The Pharmacy Chick

I could hardly believe this unfolded:

I filled a prescription for this lady for a drug and she had no insurance. It had been 34.99 cash. I learned from a pharm friend of mine about a online discount that as long as you used a certain group number, and any 9 digit ID, it would give a pretty competitive price. It seemed like a friendly gesture to see if I could save this woman a few dollars. So, in addition to choosing the larger strength and doing the 1/2 tab thing, by using this discount, it saved her about 12.00. Pretty nice huh? I was feeling pretty good about myself, put the rx on the shelf and went home for the weekend.

I came back on monday to find another $12 refund hanging on the wall for her. I asked my partner about it and he said that her response to learning that we have her this new discount was:

“WHY the HELL haven’t you been giving me this all along–what kind of customer service do I get around here–I guess you dont really want my business!”

So, as my gut starts burning earlier than normal this day (what pharmacist doesn’t have GERD?) I think to myself–what the heck just happened? If this happened to me, I’d just be bouncing down the aisle with my new cheaper rx thinking what great people they are–they gave me a discount I neither enrolled in nor deserve! How cool is this?… BUT NO! We get ripped a new lower-orifice for not giving it to her earlier.

So, heres my new credo–thanks to this lovely encounter–you get the discounts YOU enroll in, thank you very much, don’t wanna be accused of playing favorites! No, not me! Equal opportunity prices–whatever the computer spits out.

Who needs that kind of abuse–for being nice?

Tags: customers, prices | |

It drives me nuts frankly– but I have this conversation over and over–goes something like this:

“How much will this prescription cost me?”

“Do you have Insurance?”

“Yes”

“May I see your card?”

“I dont have it with me”

“Ok, then this prescription is $42.99 cash”

“But I have insurance”

“Ok, may I have your card then?”

“I dont have it with me”

“OK, then its $42.99 cash”

and so it goes …..

I dont play insurance detective anymore. I simply dont have time. Don’t tell me where you work. I don’t care if you work for the biggest employer in the city, you have only one stinkin responsibility when you come to the pharmacy: Bring your insurance card! How hard can it be? I’ve seen some seriously ugly wallets, stuffed full of worthless receipts, old library cards, tattered business cards, 25 year old photos, expired coupons, 5 or 6 credit cards and where in all this is your insurance card? At home somewhere in a file cabinet?

Once in a while I get a trip down memory lane: “oh I think this is last years card” (sorry that wont help THIS year) “Here is the card from my last job” (only if they hire you back and enroll you in the next 10 minutes sir)or “Can you call Bob’s Drugs? Thats where I usually go” (thanks for sharing that tidbit and I am sure Bob will be thrilled to help out a competitor) or my personal favorite “Can I bring in my card later? my copay is $10″ (sure, just put down an additional $140 for collateral on this Cialis rx you hope is covered)

I’d like to see how far I’d get with that crap at my local mall: “I’d like to buy these pants” “Cash or Credit” “Credit please” “Can I have your card?” “I dont have it with me…I used it at Home Depot yesterday. Can you call them and get my number?” I can just see the cashier looking around for a hidden camera somewhere.

Doesn’t that sound stupid? So why must I hear it day after day in the pharmacy?

|

I was cruising the Internet the other day, letting it take me wherever it led me and (lo and behold) I stumbled upon a pharmacist BLOG! Wow–I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me that a pharmacist would do such a thing, so I spent the next 2 hours wandering various pharmacy blogs and came away that we are all in the same pathetic boat unfortunately.

So how did I get Here? and doing my own blog?

I’ve been counting by fives for 20 plus years. I remember my first job in pharmacy. It was a great store, one could buy everything from cosmetics to cooking utensils, bandages to bicycles. It was a long and relatively narrow building next to the grocery store, and we were in the back. One long counter, 3 typewriters, 3 pharmacists, no technicians (what was a technician?), and not a generic drug in sight. Everybody paid cash. There was no such thing as prescription insurance–remember those days? Oh, we had a few charge accounts (for the doctors and the rich folk) but for the most part, we just handed the drugs to our customers in a crisp white paper back with a yellow tear off receipt. Mrs. Customer would take her purchases up to the front ( no cash registers in the pharmacy) and the clerk would take care of the rest. You couldn’t leave the store without passing thru a register, thats just how it was designed..long and narrow…no short cuts.

Everything was processed by hand–we typed the labels, computed the price, and filled out the receipts long hand. We pulled hard copy…every…single..time. And God help you if you didn’t have your prescription number as there was no computers back then to cover your rump if you lost it. If you lost your number, YOU got to call your doctor to have HIM call in a new prescription.

I was an intern making $ 4.54 per hour and I thought I was swimming in money. After I got off work at the pharmacy ,I worked at a restaurant making half that amount of money and did twice the work! No wonder I was ready to be a pharmacist. At the time I had the dream of most pharmacists: work in a store, save some money, buy a store, hire a few pharmacists, then retire with a nice chunk of change in the bank when I sold the store to the next generation. Well of all those dreams, I managed the first two: I work in a store (grocery) and I am trying to save some money–not to buy a store but to retire as soon as possible.

And, who am I?

I am a retail pharmacist–I work for a large grocery chain in the US. And, for the sake of privacy, thats about all I should say. Like most retail pharmacists, I work long hours, eat cold food and drink warm soda. Because I have something like a hundred supervisors above me, my title of “manager” means I manage nothing. It only means I get to attend meetings I dislike (zzzzzz), handle customer complaints (”give em what they want- company credo”), and do fun chores like inventory, PIC reports, and referee employees.

I’ll try to share some interesting stories and occasionally vent. Ok, I may vent most of the time and share off-the-wall stories about customers too stupid to find their way home without a bread crumb trail.

Forgive me if I am not good at this at the beginning. But I hope all the pharmacists who read this will be able to nod their head in agreement and relate their own stories too.

Cheers

|