Anyone else having trouble with unrequested CVS auto-refills?

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PinotGris
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Re: Anyone else having trouble with unrequested CVS auto-refills?

Post by PinotGris »

nisiprius wrote:I've never knowingly asked for auto-refill. They always ask me, I always say "no." Two days ago I got a robocall saying my prescription was due for refill, did I want to refill it? After doing a reality check and counting over thirty pills left of my ninety-day supply, I pressed "two for 'no.'"

Today I got a call saying "your prescription is ready for pickup." I called to say "Wha? Huh?" and they said "it's on auto-refill."

Is that just an isolated event or is that happening to other CVS customers? (I.e. is it just a mistake or are job incentives encouraging creative misunderstanding of the phrase "no, thanks?")

This is definitely not the first time something like this has happened but I haven't kept records.

It's a trivial annoyance, no big problem, they just say "OK, sorry, we'll just take it back." As they should.
That happened to me once where they just mailed me the medication although I never asked for a refill. In fact I had stopped using it because it did not agree with me. I was billed 76.00 as deductible. I was furious and made them take it back and refund my money.
Today I read that drug manufacturers are finding ways to make patients take their meds as instructed and fill their prescriptions. Along with price increase this is another way to increase revenue because. Now I understand why we get so many calls from CVS. Sometimes they want to speak to my husband, nothing important, just checking on him! Now we have put all calls from CVS on block.
sport
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Re: Anyone else having trouble with unrequested CVS auto-refills?

Post by sport »

dratkinson wrote:Now I like ES. No unwanted refills, and no phone calls except the ones initiated by me to reorder.
Let me tell you a little story about ES. I received a medication from ES mail order that was somehow not right. It has a narrow temperature storage requirement and apparently it got "cooked" in the mail. My doctor told me not to use it. When I contacted ES, they told me that there was no recall on that product, and they refused to replace it unless I paid a second co-pay. Since that experience, I pay more to buy Rx's locally to avoid dealing with ES.
ubermax
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Re: Anyone else having trouble with unrequested CVS auto-refills?

Post by ubermax »

It happened to me maybe a couple times with CVS over a span of several years ; I just said take me off aoto-refill and I was fine for many months and then it probably happened again and I said the same thing - now I'm with Walgreens and I think it's happened once - it may be some aggressive selling going on but as they say "no harm no foul"
mrc
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Re: Anyone else having trouble with unrequested CVS auto-refills?

Post by mrc »

Thanks for the "long story" tips. I forgot to mention that Express Scripts also robo calls to ... um ... "verify your shipping address." They actually leave voice mails asking you to call them. I order regular refills. Online. Not a phone person. The calls I ignored became incessant. When I asked why they do this, the rep could offer no response.

We were a victim of a back ordered drug as well. No ETA. Just no script. When I finally go hold of someone with a clue, the explanation was simple: we don't have any. Turned out, the manufacturer had production problems and would not ship for months. We couldn't tell if this was a two-day stocking problem or a major need to work with physician for a different drug. And they were no help.

Some plans penalize heavily for using local pharmacies. I used to love mail order, but that was nearly a decade ago. Lately, it's been a major hassle. As evidenced by many of these posts.

Seems those using Express Scripts and CVS/Caremark are experiencing quirks of benefit managers implementations.

My mom could not cope with this by herself on her Medicare part D plan. No way.
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mouses
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Re: Anyone else having trouble with unrequested CVS auto-refills?

Post by mouses »

And I was thinking about changing to CVS from RiteAid. RiteAid has a not in time inventory system, so I am always having to wait for them to order it. Usually this is one day, but once it was 2-3 weeks. This is just stupid when I refill the same three meds every month.
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nisiprius
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Re: Anyone else having trouble with unrequested CVS auto-refills?

Post by nisiprius »

I really just wanted to know if it was just grumpy me or if this was endemic.

The real villain is that CVS and perhaps others have an IT system that's intended to provide a useful, beneficial, probably health-enhancing service, but that it is totally inadequate to the (doubtless difficult) challenge. Obviously it is significant nuisance and arguably a potential hazard in rare cases. It probably works like a charm for anyone who's on a rarely-changed maintenance prescription, for a standard dosage schedule (not "alternating-days full pill and split pill"), stays on the same health plan, and always uses the same doctors and pharmacy.

I don't normally blame the victim but I'll go ahead and blame myself for comparison-shopping Part D plans every year. I would never change plans just for a small difference in cost, but for reasons that that's not the way it works. Every year, last year's cheapest plan drops to about tenth-cheapest, and costs way-too-much-too-ignore than the cheapest. Like a common tier 1 drug going from $1.85 copay to $30 co-pay on old plan, but being a couple of dollars co-pay on the new one. And things got massively messed up last summer when I needed a vacation override so that I could get nine weeks' worth of pills to bring with me, which ended up creating a massive tangle. That resulted in duplicate prescriptions being in the system and there could still be some fallout from that.

CVS was like "well, we have pharmacies nationwide, why not just refill them in one of our convenient locations?" It's only two hours driving time from Madison Campground to the CVS in Bozeman!
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