- Be sure to stare at the pharmacist while your prescriptions are being filled. Staring at the pharmacist makes him or her work faster.
- Never remember the name of the medications you want refilled. By calling it “the little white pill,” you are sure to receive the correct medication.
- When calling in eight prescriptions or more, always arrive at the pharmacy to pick them up within 10 minutes. It is OK to hurry pharmacists; if they make a mistake, it won’t kill you or anything.
- Feel free to ask the pharmacy staff for the exact price of your prescription before it is filled. The staff should know every co-pay for every insurance plan.
- Always ask how long it will take to fill a prescription. If you’re lucky, you will get it for free if it’s not ready in 30 minutes or less. Also, be sure to keep asking if the prescription is ready every five minutes — pharmacists often keep prescriptions to themselves after they are filled just to tick you off.
- Be sure to complain about the co-pay. The co-pay is set on the whim of the pharmacist and has nothing to do with the insurance company.
- It is not necessary to present your insurance card—or even know the name of the company. Pharmacists are psychic and know everyone’s insurance.
- Pharmacies encourage forgery. When you pick up a prescription for someone else, please forge his name.
- Upon calling in a refill for a maintenance medication without refills, always question why the doctor has to be called when you’ve taken the same medication for years. It is only a myth that prescription medications have to be ordered by doctors.
- Always question why the insurance company is so concerned about your getting Prilosec 10 days too soon. After all you’re paying $5.00 for it, and that’s all it costs.
- Over-the-counter displays are put there in order to entertain children. Please encourage them to play with any item and even open one or two.
- Make sure you save all your old insurance cards. One of pharmacists’ favorite games is to guess which one is current.
- When you call in a prescription, just say, “Can I have my pills filled?” You can be sure the pharmacist will recognize your voice and know which medication you want.
- Pharmacists are some of the few people whose ears work independently. So when you see a pharmacist on the phone, feel free to just start talking—his free ear will hear everything.
- The pharmacist is the only person in the store who is really capable of writing down your refill numbers, so when you call, demand to speak to a pharmacist.
- Try to do all your pharmacy business on a Monday. The pharmacist will appreciate it.
- Another pharmacist favorite is to have a patient walk up and ask, “Can I pick up my prescription?” Guessing who you are is another pharmacist game.
- When there are several people ahead of you near the pickup counter, always stand right at it. The pharmacist will know how important you are and fill your Rx first, and, if not, you can listen to juicy patient-pharmacist conversations.
- If you are not asked for your insurance card, it means that the pharmacist wants to fill your prescription and then, after you are told how much it is, you can shout, “I have insurance.” The pharmacist will be glad to do it over.
- When you need a really old prescription filled, tell the pharmacist that you have a standing order for it. This works especially well if the doctor who wrote it is dead.
- When you get a new insurance card, make sure you keep it a secret. The pharmacist would rather phone your old company to find out why your Rx is being rejected.
- When you drop off a refill bottle, tell the pharmacist you’ll pick it up either today or tomorrow. This type of clarity helps him plan his workload.
- When you order your prescriptions and the pharmacist asks which ones, respond by saying, “All of them.” He will know.
- When asked for the number of your prescription, respond by saying, “I don’t know, you have it there.” The pharmacist will know.
- When asking for a refill on a pain medication, make sure you wait until the last one is gone and then try to calllate on Friday afternoon. It will be easy for the pharmacist to get in touch with the doctor for a new Rx.
Lol thanks for the laugh. Hope your day gets better 
Thanks for the tips, but I do all of those things already! 
Thanks. Enjoyed those.
This is so sad and funny all at the same time. I hope your day gets better too.
I’ve got a tip for pharmacists.
Don’t update your inventory records so you can tell customers that their prescription will be filled in 30 minutes.
When they return, then tell them that you are out and will have to order it, but you can’t do that till Monday. ( it was Thursday)
Assure them that if they come back on Saturday, you will be able to give them 3 doses , but you can’t do that now, they have to return.
EK–you can’t even get your 3 doses–the laws are so screwy with insurance now that giving you the three pills to tide you over until the rest comes in is actually illegal. Your insurance company is not your friend in a lot of cases. So if someone gave you the three pills to tide you over they were doing you a big favor. thank them.
I sympathize with VaBluebird–been there, done that on that side of the counter. Especially with the mind reading game. Remember me? Know what I got? I’ve had people respond to other people’s names!
But as a consumer–unless there is some sort of teaching going on in a nice way saying that it takes time to fill scripts, you have a lot of people in line whom you don’t see in the line, that insurance changes can affect the price etc. What do you expect?
And while the “white pill” won’t help, you do have numbers of the scripts on your computer.
Pain pills used to come with refills–when they don’t then when they are picked up it should be made very clear there is no refill and don’t wait until Friday late when it’s too late.
As for standing around–I’ve done that–there is nowhere to stand except on top of someone else at times. I can wander around a store but really have nowhere else to wait unless I’m assured of a call back to the pharmacy–and I don’t necessarily want my name blared over the loud speaker.
Zero refills will be noted clearly on the bottle.
I brought the written prescription in on a Thursday, it’s a med that Safeway generally has in stock.
If the insurance hadn’t covered it, I would have been fine pre paying and then being reimbursed, that wasn’t the problem. I’ve done that before because the insurance is weird and needs preauthorization from the Dr every year, ( even though you would think that writing the prescription would be evidence that the Dr thought it was needed)
It’s for ADHD not pain, but nsurance thinks only people between 10-15yrs have ADHD, after that you are miraculously cured!
If the pharmacy had told me right away, when they checked the computer to see if it was in stock, I could have taken my scrip to another pharmacy that I knew carries it. I went to this one because I like the pharmacist.
But after waiting for 40 minutes, I was tired and just wanted to go home.
However, we have another 24 hr pharmacy in the neighborhood now besides Walgreens, so I am thinking about changing as it would be much more convenient and it isn’t as busy.
I think the list is hilarious- I do have a question for our resident medical people. Every month I get a text from CVS telling me that I have no refills for x prescription despite the fact that I have refills for a year (in this case until June). But it lets me refill my prescription every month.
CVS glitch? Other issue? It doesn’t really affect my life other than confuse me once a month.
So, @VaBluebird, weren’t you trying to decide on retirement? As I read your list, I think I know what my choice would be, but what are you thinking now?
IMO going to the pharmacy is sort of like going to the post office. Some of the customers are a pain and should have looked into things BEFORE they get to the counter and some workers do the absolute minimum just putting in their 8 hours. Both are frustrating to the rest of us.
Hope your day gets better >>>>>>>
Oh, I am a hospital pharmacist for some of those very reasons. LOL.
So, @VaBluebird, weren’t you trying to decide on retirement? As I read your list, I think I know what my choice would be, but what are you thinking now?>>>>>>>
Oh, yes, if the part time job does not happen, I will be retiring at the end of August. 2015 will be my year for a change, one way or another. Thanks for asking.
roman, that sounds like a glitch to me.
I’m sure that your profession can be very frustrating sometimes.
But life on the other side of the counter can be frustrating, too – and frightening.
It’s frightening to be given the wrong pills, in the wrong quantity, or in the wrong dose, or to be unable to get your pills for many days because the pharmacy was unable to communicate with the doctor’s office (even though I had no trouble doing so), or because the drug was out of stock, or because the fax machine was broken, or because the pharmacy’s computer system was down. All of these things have happened to me.
I take four prescription drugs, two of which cannot be discontinued without dire consequences. I’m terrified of pharmacies and pharmacists because you’re what stands between me and getting my medication. You people can kill me by giving me the wrong medicine or the wrong dose or by making it impossible for me to get my medicine when I need it. And I never forget it.
You may be having a bad day, but you’re not afraid you’re going to die from it. Some of the people on the other side of the counter are afraid of just that.
In my opinion, the situations aren’t similar at all. Going to the post office is not a life and death situation,
Romani - do you use the CVS app or go online to see the Rx? I can see my old (finished) Rx and open ones, so I know which ones are able to be refilled and so forth. At least it gives you more info than the text.
Hospital pharmacist here. Sometimes during a really bad day I have to remind myself that there are plenty of people would love to have my job.
Surf- I go online. I put my pills in the daily boxes so when I’m on my last week, I’ll go online and request to refill them. Luckily, they’re all monthly prescriptions so I can get them all filled at the same time.
I love the people at the pharmacy I deal with and never have any problems on that end. It is the support staff at the doctor’s office that mess everything up! What is it with those women?? All of them are so miserable. If you call to ask about a refill they act like you are requesting their first born. Then they always mess all the paperwork up if you are dealing with a mail order pharmacy - our insurance only covers the first 3 months of a medication then we have to go through Express Scripts mail order. Always takes 3 phone calls for them to get it right and they are so mean about it - like they are doing me a favor.