Curious also if this is Canada-wide or just in Ontario:
Recently have had two occasions where Shoppers was pushing me to have the pharmacist prescribe a renewal of something, rather than troubleshoot an error with a renewal request through 1) my family doc and 2) a specialist.
In both cases they wanted to charge me $15.
Case #1 I just said no thanks and called my family doctor, thankfully it was sorted out quickly.
Case #2, Shoppers’ automated system waited until Saturday at 5pm(!) to notify me that the renewal (which I’d requested on Tuesday at 11am) had not gone through. When I called, they tried to charge me the $15 - but I successfully pressured them to give me a few days of the medication while I sorted out the issue (which is what they used to offer).
I can’t help but wonder if this is the ‘enshittification’ of pharmacy services, where they tell you they’ll take care of the automated renewal, but then - oops! - they mess it up and try to squeeze $15 out of a patient who just needs their medicine, and doesn’t have time to make a bunch of calls, or trek over to the walk-in clinic or whatever.
Anyone else having similar issues? If so, it might be worth collecting people’s stories and raising a fuss.
it’s not a feel like, it’s an actual proven thing that they are doing and have been doing for years. look up the whole “medchecks” thing.
Keep in mind they are owned by Loblaws. Stop using them.
Try a locally operated pharmacy or another option in your area if possible. Shoppers is hit and miss in my experience (majority misses).
Costco has a $5 prescribing fee and doesn’t require a membership for pharmacy. If you have a pharmacy close to a Costco you can try asking them to price match the Costco dispensing fee. It usually works, and then you can support a local pharmacy instead of Costco. If you like the pharmacy and have the funds in the future, you’re always free to pay the original dispensing fee as a show of support - I just mention this as an option, not suggesting anyone must.
I’ve always found them to be the most expensive pharmacy out of the options I have but I’ve stopped supporting all Roblaws owned stores
Stop using Shoppers.
Believe me, I would love to.
Problem is, I’m low income, I need a couple of moderately expensive medications, and my spouse’s insurance is such that I have to pay double if I go to another pharmacy. Honestly it’s the only reason I switched to them. I held out for so long, too.
It should be illegal for insurance to provide a different coverage rate solely based on the pharmacy chain.
I’ve never heard of this. What insurance company is it? Name and shame.
Manulife
My wife has Manulife and I haven’t heard of this and neither has she. We use Guardian pharmacy.
Fight that because they came under fire for trying to be in kahootz with Shoppers, I think ombudsman said it wasn’t allowed
I’m with them too and I’m definitely using a small independent pharmacy…
That’s horse shit, sorry you have to deal with that crap.
Loblaws. They’ve been out of control for a decade or two now.
Absolutely, yeah. I’m just thinking it might be good to have a specific complaint that could be taken to regulators (or prosecutors)
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The letter the group of pharmacy owners sent to Shoppers Drug Mart leadership said performance expectations — including for MedsChecks — had contributed to a “toxic poison” affecting company culture.
“The pressure … put on front store and pharmacy metrics and professional services is borderline abusive and is creating safety concerns for the provision of good medical care to patients and customers,” reads a portion of the letter emailed to Shoppers Drug Mart management on July 5.
“The pressures are so unsustainable and unrelenting that they are seriously affecting the mental health of many associates and seriously compromising the quality of care to our communities and ultimately the incredible brand of Shoppers Drug Mart.”
Oh yeah, Shoppers corporate has been pushing pharmacists to reach billing quotas.
Still Ontario-specific but you know they’d push this anywhere they can.
Shoppers corporate has been pushing pharmacists to reach billing quotas.
And that corporate ownership is…
Loblaw Companies Limited
Since 2014.
Is anyone surprised that there is shenanigans going on in a loblaw owned store?
Oh yeah, I’d forgotten about this story. Interesting bit in that article also, having to do with the additional paperwork burden the MedsChecks cause for family docs. I hadn’t realized they needed to sign off on every single one of them!
Yep. We had an ongoing prescription for my wife something simple ( I forget what) I went to pick it up and the pharmacy tech was like oh we will pull you aside for a consult. I’m like, uh its not for me its my wife’s and she’s had it for a year I think she knows how to take it.
Another time for one of my kids they charged my insurance company for a medicine they hadn’t handed out yet. They assumed we would get it monthly even though my kid had moved. So just billed the insurance anyway. I lodged a complaint with the insurers that they were commiting fraud.
Then you had shoppers and manulife trying to go kahootz and force you to use only shoppers.
Ya they have had sketchy behavior for quite some time. I use London Drugs instead. Still Canadian and closer to my house. No weird fees or issues.
Shoppers is the worst. They are terrible to their pharmacists, customers and other employees. If you’re wondering why there are so many small pharmacies that have started up its because shoppers was so terrible to their pharmacists łand wouldn’t allow them to provide good, personal care) that pharmacists left and started their own businesses (at great risk) so they could provide proper care to their customers. And in a lot of cases the customers followed.
Instead of taking this as a sign they should do better, shoppers just put more pressure on their low paid pharmacists to gouge customers and extract every dollar they can out of the insurance system and customers.
Great business model.p
Not getting that in BC. But I transferred some prescriptions away from them to an online pharmacy because there’s no extra cost and they deliver directly to me and do automatic refills.
Other side of the country, and I haven’t witnessed that. Regulations might be different here though.
Generally, policy in a SD is set by the managing pharmacist, so policy will likely differ store to store.
I doubt Loblaw’s has much say at that point, although they definitely plan out the store itself to pressure pharmacy and post office patrons into spending money in the rest of the store. And that goes beyond product placement and physical design to having salespeople intercept customers to encourage buying something.
I use a Shoppers Simply pharmacy and haven’t seen that. Really hope I don’t. They’re the best pharmacist I’ve had and have helped much more than just filling prescriptions. It’s night and day from the experience I’ve had dealing with the Shoppers pharmacies built into the retail stores.
