By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
There are some things in this world that are made to be so easy they become aggravatingly complicated, undeniably annoying, and leave us wondering why we bother. So began a devolution as some might call it and I went back to the local option. I cannot see a reason to return.
This is how I abandoned the local option, embraced Corporate American Drugstores, and finally realized what I had lost and how I could regain it.
Flashback to the early 1970’s if you would. I lived then in a low-res, low speed town in Eastern Washington. Being in good health but having chronic allergies to pets I frequently sneezed and had difficulty breathing. At the time there was only one pharmacy in my hometown and a few across the river. They were all pharmacist owned. One in fact actually had a soda fountain and my grandma would take me there for my favorite strawberry ice cream soda and a phosphate. It was a wonderful life you might say.
In fact, the only med I remembered was an antihistamine liquid my Dad called “Green Telephone Medicine” to coax me into summoning the fortitude to drink it.
Yet getting a prescription involved taking a script to the same pharmacist, picking it up later or calling in a refill. Again, it was low-res, low speed.
Later, at sixteen I began working for Safeway which introduced the notion of the grocery store pharmacy. Out of convenience I switched to the pharmacy there.
And from there forward began my introduction to drug sellers of Corporate America. I stayed with Safeway when I went to college, which probably was good because their computer system caught a potentially fatal drug interaction from a new script and blocked the pharmacist from filling it. Thus, I tied myself in more ways than just convenience and multiple locations.
Years later the convenience of not only multiple locations, but the ability to refill scripts at any location attracted me to another provider. They later implemented online prescription management. Now I could order refills online and have them ready at any pharmacy I wanted. This was especially useful for when out of town on business. I could chat online with a pharmacy tech if I had questions. Updates were emailed along with reminders of upcoming refill dates, and they featured a new bonus: prescriptions mailed to my house. What more could one ask for? Well…
As with most systems, the more complex it is, the fault prone it can become.
This supremely user friendly, high-res and high-speed computer based pharmacy with features galore began to metastasize into a convoluted and over-engineered mess.
The mail order aspect was worse enough. Occasionally the meds would be shipped overnight mail because the system in Arizona forgot to send the meds until I nearly ran out. Sometimes they did and this necessitated me going to the local store and try to fix it. Of course, nobody at the local store could offer help because the mail order system did not talk to theirs, in fact they would always say to go home and send an email to Arizona or log in to the webpage and chat. But, they wanted the exact prescription which forced me to dig through the list of every prescription I had ever had filled by the pharmacy to see which one, in what dosage, it actually was.
Then being required to suffer email sent out every two days about offers from the pharmacy, forcing me to finally dig through matrixes of cascading privacy settings to eliminate the spam but needing to keep the prescription updates because, occasionally, the med would not refill for some reason and I was expected to contact my doctor and enquire why was about as frustrating to me as it is to you the reader trying to extract what is going on during this equally convoluted, paragraph length, run-on sentence.
Finally, after two years of this, I snapped after finding out they mailed meds to the wrong address—the fourth time. I drove over to, shall we say, “voice my displeasure” with the pharmacy and their prescription drug system that was gravely contraindicated for the chronic headache they were causing. But then it finally occurred to me after all these years–why did I abandon the neighborhood drug store? What was I gaining from Corporate American Pharmacies?
For the first time I walked into the Mom & Pop pharmacy I drove by dozens of times previously. It was similar to my home town childhood pharmacy: the gift section; the over the counter section; and birthday cards. Oddly, when I picked up a bottle of aspirin and looked onto the shelf there was no price on the front. I thought, “Why would someone buy this when they don’t even tell you how much it costs?” But then I turned the bottle around and saw a price tag sticker on it. The type I remembered that was used decades ago. It brought me a bit of a laugh.
I walked to the counter and talked to the pharmacist. One can always tell when the person you are talking with is the owner of the business. They have an aura of pride and genuine interest in talking. I enquired about the pharmacy, what their hours were, and if they stocked the meds I needed. He said they close at 6:00 PM and they are not open Sundays. Two prescriptions will need to be ordered from their supplier since they are uncommon and will need a two day lead time. That’s basically it; no 24 hour seven day a week hours, no online chat, no instant refills, no photo-lab, no e-mail reminders, and no mail order conveniences. It was low-res, low-speed and exactly what I wanted.
I fired Corporate America.
Since then my prescription regiment remains graciously devolved. About a week before I run out of pills I call my pharmacist and tell him what I need. He says when it will be ready. I drive down later and pick it up. That folks is all you truly need in a pharmacy.
Last time I dropped by My Pharmacy, a sign swung along the front door. It read, “Excuse our mess. We are remodeling.” Refreshing it is to see, a local pharmacy expanding its business despite all the big box store retailers and their employees in the state legislature putting up barriers.
Hopefully they are adding a Soda Fountain.
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nick. The founder of epic is a whacko…and she sits on over half of americans most private information. In addition to personally idendifible info. With more ‘contracts’ everrrrrrrry day. We think google is bad. They’ll never tell us is her company gets breached….they like us to believe it’s just laptops (va) and hard drives (tricare). % read all the original hipps stuff. Ya know we only got it bc commerce dept made an agmt with the then european commission. In the federalregis the rule makers stated 20 percent of ppl avoid the doc out of privacy concerns. They also said our records were safe and secure in doc’s offices. Then they proceeded with hippa anyway opening up all our records world wide to gov amd researchers, marketers, hackers, thieves et al.
then they changed the meaning of ‘acknowlege’ reciept of hippa policies to mean consent. (the one you md has to get you to sign). I’ve had my records stole twive from the dod (giv not private like epic). Once a break in for hard drives another time reels ‘left’ In a car by saic (contractor)….both time got offerred ‘free’ account monitoring if only d turn over all the rest of my financial account info. Right. Like I need to be all in one mega dtabase.
I guess I am just lucky that the hospital system where almost all of my doctors are also has a pharmacy section in most locations. They are usually much cheaper ( I check wht the INs Co. pays not just my co-pay) and more efficient than most of the local Mom & Pops (there are some who are both economic & reasonable, but not many … I have one near me, but their hours are very short per day) or the local corporate outfits (they’re all idiots in my experience) ….where I more often than not had pharmacists trying to be doctors and refusing legitimate prescriptions. Where I go now, if there’s a question, they simply call the doctor who is in the same system, and if there is a risk of interaction, they provide verbal and written counseling information. I obey those instructions. Refills are ordered by telephone codes, and refills for expired Rx’s are done by digital means through the electronic medical records system the hospital uses ( and has for over a dozen years now … which also allows me to question/communicate with my doctor(s) directly via a form of email).
I will never go back to any pharmacy where I have to argue with a pharmacist who presumes to know more than my physicians…one the head of Executive Medicine and the other the Head of Infectious Disease Branch. I have chronic spinal cord issues (sports related) that can be very painful and I have RX’s for more (a lot more + refills) than usual amounts of palliative medications….however at low level narcotic doses that do NOT impair my motor skills or anything else…just takes the “edge” off the pain onset so I can focus on tasks at hand (like work)….which was at my request although I was offered far stronger meds. That was 30 odd years ago, through today, and I am fine, and I have never ever, over run my Rx’s, or any done other form of abuse.
So yeah, I refuse to debate with some twerp with a 4 to 6 year degree (depending on when you enter it…can be merely 2 years if post graduate with a BS) in dispensing medications versus the opinions of my physicians with some 12+ post Bachelors degree experience before they went in to full practice….which they’ve been in for another 20 or so. At one time, until about 10 years ago, due to living in Asia for a few years I had “TB” issues…e.g., I always flunked the Tine Test…however the Infectious Medicine guy knew how to take a swab, plus some spit, and validate that I was not infected. Now and then I also had some pharmacist fool question that issue (how the flip did he know of it?).
That, and if you watch any of the TV or cable advertisements for various Rx mediations, they always list a series of side effects that are nearly worse, sometimes, actually, that the condition you might want to have treated. My favorite is “death has occurred” from using Rx do dah day. I stick to what my doctors recommend and prescribe and go to the pharmacy that meets the need, with a direct connection to my doctors if they need it.
I suggest anyone with a chronic condition seek out a pharmacy connected to the hospital their physician(s) are affiliated, or have admission rights, with and stick to that pharmacy. In 20 odd years now I’ve not had a single argument with my current providers…and I have a trustworthy track record for both the pharmacists and the physicians.
Others’ MMV …it depends upon location and affiliation and the qualifications of your doctors….and how you are treated by pharmacist whomever.
PS: Once, before I wised up, when a guy refused to issue an Rx and asserted the DEA wouldn’t allow it…I said plainly to him, okay, call the local DEA office now and let’s both ask them…since they have a complete 30 year record of my narcotic Rx’s, by medical record number, SSN, full name, address, military ID number, etc., etc., and know I have never abused it. My DA/DoD office was adjacent to the DEA office…so I knew a few of those guys. That little weenie refused to talk to me after than exchange. It just isn’t worth the hassle to go any where but your hospital’s RX facilities.
I guess you can tell the subject irritates me no end 🙂
I could go on, but I’ve bored enough of y’all already … ppbbfffftt!
Pogo, The founder of Epic is a whacko!
Good post. I have the same thoughts as Darren. When I’m home, I support a local drug store run by a neighbor. But, w/ all my travelling, I need portability so do use a nationwide chain for some RX’s, even though they are soulless b@stards.
I was an investigator for a corporate pharmacy for many years, and got to know a tremendous number of pharmacists during my time with them. The ugliness of the pharmacy business is pretty crazy. Margins drop like a rock as State governments lower their payouts for prescriptions, but competition for market share means those costs can’t be easily pawned off of patients with private insurance. The dearth of pharmacists leads them to be paid outrageous amounts, often including signing bonuses. New regulations added each year make it ever more difficult to follow the law – and sometimes the law is so un-intuitive, pharmacy personnel break them without any intention.
DEA regulations have also turned pharmacy personnel into adjunct police. They spend their time trying to decide whether to dispense pain meds, because they can be investigated for doing so despite the doctor’s prescription. (They should have known the doctor was shady!) They are expected to police the purchase of drugs that were once over-the-counter – because ‘we’re going to stop the meth trade Real Soon Now ™’. The rate of shrink from pharmacy stores averages around 5% in my area, and I’ve seen shrink go as high as 18% – and that’s before robberies and prescription drug thefts.
Private pharmacy owners in such a climate are easy targets for companies like the one I worked for – who would swoop in and buy out the entire place – and give the owner a highly paid job with benefits. Meanwhile, the ever increasing difficulty of simply complying with the laws means that the few remaining will be constantly at risk; and where my company could generally rely on people like me to ferret out problems before the DEA or the State noticed (and usually be ordered to help cover it up), the fines involved (and potential criminal liabilities) make the business less desirable than ever before.
(One thing you should all note about pharmacies and pharmacists: They are far less influenced by Pharma’s sales people than your doctors are. There are very specific legal and ethical rules surrounding the interactions involved.)
Isaac,
I had my tonsils and adenoids removed during a minimal uvulopalatopharyngoplasty procedure several years ago.
Afterward, my allergy symptoms reduced by probably 80%. The physician informed me this sometimes happens after the surgery.
Darren
I suffered from allergies up until my thirties, pets, and hay fever. Then I got shots over the course of two years: every two weeks for six months, every month for six months, and then boosters for a year, every two months. I have been problem free for the past thirty some years. I only kick myself for not doing it earlier.
The treatment is very effective for one allergy, reasonably effective for two, and after that not as good. So, pets, pollen and in two years the problem is over.
The pharmaceutical industry in the US spends over 20% on advertising. You know, the ads of cartoon characters who start off glum and then take Ziploc or Whatsit and then come the big smiles and ahhhhs. The same industry spends less than 16% on research and development. These are the corporate bedfellows of the US health care industry. The US is the only country that advertises these chemicals to people late at night on TV.
The first question should be, “What do they take us for, idiots?” Who else but an idiot would be influenced by a TV add? The second question is, “Why do I have to pay 20% more for drugs so I can be treated like and idiot?” After that the questions should flow.
Along side of all this freedom to do whatever you want, keeping government out of our lives, etc, etc, should we also be forced to pay more than other nations for products because lobbyists buy and operate our elected officials?
Buy your drugs from Global Pharmacy International out of Canada. The prices are anywhere from half to ten percent of what they cost in the US. They are made by the same outsourced Indian corporations that the big companies use, the same companies that run the US market. All you have to do is order three months supply at a time or a year if you want. Same stuff, cheaper, cuz they don’t advertise and they don’t have lobbyists.
Great post.
There’s a similar problem with electronic medical records, for similar reasons.
It was meant to be a spectacular solution, but has often failed the test of usefulness at the individual level.
I ran across some information about something called “Dr. Goodbody’s Total Goodbody System”. I don’t know if it’s for real or not (and I do have some doubts) but I have to admit it does sound interesting.
Anyway, it’s supposed to be “such a revolutionary and completely natural way to eliiminate all of your health problems that it is quite common for people to feel frightened before using it and to feel disoriented and more frightened afterward.”
They go on to say that if you take it, before calling their customer-service line or 911, you should sit down, drink eight glasses of water, and read some of their responses to the following testimonials, allegedly submitted by “satisfied” customers “just like yourself”.
Testimonials:
$750 for a thirty-day supply? That’s $25 a pill. Isn’t that a lot of money? – J. Lowell, Charlottesville, Va.
Not when you consider that that comes to just about a dollar an hour– a dollar for an hour free of all your pains and complaints. Wouldn’t you pay a dollar to feel like a million bucks? You’d have to be crazy not to.
And it’s not merely a “pill.” Each Dr. Goodbody’s Total Goodbody System daily bolus contains the entire line of Dr. Goodbody Solutions, including ColoRooter, BloodFlush, TumorStopper, and several other remedies that are no longer available in most states. That’s why each pill weighs nearly three ounces, and why we recommend that you take it with eight glasses of water and the supplied lubricant.
My doctor has strongly warned me against trying your system, and told me not to come crying to him when my insides fall out. – C. Mazin, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Of course your doctor would say that.
I have been taking my daily bolus with eight glasses of water for three weeks now and I have seen none of the results graphically depicted on your Web site. Instead I have gained nearly sixty pounds and have become so bloated I no longer have fingerprints. What am I doing wrong? – T. O’Donnell, Sherman Oaks, Calif.
You need to increase the size of the glasses of water. But keep the total number of glasses to eight.
I smell burning hair. – D. Meyer, Midison, Wis.
That means it’s working. Other evidence that Dr. Goodbody’s Total Goodbody System is detoxcleansing, immunoblasting, and revitaboosting your insides includes: headaches, nausea, vomiting, vomiting from places other than your mouth, tiny voices, rapidly cycling hypo-and hypertension resulting in staggering about with protruding eyeballs, cacophonous bowel sounds, muscle and joint pain that feels like slow roasting, inability to urinate, inability to cease urinating, sudden double-jointedness, cottonmouth mouth, itching in an unreachable location, athlete’s face, knee sap, extremely offensive odor that smells like strawberries to you, undead feeling, migrating love handles, reverse vertigo, craving for bees and other sweet insects, Jolie lips, full-body sloughing, jazz hands, visible bubbles in the blood, eye hair, abdominal rash that spells “LET ME OUT”, uncontrollable urge to contact attorneys, laughing buttocks, and a blinding but oddly comforting white light.
If the burning-hair smell continues for more than a day, and your hair is not actually burning (which happens in only a small number of cases), there is a very slight possibility that you are having a stroke. If so, please seek help immediately by going online and ordering Dr. Goodbody’s BrainReboot. Choose overnight shipping.
I think I just passed my spine. -J. Turman, Bangor, Me.
That was your old spine. Rest assured that Dr. Goodbody’s all-natural nanobiotic healthnauts are busily constructing a new spine for you, with fresh disks and state-of-the-art wiring. We think you’re going to like it a lot. Do not be alarmed if, at first, your new spine feels somewhat gelatinous. This is a great time to try out all those frustrating yoga positions!
No one is answering the guaranteed-money-back hot line. -M. Givalry, Lancaster, Calif.
All our operators are busy taking testimonials from satisfied customers like yourself. Or they be in the bathroom. We recommend that you drink eight glasses of water and stay on the line for as long as you can.
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If you decide to try it, let me know what kind of results you get.
Regards,
Do not do drugs. Stay away from Doctors. Especially stay away from Doctors Without Borders. If you are sick then puke. If you have diarreah then stop eating. If you need air, go outside. When drunk then think again about drinking ever again. If you have been lying to doctors about low back pain to get the oxycotton then you will not get into Heaven when your time comes and you get the interview. Come clean, be mean, cut artFays and do not listen to drug commercials on the radio or tv. Full of juice, ready for use and don’t let your meat loaf.
If you have decent medical insurance, the drug dealers at Walmart offer very reasonable prices – as opposed to, say : “Bailliol Brothers Pharmacy – Prescriptions without a Prescription. Just see our boy in the back, and tell him ‘Necessity’ sent you.”
Thank you, Darren. And bravo on your move away from corporate pharmacies. You are fortunate to have an old-fashioned mom-and-pop drugstore around. I’ve stuck with our only mom-and-pop establishment in the area because they are so incredibly nice and helpful, even with suggestions about dealing with basics regarding other than a specific Rx, and know me and my medication history. All the big-box pharmacies are in the general area but the few times I have had to deal with them because my drugstore didn’t carry some rarer drug, it felt so impersonal and uninformative. I felt like a number, and someone to whom they wouldn’t hesitate to give grief if there were an error on their part. But, alas, they don’t have a soda fountain or penny candy in a large glass jar. Some things do have to change, I guess.
We have pharmacies like that in our area, but our medical insurance is through the government (Tri-Care for retired military). For years they have been pressuring us to use a mail order service. Now that my husband is eligible for medi-care, they have become insistent, so we have finally given in. So far it works alright, and we are actually saving some on out of pocket. But, we have not yet needed it for a short term temporary script. I’m still withholding judgement as we have only been on this for a few months.
I have no problems with Amazon, but I despise my mail order pharmacy, more mistakes and slow delivery than it’s worth in savings.
You have to be an uneducated “useful idiot” to even buy into the prescription drug paradigm……
There is not a pharmacy like that within 50 miles of me All the old ones have gone out of business, their owners went to work for corporations. I get txt msgs, not emails and it is very helpful. I am glad you like yours. I just had a big fight with mine and threatened to move my scripts, There are at least 8 places close to me to move them to.
I miss the soda fountain though. 😉
This sounds like the law of diminishing returns and is happening all around us. Identity theft and information theft, as well as the failure of the system you reference, may make too much electronic storage of information counterproductive. We don’t want to revert to the past necessarily, but we need to work harder to predict consequences of changing technologies.
Good for you. Welcome back to the real world. Now all you have to do is swear off online banking, too, and you’ll be all set.
Good article. It is amazing how all the ease with which sophisticated computerized systems should operate seems to become a tangled up frigging mess. Whenever I order something off Amazon, I have to constantly track the darn thing because a significant number seem to go to wrong addresses.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter