if youre wondering how things are going in america. This is for the exact same generic drug & dose in my zip code.
Dog we have no idea either. I bet you yell at waitstaff.
No i do not, because if I buy a burger for ten dollars and it ends up being 15 after tax and tip that's just not a big deal, or if it was, i could eat at home. If it ended up being $540 and also if i had no choice but to eat the hamburger or suffer serious health effects then sure I would be upset.
Also, if it was the waitstaffs literal job to talk to my dietician and see if there was an alternate hamburger that cost less than $540, or if my dietician had records saying the hamburger was covered and the restaraunt didn't get the memo.
Also, please highlight where in the post I say I yelled at anyone.
Use your brain.
hi, i’m a pharmacy technician, that is actually not our job. we can and will do everything possible to lower your copay, including but not limited to: switching manufacturers, using copay cards, doing 30 day supplies instead of 90 if your insurance prefers it, switching from tablets to capsules and vice versa, and, yes, calling your doctor to ask for alternatives if that makes sense for that particular medication. but your insurance company is the one responsible for knowing why your copay is what it is, and they will not discuss anything with us. i know that’s frustrating. it’s still not our fault nor our responsibility.
the cost of a drug is determined by a combo of the manufacturer, the insurance company, and *sometimes* the pharmacy’s corporate office. the tech who gets paid $16/hr at an understaffed pharmacy and serves upwards of 150 patients a day is not CVS corporate offices. we do not set drug prices. if i knew why my patient’s medication cost $30 more this month than last month, i would tell them. but i don’t. there’s no way for us to know and frankly there’s not enough time in our day to even attempt to dig for that information on top of everything else that needs to get done. please be more patient with your pharmacy staff. give them a modicum of grace. i know some terrible techs who have no idea what they’re doing, i understand how upsetting they can be, but maybe consider the majority of us are trying really hard to do our job well with no support.
i have been screamed and sworn at, had things thrown at me, been called terrible things, and had more than one patient threaten to beat me up. and i’ve had it easier than most of my coworkers.
your pharmacy technician working at 8pm on a week night has probably been there since 8am, 9am at the latest, and hasn’t sat down or eaten anything since clocking in. just because it looks “slow” to you doesn’t mean it is or that it has been all day. week days are the busiest days at the pharmacy, mondays being the worst of the worst. that tech probably had 2-3 pages of rxs waiting to be filled, a basket full of returns, fifty bags to put away, a line in the drive thru, stock bottles that need to be put back, and three voicemails to clear within an hour of being received. there is never a moment in the pharmacy where there is nothing to do. “slow” isn’t really a thing for us.
td;dr: be nicer to pharmacy technicians.
