22 October 2005 - 9:31pm
Does your pharmacist play doctor? (Or priest?)
Maybe the prescriptions your physician have prescribed for you haven't offended your pharmacist to date. Maybe your private medical life so far has passed beneath notice of the state-licensed professionals who would pass final judgment on what prescription is and is not appropriate for you.
Or maybe you've been turned away by a pious druggist who thought your morality was not up to snuff, and were wondering if there was anywhere else you could go to avoid do-it-yourself pharmacology.
Now you can know. Planned Parenthood has published a pharmacy scorecard, showing which pharmacies fill doctor's prescriptions, and which pharmacies prefer to play doctor themselves.
On the plus side: Brooks/Eckerd, Costco, CVS and a few others. These pharmacies actually respect doctors and fill their prescriptions.
On the pharmacists-playing-doctor side: Rite Aid, Target, Walgreens, Wal-Mart, Winn Dixie.
Longer than both lists combined is the list of pharmacies with unknown policies, including Albertsons, Dahl's, Discount Drug, Duane Reade, S Food Lion, Giant, Longs, Pathmark, Piggly Wiggly and Safeway.
Does anyone reading this have any first-hand experiences with any of the pharmacies in these chains? Tell your story. Also, Planned Parenthood has the forms so you can write these pharmacies.
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Comments
I always thought CVS was a chain out of Atlanta. Am I wrong about that? Who would have thought a southern chain is pro-reproductive rights?
I do play the game of transferring my scrips around town. Ive been taking advantage of all these coupons that the pharms put out giving me 20 dollars off, a free script, a 25 dollar gift card on transferred prescriptions. I have some I have to do the three month mail order thing on, but there are some I get i have filled locally. I am on a serious amount of drugs (not as bad as mom though!)
I don't do walmart, In texas its too damn depressing (just imagine) in spite of their anti-american business agenda, but I have to admit I've done quite a bit of business with Walgreens and Rite-Aid.
I won't be doing that in the future though. and hey, I should look on the bright side too, i can still transfer all my scrips from there to a CVS and still milk the coupon thing for some 20s!
Pharmacists have no business playing doctor, in my book.
I mail-order the long-term prescriptions and sidestep the pharm altogether. For kids' antibiotics and such I had been going to Target but I'm switching to a local, family-owned pharmacy near our neighborhood.