Thanks for the explanation. This was really confusing, because here we just go to any pharmacy and get our medicine.
You can get your prescription from any pharmacy, but you can only send a prescription to one pharmacy at a time. So if you choose the local CVS and they are taking a long time to fill it, you have to transfer the prescription to another pharmacy (even if it is just a different CVS store).
Are you saying that if you have a prescription, you can go to any pharmacy without pre-arranging anything, and they will give it to you? Are all pharmacies linked to a central system so they all know your prescriptions available and whether they’ve been filled?
Yeah.
The doctor puts my prescription in the system. It’s available in any pharmacy immediately. (Sometimes the doctor makes a note to the backoffice, which will then put it in the system. On a busy day this can take hours.)
I can then go to any pharmacy without pre arranging anything. At the register I say what I want (or if I’m not sure they can check my prescriptions), and a few seconds later I get it, I pay, I leave. I don’t think I’ve ever waited more than a minute.
In some pharmacies there’s a robot that will find the medicine while I continue the conversation and pay, making it zero waiting time.
I’m not sure exactly what “fill it” means to you. Here it means grab a box or bottle from the stock, stick a label on it and hand it over. The label has my name and a note from the doctor about its usage.
Well that sounds a lot more convenient.
By “fill it” I mean put the prescribed number of pills or quantity of liquid into the container. The prescription is not always for a set amount that would be pre-bottled. And sometimes if there is a shortage then they might give me some pills from one manufacturer and some equivalent pills from another manufacturer. (I’m not sure how this kind of stuff is never necessary in your system.)
