No word whether signatures are to be in blood.
In case you missed it, the nation's most professional pharmacy chain... that starts with the letter "C"... and has a second letter of "V" has decided that regular prescription transfers aren't quite enough of a pain in the ass. They also have determined that their pharmacists have a lot of extra time, and more pressing professional concerns than things like the upcoming flu season, like lying to other pharmacists for example. Here's a copy of that policy I wrote about earlier:
And just to make sure they're doing what they are told:
My favorite part is the "privacy office," where one can report someone messing around with a customer's prescription without the customer's permission:
"Hello, Anita? I need to report a privacy violation"
"Yes?"
"We had a customer very upset that a pharmacy automatically tried to fill one of their prescriptions without their permission"
"Awesome!! How sure are you that this skulduggery really happened?"
"Oh I'm 100% sure"
"Yesssssss!!!! We're finally going to sock it to those Walgreen's bastards!! No one initiates filling a customer's prescription without permission and gets away with it!! That would be a violation of the sacrosanct privacy that is so dear to us!"
"Well, here's the thing, it's already been in the paper, The Los Angeles Times actually"
"That's OK, we're still not going to let them get away with it!!"
"And the other thing? It's us. Here's what the paper says:"
But B.G. Stine, 52, of Torrance had a decidedly different experience when he stopped by a CVS branch to fill a couple of prescriptions for his brother, Mike, who has Parkinson's Disease
Normally, Stine said, he gets Mike's prescriptions filled at the in-house pharmacy of his 64-year-old sibling's retirement community in Seal Beach. But the pharmacy was able to fill only two of the four prescriptions during a recent visit, so Stine headed over to the nearby CVS.
He said he handed the CVS pharmacist the prescriptions and waited about 15 minutes. The pharmacist then had him sign a clipboard to show that he'd received the drugs, and that was that.
A month later, it was time to get the prescriptions refilled. Stine went, as usual, to the retirement community's pharmacy to pick up the drugs.
This time, the pharmacist informed him that he'd have to pay the full $600 price for the medications that had been out of stock last time. CVS apparently had already filled the prescriptions and billed Mike's insurer.
"I couldn't believe it," Stine told me. "They just went ahead and did it, locking us out of having insurance cover it anywhere else."
He said he immediately returned to the CVS branch and asked to see the manager. She explained, Stine recalled, that Mike had agreed to enroll in CVS' ReadyFill program when he got his prescriptions filled last time.
"I informed her that he couldn't have done that because it was me who'd picked up the medicine, and I never agreed to anything like that," Stine said. "The manager's face just went blank. It seemed like this wasn't the first time she was hearing this complaint."
I don't mean to pick on CVS so much, really I don't. But there's just so much material, and their employees are so willing to talk. I have never seen anything like the level of anger CVS people have towards their employer. Today's deep pill was the latest in a long line of them.
Something tells me Anita's phone is gonna be pretty quiet. As long as the focus is on other companies that is.
24 comments:
Been having similar issues at WAG. Sad to say, but we have had people eager/excited to transfer their rxs back to us from walmart/cvs/where ever. Then they get a really nice shock come pick up time that we are not contracted with ESI until September. And, no, they really don't want to pay cash for their sumatriptan until then.
BTW, has anyone mentioned the gift cards? I guess I just did. What was supposed to be a month long 'transfer an rx, get a $25 gift card' has turned into a 3-month walk through fire. I actually had a woman drop of a prescription and claim it was a transfer. Because she usually gets it filled at CVS. *Head against wall sound* I can just imagine the shit that will hit the pharmacy fan if every single ESI patient transfers back in earning a gift card for every single prescription. Because my existence wasn't trying enough. But then again, it might be hysterical. Decisions, decisions.
we sign policy like this one on a weekly basis. luckily my attorney assures me it's not worth the paper it's written on. we do not have the option to not sign it. the signature merely acknowledges that we received the documents. i'm sure if anyone ever reads them, my staff sure doesn't.
My chain routinely signs up Customers for auto fill. We get a report every month of who to sign up and are expected to auto enroll them. No permission asked. They say it's totally legal. Feels immoral.
The Middle Managers at walgreens want us to refill rxs without permission now too. Rewards cards are coming too. We are becoming CVS in many ways...
Rite Aid has quotas for autofill (called Courtesy Refill). 40% I think it is. You get berated and dragged through the coals if you don't make the numbers. It's a danger to the public and I've expressed concerns multiple times. Can't tell you how many misfills are DIRECTLY caused by this. They used to bullshit us and everyone else by saying it was all about patient compliance. Now they at least tell the truth and say it's to help with inventory management (to know whats needed and when). How is that shit legal? My guess is "auto refill" is next on the chopping block for the boards. At least I hope.
What? You have an attorney? I could have sworn they made us relinquish the use of, God forbid, unbiased outside legal counsel..
Oh Hell, what's another pint of blood lost when working for CVS ey?
it was all about patient compliance
Really? "Compliance?!" Bastards.
I am so happy to have found this blog... As an employee who works for "C"... I have had the most gut wrenching disgust for what I see go on.
We constantly have patients returning for refunds because they didn't mean to get this rx refilled because they are going to see their doc next week or are now getting a different strength via mail, etc. It is inefficient, distracting, and dangerous at best unless patients are alert and engaged in their treatment.
I demand auto refill for my medical marijuana!
Glad to be free of that company. So much wrong with how they handle their patients.
If you voice any moral or ethical concerns about this tactic, you will be told that "everyone does it." Makes me want to throw up.
Thanks for the info my friend
I agree fully on the policy of wasting our time by forcing us to be douche bags to other pharmacists (I'm not an employee of that company but I believe this completely). Now, I'm probably missing something, but was this brother's "ordeal" really newsworthy? How hard was it for their regular pharmacy to call CVS, have them reverse the claim, then transfer it (or as they already ran the insurance and got rejected, simply fill the Rx they already had in hand) and bill it successfully? We do this regularly. I would have gone a step further and had the brother call CVS back and have them DC the order to avoid future issues with them.
That being said, I too despise auto fill programs, for several reasons.
Again, I may have missed an important point in my haste...
Perhaps the situation itself was not newsworthy. The hidden gem was the revelation by the company spokesperson that there is no "quota" for ReadyFill. Just as there is no quota for wait time, adherence calls, and number of seconds to answer the phone? Really???
"CVS' DeAngelis denied that any production quotas exist for ReadyFill."
Omfg lol! ...I think I'll print this and shove it in my DMs face next my store doesn't meet ready fill expectations. deangelis should run for a political office...because that is a straight up lie if I have even seen one.
The latest task is vacuuming and taking out the trash because the techs are too busy. No doubt there will also be a metric for that.
At rite aid we have to spot clean the bathrooms daily !
Including the pharmacist!
Have to work 15 hour shifts to get all this done or face termination.
I think the best part of the new 'retain ESI customers at all costs' policy has to be the 65 'ESI calls' the technicians/interns in my store were expected to make this past week, with another batch coming this week. Basically we are supposed to call all the ESI patients who transferred from WAG to us and pretty much tell them that we are better because of x, y, z.
I had to spend two hours calling patients for no real reason. I'm not sure who was happier about the calls, the patients or me.
Our lead tech was explaining them to me on Thursday and used the words, "Dumb" and "waste of our time." We didn't realize our Pharmacy District Manager was standing at one of the windows listening to every word. I'm slightly curious as to when his last day will be...
OMG. I hope my mother does not hear that Expess Scripts and Walgreens have reconciled. If she switches from Kroger Pharmacy at this point, she's on her own, especially since she just enrolled in Medicare and the hell I'm going through between them and her insurance company is a full time job all it's own.
I'd never leave her in the lurch, really, but omg, if she hears this and decides to switch back to Walgreens, I will die. Simply die.
Wow. This (and the rest of your recent entries) makes me very glad that there's still an independent pharmacy here in Davis. I just wish I'd switched to them years ago.
I can understand the push to retain a customer - what kind of business practice would it be to say - here take our newly acquired customer - they don't contribute to our success anyways. That's crazy. It just seems like a bit over done here - a lot of work, but how else does cvs hold their staff on a measurable basis to ensure they're doing all they can to retain the customer? It's the problem with chains you get paid the same to fill 20 or 1000 rx's. The problem is chains don't give you the proper help to fill larger numbers, so why take on the heavier work loads, let the customer go back to Walgreens it means an easier life.
I work at an independent pharmacy. We have extra staff, our staff is less up tight. We go above and beyond what I've ever seen at a chain store. Each year however I lose customers - why unfair copy breaks for using mail order - ivermectin had a few come to me and say I don't want to leave you, but I can't afford to stay with you- if I were to discount their copayment I could face jail time and a huge fine - but many times I only make $1 on a prescription anyways so how do I discount $5.00?
Cvs Caremark is one of the worst here - its really upsetting when they tell a patient they have no choice but to transfer. Now with that said I don't know the actual language used but some of my older patients come to me saying that's how it was explained to them often times I can retain those customers with education.
Now I have been given an updated Humana contract two interesting clauses - 1- I must with due diligence get my customers rx processed within 20 minutes, or explain to them why I cannot ( no problem our standard is 15 mins or less) - walmart being humanas parent company what is their average? Next I cannot say anything negative about Humana nor it's members copayments...
You can't win by customer service, then bind them by contract
If you've never tried an independent pharmacy out, you should - they're not all good and perfect, but believe me most are and most care, hey and you can usually talk to the CEO! Try that at cvs, Walgreens, Walmart, rite aid, etc
I work for the C company and there was an e-mail referring to this article and what we should do if asked about it, etc. And also, how we do NOT (ya right) enroll any patient without their approval. Most ironic part? The very next e-mail to come over was from DM re: our redi-fill stats of the past week. Just kill me now.
I get soo sick of the paperwork we have to do at CVS. For a while, we had to fill out and fax to our DM all the reasons patients don't want to refill their RXs that come up in our system to call because they're past due. At one point I wrote down "Patient says they are sick of getting 5 damn phone calls a week from us and are now transferring out." Needless to say, CVS didn't care because we still have the stupid calls.
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