Dear Pharmacy Computer:
I love being able to go online to refill my meds. It’s so much easier than spending ten minutes punching numbers into a touch-tone telephone keypad. There is one issue, however, that I’d love to see addressed. Why can I not refill all my meds at the same time? You have arbitrarily set a limit – and that limit happens to be lower than my number of prescriptions.
When I punch in the first six, I get a confirmation screen:
Then I start all over to add the others, and get an error:
Your system just can’t handle more than six prescriptions per day. It’s been a challenge, but if **I** can manage to take all those &*%# pills as prescribed, I don’t think it’s asking too much to ask a computer to let me order my refills in a timely manner. This is not rocket science; it’s basic handling of data.
Instead of this being a time-saver, now I have to phone the pharmacy and talk to a person — a person who could be filling prescriptions if they weren’t talking on the phone, trying to straighten out a computer problem. I finally got everything to where it fills on the same day of the month, only to discover that you can’t handle such a simple task. Argh!
∞ itis 
Oh, you are so right. I’ve got everything cycled so that both my husband and my prescriptions refill on the first weekend of the month — 7 for him and 6 for me. It takes forever, and if one of them needs to be re-approved by the doctor — it blows me out of the system. ARRGGGHHHHHH!
An online service is a great thing, but you’re right, it does seem arbitrary to put that kind of limit on refills!
Can you order 6 one day, then another 6 the next day, then another 6 if needed on the 3rd day, and then go pick all 18 of them up in one trip? I agree, they should change their computer system, or a law if that is the issue. I try to have an extra week’s worth so a 1 or 2 day delay doesn’t cause that problem. Of course, all of mine are long-term meds so I’ve been able to do this.
@Carla – I’ve about decided that it would be easier to just drop a list off at the pharmacy and return the following day to pick stuff up.
@Helen – I can see not filling seventy, but six seems like it’s just too low.
@Teri – The computer’s date-stamp does screwy things, and after a month or two that would lead to prescriptions not fillable on the same day. Drives me crazy that they make something that should be simple take far too many steps.
why not fax your list to the pharmacy and then pick up the next day. same concept but it will save you a trip to the store.
The pharmacy is near the post office (where I pick up my mail), so it’s not an inconvenience to run in and drop off a note. Fax would be easier for me, though. Good idea.
For the pharmacy, it would be easier if I did it online, so I’ll try again next month. They said that the system will allow more than six meds to be refilled (my experience was a fluke), so for now I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. I suspect that they’ve just not had anyone say anything before and that this will be an ongoing issue. Or non-issue if I figure out how to fax from my computer 🙂