$4 generics at Wal-Mart

[MountainPharmD]

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I mean seriously, it is very rare for me to work a day when a situation similar to this comes up: say the one pharmacist on duty has to take 5 prescriptions off the doctor message line, which could conceivably take up to 5 minutes, especially if a message has to be listened to more than once, and in the meantime a nurse is on hold for the pharmacist waiting to give a new script, as well as a customer who is on hold calling in with a question about his or her med. Those phone calls could take up to 10 minutes alone...meanwhile, the dropoff window will have a steady stream of people dropping off scripts, all of which can be inputted by techs but the pharmacist still needs to double check those, not to mention anything already filled needs to be double checked by the pharmacist as well. Oh, and Grandma Jones needs to have the pharmacist answer some questions about which vitamin is the best. In that situation, which we get pretty regularly, I don't see how it is possible to get all prescriptions SAFELY filled within 20 minutes unless you have Clark Kent as the pharmacist.

Hey that sounds like a typical day for me. Are you spying on me!!!

CVS and Walgreens just turm out scripts like a little factory and thats it. At a high volume store there is no question and answer time, there is no counsel time there is no time period. It is type, type, fill, fill all day long.

 

[Twins fan]

Hey that sounds like a typical day for me. Are you spying on me!!!

CVS and Walgreens just turm out scripts like a little factory and thats it. At a high volume store there is no question and answer time, there is no counsel time there is no time period. It is type, type, fill, fill all day long.

Hahaha....maybe you are actually my boss........he actually does have the day off today, which would allow him (you?) to make posts on SDN....

In response to Gaba's quote:

"Walmart--people who call to ask for the pharmacist ask questions that are a waste of a pharmacist's time (how much is this drug, has my doctor autorized a refill yet? completely not looking at screening phone calls here), or how much XYZ OTC is (when you have a million people waiting in line), a lot of issues we run into (why the waits are long) is because people give you 10 prescription bottles at 10 till closing w/ issues (0 refills, too early, some other issue), customers are not "trained" well (aka irresponsible)--they show up at whever time thinking their med is ready instead of calling first (not to say this does not happen at Walgreens)."

I find that to be very true...we get a ridiculous number of assinine phone calls at our Wal-Mart. My favorite are those phone calls asking for us to go check prices of various products out on the sales floor. So annoying.

One time I had a lady call to ask me to go check prices on our humidifiers. I thought to myself "isn't it YOUR job to shop for yourself?", but since we were getting pretty close to closing time and we were slow, I complied and went to go get a price range for her. When I took her off hold and told her that there were 5 different types of humidifiers that ranged in price between $y-$x, she asked me to tell her the exact price, name brand, and model of each of the 5 humidifiers! To which I said "Go to hell!!!" Ok, just kidding about that, but good grief, where do people get off? I told her that she would have to come look at the differences herself in order to decide what was best for her, and she was just pissed at my answer and hung up on me...classy.

I haven't worked in a different retail setting than Wal-Mart so I can't speak from experience as to whether there is a big difference in the way different chain's clientelle act, but I have a sneaking suspicion that what you say Gaba is a pretty accurate generalization.

 

[tk1tpod]

I just saw a commercial for $10 for 90 day supply! WOW! 😱

Now we're going to get more complaints from customers demanding we match prices, but we don't (Walgreens)!

 

[laimyours]

I know what you mean about Walmart. I work at Target which is similar in the fact that people want you to ring up a cart full of items and ask stupid unrelated questions. My all time favorite? "what collar is best for my german shepard?" But, i also think this is relative to the area you work and what clientele you have. I worked for a pharmacy chain (Longs) and we had a large geriatric clientele which was a bigger pain in the ***. I think its all subjective. And might i add the $4 generics are the bane of my existance. 😱

 

[Lopyswine]

I know what you mean about Walmart. I work at Target which is similar in the fact that people want you to ring up a cart full of items and ask stupid unrelated questions. My all time favorite? "what collar is best for my german shepard?" But, i also think this is relative to the area you work and what clientele you have. I worked for a pharmacy chain (Longs) and we had a large geriatric clientele which was a bigger pain in the ***. I think its all subjective. And might i add the $4 generics are the bane of my existance. 😱

the best questions from the old people are about medicines that NO ONE uses any more...

its also great when they ask if "Does (INSERT NAME) still work here?" and I'll say "No mam, XXXXX hasn't been a pharmacist here for 6 years." Good lord, I hope I can keep it together when I get to that age.