My Pharmacy Woe

[Gaki]

I've posted about my Mart of Wal's pharmacy before but this one really did it to me. I walk up to the counter about two days ago and say that I need to refill a prescription. I don't know if the policy is that I have to be able to tell them what I need refilled but they just stare at the screen (AT THE ONLY PRESCRIPTION LISTED) and ask me what I need refilled (wtf?). So I tell them this:

"The generic of [birth control], the Gen...Gen...Gian...Gin...err..." (I can't pronounce it and I do this every single time. It gets the point across in any case and it's a product of my extreme social anxiety of going up to counters.)

The lady tells me okay and I leave. I come back today and go up to the counter and a different lady finds it and is like, "Did you want to pay here?"

Sure. 61.34. WUT. She looks at me like she's just seen something really odd and she has because I kid you not my jaw hit the floor. HIT THE FLOOR. I managed to stumble out, "Is that the GENERIC?!"

Her response: "Probably."

...Right. She walks over to confirm it and another tech says in a snotty voice, "Do we even HAVE a generic for [birth control]?"

Turns out they didn't give me the generic. Turns out the lady I tried to pronounce the generic's name to had typed in that I had specifically requested the brand name. Yeah, because they sound SO MUCH ALIKE...not.

I made them fix it.

Mart of Wal Pharmacy: making simple communication like ramming a sharpened pencil into your eye since 1962.

[MoonCat]

See, she couldn't spell "generic" so she just typed in the first brand name she thought of.

[Luna Baby]

I'm having a problem with our local Mart of Wal pharmacy that they keep shifting hubby's med back to my old insurance. Twice now. With his new ins., it's supposed to be $5, with my old insurance, it was btwn $30-$35. I asked and she said it was still under Anthem (the old ins) and it was just a "discount card". Bull hockey!! It's a real pain to have to wait on her to go back through 50 screens to enter just a tiny bit of information.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

I think I'd be afraid to take any drug a pharmacy that careless and out to lunch sold me.

[Gaki]

I think I'd be afraid to take any drug a pharmacy that careless and out to lunch sold me.

My only consolation for this is that Gianvi (the generic of Yaz that I can't pronounce) comes in a blisterpack that has the name on it. So they can hardly mess it up that badly unless I'M the one who doesn't pay attention when I open it.

[Seshat]

Bring the empty pack next time. Wave the packet. "I want this generic."

[radiocerk]

Now I don't know how their computer system works, but in my pharmacy, plenty of people just tell me they need their birth control, and unless they've changed recently, there are no more questions. Maybe they'd understand "the generic for Yaz" better?

[Gaki]

I know they can see it because plenty of them before have said, "The Gianvi?" All I had to do was give my last name and my birthday and they can see it on the screen. I won't have to deal with them soon 'cause I'm going to be going to a different Wal Mart over the summer. All I do with them is hand them the last sticker with the script on it and they don't say anything, they just fill it, I get a text, and I come back after looking at all the pretty fish in the back for a few minutes.

It isn't even that bad when I don't have to transfer at that other Wal Mart, just name, birthday, bing pow, come back when you get a text, kthxbai.

Easy as pie and the ladies are WAY nicer and love making short conversation with me. I wish it was my all the time Wal Mart.

[fireheart]

I think I sometimes impress the chemists when I go to get my refill for my prescription and request "Can I please have the generic Moclobemide?" (my medication).

[blas]

I'll never go back to the Wal-Mart pharmacy after the way the pharmacist treated me a month or so ago when I went to get antibiotics. I told my bf's dad (a pharmacist elsewhere) how I was treated and his jaw nearly hit the floor. He said that if he ever spoke to a customer that way, he'd be at the very least, written up, if not fired. You aren't supposed to ever berate a customer.

[Kogarashi]

I've yet to have a problem with any Walmart pharmacy I've been to, thankfully. When they haven't been cheerfully professional, they've been aloof and professional, which is just fine by me.

But I swore off Planned Parenthood for birth control the second year we were married after the attitude I got from the receptionist/desk clerk one day. At this point, Hubby and I were both finishing up our last year of school, and only he had a job, so we were basically living off of a super-low student paycheck and grant money. Bottom-of-the-barrel income there, basically. I'd been going to Planned Parenthood for my birth control since they were only charging us $3 per package the year before, when I did still have some small income to supplement Hubby's.

But then I got laid off from that job and started my last two semesters, dropping us to the aforementioned income level. The very next time I went in to refill my prescription, the lady told me it was $15 per pack. That was $12 I wasn't expecting to spend, and I knew the reason we'd been charged $3 per pack before was because of our income level. So I asked her why, when our income level went down, the prescription price went up.

I got the snotty response, "Well, we ask people to pay as much as they can, and the cost is normally $15 per pack. But if you can't afford it, I suppose we can give it to you for free...." I was hurt and offended because her tone implied that I was dirt for not being able to afford $15 birth control, but I just wanted out of there, so I paid up and left. The next time my prescription came due, Hubby and I talked it over and both agreed that I didn't need to deal with that attitude anymore, so we found room in the budget to get the prescription written at the student health center and filled at Walmart. Sure, it was a bit pricier than Planned Parenthood, but they never gave me any grief about it.

[Little Retail Rabbit]

Typically, how much does a 6-month refill of the Pill cost you Americans? I only ask as in the UK we don't pay but I'll be emigrating to the US and have no idea ^^;;

I also don't like our local Family Planning (our version of Planned Parenthood). It's ridiculous...last I checked, its only open for 3 hours once a week. No wonder no one ever bothers with it. Especially if you're working those 3 hours!

[blas]

PP around here has really limited days/hours and wait times almost as bad as unemployment.

I don't care for the way they treat people, either.

They also aren't willing to help people with insurance get their birth control for cheaper prices, which is supposed to be the whole damn point of the place. I understand it costs a lot of money to give away free or really cheap BC, but just because I have a decent paying job with benefits doesn't mean that I'm well off by ANY means.

[fireheart]

Typically, how much does a 6-month refill of the Pill cost you Americans? I only ask as in the UK we don't pay but I'll be emigrating to the US and have no idea ^^;;

I also don't like our local Family Planning (our version of Planned Parenthood). It's ridiculous...last I checked, its only open for 3 hours once a week. No wonder no one ever bothers with it. Especially if you're working those 3 hours!

We have a few equivelents of Family Planning around here, which can be hard to work out where you need to go exactly. One group is known as ShineSA and they provide information as well as condoms I believe, one group is called The Second STory and they provide most health services and the last one is called the Pregnancy Advisory Centre and as they sound, they do abortions.

[blas]

Oh, and retail rabbit, it depends on your insurance and what Pill you are on (if you have generics available, most insurance companies won't cover the name brand unless you get a good reason).

I pay $20 a month copay on my Pill. It's $60 full price and has no generic.