Walgreens

Nine times out of ten, the service at Walgreens on Hampden Ave., in Denver, CO is terrible. I've been put on hold for more than hour today trying to talk to the pharmacist. This unacceptable wait has happened more times than I can count. Oftentimes, when I’ve been on hold and waited for 30 minutes, I will be disconnected and have to call them back to be put on hold again. Half the time, the drive thru is closed. But I keep giving Walgreens another chance and another and it just gets worse. It’s the closest Walgreens to my home but the convenience is not worth the headache.

Once when I was on hold a person finally came on the line speaking gibberish trying to imitate an Asian accent. This rude person then giggled and hung up on me. This is not only unprofessional but bordering on abusive. I don’t know whether the pharmacy staff is totally incompetent, understaffed, burned out, or “quietly quitting” due to burnout. Or maybe they just don’t care and there is no accountability. It’s unbelievable.

This is the scenario I always get with them. Waiting a week before I can get my prescription filled. I will refill a prescription online about a week in advance before I’m completely out. The website tells me it will be ready the next day. It never is. I’ve signed up for automatic refills and I’m never notified by text. When I call the pharmacy to find out the status, they tell me they're working on it. 9 times out of 10 when I call, same scenario, they're working on it. They will tell me they're waiting on the doctor to approve it but when I call my doctor, they tell me they've already approved it. I’ll call Walgreens back and tell them my pharmacist has approved the prescription and they’ll tell me they’re busy but it should be ready for pickup shortly but it rarely is. Many times, the pharmacy has told me it is ready but when my husband goes to pick it up, it isn’t ready and he has to wait over an hour at times.

Consistently does not contact prescriber for refill approvals. Month after month after month.
300+ complaints on local Nextdoor app. All say the same thing "avoid Walgreens on Hampden and Poplar at all costs"
I waited 3 weeks for a refill for an antidepressant. Not a good drug to go off of. When I asked for a partial refill full, I was told they would need to get the prescribers approval. What? Why would they need to get approval for a partial when I need the entire script filled? I talked to my doctor 4 times and he was said he was never sent a request.
Instructions on Adderal - take one cap at bedtime. Glad I knew better.
SOP - turn the phones off. I overheard the pharmacist say they are no longer allowed to do that. And I quote, "we no longer turn the phones off. Now we answer them and put them on hold. After about 5 minutes, they usually hang up". This morning I called and there were "more than 3 callers ahead of me". I put the phone on speaker and while I waited, I took a shower, dried my hair and cleaned the bathroom. When they finally answered the call after 52 minutes, they hung up.
I was told a month ago that the pharmacy brought in an after hours crew to help them get caught up and 1, 000+ prescriptions were deleted. Yesterday when I dropped one off, told me it could be several days because there were 900 prescriptions ahead of me. What if I had just had major surgery and was in extreme pain? Wait for days? This did happen to me 2 years ago when I had a 5 level back fusion.
I could go on and on. I'm sure you are wondering if I enjoyed being tortured? I must. We travel a lot and it was nice to pickup a refill almost anywhere (Except Hawaii). My biggest fear in moving all of my scripts is that my scripts would disappear into never, never land.
There is no longer any resolution for me. I'm taking a giant leap and moving everything (and I take a lot of scripts).
Please use my comments to help the rest of the customers of this Walgreens, although I expect the problems will go away soon. CVS is opening up down the street.
Thanks for listening. Please help remaining victims.
Store manager, Ben is aware of the problems and is doing his best to resolve them. You need to give him a big raise to stay.