Pharmacist here. It’s not our fault as much as you think. Basically, the insurance companies invented something called “Pharmacy Benefits Managers” who basically act as a middleman between you and your doctor on what you can get, and how much they will reimburse the pharmacy if you do.
If your doctor says you need atorvastatin, but your PBM says they only want to pay for simvastatin, you can either get your doctor to pay for simvastatin, or pay for atorvastatin yourself with a discount card. The cost for a generic med like that is probably about your copay anyways, so no big loss to you to skip the headache.
Surprisingly, they invented fees for pharmacies! If you choose the route to get your doctor to change you to simvastatin, we get the privilege of managing that for you, and once we finally reach your doctor and make the change, they will give us maybe $10 to fill it for you! Plus you have a $10 copay, so there is some money… But of course we have to source the med. It probably costs us like $12 for this example, maybe less maybe more, depending on the manufacturer. So if we do all of this then it seems like we made $8, but SURPRISE, your PBM charged us a fee for utilizing them. It might be $6. It might be more if we don’t meet certain criteria, like percentage of diabetic patients on statins.
So okay we have our nice $2 to pay for shipping your med to the oharmacy, renting our location, and filling it (I think it’s less than half that on average, I just don’t know the actual figures) with our staff. It should come as no surprise that we have very limited options on manufacturers now.
You might say “well at least the PBM fought to make my meds cheaper in the end” but no! They now get to say to your insurance company “okay we managed getting your patient another month of lower cholesterol, please pay us $100 for our efforts”. So, indirectly, you paid an extra $100 on this whole thing through your insurance premiums. Not sure on if this part is true I just heard it as a rumor.
But wait there’s more! The insurance company actually owns the PBM all along! They paid themselves to offer themselves this service for you!
So anyways I’m getting out of retail pharmacy. Thanks for coming to my ted talk.
America: Land of the Free, Home of the decreasing average lifespan because people can’t get access to routine medications that are affordable in most other countries.
Every refill feels like a side quest with surprise fees and a boss fight at the counter.
Anyone have that I’m too European for this image handy?
I am too Indian for this, even though we have a strange habit of copying the shitty parts of the US and ditching the actually functioning parts.
You forgot the pharmacist who thinks they know more than your doctor and has the gall to opine on your prescription.
Dude.
MDs fuck up prescriptions all the time. You want this.
There are a lot of bad prescriptions to be honest. The amount of people who are prescribed both Adderall and large fills of benzos is too damn high.
don’t forget all those opiods the MDs told us were non-addictive.
That was a shame. Because now we have gone the opposite direction and they are massively under prescribed to who need it.
They aren’t even that addictive. Look up addiction rates for people prescribed them legitimately. But saying they were non addictive is obviously fucked up… Pharma reps were literally gaslighting doctors into thinking that they just weren’t prescribing enough and that’s why their patients were having pain, after 12 hours. Definitely not withdrawal symptoms
But thats like their main point. Pharmacist do know a lot about drugs. It’s important to know about negative drug interactions and a pharmacist is more likely to catch it since they most likely know all the drugs you are taking. Your GP might not know about the drugs your psychiatrist gave you or that off-label drug your dermatologist gave you because people are horrible at knowing what drugs they are on and for what purpose.
Fair enough. All I really mean is “idgaf some random pharmacist is opposed to stimulants.”
Honestly I’ve always been surprised how much education is required to be a pharmacist when all they do is put pills into a bottle (obeying whatever the doctor wrote on your prescription) and pass it to you through the window. Then imagine going through all the years of University to get a master’s degree to work in the back of a CVS.
Seriously? They source the drugs, in the correct dosage, or they have to compound a drug, they have to know what other drugs you are on for conflicts that could kill you. They also teach you how to take the drugs correctly.
Why do people who have no fucking clue make comments?
As an outsider to the field it seems ridiculuous that being a doctor does not include this bit of knowledge. If a pharmacist is expected to do all this and able to override an MD (who can get the prescription wrong)… seems like a circus to me.
A pharmacist is much more qualified to give you that information than a fucking Doctor. The pharmacist instructions are for the exact drug in you hand, when you get the drug.
Doctor: for condition A use med B in C manner.
Pharmacist: Oh no, what is he nuts? Never use med B for condition A as it contains flixadidlian cortemolezeum which will react badly to manner C. No you’ll need med D.
i mean occasionally the pharmacist is right.
Yeah that’s the pharmacist’s job
yeah, now most of the time the pharmacist is too busy to actually do their job. what people get angry about is when they do it.
the thing that annoys me is they don’t care that you have a chronic condition. it’s not going to change. i’m going to need this med for the rest of my life.
but they need my doctor to re-up the prescription every 6 months all the same
This is because the doctor is supposed to be monitoring the condition and adjusting to a better med if one exists.
They do care if you have a chronic condition. If you do, they can charge you as much as they want.
I had this bullshit happen in Florida at a Walgreens…I had a doctor put a prescription for me…we had worked together for a good while and finally found a script that works for me. Walgreens tells me they dont carry it, except I’ve had it filled in the past at that location.
Then this way over stepping mother fucker starts trying to diagnose me and then had the audacity to say, “have your doctor call us and we can see if we can work something out.”
Bitch what the fuck do you think the PRESCRIPTION is, that IS the communication between the pharmacy and the doctor, last time I went to Walgreens
Walgreens is just generally the worst pharmacy in the country. I’m convinced they intentionally create delays in picking up the prescriptions that are supposedly already ready to get you to buy more stuff in the store part, plus the store portion is always so chronically understaffed good luck being able to buy anything. Oh and now everything is locked up so you can’t even pull stuff off the shelves to attempt to buy anything. And then they wonder why profits keep going down…
Walgreens once gave me the wrong prescription, which I didn’t notice until after I already taken some. It was some weird drug for schizophrenics or something like that and it totally fucked me up to the point I had to take off work for the day. Instead of apologizing or trying to make the situation right the Walgreens pharmacist was a total asshole to me and tried to blame me for what happened, they acted like I had stolen someone else prescription instead of them fucking up and poisoning me.
Blaming pharmacists for things they have no control over, nice. Biggest brain
Another meme I cannot relate to because I have the privilege of not living in america
Pharmacists deal with drug shortages worldwide.
Haha was thinking the same thing. Minor issues here for certain medication availabilities at times but nothing that would make this meme relatable to many people!
Yeah, my pharmacy texts me to confirm I want a refill, then I go pick it up. One extra confirmation text and wait a couple days if there are no more refills
To be fair, this is generally my experience in the US as well. However, I do recognize that the insurance I get through my union is very good.
Yup. In the uk, you pay the same charge for each prescription you pick up, whatever it is (or you get an annual flat fee pass if you get more than one a month). So if the pharmacy only found an expensive version, that’s a them problem, not a me problem.
Americans just don’t get that brand name medications are exactly the same as generic ones either 😅
The active ingredients are exactly the same. The inactive ingredients may differ and there may be some slight differences in bioavailability that for most people are not significant. There is no reason that the vast majority of people can’t take a generic equivalent of a branded medication. That said, there are sometimes exceptions that need to be considered on a cases-by-case basis. Anyone who says “I can’t take generic medications” is full of shit.
Source: I am a licensed pharmacist.
There is no reason that the vast majority of people can’t take a generic equivalent
There’s no reason why ANYONE can’t take generics. Over here (UK) its extremely unusual to be prescribed a brand. And we’re all absolutely fine.
The difference? Pharmas can’t advertise their products to the general public. Nobody falls for the marketing guff and nobody makes up reasons to need branded medication.
Ok…but generics are not always compounded for delivery like the original brand, I.e. slow release, enteric coatings, dose size, different fillers.
But a licensed pharmacist should know that.
With prescriptions, it is not about what the customer wants, it is about what brands the insurance wants to cover (and getting a doctor that does not write a brand specific prescription). If an insurance company only covers a weird brand of a common (but expensive) medicine, the customer either has to hunt for a pharmacy that has it in stock, wait for their local pharmacy to order it (in either case delaying when the insurance company has to pay for it), or buy the in-stock brand without any insurance coverage. The insurance can still claim they cover the drug while paying less for it.
At one point, I was on a medicine that had a very high co-pay for the brand name and would not cover the generic. It was so high that it was cheaper for me to buy the generic uninsured instead of paying the co-pay.
The fun part is the generics aren’t always the exact same medication! In most cases it is a 1:1 between name brand and generic but there’s always edgecases, whether due to allergies or quality control or sometimes the recipe differences actually impact the potence and performance of the medication
Not all of them are though my wife can only take the name brand of cimbalta because the generic fucks with her body
I live in America take boat loads of meds cause I’m post transplant and don’t have these issues, I think OP needs a new pharmacy
I have found that going to literally any other pharmacy besides walgreens or cvs is a significant improvement in competence and convenience.
Exactly this! I’ve been going to a local independent pharmacy chain for years and it is a light-years better experience than either of the national chains
I’m pretty limited as to who my insurance covers, so I can’t go to any of the independent pharmacies near me. I’ve been going to the kroger near me and it’s great, they’ve never once had an issue with my insurance and typically order refills / reach out to my dr for a new script before I even realize I’m low.
CVS and Walgreens pharmacies are staffed like dollar generals. They can’t handle the load but they won’t hire more pharmacists.
I had a small pharmacy I loved I had to give up on when I got a new job and they weren’t in network. I was not going to CVS or Walgreens.
So I went to the hospital pharmacy that is in network. Can’t imagine that’s any cheaper but whatever insurance.
I’ve had exactly one prescription done at CVS (because I could get my med for like 60% of the cost there) because they managed to be out of stock on my med on month two. Immediately switched back and haven’t had a problem
https://www.inhousepharmacy.vu/
https://www.alldaychemist.com/Some old school sites that allow ordering of certain rx medicines without an rx. You can’t order scheduled substances like opioids, but they have a lot of common prescription medications.
I tagged you at some point with “knows his shit” and youve yet to disappoint.
Please. Knows HER shit! :D
The tag has been updated, haha
fun fact its usually the pharmacy tech that deals with all the bullshit with insurance, the pharamcists rarely do it, they just determine the correct dosage, medicaiton.
RFK Jr.: You need meds? What’re you gay?
Nothing a few hours on a tanning bed won’t fix.
he just dips in methyelene blue, suntans till his skin is more burnt than a rotisserie chicken and hopped on roids at 70. fun fact the bear incident was just 11years prior.
PrFK Jr
