Why Do People Continue To Go To Cvs Or Walgreens??? (Page 2) (Top voted first)

The Internet is flooded with horror stories about these arrogant, cocky, self absorbed pharmacists who think their s*** doesn’t stink as well as the pharmacy themselves. CVS and Walgreens have grown too big for their britches, but what I don’t understand is why people insist on flooding these stores every time they get a prescription? Insurance is insurance and there are tons of small pharmacies that will all go out of their way to cater to you a lot better than the name brands/chain brand outlets. So I ask again why do y'all keep going to a pharmacy that you hate? I think we should all have a national "go somewhere other than CVS or Walgreens" month!

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Sometimes you are LOCKED IN to what your crappy insurance will cover, IMHO THEY have DEALS with the large chains. AND IMHO mom and pop stores are few and far between and service is NOT what it used to be. Sadly

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I have tried a few mom and pop pharmacies. Nastier than Walgreens. CVS can KMA

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In my area there are no small pharmacies anymore Walgreen's and Walmart put them out of business and many years back the small pharmacy got robbed of oxycontin so they just didn't want to deal with those issues anymore. It is very sad.

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I go to CVS because they own Silver Script, my prescription insurance, and it is cheaper for me.

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You are absolutely correct!! In New York City and Queens, I refuse to go to a chain pharmacy under any circumstance–and when out of town that includes those in the supermarket chains and the "big box stores" To think that it only takes about 10-20 minutes (at most) of internet or yellow page searching to find privately-owned pharmacies, it staggers the mind as to why people continue to patronize these places.

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These chains are the preferred ones per BC/BS and Medicare. Try and get them to approve a drug - hours on the phone and then denied. So I have to pay out of pocket. CVS is now owned buy a large insurance company. It will only get worse.

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I had terrible luck with RiteAid. Switched to Walgreens and they have been fantastic. Polar differences between RiteAid and Walgreens. You make an ambiguous claim without any content what your problem is. I'm very positive whatever problem you had with them it could be resolved if you explained it to them very calmly.

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Whaa (# 13) --

I just find that hard to believe I really do. And you weren’t the only one, others as well said they only have one choice and there are no other smaller pharmacies???

First of all, you do NOT live in a small town if you have a Walgreens there! No corporation is going to justify the expense of opening one of the locations in a town that cannot support it.

And I also absolutely guarantee you that before Walgreens or CVS came along, there were more than just a couple of smaller pharmacies operating there to begin with, which is why the big brand name people decided to open up shop.

I have lived in small towns my entire life and I’m almost 60. I currently live in a VERY small town in western NC with a population of 8900. For the record, any town under 10,000 is considered small. And we not only have a Walgreens sitting on the corner (not a 24 hr just regular hours) but TWO small mom-and-pop pharmacies as well.

You can say they ran the smaller ones out of business, but that is very rare! Being born and raised and living in small towns across the country I can tell you about small town people‘s mentality. And that is they stick with the small local businesses that they grew up with! Especially when it comes to medications and the trust factor.

And if your town is so small there isn’t, then Walgreens wouldn’t BE in your town but the neighboring town!! Simply put, ANY town that’s large enough to have a Walgreens is going to have at least one other smaller pharmacy I absolutely guarantee you.

But why are we talking about small towns anyway? I never said anything about a small town. So to use your example is not even relevant to begin with, because I am talking about nationwide and I am talking about medium, large, very large and gigantic cities that encompass 98% of the Walgreens and CVS’s that have one every 10 blocks like a convenient store. So to use an example that only applies to one percent of the situation is not a good example.

Others also said they like the fact that the doctor can send it electronically. Others thuan medications can be filled automatically. Every pharmacy I have ever visited will fill your script automatically and the doctor can send it electronically as well, which this electronic thing is kind of new to begin with when it comes to Narcotics and only been implemented for less than a year.

I haven’t seen any reason to justify using them yet, just people who are uninformed (thinking certain services are only offered by them, or not knowing there is another pharmacy down the road if they’ll check) except ONE.

That was someone said that while they are traveling they have a complete record of them on file. That is a GREAT example and I do agree that would be a good reason to stick with the pharmacy. But again, would only apply to a very small minuscule % of people.

To say ONLY If you do a lot of traveling and ONLY when if during your travels you have so many medications you have issues filling them locally.

If I was that type person? I very well indeed would probably stick with the top three!

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In the last decade most of the patents for these medications have expired, and so now more than 85% of the medicines that are commonly prescribed by doctors are generic and very cheap. Medications that used to cost pharmacies $400 for 100 pills (and then were sold to you for a profit) now cost pharmacies anywhere from $1-$10 per 100 pills. That’s right: many medicines got more than 100 times cheaper. What they sell them for, though, is their business.

Prescription medication prices began dropping as more medications became generic. This would have been bad news for insurance companies if people found out, since it would undercut their control over prescription medication purchases. To prevent this news from getting out, insurance companies (or, rather, their pharmacy benefit managers which will be discussed in the next section) issued gag orders to pharmacies so they couldn’t discuss prescription drug prices with their customers. If a pharmacy violated their gag order, the insurance company would retaliate by not allowing their members to buy prescription drugs at that pharmacy. These gag orders ensured that most people would continue to use their insurance to buy generic medications even though they didn’t need to. Since 2001 both CVS and Walgreens have nearly quadrupled their total revenue from retail prescription drug sales and doubled their number of retail pharmacies in the U.S. They were able to fund this growth mostly from the sale of generic prescription medications sold to customers, almost all of whom used a third party payer (insurance) to buy their prescriptions.

What’s more, people might pay several hundred dollars a year to get prescription drug coverage on their insurance, even though that coverage often increases the amounts they pay for their medications and cost the insurance company nothing. It’s like buying a book of coupons that say “one for the price of two” at your local grocery store. You can see why they didn’t want to tell you about it.....

truecostofhealthcare.org/medications

Lot more on this subject at the above website.

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Re: Tim (# 20)

Wow! Great story and good deducing skills as well :) you are definitely one of the very few to have any luck in getting the pills back!

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They take everyone's insurance, the pharmacists tell the customers if there might be a medication conflict and tell them to talk to their doctors, they're prompt, offer an automatic refill option, and answer all questions truthfully or admit they don't know the answer.

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