this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2024
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I don’t understand how it can possibly take 2 hours to count a couple dozen pills, throw them in an orange tube, and slap a label on it. Maybe a pharmacy tech can enlighten me here.
I have worked in a CVS so I can answer this first hand. The main reason is every CVS is critically understaffed to the point of danger to patients.
Beyond that systemic problem that adds delay, actually dispensing the prescription is not the rate limiting step. When you get a prescription there's a whole list of things you need to do before it can be dispensed. In no particular order:
If it's a controlled substance you need the pharmacist to do about 50% of the steps above and access the safe which is a whole process. In the meantime they are on the phone with a doctor or some insurance trying to get something clarified or approved. Or compounding someone's diaper cream. Or doing vaccinations. Or counseling someone on their antibiotic. Some drugs have mandatory monitoring programs you have to enter information from the doctor before they can be dispensed. Some drugs require a dosage syringe, or intramuscular syringes, or needle tips.
Suffice it to to say it is an involved process.
Wow, that is a lot more manual work than I expected. You have to rewrite the directions too? I imagined the prescribing doctor would do that, then all you have to do is look up the order on the computer and print out the label.
Thank you for the explanation, the whole process seems like it could be made more efficient.
Sometimes the doctor will write something in latin abbreviations so you have to translate that and write it out in plain text but you typically want to make sure the entire directions can fit on a single label. If you just say "see attached directions" then you may not get paid for the prescription if their insurance audits it they will take back any payment they gave to the pharmacy because you dispensed incorrectly. They may also just write something unhelpful like, "as directed in discharge paperwork" or "to be dosed by pharmacy" or something really long that can't easily fit.
That said it's been several years since i have been there so there may have been more enhancements.
Last prescription I got was antibiotics and steroids for an ear infection. The doctor indeed did give me dosage and schedule. Then the pharmacy also gave me instructions, and they were different. Seeing how each Doctor hopefully keeps up with their field and most likely can't really with others, I'd say the pharmacy instructions are usually safer unless the patient has specific circumstances only the prescribing doctor is aware of.
All the other people who have ordered meds before you. Also where you told a two hour wait time in person? That's a little suspect if it's not a huge order. I worked a very busy pharmacy, and if you are waiting in store we rarely had to ask more than a half hour. In fact a half hour is rare, but a rush when we are short handed....
But if you call ahead or order online, that yea you are just in the line of a few hundred people who needs rxs filled.
My CVS went through a period at one time where even in person prescription, they would ask me to come back later to pick it up. CVS treats its employees like trash, but apparently customers got mad enough that they finally hired some more people because that hasn't happened in a while.
Corporate CVS is absolutely terrible, to the customers and employees. As a pharm tech, my supervisors (the pharmacists) were awesome. The company was shit to work for and I understand completely how customers feel. Unless you live in a city with like a thousand CVS locations and the multiple locations makes a big difference to you, avoid them.
If you live in a small town type area and that one CVS is all you have? Ask to talk the pharmacy manager. They are one of the two or three pharmacists you see all the time. They cannot stop all the robo calls. But they can make sure that most of the time (that one person is not there every day)that your shit is ready when you want it. Again, CVS sucks but they are forced to hire real people.
I can walk to CVS from my house. That's the main reason I stay at this pharmacy. The staff there know me and I like them. But fuck the corporation for real.
Probably because they're counting pills and throwing them in bottles for a lot of other people, too.
But I'm the only person that matters here.
Are you a Target executive?
Because the world doesn't revolve around you and there are other people as well.
I’m very aware. I was asking why the process takes longer than the steps I described, not for people to passively aggressively state the obvious. An ex pharmacy employee gave a very well written explanation above.