Nick writes:
- I recently had a horrible, horrible experience at my local Rite Aid when I went in to fill a prescription. I won’t rehash the details here as they are thoroughly captured in the email (attached) I sent to their, ahem, Customer Service department… a month ago. Basically, the pharmacist wanted to play doctor and deny my prescriptions and when I called her on the fact that, uh, she couldn’t do this she got downright mean. I did get a response from a CS rep saying (essentially) “Oh crap this is serious. I’ve sent it to the Regional Manager. They will contact you ASAP.” and then, nothing. This was a month ago.
So anyway, if you see fit, we can all shake our collective fists at Rite Aid. Not that it’s a secret that they suck or anything.
Anyway, after this I took my prescription to the CVS that just opened up down the street and even though they were jammin’ with customers (I suppose there is a reason for that, eh?), they took exceptional care of me. Funny how you really appreciate some compassion when you’re hock-up-blood sick, huh?
Inside, the complaint letter Nick wrote Rite Aid, in all its golden, speaking-for-itself glory.
- “I am writing to express my utter disbelief in the abysmal level of service I received while attempting to fill a prescription at your Store #5548 (18444 Plummer Street, Northridge, CA 91325).
I have been suffering from a rather painful lung infection for the past month. During this ordeal I have been awakened most nights coughing up bloody sputum, which I then choke on, leading to little or no rest and thereby greatly increasing my recovery time. Not the most pleasant of circumstances, I can assure you. Upon seeing my doctor (9/5/2006) I was given a combination of antibiotics intravenously as well as two separate prescriptions for Tussinex, a cough medication, and Cipro, a strong antibiotic.
Immediately following my visit with my GP, I went to my local Rite Aid pharmacy to fill them both (roughly 6:15 PM, 9/5/2006). The first problem I encountered was with the complete lack of attention the pharmacy staff paid to the customers. There was no one in line, save for me, yet the pharmacy staff were preoccupied with standing around each other chatting about what they planned on watching on television that evening. One woman looked over at me multiple times, making eye contact but not once acknowledging my presence. This went on for approximately 5 minutes until she walked into the back, removed her smock and informed me that “someone else will be right with me” and that she had “just got off the clock”.
Finally after a few more minutes of awkward waiting and throat clearing, another ‘pharmacist’ came to help me, yet she seemed completely unfamiliar with either of the medications I was prescribed; where they were located, what they did, etc.. I informed her that my insurance has only generic drug benefits and since neither of my prescriptions had generic equivalents I would like to get the cost up front. (Being the day before payday and returning from paying my GPs office visit fee had left me with approximately $100 until payday the next day, 9/6/06). She looked them both up on the computer and informed me that the Cipro was approx. $115- and the Tussionex would come out to approx. $75-. I informed her that I would only be able to fill one of my prescriptions, namely the one that I could afford and would provide me with the means for relief that evening and I would have to pick up the other prescription the next day when I got paid.
Hearing me discuss this, the other pharmacist on duty, who would later only identify herself as “Akeen”, approached me and I explained what I had just told the previous woman. She took a moment to punch something into the computer before saying to me “I’m sorry, but unless you are planning on filling both of these today, I am going to refuse to fill this.” Feeling as sick and exhausted as I was, and now embarrassed, thinking I had done something wrong, I left empty-handed and called my GP for clarification.
Upon hearing this, the Doctor was livid! He said, ‘There is a reason I wrote you two separate and wholly different prescriptions. If I had meant to require that both be filled at the same time, I would have indicated that. I gave you an injection of Cipro today, so you can not even start taking your oral Cipro for another 24 hours. She has no right to deny you your medication.”
At that news I called the store and asked to speak to the manager. I was informed that there was no manager there, but directed to “Steven” (Stephen?) who identified himself as the acting manager. He was exceptionally receptive to my concerns and seemed as befuddled as both me and my doctor were as to why I was being denied my medication. He promised to look into it and asked to put me on hold. (Frankly, out of this entire ordeal, Steven was the most commendable of all, as he seemed genuinely interested in Customer Service.)
After being on hold for approximately 5 minutes, I was transferred back to the pharmacy and back to Akeen. She explained that she was denying me my medication because that “that was just the way she practiced” and said that “Whenever I get a prescription for a pain killer and an antibiotic I make sure that they are both filled together”. Once again I restated the facts to her:
- I had received intravenous antibiotics already that evening, so I could not start my antibiotic routine for another 24 hours anyway (which, coincidentally, is when I would have the funds available to pick up the balance of my medication)
- The Tussionex was not being prescribed to me for its analgesic properties (as she had implied above), but for its anti-tussive properties. The point was to provide me with some relief from my symptoms so that I may be able to get the rest I need to fully recover.
- The prescriptions were completely separate, on completely separate forms and nothing stating that they MUST or were even ADVISED to be filled together.
I then asked, hypothetically, “Now if had walked into there and just handed you the one prescription form, would you have filled it then?” To which she replied “Without a question, however since I now know that you have an antibiotic prescription as well, I will refuse to fill it, because that’s just the way I practice.”
Throughout our entire conversation, I was not treated with the respect that a human deserves, much less the compassion that I would hope a pharmacist would show to someone who is ill. My questions were never given a courteous, complete response and when pressed further I was continuously met with the reply “Well, that’s just the way I practice.” As if her Rite Aid pharmacy name tag somehow gives her more knowledge and authority than my General Practitioner, who has been practicing internal medicine for over 40 years.
At one point I was even interrupted so that she could make a snarky comment about my economic status, stating “You know, there are other pharmacies. Perhaps you should put the time in to find one you can afford.” Excuse me? Is this the type of employee that you would like representing your organization? Insults and poor manners aside, her haughty, arrogant attitude and denial of patient care for no other reason than “That is just the way [she] practice[s]” opens your organization to TREMENDOUS liability.
All in all, this incident has left me completely disgusted. From now on, I will do what I finally did last night and take my business to the CVS down the street where they hire pharmacists who don’t delude themselves into thinking they are doctors so that they can arbitrarily exert power over those who come to them for relief. I will encourage my friends, family and co-workers to do the same, as NO ONE deserves to be treated so disdainfully by someone they are turning to for help.”
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Nick doesn’t sound as though he did anything wrong. And he hardly looks like someone who is wasting away from years of drug addiction.
Rite Aid told me that they don’t carry Concerta. I asked if they could order it. I was told that the company they order from does not carry it. My guess-the hassles from the FDA and DEA just make it not worth the effort.
But there is no excuse a customer to be spoken to as if he’s a criminal and all of you are assuming facts not in evidence. NONE of you are doctors and a pharmacist is NOT a doctor. The law says that a pharmacist must fill a legitimate prescription. And I know for a fact that doctors do not care to be second-guessed by clerks with two years of college pharmacy training.
We’re still hearing these canards about “shopping customers” selling drugs to kids. I’ve known a few shopping customers and they invariably want the drugs for themselves. Kids are more likely to buy illicit drugs that are smuggled into the country, not “diverted” from the legitimate drug supply.
I’ve met many a smart-nosed pharmacist in my time and I happen to be a very polite person. Treating citizens like drug addicts when they present prescriptions has been going on for years. The problem is worse than ever.
The FDA has had it in for stimulants since it required a doctor’s prescription for amphetamines in 1959. In 1962 and the early ’70s, it intensified the crackdown.
The result? So-called “bathtub speed” became big in Haight-Asbury in 1967-1968. At that time, addicts injected it. The subsequent police crackdown on these addicts and their suppliers had some effect on curtailing the problem. But what really made speed unpopular was that users learned for themselves how truly deleterious it really is.
Then, in 1968, for the first time in our history, a relatively obscure drug called cocaine stepped in to fill the gap.
The problem is not “little kids getting sold drugs in schoolyards.” That’s a virtual myth, a bogeyman that anti-drug crusaders trot out and neurotic parents embrace. It’s the FDA’s and DEA’s unrelenting efforts to stop virtually all prescriptions of pharmaceutically pure and prescribed stimulants–which do not have the toxicity of “crank” and rarely result in a “paranoid psychosis.”
But drug Prohibition can ALWAYS be counted on to make drug abuse more harmful, more reactive, and harder to deal with in any sane, rational way.
Couple that with the black-or-white, it’s either right-or-wrong ignorance of the public toward drugs and you have our ongoing, never-ending quest to stop people from getting their highs chemically, rather than through the Protestant Work Ethic.
It’s not about whether a guy who’s on Codeine & Tylenol gets a prescription from his doctor. A pharmacist is NOT a doctor. It’s said that 100,000 people are killed every year by being given the wrong medication.
A great many of these mistakes are attributed to pharmacists, not doctors. From what I’m reading here, pharmacists hold themselves in a higher regard than is commensurate with their educational achievements or clinical training.
Putting all that aside, I have a legitimate prescription for Concerta. Rite Aid does NOT carry it. Eckerd didn’t have it in stock and-well, with the Christmas/New Year’s holiday approaching/wouldn’t have it soon.
What’s going on? The FDA and DEA are coming down on pharmacies who fill these prescriptions, thinking that a prescription for a stimulant or painkiller must have an illicit intent behind it. Pharmacies are just deciding that it’s not worth the hassle. An increasing number of adults are being treated for ADD-1.5 million at last count, according to the NYT. Do you think the FDA and DEA are going to sit still for that?
And do you truly believe that if the dispensing of legitimate prescriptions were outlawed forever, the drug problem would just go away? Or would it just go underground, as it always has, resulting in chemically impure, adulterated concoctions that will cause a far greater number of drug casualties. THAT is the true historical scenario of every drug the government has targeted for regulation and elimination-not little kiddies being hooked by junkies.
A) The government targets a drug and its “abusers.”
B) Government cracksdowns
C) An illicit market arises to fill the demand
D) If the drug was a pharmaceutical (e.g., amphetamines) a more toxic alternative will be mass produced
E) The cost in human lives, misery, and wasted tax dollars will be far worse than before the crackdown
F) The “problem” is no more chance of being eradicated than any other drug the government decided to protect us from, going all the way back to the beginning of U.S. drug prohibition in 1914 .
I just want a to find a way to Complain about the Service I recieved at the Rite Aid in Chester, PA.
This is a Community of Disabled people that live right in Back of the RITE AIDE.
I’ve BEEn Here 2 and a half years never have I been treated the Way I was tonight.
I am brain damaged, My words don’t come out so smooth but I never have been rude.
I always say Excuse me to the Cashier and I say I’ll wait till your done as not to Rush them at their work.
I merely was trying to explain myself clear, because the Cashier had the wrong item in her hand and I got treated like a Child, She asked me if i was trying to get Smart. I couldn’t find the right words. I told Her NO.
THen I said Who is You Manager, I never got treated like that, She said She was on the phone with her.
IF it is the Both of them..That is not right. I’m not trying to be in a Street Gang, I just trying to Shop.
I used to work Retail, Cashier Customer Service. I was an Assistant Manager At GNC before My Brain Disorder. I know the Right way to treat Someone.