Competitor Coupons

[Spartan676]

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I wanted to know what do all pharmacy students think about companies having $25 coupons for customers who bring new or transferred prescription to their pharmacies. Do you think the health of the patient is compromised as patients are jumping from one pharmacy to another for their coupons?
Also, do you think it really the hurts the profession of pharmacy and prevents pharmacists from providing pharmaceutical care to their patients?
Please provide your views.

 

[imperial frog]

I know it's a pain in the ass because they print on the front (at least at Wags) that it can't be used to pay for prescriptions but nobody seems to read it.

 

[nguyenkd]

i think it's extremely dangerous. my pharmacy doesn't even care anymore. if you present us with a coupon, we'll give it to you regardless. it saves a lot of time transferring back and forth. these customers are getting shady though!

 

[crossjb]

...

 

[b*rizzle]

I wanted to know what do all pharmacy students think about companies having $25 coupons for customers who bring new or transferred prescription to their pharmacies. Do you think the health of the patient is compromised as patients are jumping from one pharmacy to another for their coupons?
Also, do you think it really the hurts the profession of pharmacy and prevents pharmacists from providing pharmaceutical care to their patients?
Please provide your views.

I think the gift card coupon is a bastardization of retail pharmacy. I think when used appropriately (like bringing in business to a new pharmacy!) it's okay...but it's not going anywhere soon.

...The problem is that the gift card doesn't guarantee you a long-term customer. Most just wait until the next or better offer comes along and then they transfer the Rx again. Maybe they'll transfer it back the next time you have a gift card, who knows.

I don't think it overtly jeopardizes the health of patients, but I do think there's something to be said about developing a first-name basis with your pharmacist. Not to mention the fact that it's a general pain in the @$$.

Also, if you search this topic you'll see that I ranted about this before, if you want a more detailed description of how I feel about it. 👍

 

[off2skl]

I think the gift card coupon is a bastardization of retail pharmacy. I think when used appropriately (like bringing in business to a new pharmacy!) it's okay...but it's not going anywhere soon.

...The problem is that the gift card doesn't guarantee you a long-term customer. Most just wait until the next or better offer comes along and then they transfer the Rx again. Maybe they'll transfer it back the next time you have a gift card, who knows.

I don't think it overtly jeopardizes the health of patients, but I do think there's something to be said about developing a first-name basis with your pharmacist. Not to mention the fact that it's a general pain in the @$$.

Also, if you search this topic you'll see that I ranted about this before, if you want a more detailed description of how I feel about it. 👍

I totally agree. It encourages people to jump from pharmacy to pharmacy and limits the amount of imformation we have on a patient's medication profile.

Transferring is also just time consuming (not so much getting the information, but waiting on hold until the pharmacist at the other store can get to you).

And we've had people try to get those gift cards with Medicaid paid prescriptions too, which is a gray area.

 

[Sosumi]

In Maryland, if you get your prescriptions through Medicaid, you can only get refills from the same pharmacy the original prescription was filled, not even if it's from another store in the chain. You can transfer if you belong in a Medicaid HMO, although I'm not sure if coupon transfers work with those plans. I never understood the logic in that besides trying to keep their pharmacy profile in the same location, but these coupons sure make it sensical to keep it that way.

 

[b*rizzle]

And we've had people try to get those gift cards with Medicaid paid prescriptions too, which is a gray area.

At the moment it works great for us, since the state hasn't approved our Medicaid application yet. 👍

Though it does make me laugh to see someone whip out a six month old script for Duac then gripe about how they had to pay a $40 copay just to get a measly $10 gift card. And thing of it is, they still pay for the script even though they're still -$30 from where they started, just because they gotta have that gift card.

My problem is, even though we're using the gift cards to generate business in a new pharmacy (which is still a good idea), we're not filling a lot of prescriptions for maintenance meds with this gift card promotion.

One girl transferred her Rx for BCPs to our store and presented her gift card to me at drop-off. The coupon expires 10/26/05, but her insurance wouldn't let her get the Rx until 10/28. At first, she made up a story about how she was going out of town until 10/27, and wanted to get it now (I think she meant to go a day later than that!). I said since she should still have some left, and she'd be back before the insurance company would pay for it, we'd just go ahead and fill it for her on 10/28. Then she stopped and blurted out, "if I can't fill it now then I can't use my coupon!" I offered to fill it for cash so she could redeem her coupon, and before I could tell her not to worry and that we have coupons behind the counter that expire on 11/15, she said, "No, that's okay, I'll just transfer it back to CVS and get their coupon." My response was: "well, if the insurance company won't fill it here because it's too early then they won't fill it at CVS, either.

 

[WSU2007]

I hate dealing with them and yes I belive they can be detrimental to a patients health. It is almost impossible to detect a potentially harmful drug-drug interaction if patients have their prescriptions spread all over town. On one hand I do understand that an extra $25 in your pocket is nice and see why people are motivated to use the coupons. The pharmacies are ultimately at fault for providing such an unsafe medium for patients and should think of other ways to attract new patients that doesn't provoke "pharmacy hopping". I'd like to see the Board of Pharmacy outlaw this type of behaviour and rather encourage pharmacies to offer other rewards to patients faithfully have their precriptions filled at one entity every month.

 

[alwaystired]

I hate dealing with them and yes I belive they can be detrimental to a patients health. It is almost impossible to detect a potentially harmful drug-drug interaction if patients have their prescriptions spread all over town. On one hand I do understand that an extra $25 in your pocket is nice and see why people are motivated to use the coupons. The pharmacies are ultimately at fault for providing such an unsafe medium for patients and should think of other ways to attract new patients that doesn't provoke "pharmacy hopping". I'd like to see the Board of Pharmacy outlaw this type of behaviour and rather encourage pharmacies to offer other rewards to patients faithfully have their precriptions filled at one entity every month.

That's a great idea.....like a dollar incentive or something for every refill you get at that same pharmacy. It really is a pain to keep transfering RXs back and forth just for a coupon, and it would guarrantee and long-term customer, instead of a pharmacy hopper.

 

[WSU2007]

Exactly. Pharmacy hopping is dangerous for patients and creates an extra workload in the pharmacy as well. CVS is kind of on the right track with their extra bucks, you get a % back every few months on all purchases. Prescriptions I believe yield you .50 in extra bucks or something. Unfortunately CVS is one of the biggest coupon ******, but at any rate there extra buck idea and how it relates to prescriptions is a way to reward your faithful regulars whom appreciate and value your service rather than just rewarding the hoppers that could care less about your professional skill.

That's a great idea.....like a dollar incentive or something for every refill you get at that same pharmacy. It really is a pain to keep transfering RXs back and forth just for a coupon, and it would guarrantee and long-term customer, instead of a pharmacy hopper.

 

[rxlynn]

Exactly. Pharmacy hopping is dangerous for patients and creates an extra workload in the pharmacy as well. CVS is kind of on the right track with their extra bucks, you get a % back every few months on all purchases. Prescriptions I believe yield you .50 in extra bucks or something. Unfortunately CVS is one of the biggest coupon ******, but at any rate there extra buck idea and how it relates to prescriptions is a way to reward your faithful regulars whom appreciate and value your service rather than just rewarding the hoppers that could care less about your professional skill.

Yes - I work for CVS and believe me, if the pharmacy staffs had anything to do with it we would not have any more coupons of any sort! Unfortunately, the corporate office doesn't ask us about that. We had several rounds of coupons in the summer, and it created a lot of work for very little reward. We had a lot of problems, many of them related to people who didn't (or pretended not to) understand that transferring the Rx from another CVS did not constitute a transfer eligible for the gift card. My other favorite was the customer who was transferring back and forth from Target to us, and using multiple CVS's. Eventually both the Target and the CVS district told her no more. Oh, and there was also a part-time CVS employee at a different store who kept bringing us CVS and competitor coupons every time she had a new Rx. She was also eventually told by management no more. I can feel my blood pressure going up as I write this!

 

[OSURxgirl]

Target is running a coupon this week....I worked this weekend and it was absolutely awful. The other area pharmacies were getting irritated because I kept having to call them for copies. One ladytoday had an antibiotic Rx for her child (obviously something the child needs to get started on), but she left her coupon at home and isn't coming back until tomorrow. It's nice that a parent will jeopardize their child's health for a stinking 10 dollar gift card. I also like the people who come in with 5 different scripts and 5 coupons...and since it doesn't say limit one per customer, we have to do it for them. I feel like half the scripts we fill during coupon week aren't even things people really need. I mean just looking at the dates...almost all of them are months old. If they really needed the scripts, they would have filled them months ago. So our time is completely wasted filling needless scripts and we are being underminded as health care professionals just so people can pay their 5 dollar copays and get a ten dollar gift card. I really think state boards of pharmacy need to step in and do something about this issue. It is dangerous and definitely not in the best interest of the patient.

 

[WVUPharm2007]

The funny thing is that the district managers are shocked when they find out that these coupons don't work. Individual Patients $20 - Chain Pharmacy $0.
It's kinda like the Georgia Bulldog fans at the Sugar Bowl that expected their team to walk over WVU.

Haha.

 

[rxlynn]

Yes - I work for CVS and believe me, if the pharmacy staffs had anything to do with it we would not have any more coupons of any sort! Unfortunately, the corporate office doesn't ask us about that. We had several rounds of coupons in the summer, and it created a lot of work for very little reward. We had a lot of problems, many of them related to people who didn't (or pretended not to) understand that transferring the Rx from another CVS did not constitute a transfer eligible for the gift card. My other favorite was the customer who was transferring back and forth from Target to us, and using multiple CVS's. Eventually both the Target and the CVS district told her no more. Oh, and there was also a part-time CVS employee at a different store who kept bringing us CVS and competitor coupons every time she had a new Rx. She was also eventually told by management no more. I can feel my blood pressure going up as I write this!

Follow-up - after I posted the above, the next shift I worked I had a lady who had transferred an Rx to us from Target try to give me a coupon from Kroger's that was $20 in free gasoline with transferred Rx. When I pointed out to her that I could not give her gasoline since CVS doesn't carry that, she said "Well, Target gave me a gift card for this coupon!" I had already spent 10 minutes with her while she called her father (Rx for him) to get the insurance information that we didn't have, since she wasn't a CVS customer. After all that, I was sufficiently irritated that she didn't get a gift card from my store.