Friday, May 25, 2012

Something Of Interest To Every Walgreen's Pharmacist Wading Through CVS Voice Mail Hell Right Now Trying To Get To A Person

Because you may think it's over, after you've pressed 3 for pharmacy, then 1 for pharmacy, then listened to that weird noise that sounds like someone drowning and a few minutes of sleepy-time classical music before finally getting through to a human. Nope. You know a pharmacist is never the first human you get. So you go back on hold and wait some more. But when you hear that second voice you probably think for sure it's almost over. Nope. You now are only at the beginning of a procedure, according to this CVS email the tooth fairy happened to leave under my pillow this morning:



Just Walgreen's though. Evidently they couldn't care less if they're losing a prescription to anyone else.

If I worked for Walgreen's I'd be really pissed right about now.

35 comments:

Anonymous said...

Walgreens has also put this policy into place, but it's not just for CVS. It's for every transfer. Most of us don't bother with calling the patient, though. We don't have the staff or the time to do it.

Anonymous said...

Not true at all.. We have no problems transferring prescriptions to Walgreens.. I have never worked with a pharmacist who followed this protocol!

jillian said...

Forget the pharmacists; if I were a customer trying to transfer I'd be hella pissed. Getting a call trying to pressure me into not transferring? Suddenly buying meds is like buying a car: "what will it take to get YOU into this Celebrex today??"

PharmaJap said...

When Walgreens first lost all their Caremark/Tricare customers, the deal was the same on our end. You weren't allowed to call individual stores for transfers, but had to call a central number (read: a call center somewhere in India), wait on hold for about half an hour (that's if you got through; sometimes you got an automated "sorry, we're too busy, call back later" message), give them a list of prescription numbers you wanted transferred to you (they refused to look up prescriptions by name/DOB), and then get those prescriptions faxed to you, MAYBE an hour or two later. I think this is just some idiot's way of "getting back" at Walgreens for the nightmare we put up with.

A few awesome Walgreens pharmacists were willing to ignore this protocol, though, and at the two CVSs I've interned at, at least, nobody would dream of making you put up with red tape like this. Hell, badgering the customer about the transfer THEY initiated? Feh.

Anonymous said...

I put this memo in the "shred" bag.

Anonymous said...

I kinda like the "longer" rx swaps..I sit down..listen to the phone music..relax a little...get put on hold..relax a little more..tie up two phone lines....probably should print this screen to show it to anyone who bitches. These corpo memos are entertaining...more please.
BTW Students of pharmacy!! or more realistically...POTENTIAL students..do you really want this job? L.G.

wiley said...

Every transaction a sales pitch? Do they not have an advertising budget with sales pitches running independently of the patients trying to get a medication that they've been prescribed in a timely and convenient manner?

I realize that the staff is not getting paid directly to take the time to make a transfer, but shouldn't the onus of keeping customers fall primarily on those at the top of he corporate ladder? Resisting professional MEDICAL courtesies by having the pharmacists make sales pitches doesn't sound like a winning or an ethical strategy.

It's all so bleeding cynical! Corporate priorities and business management personalities have become hegemonic in the extreme. It doesn't even pretend to serve the consumer anymore it just whips the help.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I questioned the legality of that one and ignored it. Although, technically I think it was only supposed to be in effect for April, while they had a gift card promotion going on.

Anonymous said...

I'm a CVS intern and have worked at four different stores in the past two years. None of my pharmacists did this, and when I showed this to my preceptor, she said she's never seen this email. However, other chains do this too. At one of my stores, the Rite Aid across the street called a patient and told him we constantly make prescription errors, have two hour wait times, and give out incorrect advice for OTC's. I understand that they are hurting and in need of prescriptions, but I really doubt saying things like that about other pharmacists is very professional.

I know this policy is bull. But at least CVS isn't saying pharmacists should tell lies about the professional abilities of other pharmacists.

Anonymous said...

The reason I'd be pissed about this as a Walgreen's pharmacist is not that some CVS pharmacists may actually follow this protocol with me, but rather that WAG will hear about this and say "what haven't we been doing this?" Then they will develop another tracking metric with another unrealistic goal for us to chase.

Anonymous said...

Screw that protocol, but when someone wants to transfer out of my store I usually like to know why. Is it price, did we do something wrong, our lortab the wrong color? I/we work damn hard to make people happy and if we are failing I like to know how/why. I always ask the rph that calls to transfer "did they say why they are transferring?". In our case usually it's distance or for a $4 script. I don't think there's anything wrong with asking the customer what's up when they are trying to leave. Though that protocol is crap. Go ahead and give the transfer. Usually they come back of their own free will because when done right, cvs does give the best customer service experience IMO.

Emma said...

Oh My God. This happened to me just last week!

Now, I work for Walgreens - they've been encouraging us to do the same crap - but I and NO other Walgreens pharmacist I know will do it.

I also have no local CVS in my area. I wish these supervisors would just get their heads out of their asses and let us do our damn jobs! You want to make a difference in how much business we have? Stop being tightwads and lower our prices and increase our staffing!

Anonymous said...

If you want to speak to someone right away at CVS, just dial 8001 as soon as the automated voice answers. This will ring the pharmacy. :)

Wilson said...

The customer gets screwed on this one.

Anonymous said...

This is company policy, for sure, in midwestern parts. The RPHs I know don't follow these rules but they are being pressured to. I am telling you all (who don't work for CVS/Caremark and know it already): CVS is a beheamoth! They have plans to be serious healthcare providers. I am actually glad the ESI/Medco merger went through just to counter the grand ambitions these assholes have (though of course that only delays the inevitable). Wait for CVS' Advisor 2.0: RPHs will soon be calling docs to request heart and psych meds for patients who meet certain criteria! MinuteClinics are about to widen their "spectrum of care" to non-acute issues. Oh, and at least in these parts: CVS is starting to spread the word that new RPHs will ONLY be offered starting salary of $75,000. And that is supposedly across the board...

Anonymous said...

I had a CVS pharmacist refuse a transfer because she believed they had a store policy against transferring controlled substances. All to the detriment of the patient in that case.

That said, most of the CVS guys I deal with have never given me problems. As in most places, some of them I have dealt with, phone-style, for 10 years, or gone to school with. A couple of them came to my store and introduced themselves, and I have done likewise. Otherwise we become islands onto ourselves, and resentment starts brewing.

Anonymous said...

yea our company tried a similar sack of bull-crap a while a go, but I never did it. who had the time? Another bad idea by some half balding non-pharmacist who works in a cubicle at corporate...

Anonymous said...

I work for WAG, I've never heard of Walgreens using this policy. If they did institute such a policy, I would ignore it anyway.

Anonymous said...

WoW. Just plain. WOW. As far as I know from my own state law in-depth study at pharmacy school 30 years AGO, this is AGAINST the law. If ANYONE is considering this seriously, they are NOT registered pharmacists in the state of Wyoming. Companies are not anyone higher than a government mandate, nor ones' professional oath to society. This is beyond 'first do no harm!!' This is brainwashing bulls--t. If any tech thinks that they can tell this claptrap to a patient beyond the discretion of the registered pharmacist on duty, they are insubordinate. Whoever made up this rule was NOT a pharmacist, and deserves a stiff upbraiding and slapdown.

Anonymous said...

Yep I heard the same thing about the starting salary, and you can be sure they've already started to cull the ranks of older more well paid pharmacists. Of course they do it under the guise of poor performance. Metrics are so out of control there is guaranteed to be at least one you don't reach monthly. A few months and multiple write ups later....bam you're replaced by a new grad and out in the job market. Good luck there. I havn't seen cvs hire a pharmacist more than 3 years out of school for years. They new grads who dont know better. Professional serfdom...new grads with loads of debt after 6 years of paying tuitions of up to 50 K a year.

Anonymous said...

Although we had the highest KPM and SSS in the district, the DM researched the results to find out what shifts and what times our scores were the lowest. We did not address the customer by name in the time period from 4p to 6:30p. That is our busiest time and we barely remember our own names. The PIC has to send a list of folks who got any OT (even tenths of an hour) to the DM every 3 days Of course, the amount of work is so great that no human being can finish it "on the clock". If we voice any concerns about anything, we are immediately reminded of how quickly we can be replaced. ("Maybe this is not the place for you.".) Anonymous is correct that older pharmacists are being targeted and even victimized. They are given the more difficult shifts with less tech help and then written up for "not meeting expectations". The situation seems to worsen by the day.

Anonymous said...

You guys actually call on transfers? Just copy the fucking label and move on......

Next!

Anonymous said...

Any wagers on when the first pharmacist goes postal?

R to the X said...

Yeah, thankfully we don't do this at the store that I work at. I mean, it just doesn't make sense. Most people who transfer their prescriptions to another store aren't doing so because they just got fed up with the chain or the pharmacy they were originally at. They do it because the pharmacy location they're transferring to is more conveniently located to their residence or their vacation spot or their place of work or whatever.

In fact, I think this kind of policy could do the OPPOSITE of what CVS is hoping it will do. Imagine if you're a customer on vacation waiting at the store you're hoping to transfer to and you hear from the tech or pharmacist at that store that your CVS is currently taking a whole hour to do transfers. Then that CVS calls you up and asks these generic questions when all you really want is your prescription so you can finally relax on vacation. Do you think the customer will be a) happy b) irritated c) overjoyed or d) really really ridiculously ecstatic? Not a tough question.

Anonymous said...

i have called cvs for transfers to my walgreens and never encountered this. we were told to follow the same type of protocol but most of our transfers are people who are out of town, so yay lets pressure them into not transferring their meds and going without them for 3 weeks when the insurance wouldnt allow a vacation override. all rphs realize they are on the same team and not gonna waste their time with this crap that some suit thought of when his computer game was taking too long to load!

Anonymous said...

Wow, I've never run across anything like this. Of course, when I call for a transfer I don't say where I'm calling from or who I am, I just say I need to speak to the pharmacist for a transfer. Ten minutes later when I finally get a poor CVS pharmacist on the line, it's too late. If they told me they would have to call me back after waiting that long to speak to someone, I'd be seriously pissed!

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
Any wagers on when the first pharmacist goes postal?
I've dreamed about it many times, but would never make it happen. I'd laugh if it every came to fruition! Especially if it were some norco-slut scamming for their shit and giving me ballz-out headaches about it 12 days early. Boom! See ya!

Epilogical said...

I work at CVS and I can say that with all the other crap calls CVS makes us do (weekend PCQ calls anyone?), we are not about to do more. Besides, why would any of us want to have to waste time by calling Walgreens back to transfer an rx to them? As far as I know, no other pharmacist in my district does this.

Though when transferring IN, we tell the patient it'll be at least an hour.

Anonymous said...

Another example of CVS management stupidity...good, competent pharmacists would never follow such a ridiculous policy. It's of constant amazement these things keep appearing in print because mgmt is totally unaware these will be used as documentation against them in the future. Go CVS mgmt - give us reasons to report you to BOPs!

Josh said...

Target has the exact same policy......... we don't follow it....... but we have it.

Anonymous said...

I work @ walg. when we started using the "transfer rx" online techs weren't authorized in the system to do the tranfers even though we can over the phone in the state of tn so my store immediately put an end to it b/c my phamacists didn't like doing anyhing they didnt HAVE to do. We nevere used it even after countless emails informing us to use it, reguardless to the fact it wasn't even legal to USE IN THE STATE OF TENN.

Anonymous said...

received this in WLM again a few days ago. Sorry, overlords, lying violates the principles of my religion. Maybe yours is different.

The Phrustrated Pharmacist said...

So THIS is what was going on last week! I am a pharmacist in an extremely rural area, miles away from the middle of nowhere. The next closest town is 40 miles. I called a Houston CVS for a pharmacy, and spent a TOTAL of 30 minutes on hold. I say total because I hung up and called back TWICE.

There is no excuse for this. This is about as unprofessional as it gets. Of course, we no longer have a profession, but I digress.

I finally got extremely ugly, which I hate to do, as it upsets me the rest of the day. The person I was transferring for was here visiting family. I am thousands of miles away, and certainly not competition.

Yet another example of what is going wrong in our profession, and I hate to say it, folks, but:

IT IS OUR OWN GOD-DAMNED FAULT FOR PUTTING UP WITH SHIT LIKE THIS FOR YEARS.

Kudos for those of you who are not taking it and standing up for what is:
1) the law
2)professional courtesy
3)the right thing to do

The Phrustrated Pharmacist
tphrph.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

I have been a pharmacist for over 35 years,working hospital,retail and even nuclear. We get treated so poorly because we are not willing to change jobs !! If pharmacists would leave employers that treat them poorly,conditions might change for us.If you are unhappy, start looking. Make a change.
anonymous,Ohio

Anonymous said...

I am all for making it as hard as possible for customers to coupon shop, who also, ultimately don't care about their medicine anyway (you know, the atenolol they haven't filled in six months but now they need it in twenty minutes)...as long as they get their $25 coupon. Go CVS!!! I wish all pharmacies would do this.