vyvanse prescription has been delayed for 3 weeks now. i am a patient, yet severely ADHD soul, so I figure “oh it’s probably just delayed because they’re out of stock” and go about my business since I had about a week left (thanks to me completely forgetting to take it like 30% of the time).
wake up this morning and realize I am taking the last one I have. Not good, I think, because next week is especially busy at work. So I take an early lunch break at 9:30 and drive out to Walgreens to see if maybe, somehow, I’ve just completely missed the “your prescription’s ready” call and texts.
Pharmacist asks me what I’m looking for. “My vyvanse prescription, it was placed on the 24th. My name is ABC and DOB is…”
Tappity-tap-tap on their computer. They glance up and narrow their eyes at me like I’m asking them to hack into the NSA’s secure amphetamine database. Tappity-tap-tap.
“You’re picking up a vyvanse prescription?? For whom??”
Uh, myself…? Here’s my license.
“Hm…I’m not finding it, let me ask the head pharmacist to take a look.”
30 minutes go by. The Head Pharmacist finally comes out and asks for my license for the second time. “The other pharmacist literally copied it down on the clipboard before they went to find you.” I say as I fish it out of my wallet. They blink and look at the clipboard.
“Oh…huh. You’re right they did.”
Now I’m somewhat irritated as I hand them my license again. He looks at it, realizes it is exactly the same as what the sheet says, and hands it back to me.
“So umm…it looks like the generic lisdexamfetamine is backordered which is why we haven’t filled it yet.”
This wouldn’t be a shock except for the fact that I don’t get the fucking generic. So immediately my response is “Well, my insurance covers the brandname 100% and I don’t even get the generic so…are you saying the brand-name is also backordered and you cannot fill it??”
“No, we can fill it if you want the brand name medication!!”
“So why did y’all not fill it for 3 weeks if literally every other time I’ve filled this prescription through you, I’ve received the brand name medication??”
“…Because the generic is back-ordered sir…”
??? What the fuck are you talking about. It sounds like you just tossed my prescription into the “backordered” pile whenever it came in and didn’t realize it wasn’t actually a backordered medication until I came in. Thank you for wasting my entire hour lunch-break!!
A friend of mine worked at CVS briefly and had some horror stories. Being encouraged to illegally put people on automatic refills without their consent was his biggest problem with the job. Weird quotas for dubious practices, constant intentional staffing shortages, making it so the most trained pharmacologists had to spend their time answering the phone instead of doing pharmacological things, etc. They even delayed his onboarding and first paycheck by two months because his state had a single HR person in charge of staffing, and they’d been on vacation. This article contains a bunch of his other grievances:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/31/health/pharmacists-medication-errors.html
(Archive)
Edit - spelling
In retrospect now after reading the article I feel like an asshole because it clearly my problem stems from an underlying issue driven by the ceaseless churn towards profit by businesses/corporations but damn I wish they’d illegally sign me up for automatic refills of my vyvanse cause that’d make my life 100% easier
Jesus the revolution should happen today JUST to stop whatever is going on at the CVS pharmacy.