I’m not going to outright give them zero stars, mainly because the pharmacy staff are, for the most part, very nice and helpful. Most of them even know me by name when they see me walking through the store while I’m grocery shopping. There’s actually a young girl whose name I don’t know, but she’s always very sweet and will wave to me if I happen to make eye contact with her while walking by.
That said, my main issue with this location has to do with how they handle my son’s ADHD medications. I guess it depends on which pharmacist happens to be working when his pediatrician sends in a prescription.
We’ve had issues in the past, especially during and after the pandemic, with his prescriptions being on backorder. In the past, whenever that happened, I would at least receive an alert. But over the last year or so, if there’s an issue with a prescription, like what happened today, I get absolutely nothing. Days go by after the prescription is sent, and there’s just silence.
Before the summer, my son was taking Concerta 54 mg. This summer, however, I decided to keep him off his medication, so we hadn’t had any prescriptions filled since May. Then, this past Friday (8/21), his doctor sent in a new prescription for Concerta, but at 27 mg. Obviously, since he hadn’t taken it since May, he needs to start at a lower dose and titrate back up if necessary.
Since school had already started and he hadn’t had any medication since the beginning of the school year, I’ve been checking the app every day to see if the prescription had come through. There was no indication that a prescription was even pending.
Today (8/25), I finally called the pharmacy. The first person I spoke with thought the prescription might be on backorder and said they would check. The pharmacist then came on the phone and explained that one of the other pharmacists, apparently the person who received the prescription on Friday, had not processed it because my son’s previous prescription was for 54 mg and this new one was for 27 mg. To be fair, the pharmacist I spoke with today was very nice and apologetic about the lack of communication, and I appreciated that. But that still doesn’t excuse the fact that no one contacted me or the doctor to clarify the dosage.
Ummm... I’m sorry, but if you’re questioning why his doctor prescribed 27 mg when his previous dose was 54 mg, how about communicating that to me or contacting the doctor? Just silence. Complete silence.
My phone number has been the same for 13 years. They could have called me. They could have left a note in the app. They could have contacted the doctor. There were plenty of ways to address the discrepancy, but instead, they simply did nothing and left me completely unaware that there was even an issue.
I have no idea which pharmacist handled the prescription on Friday, but whoever it was, I find it extremely frustrating that they apparently felt it was appropriate to simply sit on a prescription because the dosage had changed, without making any attempt to communicate with the parent or the doctor. Whether that was laziness, incompetence, or simply poor judgment, I don't think someone should be making decisions about a patient's medication routine without at least communicating the concern to the people involved.