In my Sunday paper's Walgreens flyer there was a little boxed-off section which read:
Get your 3-FILL; 3 months supply
.. it's 3 refills in one
..and for 3 months, you're done.
Ask your pharmacist about a 90-day prescription today.
That was it. That's all it said. NO disclaimers whatsoever!!! Easy as pie, right?
Now I do not work for Walgreens, but if I did this kind of stuff would drive me CRAZY. What a totally misleading ad, and what a headache it must create for their pharmacies. I'm sure they have people coming in 'asking their pharmacist' why they can't get a 3-month prescription of Percocet or Oxycontin. I'm sure they have people coming in asking why they can't get a 3-month prescription and pay the same as they do for 1 month. And of course the big thing they left out here is that your ability to get a 3-month prescription of anything (even if your doctor wrote it that way) is dictated by your INSURANCE plan, and unless you are on a dirt cheap generic you're going to need a plan that covers 3 months (with the appropriate increased copay), otherwise you'll be sticking with the one-month, thank you very much. Or, if your plan does cover 3 months they'll likely require you to use mail-order, which has nothing to do with Walgreens anyway. But strangely, the ad didn't mention any of that.
They would prefer you come in and 'ask' your pharmacist for the details on this, and God knows they've got all kinds of time to explain it.
For 3 months, you're done!!!
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6 comments:
yea, i saw that add too. I pity the poor pharmacist when they debuted that..I can see their collective eyes rolling. WTF. obviously another NON pharmacy marketing dude and his pea brained idea.
It actually isn't that bad. Most people on oxycontin don't even think they can get a 90 day supply. As far as other people, they are usually just curious. If they do it, less work for me!
While there are advantages to 90 day fills, it is entirely frustrating since it is entirely dictated by the insurance. Luckily most people haven't asked about it yet, but once the full marketing campaign gets into full swing, it is just going to be another thing that wastes our time trying to explain.
We actually have a notification on the patient's profile that tells us if their insurance will allow 90 days supply, so we can tell them without much trouble.
By the way, Walgreens does have a mail-order service.
So far we haven't had any problems with it. If the insurance denies the 90 days then they look like the bad guys not us. Honestly, there are some people that I really only want to deal with every 3 months so I definitely encourage them to do this. I have alterior motives there
It might be satisfying to get the address and phone number for the head office of Walgreens, and then anonymously place some tantalizing ads that encourage people to call that number... (Sorry, I realize you don't have time for that nonsense.)
There are no "non pharmacy dudes". These Advertising VPs know very well what they're doing at our (the pharmacists') expense. We've been taking this crud for years and only have ourselves to blame. It will be worse now with the flood of new grads, foreign grads and cut throat chain competition in this depressed market. Do you guys really think you are paid enough for the abuse from all ends? Get real.
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