they are rationing medications so they don't lose their jobs.

All that said, there is no excuse for treating customer service workers poorly for things out of their control.

This is true to some degree, but ADHD med patients tend to be much less aggressive compared to benzo (xanax, lorazepan) and opioid patients esp middle aged women on benzos can be downright aggressive and swear at me when they can't get xanax bc they are requesting a week ahead of time. `

I don't have many issues with aderrall/vyvanse/ritalin patients tbh.

Opioid patients tend to have the same issue, but will usually request to pay out of pocket of or beg me to fill their prescriptions. They try to find any way to get their prescription, and I've had situations where they were punching my registers.

We actually have a story of a woman who was throwing rocks at our drive thru window bc she couldn't get her morphine lol.

Suboxone patients are usually fine, but have had some very bad cases. One patient tried to full on fight one of my techs one time cuz "they looked at him the wrong way" , another just started screaming saying "f*** you man, my brother is gonna kill me , called his brother , and his brother said "I'll f him up" on speaker and I heard that-that one was very bad and I actually called the cops when he walked out and they stood guard waiting for him. He comes in the store and just starts swearing like crazy in front of the cop, starts punching the registers, and was swiftly apprehended. Turns out he was driving on a suspended license, had heroin in his car, and also had an illegal firearm. I don't normally search up patients, but he had a pretty insane rapsheet with run in from the law since he was 18 and he's 30 now. Has faced multiple gun/roberry/drug charges and has been in jail multiple occasions.

Another wasn't dangerous, but he walked into our pharmacy at 10 PM smoking cigarretes in the store, and saw lolipops and started munching on them like crazy and his body was spazzing like crazy.. My tech sold him syringes and suboxone,and he had ODd in the bathroom at our store maybe 10 minutes later. I was sussed out so I told the front store to keep an eye on him, and when he went into the bathroom after 10 minutes, we knocked on the door , and unlocked it, and he was passed out with the needle in his arm. Thank god he lived.

Birth control patients can be pretty mad if we need a new script, but they never get aggressive.

Some older people who have clear dementia can scream at us , but they are more a threat to themselves than to us.

And they we have other crazies who are just always aholes whenever they come in.

My CVS is a shitshow. I know it’s not their fault. I see them working like maniacs trying to fill prescriptions. I’m just going all mail order and getting three months at a time. I feel bad for how hard they are working.

Highly recommend ExpressScripts (or any other prescription by mail service). It doesn’t help with unexpected illness related medications but for regular meds, keeps you out of the line (and away from germ sharing).

CVS is understaffed. This is how we can help them.

Just order through mark cubans pharmacy online

I changed my scripts from CVS to Osco. Far less busy…staff nicer…and way lower prices. But please be nice to everyone.

Also most pharmacists won’t tell you who has the medication in stock (my usual person will, which I appreciate greatly but depending on the day someone else will be there), so you basically have to take time off bringing the script from pharmacy to pharmacy hoping somebody has it. No excuse to treat people terribly but if you’ve come to your 6th pharmacy that doesn’t have it in stock and still aren’t being told where you can fill your medication, that’s a pretty frustrating situation.

I switched from CVS to Walgreens a long time ago. I’m autistic and the pharmacist at my local CVS was extremely rude, impatient, and hurtful to me. Please make sure you’re also looking at your staff. You’ve admitted they can be rude. I know it’s tough to fill positions now but do you really want to employ rude people to work with vulnerable people?

I hate cvs but feel like I’m left without many options. One med I take had to be refrigerated and the amount of waste just to keep one tiny little box cold was ridiculous. Only @5% could be recycled, the rest had to go into the trash.

Hey, yo....go fuck yourself for not spelling hiccups correctly. Kinda scary grammar for someone working in a pharmacy.

BTW: No, I'd never swear at service people. No matter the enviroment.

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Wouldn't that be on the Dr's that were prescribing them?

Absolutely this.

Thank you

You are right about not treating people rudely or worse.

However, CVS and any other Pharmacy need to hire more people and pay them better to get them in. I know that is easier said than done, but I am sure they all knew of this change and what have they done to prepare for it.

Also, the nature of the business where sick, people in pain, or otherwise in need of medication quickly and efficiently cannot wait around in a pharmacy for too long. That is where a lot of the nastiness comes from and people need to understand that. People coming home from the hospital on vast amounts of new medication who are suppose to stay on schedule find it impossible to do so when there is an issue that delays this.

People are going to the pharmacy for a reason and it is not about buying vitamins either. CVS and the others need to step up and get the pharmacy better prepared so people can get what they need, people can communicate better with each other so that they know what is going on, and being respectful is a must for everyone involved.

Do you know how/where we can report the staff shortages? From a recent NYTimes article, it seems like a deliberate move by headquarters to increase profits.

I’m grasping at straws but is there a state/federal agency that oversees this?

It also falls on the pharmacists to report overprescribing

How do you know they weren't reporting it? Didnt all the crooked drs get busted and shut down? To blame the people filling the prescriptions is a bit much.

I know they weren’t reporting it because they just settled a multi BILLION dollar lawsuit literally related to the epidemic we are talking about.

CVS pharmacy sucks

Everyone in the line is guilty to some degree. But the Dr's are definitely the criminals here.

You can simply stop giving them your business.

So…now you are agreeing, while still disagreeing?

Cool got it nice chat

They never admitted wrongdoing but a totally innocent company doesn’t pay billions in a settlement…

Not at all. Purdue pharm and the Dr's are/were the real criminals. The people filling the prescriptions were just doing their job. And I'm sure some of them did report it...

Right so that multi billion dollar lawsuit SPECIFICALLY RELATED to pharmacies was nothing then.

Got it. You’re brilliant

Absolutely loathe CVS. They made multiple serious errors with my medication and showed zero fucks when I brought them to their attention. I literally didn’t feel safe trusting them to fill my scrip (which I need every day, to stay alive).

I will never use CVS again, the entire system and experience sucks.

My cousin trains the pharmacy techs, this checks out.

You are saying fuck cvs. In theory your anger should be directed to every pharmacy that filled the scripts. Which includes Walgreens, rite aid, walmart, and every mom and pop pharmacy. To call OP pathetic for holding a very stressful job that helps people is pretty childish. Get off your high horse and grow up.

Very normal to see a CVS pharmacist talking shit about the people they serve.

There is no consistency between CVS’s from my experience. The one on Main Street in Wareham was so dysfunctional I couldn’t stand it anymore and switched to a CVS inside of target and that one is so efficient. Ideally, I would get stuff filled at a mom-n-pop shop but I don’t think there’s one with a convenient location near me :/

Exactly. A lot of us are immunocompromised so waiting in long lines where people are coughing is anxiety inducing and dangerous.

No fuck those places too. Drug dealers disguised as health companies. Absolutely disgusting.

And no, I like it up here. Thanks though.

I’m on Medicare now so I have to go to CVS or Walmart. I hate Walmart. But mail order is the way I’m going.

Why would many people be switching from Walgreens to CVS? Is something happening with Walgreens ?

I don't hate anyone, I'm just being honest about my expierences.

Hey no worries, I would never yell at a pharmacy tech or a pharmacist. They're on my side.

We practically can't - I have CVSes all around me, a Walgreens a few miles away, or I can go mail-order from CVS.

There aren't any independent pharmacies around me. And this is true for most of America.

Never heard of this - do you mean amazon dot com ? Thanks!

Express Scripts, etc. Mail-order pharmacies.

It’s bad enough you guys cancelled all those southwest flights, made the sun set so early, and made it cold outside but now you’re telling me that you’re about to screw with my insurance too?!?!?

Companies and people settle all the time, sometimes for very large sums, on the simple math that it's cheaper than fighting, not just in lawyers and legal fees, but in avoiding bad press airtime in front of gullible weirdos like you.

Express scripts isn’t covered by my health insurance company and as I mentioned earlier, my mail order can only be through CVS.

I’m not inclined to give CVS a break. Pharmacy staff in Reading is just rude and unhelpful and have been for years. And the managing pharmacist refuses to speak to customers. Maybe you shouldn’t have put all our locally-owned pharmacies out of business.

Always treat service workers with respect because they’re usually prisoners of the greedy corporations that employ them. The employees don’t control payroll cuts or supply chain issues.

Also, Fuck CVS. I watched them do employee bag checks today in full view of all the customers. What a bunch of shitheads.

I really commiserate but the last few times Ive had anything but a brief interaction with pharmacy staff it ranged between them being surly and spoiling for a fight and them acting like I was an asshole/idiot because of the insurance company or doctors office fucking something up that they told me they took care of. Its like, I tell staff all the time, I know you dont make the rules, but I think your bosses are making things harder on everyone, but they're trying to start shit and acting like In responsible for the fact that the doctors office needed to be called several times or that the other pharmacy didnt transfer a scrip they told me they were going to. You get what you give and if youre burnt out and taking it out on customers, why are folks surprised the customers turn that around?

I think what they’re saying is the doctors and Perdue have far more culpability than the pharmacies did for not reporting overprescriptions.

Seriously, think about it. There are many controlled medications that if a patient just weren’t able to get them would really fuck them up. Opioids are one of them. We act like once someone’s addicted we should just stop filling the script, but that’s not how addiction works. That philosophy is literally what’s made the opioid epidemic stick around. States with more restrictive opioid laws have higher rates of addiction because people have to go to the streets to get opiates for legitimate medical use, but then get addicted because they have unlimited access.

Plus, that’s part of the problem, it’s not exactly easy to tell when a doctor is acting in good faith or not, on the pharmacies’ end. Prescription limits are kinda bullshit, because what if you are a GP and you just happen to get a bunch of patients with broken limbs. Like I literally know people who broke their arm who only got NSAIDs and maybe tramadol because of these arbitrary limits and doctors now being afraid of being reported for overprescribing. Or, take my medication. I don’t take opiates, but I do take ADHD meds. Sometimes I have problems getting it filled at my preferred pharmacy, like I did this month. I literally have periods where my amphetamine prescription is being called in to four pharmacies, and from their perspective it looks like I might get it filled at all four pharmacies. In reality, my doctor is just moving my script so I can get it filled and I only ever pick up one of those a month.

So it’s not really a clear cut thing, and sure, maybe CVS underreported, but there’s far more risk to the patients by pharmacies misreporting than underreporting due to patients potentially losing medication they may need. In no world can the pharmacies that have little say in the decisions have as much culpability as the people actually making those decisions.

You try dealing with opiate addicts all day making unreasonable demands

Thank you for the heads-up. I just ordered the refill online. The system should notify me when they have it ready. I will be grateful to the CVS workers.

CVS and Walgreens have consistently been cutting help while increasing workload for the twenty years I have been in the retail pharmacy world. It was good in the early 2000s but has been going downhill since late 2000s and I absolute free fall since mid-2010s. Not a new issue at all. And no one gives a fuck. And customers want Saks service and Walmart prices.

Best bet is small wealthy towns. They are always staffed better than other locations.

Oh I can't blame them really. I would not want that job

CVS can stop deleting prescriptions when they can’t fill them becuase my doctor is getting real fucking tired of having to call in the same script 3-4 every other month. Managements decisions for shitty IT systems make everyone miserable.

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The employees at my CVS pharmacy are awesome, and as a family, we have many interactions with them. I think of them as just an extension of my primary care office, and play an important role in our health care as a whole. They contact my doctors office when a prescription needs a new authorization, they have us on automatic refills, and text me when ready, we get our yearly shots from them now, booking them online, and have been given great medical advice, especially with the kids.

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Who said they were AS culpable? Never once did I make that implication.

I said fuck CVS, and anyone cashing some stupid paycheck over doing what’s right.

I stand by that statement.

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I always see my local cvs pharmacy employees have to deal with so many god awful people. I cannot keep my composure in that situation so hats off to all Brookline pharmacists, you guys rock!!

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Your initial argument is perfectly valid, and I can't fault it even if my opinion is different. However, I am unclear as to the need to refer to me a gullible weirdo? Genuinely curious, - Me.

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I had a CVS pharmacy tech laugh at me while I had a panic attack

...while I waited, three days after my medication was supposed to have been refilled, to finally get it filled. At the time I was tapering off the benzos I used to be on. I don't really care how many shitty people they deal with, there was no reason to give a person shit, when they are just suffering by themselves waiting, not saying anything.

So that gives them the right to treat everyone like one? lol no

Insurance changes bounce people from one pharmacy to another

As a former benzo-taking patient who had suffered multiple times due to CVS's fuck ups, while being mocked during a panic attack: fuck you for your assumptions.

e: btw, it's lorazepaM, and I guess fuck my epileptic friend who takes that too, eh?

Just letting you know we appreciate you - rude people make it worse for everyone.

Fuck CVS pharmacy

sounds like a poor business model

I’m always impressed by the pharmacists and staff at CVS. They are good at their job.

You can tell when they’re overworked. It’s not their fault.

>hickups

who you callin a hick

As a former pharmacy technician, I can say that the first two weeks of January were always miserable. Next to an influx of college students (“how was I supposed to know my own insurance information?”) it was annoying having to remind a bunch of people that plans may have changed.

Any variation of "only guilty parties settle" is an unserious take held by naive children easily manipulated by headlines and guiltmongering. It fundamentally requires a level of gullability to let that notion roll around unsupervised in your head.

Yeah. Tbh it sucks getting bitched at all day, I’ve been there and done that, but that doesn’t warrant turning around and bitching at customers who have done nothing to you. I just don’t feel bad because I’ve never dealt with worse staff in my life.

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What does grammar have to do with being a pharmacist?

The one in Wareham target is an absolute nightmare!!

Yikes, the last sentence explains a lot….

I don’t think we customers noticed the issues u til this year.

If there’s anything we can do to fight back, pls suggest it.

Not what I said. Just that it’s not unreasonable to assume they might not have the easiest time throwing a smile on when they’re literally ground down for what is almost certainly bare minimum compensation.

I empathize, but some people are just trying to get medications that they need to stay alive. It’s just a job to a CVS tech, but they’re not exactly selling scratch tickets at the 7/11.

Open the app. On top there’s grocery, then pharmacy. A pleasure to use.

Really?! It’s the only CVS I could find that was good enough at least. And they’re very responsive.

no one ever gets paid enough to be bullied or abused

How do we know which pharmacy our insurance supports? I have been asked at like urgent cares before, never thought it mattered... just what was most convenient. God American healthcare is such a clusterfuck

If you were bound to using one, they usually tell you. Several times I was told I could only fill a 90 day supply at CVS OR Walgreens. Now my card says CVS.

I’ve had so many issues there! My OB office is constantly complaining about them as well. I just recently switched to a different pharmacy because of it. I’m glad you’ve had good luck with it though!

Yeah, and you’re missing what I said. What I was saying is the pharmacies might have some responsibility, but there was potential for them to do wrong by accidentally misreporting doctors, therefore doing the right thing might’ve been erring on the side of underreporting. Nobody’s perfect, therefore many medical professionals and facilities choose to lean into one side of the error spectrum to reduce harm. The right thing very well might’ve been to underreport, because, as I said in my previous comment, underreporting might’ve been weighed to cause less harm than risking misreporting doctors.

You can call your insurance (no fun, i know!) and ask - or if you have a plan which lets you access your plan online, that's easiest way to get info usually. You will log in to your plan and it should be able to tell you your preferred pharmacies. Also some might have a chat-option, where you can chat a representive with your question (again, usually easier than calling).

Literally nobody working in the store has any control over that, feeling crummy is quite simply not a good excuse to take it out on people that are doing their best to give each medication they dispense their full attention to avoid killing folks. Yes, all the people in front of you, and all the people behind you, too. And many of them have to have second jobs or juggle multiple stores just to get enough to hours to pay rent. Some are juggling school and kids, and getting yelled at all day by people who came in straight from the Dr, people that are trying to refill a week too early, people who are literally dangerous, and people that just want to use them as an emotional punching bag like they don't know what stress is like. You know you can send others to pick up your non control scripts, right?

Yeah the chats are great, thanks for the info. I should check in for sure.

I will be sticking to my local Walgreens. Walgreens is not only closer, but they also have more convenient locations.

Both CVS and Walgreens are experiencing staffing issues though. Locally, both had at least one local temporarily closed because they had no pharmacist on staff.

The CVS store managers get their allotted hours handed down to them from corporate. Go bitch at the district managers - the ones responsible for the 20 or so stores in the area. Or go bitch directly to corporate, they're right over the border in Woonsocket.

I bet the poor techs and pharmacists at ExpressScripts are under staffed and over worked as well.

I've come to realize over the past year that 99.99999% of the time it's insurance. It's really unbelievable.

Pay techs more

They're getting paid the same. Why expect a different output when you've got the same input?

My insurance plan starts in July, along with my company’s fiscal year. not sure why a bunch of companies don’t also do this. Sure it’s confusing to explain to providers on my end but it prevents this kerfuffle. It should be spread out between employers, half get July, half get Jan

It sounds like you should probably staff your pharmacy better if you are suffering from such short staffing

How bout paying them more so they don't piss off your customers lol..."don't be mad at me for being a cheap fuck" lol

Many prescriptions can’t be sent thru the mail

Benzos are a super common script, and I don't have hatred towards anyone who takes them, just from my experience and my techs' experience, in general benzos were the common denominator in middle aged women swearing and lashing out as us.

They are heavily controlled, and I apologize for my assumptions, but as someone whose spent years in pharmacy, in general controlled medications tended to be where the majority of lashing outs happened.

With adderall because of the shortage it has changed, I used to never tell people if we had opioids or ADHD meds in stock bc they are the most highly regulated, but bc of the national backorder/shortage, we do tell patients now if we have them in stock at our pharmacy, but not at other CVS locations like other drugs.

We also just cannot hire people especially the last 2 years. A lot of our pharmacies are hiring rn, and we can't find people and there tends to be high staff turnover, granted at 16 dollars an hour, the salary is not super enticing, when many places start higher.

If you know how CVS works, for our techs, we are supposed to follow a "WeCare model", where techs spend time ringing as well as filling, instead of doing one or the other their entire shift, usually the longer you've worked with the company, the more time you spend filling prescriptions, with new techs ringing all day.

Pharmacies that follow that "wecare model" tend to have lower turnover, because trust me our pharmacies don't slow down, and it's not fun to ring all day.

You could report it to the boards of pharmacy but doubtful they would do anything.

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I’ve always found, even at the big chains, this is down to management. If a store has a good or at least competent manager, things run efficiently and employees are overall happier and better at their jobs. If the manager is an incompetent moron (or worse, a malicious asshole) then the place will be a shitshow from top to bottom.

So great to know you just generalize people based on their medications (especially for a "super common script"). Really nice to know the kind of judgement going on behind the counter there. No surprise at all, and I'm gonna go move my scripts from my local CVS now.

There's a big difference between not smiling and being a dick to people trying to get medications.

CVS charges $40-something for a 60 count of my dog’s 20mg generic prozac that Stop & Shop charges $11 for.

Yeah but you can’t get anything that you would need an ID for or is classified as a controlled substance through there. I’m also somewhat hesitant to give such detailed information about my medical history to Amazon.

They have controlled substances schedule 3-5

Cool, can you get the government to reschedule my medications then?

Yeesh.

Ahh so it’s low salaries… and perhaps the board of pharmacists/pharmacies for the state. Let’s see….

I can’t believe you’re actually defending these companies when they just paid a multi billion dollar lawsuit so they wouldnt have to admit fault. Which means they did, and are throwing money at the problem.

You want to defend a health food store that removed cigarettes due to “health concerns” but still sells OxyContin and Pepsi Cola?

Lol. Do you. But I know exactly what I do when I walk into cvs. Extract value. Rinse. Repeat. Forever.

Try Amazon Pharmacy

I can’t believe you’re obtuse to nuance. I’m not defending corporations, I’m defending healthcare and trying to make sure ire is directed at the right people. Ire is not a binary, there are layers, and pharmacies are the least ire worthy of all of these.

K. They still get my relentless hate. You don’t have to follow along. Lol.