Kim off meds
Hmm, my reminder on the monthly calendar to pick up my medication looks kind of funny next to the day I have marked as off from work.
Somehow, I ended up on autofill for the monthly prescription I pick up at Target. I figured this out one day when I got a creepy automated voice message telling me that my prescription was ready to pick up.
That was several months ago. Since then, I have been trying to figure out how autofill works. I only got the creepy voicemail reminder once during that time frame (until last week) so I’d been asking the pharmacist each time I went when my prescription would be ready, but they could never give me a straight answer. I just went with it, since they always had it ready.
Well, this Saturday, on the 31st, we stopped to buy some groceries and pick up my prescription. Surprisingly, I had received another one of the creepy voicemail reminders on the 26th, so I figured my prescription would be ready.
Uh, no. I got back there, told them my name, and they couldn’t find it. They gave me dumbfounded looks and asked how to spell my last name again. They looked it up in the computer, and told me I had waited too long to pick it up and it had been sent back (huh?). They said they fill my prescription on the 24th, and they sent it back because I had taken more than 14 days to pick it up.
Um… it was the 31st, a mere 7 days later. And I got the creepy voicemail reminder on the 26th. They then informed me that the reminder told me they were sending it back, not that it was ready. Guess I need to get my ears checked, because that is not what I heard on the phone.
So, they told me it would take an hour to “fill” my prescription (which is not actually pills, so I don’t know what was going to take so frickin’ long). I was not very happy, because we were trying to get home by 1:00 pm for trick-or-treating (we got 24 trick-or-treaters in a six-hour time frame – FAIL) and still had one more stop to make.
We did all of our shopping in about 25 minutes and while we were in the checkout I went back there to see if my prescription was ready, by chance, and lo and behold, it was. Ugh. I don’t know why they told me it would take an hour when all they have to do is get something out of a refrigerator. They lady kind of apologized to me and thanked me for being patient. And I asked again, PLEASE explain to me how this autofill works. PLEASE. And all they told me is that my prescription will be ready on the 24th* each month. So, I will give it one more shot, before I go back to requesting it myself during each visit. When I do that, I expect the hour wait. What’s the convenience of autofill if it’s not ready to pick up?
*My calendar reminder is on the 28th because I don’t go shopping on the weekdays. I’m going to call and make sure it’s ready.
Themocracy
I’m not sure whether to feel relieved or whether we should start a revolution that the pharmacy at Target is no better than the one at Walgreen’s. And to think these pharmacists are paid BIG BUCKS to do what they do … yet the administrative side to their jobs is a big old FAIL. Sigh.
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We use Walgreens and the auto fill thing is also a huge pain. I have no idea how they keep putting us back on it because I keep cancelling it but then a few months later I get one of those creepy calls you are talking about. Since I need it anyway, I go get it and then tell them to take me off the auto fill. It works for a few months and then the creepy call comes again. Crazy that it is the same with both pharmacies!
I LOVED your title and calendar. Made me laugh this morning!
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Ugh. How frustrating! We use Walgreens (okay, Jason uses Walgreens. I don’t have any prescriptions) but they’ve never put him on auto-fill. I think because his insurance is weird and he isn’t always “allowed” to get the same number of pills each month.
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That calendar is great- thanks for the early morning, much needed, laugh!
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What?!? Why is this system so confusing? I could barely understand this post because the autofill failure seems to monumentally complex.
I still get my stuff from Student Health, which is mercifully easy and convenient since most college students fail at responsibility.
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I feel your pain, I have 4 meds wtih three different pick up dates because due to insurance rules, they can only be filled once in 30 days so their cycles are off and I make at least 3 trips to pick them up.
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they keep asking me if i want to use autofill. i keep saying no. now i’m glad 🙂
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I don’t trust auto-fill. However, I am a big fan of being able to request a refill via Walgreens’ website. You can tell them what time and date you want your prescription ready.
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I use the NuvaRing as birth control and every month I am fascinated by CVS when they tell me I need to wait 15-25 minutes so they can “fill” my prescription..ALL THEY HAVE TO DO IS HAND IT TO ME. I don’t get it.
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What a disaster! Prescriptions can be such a hassle. My biggest problem is when the prescription runs out and I’m stuck trying to get a doctor’s appt. or just get a doctor on the phone to refill it. Doctors are sooo diff. to get ahold of!
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Oh you’re not hte only one who has faced problems with target and its “autofill” feature… at first everything worked fine, we’d get that creepy call about 2x a month due to different meds having been filled at different times… but then… the calls stopped coming,,, but the meds were languishing waiting for pick-up… and no thanks to incompetent folks manning the pharmacy, they actually double-filled one of the meds because it had beeen auto-filled and when we called to check if it was ready the person didn’t see/check properly and filled it out again… we’re still trying to iron out that impact, many months later!
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I don’t know why you’re even picking up a prescription when your calendar very clearly states that you are off meds!
I think that the pharmacist tells you it will take an hour to go get something from the fridge just like the 24 Hour Fitness tells you it will take 30 days to process your cancelling your membership….because they want to make their job seem harder than it ever possibly could be.
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I work as a pharmacist in a hospital now so I don’t know how auto-refills work but let me just stick up for pharmacists a bit. I worked in a retail store for a few years so I definitely understand how pharmacies usually work.
“So, they told me it would take an hour to “fill” my prescription (which is not actually pills, so I don’t know what was going to take so frickin’ long)”
Even though it sounds like it was their mistake that your Rx wasn’t ready, and they should have tried to rush it….it isn’t as simple as everyone thinks of just grabbing it and sticking a label on it. The pharmacist has to answer patient questions, and doctor phone calls in the middle of checking every prescription that comes through. Target typically only has one pharmacist working at time, but your store could be different. You have to think about the probably dozen or so Rxs that doctors have called in, patients have called in refills for on voicemail (if Target has this) and brought in in the last hour before you, just because you’re there yours can’t automatically become the first one filled. It still has to be processed in the computer “in line” and be filled by a technician, then checked by the pharmacist. Now most Target pharmacies are NOT that busy so an hour seems outrageously long to me, but so many people wonder what takes so long, so maybe that explains it just a little bit.
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wow, I just read your other comments and am having to refrain from leaving a not-nice comment in regards to “….because they want to make their job seem harder than it ever possibly could be.” What a crock! Our jobs ARE hard, and extremely stressful.
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Hi Amanda – I was being slightly snarky in that comment, the next line in my comment referred to how 24Hour Fitness needs 30 days to cancel your membership.
I work full-time and I know that sometimes things get busy and sometimes things are slow, but even in the slow periods of work, when someone asks for something, we give them the biggest estimate of time it would possibly take to fill the job, regardless of whether we are in a downtime or not. It covers our ass for when we are very busy…and I really believe that the post in question had to do with this issue. She was told it would take an hour, but she came back in 20 min and it was ready. I don’t think the pharmacist lied to her. I think he covered his ass in case it was going to take him 60 minutes, not the 15 he probably knew it would take.
Even at 24HF, I would guess that they can actually cancel your membership in 48 hrs if there was some emergent reason that they needed to but they will never tell you that.
I meant no disrespect to your profession, or any other. My point was that people do make things out to be harder than they seem at many times and the phramacist at that time probably knew that it would not take him an hour to get that one script ready, but why would he admit that to anyone? Then there would be false expectations in the future.
I’ll cross-posted this to my blog as well, seeing as you did the same.
Cheers,
Kaylen
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I have no idea how auto-fill works with pills, but I’m kind of glad now I don’t have to deal with that right now! It sounds beyond confusing!!
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“Kim Off Meds” hahahah, congratulations! That was funny. I don’t use auto-fill at CVS, but I am able to go online and request my refill and the time I will cone in to pick them up. That works for me.
I thought they always said an hour just to get you to shop in the store longer. I shop for 20 min then check, it’s almost always ready.
Hi, I’m a tech at target pharmacy and I hate auto fill as well. The calls are made from a central location, and we have no control over the calls. The calling system has been messed up for a long time, calling people way too late or calling them when nothing is ready. I wish they would just cancel the whole thing. Please don’t get mad at the pharmacy staff. We are just trying to do our jobs, and when you yell at us or get mad, that just adds on the the 10 people who have yelled at us earlier that day.
As for the time it takes to fill a prescription, even though you may be the only one at the counter, we could have 8 people in line ahead of you who just left the counter. And no, we cannot just hand a nuvaring over to you, thats against the law.
Please be nice to your pharmacists and pharmacy techs!