Duane Reade Pharmacy — Local services in Jersey City

If you care about your health DO NOT order your medications to this pharmacy. The staff is so negligent that the entire pharmacy should really have their license revoked.

On Thursday, my wife was having surgery on her leg to repair her tibial plateau fracture. The surgery (ORIF) is incredibly painful as it requires a large incision to access the fracture site fully. They also have to insert titanium plates and screws into the bone to repair it.

Before the surgery on Tuesday, my wife spoke with the pharmacy over the phone to confirm that her meds would be there when we arrived after surgery - - - pain medication , antibiotics, as well as medication necessary to prevent blood clots that could be caused by the surgery. The pharmacy confirmed that they had our script and that these medications would be available for us on Thursday.

We were in the hospital for twelve hours on Thursday for the surgery. Between the prep time, the surgery, the recovery time, and travel time, we didn't get back to Jersey City until after 6pm. We didn't get to the Duane Reade Pharmacy until 6:45pm.

What I found when out when I arrived to the pharmacy was nothing short of an absolute nightmare. They never ordered the blood clot medication. Additionally, they also didn't have the pain meds (oxycotin) our doctor ordered! The pharmacy was not able to change the location of the script for our pain meds because they were classified as a narcotic. And because it was now 7pm, nobody was available at the doctor's office to write a new script for a different pharmacy.

Not a single person at Duane Reade called us during the day to tell us that our meds were not available. And because the doctor's office was now closed, we had no ability to get our pain medication moved to another pharmacy.

Had Duane Reade called us during the day to tell us they didn't actually have the meds they said they would, we would have been able to change the script to another pharmacy. We were with the doctor all day in the hospital, and their office was still open until 7pm. However, Duane Reade decided to not contact us. Instead, my wife suffered what she described as "the worst night and worst pain of her entire life".

Duane Reade Pharmacy ending up giving me what they had left of the pain medication (oxycotin) which was 1 pill. She was prescribed 12. This was not enough meds to get her through the night, since the drugs from the hospital were quickly wearing off.

My wife ended up suffering an indescribable amount of pain due to the negligence of this pharmacy. We ended up having to go to the ER in the middle of the night because we had no other options. All this could have been prevented with a simple phone call. Just saying "sorry" didn't help us. It didn't help the pain my wife inevitably suffered because of their negligence. This pharmacy has people's health in their hands and they just don't care. Not even enough to make a simple phone call.

The next day I went back to Duane Reade to get the rest of the meds. (Remember they only gave me 1 pill the night before instead of 12) . They told me that they could not fulfill the rest of the order because they already gave me 1 pill. It was now considered "completed". Nobody told me this the night before about how if I accepted the 1 pain killer I would lose access to the other 11. This would have been helpful to know the night before.

If you NEED your medication to recover from surgery do yourself a favor and don't ever count on this pharmacy to have your medications. Even if your doctor orders it 48 hours in advance. Even if the pharmacy confirms that they will have it. Please don't trust them. If you do you might just end up having "the worst night and worst pain...

This is the WORST Duane Reade pharmacy I have ever patronized. And I've used a ton in the 10+ years I've lived in the NYC area. I have never had a successful experience here (e.g., able to pick up an Rx without something going awry). At my last experience, the pharmacist insisted my insurance information was invalid, as it was giving her an error message. She also informed me, unpleasantly, that if I wanted to wait while she contacted my insurance company, it would be "a while." Over an hour later, when my pleading (as a 7+ months pregnant person pacing their waiting area) brought her to finally call my insurance company, she realized she had used the incorrect format of my last name. That was it.

This pharmacy has told my doctor's office that my insurance information is incorrect, has quoted me the wrong prices, and WITHOUT FAIL has a line that stretches down an aisle. I continued to use it because of its convenient location, but will never return after waiting over an hour for them to correct their error. I would award it zero stars but that's not an...

Pharmacy is terribly unhelpful. They seem to lose insurance information. They will not lift a finger to troubleshoot issues. They will have three cashiers on registers happily plugging away at paperwork while a line of customers sit there waiting. Any issues in their system becomes your job to fix rather than them calling the other doctor/pharmacy and working it out themselves.

They would not let me pick up a refill for antibiotics because they said some pharmacy already had a "claim" on it and I needed to call them and get them to "release it".

Why am I being instructed to call and delegate edits to a healthcare tracking system I have no knowledge of? I had my doctor send the refill request to the pharmacy, that should be the extent of my responsibilities in this matter but apparently not to them.

I am having my prescriptions sent to another pharmacy from now on, even though this one is by far the most convenient...