Walgreens - DO BETTER!
I defend the healthcare system on a regular basis. Far from perfect, but it does deliver quality care to millions of Americans each day.
While I do have an insider's view, given that each day of my work career since my very first job was in the financial side of healthcare, the inner workings are familiar to me. I believe in quality healthcare and I also believe in great service.
My physician is part of Village MD, a clinical network owned primarily by Walgreens. The concept is simple in that your doctor is in the same building as a pharmacy. It would seem that this is a perfect match. Think again.
My past two prescription refills have been nothing but dismal. While the Walgreens website invites you to order the refill through them, they push a message to the ordering doctor requesting a refill. There is absolutely no follow up from there. Either you get a refill, or you might not get a response. Keep in mind that the physician's office is a mere 17 footsteps from the pharmacy desk.
I challenged that approach since Walgreens is inviting you to refill a prescription. Now, if their website said "CALL YOUR PHYSICIAN FOR A REFILL", I would do that. However, Walgreens wants to keep the business so they represent themselves to be your advocate and offer to get the refill done for you.
What I discovered was a pharmacist who didn't want to be bothered with following up on a pending refill request. The first time around, I charged a fee for $50 to procure my own refill and was paid by Walgreens to do so. After all of the discussion, including their Public Relations and Regional leadership, who all agreed that they own the responsibility to follow up, they did the same thing on my last refill. No follow up, no concern, just lay there and do nothing.
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Over 20 years ago at the UAB Health System, we invented a system where patients who had orders who hadn't come to the hospital were followed up on. We called patients and reminded them of an open order. After a period of time and documented attempts, we would eventually close the order and return it to the physician with our history of the case. However, in today's age of technology, the pharmacist doesn't want to be bothered. Walgreens - DO BETTER!
This time, I'm sharing my story. In my career I've seen great care and great service. I can also spot bad care and bad systems a mile away. Walgreens should be ashamed that their pharmacist doesn't want bothered. This time my fee for exposing, diagnosing and calling out their broken system is $100.
In my case, it also gets worse. I finally got my refills, but due to a lack of response, the pharmacist indicated that the physician declined to refill the prescription. That was completely untrue. What happened was that a lack of response by the physician was entered as a "NO" response in the Walgreens system. A "NO" and a lack of response are not the same thing. Consider a patient who does not understand the system and who does not have the knowledge to challenge what was going on!
My physician refilled all of my prescriptions and gave me a year's worth of refills. There was never a refusal to refill anything. There was a failure to follow up on my pending refills due to sloppiness and bad service.
Walgreens - DO BETTER! Your patients deserve better.