A few years ago I went into my local rite aid pharmacy. I gave them 2 prescriptions i've had filled before on my aetna insurance. A few weeks prior to this I got a new insurance. I had told them my old insurance(aetna) was ending and my new one would now be in effect. They said okay, took the new insurance info, after I paid for a med, all good. Now back to when I gave them the 2 prescriptions I needed to have filled a few weeks after I gave them my new insurance info. They rung up the prescriptions, it was 10$ like normal, I paid it and went on my way.

That next month I try to refill my prescriptions again and they tell me I owe them $480. I said "no no, you must have the wrong person". They assured me that I owed them 480$. I asked why, and they said that after I had paid for my 2 prescriptions last month, the insurance denied me, and so I have to pay the full price of the two medications.

After further investigating, they had billed my old Aetna insurance last time, and supposedly it went through, but was later denied? But they weren't even supposed to bill that insurance, they were supposed to bill the new one.

I look into things further and discover that the new insurance(that they never billed) isn't very good and will only pay a tiny tiny bit of the prescription. If I had known that my prescription would be $480, I would have called my Dr. and gone with an instant release version of the medications I was prescribed. I can take either the extended release or instant release, the Dr. is okay with either.

So I left Rite-aid pharmacy, and started using another pharmacy. Two years later now, I started filling at Rite-Aid again, and they harass me every time me or my wife go in to get a prescription. They even lied to my wife and told her that I said she was going to pay it off, she paid some of it, and then realized they had lied to her when she later talked to me about it.

I'm pretty furious. Now all the sudden my prescriptions are taking much longer to fill, and they told my wife when she went to pick up 2 prescriptions that they had been deleted. The lady then said "oh hold on" and came back a few minutes later saying that the dr. just hadn't responded, when my dr. is very very quick in responding, usually the same day.

So now they're starting to screw with us, and this just all seems wrong. If I had known that the pharmacy would mess up my 2 prescriptions and sell me them for 10$, then later tell me I actually owe them $480, I would have gone with the generic instant release of my medications and paid only 30$... but because I had already taken the 2 prescriptions when they sold them to me for $10, now I can't return the medications. Recently i've been paying on it and I have it down to $150, down from $480, but after they told my wife that I said she would pay it off, when I didn't... and after talking to some people, i'm starting to think that they should have paid for their own mistake. And maybe the money I've paid on that bill should be given back to me. At the VERY VERY VERY least, they should have given taken that $480 bill and reduced it to cost(how much they paid for the medicine, without their profit inflation).

Any advice anyone can give me would be great, thank you so much. I've never been screwed over at this dollar amount before and I'm pretty irritated.

since when does one go to the emergency room to be seen for an condition, and stare at the doctor and constanstly rush him for your diagnosis?
neverrrrrrr! why? because you want him to make the best decsion!
THE SAME RULE APPLIES IN PHARMACY PEOPLE!
do not rush the pharmacy technicians or pharmacist- your life is in their hands.
people now treat technicians and pharmacist's like they work at burger king. they want their prescriptions filled in five mins, regardless of everybody else that came before them.
its not fast food people.
it's very understandable that your ill and you have just spent and hour at the doctor .. BUT when you give this some thought..
this medication that the doctor has carefully prescribed to you, the pharmacy must dispense- THE CORRECT WAY!
so give them room :) put yourself in their shoes. and if you dont like the pace they work at
get behind the counter and try and do the job for them.. because i put money on it.. you COULD'NT ! you would be the clueless one!!!
so stop b!tching guys, and think.

What follows is an accurate transcription of the events that have occurred since I received my prescription from Dr. Santana on April 9, 2009:

Facts: I received my prescription from Dr. Santana on April 9, 2009.I took my prescription to the pharmacy authorized via signed documents at Samaritan Behavioral Health (SBH): Rite Aid, 842 State St., Watertown, NY 13601. Prescription #: 04681 0318651 Qty: 45 Dosage: 1.5 tablets per day of 8 mg Tablets. I promptly put the prescription container in my pocket to safeguard it against potential theft or loss.When I went to take my dose on Friday, April 10, I noticed that it did not look like 45 tablets, so I counted them, and there were only 29 tablets. I promptly reported this to Joe, the Pharmacy Manager at 4:06 pm, Friday April 10, and requested that he do an inventory check. He asked me to call back in 30 minutes. I called back at 4:52 pm, at which time he told me that he still had not completed the inventory. He said he “forgot about it” but would do it then if I remained on the line. I remained on the line, and he told me the following:


“I am supposed to have 247 tablets on hand myself, and I am short. I only
have 200 tablets, so I am sorry there is nothing I can do it about it.
I asked the girl who did the prescription if she counted them twice
and she told me ‘yes.’ However, if you want to have your Program
Director call I will explain the situation to him or her.”

At this point I told Joe that I thought it was strange that he would be missing so many of such a tightly regulated narcotic, and suggested that he might want to do an audit or some other procedure to ensure that there was not any employee theft going on. I also asked them if he counted them himself, as the lead pharmacist, and he told me “no.” I suggested that, in the future, with controlled substances, maybe two sets of eyes should be on such prescriptions. He dismissed both notions and hung up with me at 4:59 pm, offering me no other recourse save talking to my Program Director.

Further Documentation

On Saturday, April 11, I placed a call to my primary counselor, Mike, at SBH. I left a message detailing what had happened.

Additionally, on Monday April 13, I spoke with both Teddy xxxxxxxxxx and Canice xxxxxx regarding the situation and what to do about it, who told me whom I should talk to.

Canice gave me two numbers to follow up with, and told me to make an appointment with Dr. xxxxxxx for the day I will run out of medication, should this not get rectified by the pharmacy. I tried to do that on Wednesday, April 15, but was told by the SBH receptionist “that’s not how we do things here.”

I began to take things in my own hands, since if I run out of this medicine, it becomes a life or death situation for me, as my cardiologist has told me that if I relapse, there is no intervention that would be able to save my heart from total failure this time. As such, I have placed over 10 to various agencies and/or Rite Aid resources, with no recourse of action. All of my calls have not been returned by District Managers, nor was my complaint on the Rite Aid Website Contact Us Form ever addressed. I'll take it all the way to the Office of Professional Misconduct if I have to. The problem is, if they don't correct this, I can't afford to pay the out-of-pocket expense ($214) for the 16 missing pills...

Last month I had a prescription filled ($215.99) I take 2 pills 2 times daily (4 pills per day). My prescription is for 30 days so that would be 120 pills.

When I got home there were 40 pills in the bottle, but I did not think I could do anything about it. Today I had my prescription filled again. As soon as i got home I counted the pills and there were 106 pills. I immediately called the pharmacy who said they would count their remaining inventory and call me back. Of course when they called back, they said that their inventory was correct so they would do nothing about it. That meant that I would have to go for sometime without my medication, until the 30 days was up and I could again fill my prescription. I take Focalin 10mg and although there is a generic that my insurance would cover, Rite Aid says that their supplier cannot get the generic, so the $215.99 comes out of my Social Security monthly payment of $749. Please advise other people of Rite Aid's prescription shortage policy.

On 2-27-2008 metronidazole 250 mg tab was prescribed by doctor flanagan, an error was made by rite aid by giving me 30 ciprofloxacin tab 500 mg instead. On 2-29-08, i went to complain and was told, they had made a mistake and corrected it. The pharmacist said someone else made the error and gave me a phone number to call to complain. Please advise. Thank you. Mildred Dougherty