CVS: Chronically Villainous Salespeople

My 2-year-old began showing symptoms of another UTI last night. Being Saturday evening, I paged the doc on call, who agreed to call in a prescription to my local CVS/pharmacy. I confirmed both address and phone number with the doctor before hanging up at 6:30.

At 7:30, deciding an hour was more than enough time for the pharmacy to fill the prescription, I ran to CVS to pick it up. Naturally, the pharmacist informed me that there was "no record" of the prescription ever being ordered.

Flustered, I called my husband, and had him obtain the on-call number from the Post-It on my desk. I provided the number to the pharmacist, who had the doctor paged. While we waited, I wandered the drugstore filling my basket with various impulse buys such as a new toothbrush and conditioner.

After about half an hour, I approached the pharmacist again. Nope-- the doc hadn't called back. I asked him to page her again. He said he would. I wandered, this time treating myself to some new bath salts, then ogled the ice cream.

Thirty minutes later, still no call back. This time _I_ called and explained to the answering service lady that it was crucial that the doctor call back. My toddler was in pain, waiting at home while Daddy kept her up past bedtime so we could make sure she got her medicine before going to sleep. The pharmacy had no record of the prescription, and the doctor had not called back in over an hour.

The answering service lady was great, and assured me that she would keep paging the doctor all night if she had to! She put in a third page.

Thirty minutes after that there was no reply. I called again, and the answering service lady told me to sit tight, she would try to reach the doctor on her cell phone. (By now, I was up to Super Sticky Post-Its and a new medicine spoon. I briefly contemplated the at-home anemia test kit, but managed to resist its siren song.)

And the doctor called me right back. With the news that she had ordered the medication online and had a confirmation number stating that the prescription had been received by my pharmacy at 6:34 p.m.

It was now 9:15 p.m.

I handed my cell phone to the pharmacist, who spoke with the doctor for a minute, then hung up and handed me the phone. "Okay, we'll get that filled for you."

I said, "You've had it in your computer for nearly 3 hours?"

He said, "No, she just called it in."

I said, "She had a confirmation on her PDA that it went through at 6:34!"

He replied, "Oh, those don't work." I said, "Don't work? Your company sends erroneous confirmation numbers? Don't you think if it didn't work, physicians wouldn't use the system?" He flashed the most condescending, annoying smirk.

I narrowed my eyes. "Will this take about five minutes, or what?"

He looked at me. "Ma'am, there are several prescriptions waiting to be filled here."

I nearly lost it. "And I've been sitting here for an hour and a half waiting for you to fill mine, which in your incompetence you managed to lose. Have you ever seen a two-year-old with a UTI? You know what? Their pregnant mothers don't wait around for more than ninety minutes waiting for pharmacies to get their acts in gear. I'll be back in ten minutes to pick up my Bactrim." I stalked off.

About seven minutes later, the pharmacist found me to say it was ready.