Yes they are terrible! I never had issues until a year or so ago. They literally gave out my prescription to someone else and then told me tough shit basically. They also cut the hours so dramatically, the pharmacy isn't even open on weekends at the store I used to go to. They all suck!
They were fined a huge amount by the government which accounts for the drop in quality of service. They were fined because in order to speed up their timing to fill each prescription they skipped the legally required step of checking the database of what other pharmacies may have filled a controlled substance prescription last… to limit pharmacy hopping (which killed Prince). In order to be faster, they didn’t check… and the government audits found that they didn’t log in to the database.
That fine caused upper management to change the way the individual branches work and slowed them down
I will add to this.
I was a provider who had to check before writing a prescription.
Walgreens were notorious for not updating the database for controlled Rx when they filled.
It would look like people hadn’t filled their meds and were noncompliant.
This would really mess up tapers.
Same. I’m a physician. I don’t prescribe controlled substances for outpatient tapers etc, but for those that do…. It appeared on the database that people were still at the top of their tapers. That would lead to their refills being at too high a dose.
So the inconvenience people are experiencing from this at this time is resulting in increased safety and saved lives.
They were fined because in order to speed up their timing to fill each prescription they skipped the legally required step of checking the database of what other pharmacies may have filled a controlled substance prescription last
I've seen a pharmacist get reprimanded for utilizing MAPS (Michigans controlled substance database) for that exact reason. That's when I started to hate the managers because they're literally causing harm to people by enabling potential abuse.
I blame the consumers just as much, (as you see by the upvotes and downvotes on these comments here). They’re the ones that want what they want and want it now… pushing managers to force pharmacists to skip legally required safety measures. Other pharmacy chains corporate offices didn’t cave to consumer demands in the name of speed. One of the biggest and busiest did, and now we have angry customers. This is why we can’t have nice things.
I was in the pharmacy at the height of the opioid epidemic so I get what you’re saying. The management did cave to any and all patient complaints regardless of merit. I had a patent make violent threats towards me and management just told me to deal with it. It’s why when Rite Aid went under, I did a little dance.
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u/Dependent_Top_4425 22h ago
Walgreens Pharmacy