Most insurance companies now require a diagnosis and the code on pain meds. The restrictions are different for someone who has a terminal illness and someone who doesn't who is taking meds for chronic pain.

Hi Jerry, I don't know where you live but I could have written that post. I dealt with Walgreens for 22 years since I am in Florida. I loved them. Then about 4 years ago my insurance company dropped Walgreens and picked up CVS in its place. At the beginning I had such a hard time with my pharmacist. I spoke to his regional mgr and was informed that the pharmacist is the one who decides whether or not he will fill the prescription. I can't tell you how he spoke to me. I felt about 2 feet tall. He was insulting and demeaning. He actually brought me to tears. I have no choice but to use CVS. It's a shame but we are slaves to our insurance companies and who they choose to use.

Several years ago, I briefly worked as a pharmacy technician at my local CVS. It was not pleasant -- although I did enjoy the customers. It was complete chaos. I am by no means defending the chain, but I can give you a little bit of insight at to how corporate pharmacies. (Personal observations.)

First, and foremost, you are constantly reminded that CVS is a DRUG store (liquor comes in at a photo finish!) The main revenue centers for the stores are the pharmacies. The pharmacists are under constant pressure to meet "goals." The store manager (in my case) seemed to be at the mercy of the head pharmacist. The pharmacists work 12-hour days and the SOPs for filling Rxs is frustrating, as well as the training.

The two pharmacists were horrible. The lead was a male and he was always yelling at the techs and he did not speak English very well so he had difficulty communicating with customers, which added to his level of stress and frustration, and that came across as being rude and condescending. The other pharmacist was a female who admitted that she had "anger management issues," which she freely took out on both the staff and customers.

Another problem is there is such high turnover with the techs. The pay is low and the work is stressful and relatively unpleasant. The male pharmacist told me I couldn't wear tennis shoes, and that was the beginning of my discovering I had OA in my feet.

I didn't have a lot of experience with controlled substances, but I remember one customer who had to come in every five days to pick up a pain medication for her husband and always seemed to encounter difficulties.

I eventually got another job and left. I don't bid the store any ill will and always got along with the manager, so I still shop there. I believe the female pharmacist is gone and I never see the same techs twice. I get my Rxs at Price Chopper and have never had problems. I am so lucky that I have a choice as to where to go.

Hearing of such problems was certainly deja' vu. Now that I am on the other side, I can only imagine what it much be like.

(((HUGS))) to all who have been having problems. I don't see the situation improving, unfortunately.

I know I'm late to this. It was found in a search on google, I searched for "cvs doesnt have enough pills to fill prescriptions" on Google. THis is one of the 1st links that came up so I clicked on it, read some and wound up here.

I only wanted to share what was going on today, what has also happened in past albeit not every month.

Today is the day for refill of my prescriptions. Sent from my dr electronically, every month for past 3 years. Cvs knows me well, most behind counter really like me, only a couple dont seem to like anyone, including their selves.

I called like normal to say was coming for refills, was told one of my pres were 4 pills short. Theyre only option when this occurs for patients who use CVS is...
A) take what they got only, no getting the rest tomorrow or when they have more in stock
B) Wait until the day they have the full pres in stock, so go without until then
C) That's it, no other options.

I asked a few questions, was talked nasty to, rude to, uncaring in the slightest was this lady. Question 1...
Q) "If another CVS has the full amount in stock, can I go there and fill? I have no prob driving somewhere diff this time?" *(even though i've been coming to my location for actually OVER 3 years like I wrote at top, I think it's prob been more like 4 years now. Also theres 15 locations in Charleston SC that aren't terribly too far away.*
A) *You can not! You can't go to ANY other CVS pharmacy other than ours." "Until you change your desired location at your Dr's office, other stores with full stock are absolutely off limits as your pres are elec sent to OUR store. our store is only CVS that gets to make the sale!"

BTW-*I just wanted to go ahead and make clear, for those of you who already think they know what this is about, Youre not as smart as you think you are-this prescription is NOT for "pain" pills. So...
And if you want to know what these are for, lmk and I'll reveal on a public open forum, they're prob what you, your parents and anyone else in the world takes, very common prescription. Sorry, I had just realized, had just occurred to me, now a days some people think they know it ALL, some people are so smart(in their opinion of course) that before they read a whole book they know the story already, simply based on the title of just about any said book, you know who you all are, it's a shame.(in my opinion, of course)

Ok, sorry, back to question 2-
Q) "Can I pick up what your store currently has in stock now, get the other remaining days when you get back in stock?"
A) "NO! Once we fill your pres with what we have in stock, you can NOT get the remaining prescription's pills when we get enough in!"

Q) "It's possible I may be ignorant to your CVS system, your pharmacy's system of filling prescriptions each month is not clear to me, at all. I havent ever had to deal with this type of situation enough to know what to do when this issue has arisen. Because of that, I need you to be honest, thoughtful of every option open to us(the patient getting pres) and clear in your explanation on Is the ways I get my full prescription this month, next month and any future months that this occurs. What should I write down to do to get me entire prescription that my Dr needs me to take every day?"
A) "Theres nothing you can do except go without for some of the days in these situations!" If you absolutely have an emergency because of CVS not goving you your full pres and ensuring that we certainly are NOT going to give you your full prescription per our CVS policy, you could go to a hospitals emergency room!"

That is my story. If I'm wrong, tell me where, tell me what to do then. If I am right, this is at the minimum, a company forcing others to go without their Dr's full prescriptions each month, any given month, and at any given time they so desire, all in only one name, only one reason, CASH. There is NO OTHER REASON FOR A SYSTEM SET UP THIS WAY, CASH IS THE ONLY FACTOR INTO THE DEVELOPMENT OF CVS PHARMACY'S PRESCRIPTION BUSINESSS.

I feel this is illegal, immoral, cruel, unusual, greedy, incompassionate, morally evil, disgusting, heartless for cash, harming human lives for profits and believe me, I could go on and on about the way I feel, about how CVS cruelly developed their American prescription system, the system that CVS developed,
Yes, I know, I was redundent with that paragraph. But that was intentional, not a mistake.

Please, if you know how I could get my entire prescriptions or how I'm missing something and caused this on myself, anything to that affect, lmk. I'm extremely open to suggestions, points, counterpoints, advice, constructive criticism, nothing is off the table. For me anyway. I want to hear how I can get my full pres each month, not partially filled ones as that's not what my Dr wants, nor prescribed. Nowhere on the pres says that if it can only be partially filled that that'll be fine, no probs with that, ehh, just take whatever CVS wants to give you, etc, etc./It actually says to take 60, 2 per day, for 30 days! Right there on the bottles I get every month. For years and years now. So??? Am I missing something? Is the Dr missing something? Or, is CVS missing something.
*Clarification* *Once again, just in case anyone missed it, my prescription is NOT for pain pills. They're actually a fairly common prescription that most families have a member of taking these their selves*

Thank you to any and every one of those who had the attention span to read this far! I truly know it was a chore! I apologize for being so detailed!

Any of my other posts, responses, etc are never this extreme. I just felt I had to be 100% clear here with this one as it's vip to me to get the upmost, accurate and clear help with this issue. I am truly, really worried about this situation and very, very much so, desire to learn how to avoid this and never, ever, end up in this predicament again.
Any help is extremely grateful, appreciated and recognized 100%. Thank you in advance.

Help? Thx!!

There have been A LOT of changes over the past 2 years-2016-2018. Just curious how this post from 2014 got bumped up? Are you still having problems?

I have that issue too I changed pharmacies and the same crap happens . went to Costco a huge pharmacy because the dispensing fee is 4 bucks compared to 18 at the other place. Be nice if government regulated it. I am there every three weeks and or two months depending on medication. I call a week in advance. there's no excuse. I have talked to people until I am blue in the face. Nothing happens. It's like the dumb thing I get one med and when it's not available I have a rx for another one the same family. But I get three or for calls all in the same day saying you can't take them both. No dah. I am out of one that's why I have the other. How many times do I have to tell you ,can you not leave a note on computer.
My doctor trusts me and understands what happens even she said , she has a major issue with the pharmacy losing repeats for peoples meds. Good luck Casey

It is frustrating to hear about the trouble everyone has to go through because of the actions of a few that screws it up for everyone else. I know it is a sensitive and private topic but I have had success addressing other issues on twitter (nothing medical). Now with social media, corporations are quick to address peoples' problems before they get out of hand. With 2,000 members on the chronic pain support group, it may be able to trigger a discussion. Best of luck to everyone going forward with the pharmacies.

It got bumped because somebody didn't look at the date and they responded to it.

It's from 2014

Of course it continues to be a problem :( It has only gotten worse with the CDC up everyone's butt- pardon the expression. As if being sick isn't bad enough, right?

It got bumped up because its been four years and not one damn thing has changed except that it might just possibly be WORSE now. TriCare has now switched me to Walgreens and things were almost ok there for a while, except for the fact that they would tell me that I had to wait a few days for my Fentanyl patches, because I have to use the Mylan brand due the the "blister" style tearing my skin, and when I would call to see how long a different person would go physically check and they would actuality have the damned things in stock! Little matter to some lazy pharmacist that waiting three days would leave me on the verge of horrible pain in addition to ghastly withdrawal issues! Now they tell me that they can no longer get the Mylan so I have big tears on my skin and blisters to boot.
So if you're all upset that an old post got bumped up maybe consider the issue before getting your back up over it. Thirty nine years of chronic pain in May and STILL going through this bullshit, it literally might have been more humane just to send me to Dr Kervorkian, he was still practicing at the time.
Nah. As awful as it has been most of the time there are the rare jewels that stand out like the most brilliant star in the sky, that makes it all worth while. And some I have met on here are amongst them.
Of course with the damage all the drug companies and their sales reps and the prescription selling doctors have done we are likely to see things go back to what they were like in the 80s and 90s where we are all looked at as junkies rather that humans who have intractable pain....

So, nobody got upset about an old post, a question was asked and answered.

There are other patches that are not "blister' patches. The brands are:

TEVA Fent patches
Duragesic Fent patches
Malllinckrodt Fent Patches
Sandoz Fent Patches

Have you tried any of these? Also your Dr. can write your script for a certain name brand product and your Pharmacist has to fill the Prescription for that product.

Another thing that might help is to have a chat with your Pharmacist and introduce yourself, let them know about your medical conditions, and that you take these medications and will always need them on "X" day of each month.

I've found that treating your Pharmacist like a Dr. and having a consult with them and introducing yourself and telling a little about yourself and your meds and conditions goes a long way towards your relationship with your Pharmacist.

Take care,
Kat

I also faced such a problem. I often don't have the drugs I need in my pharmacy. And I made a schedule in the organizer in my smartphone with a schedule when you need to order medicines in the online pharmacy http://canadian-pharmacy-center.com . Now I always get my medicine on time and I always have a supply. By the way, in canadian pharmacies drugs are cheaper.