CVS — Local services in Knightdale

Today's phone call consisted of a cumulative 15 minutes of brain-grating hold music and 2 minutes of trying to get an answer out of the pharmacist about a prescription, only for them to briskly and rudely interrupt me with "I'm super busy right now what's your question?" and not actually address the problem at all.

I told him I'd call back some other time.

I'm still not sure if my prescription is going to be filled.

Backstory: My doctor wrote a prescription for a medication that is available over the counter. I've had this prescription for over a year now. The reason for the prescription is because it's problematic to acquire this medication on a regular basis without one.

It's quantity-restricted when you buy it over the counter. You can't get a full 30-day supply at once. At best you can get 15.

Nine times out of ten, the pharmacy only has one or two boxes of 5 in stock, if I'm lucky. So even if I could get 30 of them over the counter, they almost never have that many available unless you know when their delivery truck is scheduled to stop by.

You can't get it through the drive-through. You HAVE to go inside, show an ID, and sign a document saying you're not going to abuse it. Every time. This isn't just CVS, this is any pharmacy.

With a prescription - even though insurance doesn't cover it - 30 pills is about $15. Without it, 30 pills adds up to around $35-$40.

I have to take this every day. So in order to keep it in stock, without a prescription, I would have to physically drive to the pharmacy at minimum twice a month, hope they have it, and pay more than twice the cost. So I got a prescription.

The first time the prescription was sent to them, I never heard back about it. I called to see what the status was, and they said "It's over the counter." As if that explained everything. I thought, So....? ....you just.... didn't fill it? And didn't bother to inform me that you had no intention of filling it? So I just wasted a week waiting to hear from you? Cool. I know it's over-the-counter. So does my doctor. So does my insurance. This is a prescription. You're a pharmacy. Please fill it.

I explained the situation, they filled it, asked me if I wanted to set it up on auto-refill, I said yes that would be ideal. They said it was taken care of.

30 days later. It doesn't get refilled. I wait. Never hear from them. I call. We have the same conversation. They fill it. They assure me it will get refilled the next month.

30 days later. It doesn't get refilled. Repeat.

Here are the various things that I've been told when I've called:

"It's over the counter" "Your insurance won't cover it" "You have to call every month to make sure the lead pharmacist has approved it" "It's on auto-refill now so you don't have to call every month" "You can't do auto-refill for this, you have to call"

So this month, yet again, it didn't get refilled. I call to find out why. After 10 minutes on hold, I was told (so quickly I could barely understand what he said) "It's over the counter. Want me to refill it? You have to call it in every time, you can't do auto-refill." I explained that this prescription has been an ongoing issue and asked if there was a lead pharmacist I could speak with to resolve it. He put me on hold for another five minutes, forgot I was there, and when I asked (again) if I could speak with someone in detail about the issue, he interrupted and said "I'm the pharmacist on staff. I'm super busy right now, what was your question?"

I get it. You're busy. The pharmacy is always understaffed.

That being said. It should NOT be this difficult to set up a prescription to auto-refill every 30 days. There is nothing difficult or complicated about taking two boxes of already packaged medication off of a shelf, sticking it in a bag, slapping a sticker on it, and sending a notification that it's been refilled. It takes less than 2 minutes. And you have 30 days to do it. And you've had A YEAR to figure this out.

This is completely...

I went to CVS tonight to pick up some prescriptions and it took them 3 hours to fill them!!! They said they were running 3 hours behind due to the storm coming but this is not the first time my medicine was not ready when promised. I have been with them for almost a year now and they are constantly losing my prescriptions, faxing the wrong doctors for refills, and not having my prescriptions ready on time. They also have automated messages that call you repeatedly pressuring you to refill prescriptions! Tonight after waiting in the drive thru for 20 minutes they told me to come inside or circle around because that still weren't ready so I went inside and waited another 15 minutes! This is 1 hour after my medicine should have been ready. While standing there I saw an employee with a head full of dandruff preparing people's medications and scratching her head, I saw another employee open a customer's bottle of liquid medication and smell it and then asked 2 more employees to smell it and put it to their noses, then she drops the top on the floor and picks it up and puts it back on the bottle! They are soo unorganized and unsanitary and they clearly don't know what they are doing! I called right there in the store and transferred all my prescriptions...

I’ve been waiting a week now for my prescription. And every time I call or go to the pharmacy they act like they don’t know what I am talking about. I dropped my prescriptions off last Wednesday... they asked me to wait to be sure they have it in stock. They told me they did and it would be ready in a few hours. It was not ready that day, nor the next day when I called. Each time that I called they asked me was my doctor going to call it in. No... I dropped it off myself!! When I spoke with them Thursday they told me that it would be ready Friday because they had to order one item.... although they already informed me the day before that they had everything. I call Friday and they then tell me it would be in on Monday. I go in on Monday and IT IS STILL NOT THERE. I am pregnant and my prescriptions are important!! They then advise me that it would be ready on Tuesday. Which I just called and this pharmacist had no idea what I was talking about and I... the CUSTOMER... had to tell the pharmacist... the PROFESSIONAL... what lancets go with my meter when I have never even received them!!! Thank you Google for helping me out on that. I will be switching pharmacies after I finally get my correct...