I go to a CVS pharmacy which is about 3 blocks from my house, and I have to say, they are without doubt the most careful ppl I have ever dealt with in my life. There are five ppl working in the pharmacy at all times, and 3 of those 5 ppl are licensed pharmacists and the other 2 are licensed pharmacy techs. When you go in to the pharmacy area in the store you go to a window where you hand your prescription in. The pharmacy tech takes your prescription and then asks to see your I.D.. Even though they know you by name, they still require you to present an I.D. card, which she checks against the name on the prescription. When it matches she logs the prescription in, then puts it in a little drawer that slides through the glass panel into the actual pharmacy area. Inside that glassed in area there are two pharmacists who fill the prescriptions then they go to the other end and pass them out to the desk where you pick them up. The person at that desk then takes all the bottles or packages out of the bag and checks them one by one against what was originally logged in. If there is even the slightest doubt about the count, that pharmacist will count the pills again to make sure you have the correct amount. In addition, there is a label on each container that gives the full description and the drugs letter or number markings so they can be positively identified. When he/she is certain that all is correct the bag is stapled shut and placed on a holding rack till you come to pick it up. When you go to the counter to pick up your meds you are once again required to show your I.D. which they verify against the presciption, then they open the bag and confirm that you are getting the correct number of containers before they will ring up the sale. If someone comes to the counter and needs to talk to a pharmacist, the one who verifys the bags will come to the counter. According to the girl on the counter the pharmacists in the booth have a phone, but it will only make outgoing calls so they can call a doctor to verify a prescription. All incoming calls are handled by the pharmacy techs or the pharmacist outside the booth who verifies the counts, but under no circumstances are the pharmacists behind the glass filling the prescriptions to be disturbed. About two months ago I had to undergo a minor surgery and when I turned in a prescription from the surgeons for some meds to prep for the surgery the pharmacist checked the computer and told me that the drug specified was contra-indicated with one of my COPD drugs, so they had to call the surgeon and explain the situation before they would fill the prescription. It turned out the surgeon was not aware of the other drug, but he changed my prescription to another drug that was okay. To my complete surprise, about three months ago the pharmacy called and said their records indicated that I only had 8 more days on an inhaler that I have to use twice a day. They asked me if I had an apointment to see my doctor to get refill and I said no. The pharmacist then asked, would you like me to call your doctor and schedule you an appointment? Sure, I said, and a half hour later my doctors office called to tell me they could get me in the next day. Jan uses the same pharmacy and one day when I was there I asked them if she could pick up prescriptions for me? The girl said sure, but you will have to sign a consent form and I will put a note on the computer that you have authorized her to do so, otherwise no one but you can pick them up.

mcpeg, I'm an American and certainly take no offense to your concern and I would agree totally if in your position. That said, I should add that I have problems with all the people coming here for free health care too. People come from Mexico to have children here to be covered by US care at taxpayer expense and to the detriment of other citizens. I don't think that's right. Our state has a more lenient welfare system than many others and we get busloads of people who come in for a weekend to make claims, collect payments and go home. I don't mind helping out, but I don't like being taken advantage of. The problem of course is the laws of our respective countries and states/provinces. Just like the US is too stupid to tax actors who make millions and have their residency elsewhere, including Canada ;) (Dan Akroyd, Michael J. Fox, Adam Sandler, etc) and pay no taxes here. I don't think that's right either. But we have a dyslexic dimwit in the, well, I won't get into politics, not appropriate. But I do think you are justifiably concerned about it and I for one, share your dissatisfaction, and you needn't be sorry for feeling that way.

I just turned 65 on the 25th of April and with that birthday I was switched from Medicaide to Medicare. What a nightmare, but that is another story all to itself, however: Last Tuesday Jan was out shopping and she had to stop by our pharmacy. While she was there she called to tell me that they had a prescription for me that my doctor had called in. I said, "No problem, just pick it up and if there is any co-pay use my debit card (Jan carries a copy of my debit card). When Jan got home she said she did not get my prescription because I have to go to the pharmacy and sign something. The next morning I went to CVS and talked to the pharmacist, and after she explained it, I have to say, I am very favorably impressed. She said about a year ago the Medicare/Medicaide bean counters came in and did an audit. They were not in the least concerned about what we charge for drugs, what they were looking for was fraud. She said, just in our store alone we have about 10,000 customers who get controlled meds and a very large percentage of those ppl are either on Medicaide or Medicare but what they were actually checking was to see if the customers on our list were actually alive. She says, you know only too well that many of our customers are physically or mentally shutins and they rely on a third party to pick up their meds, but what the bean counters were finding was that some of the customers had died, but the third party was still routinely picking up the prescription. In fact, they found one that was picking up a very highly controlled med for a person who had died 3 yrs before. Needless to say, those meds were being used to support a personal habit or being sold on the street. She said, "you can still have a third party pick up your meds, but our store has a new policy where we ask every customer to come in at least once every 6 months and sign a letter confirming they are still alive & well, and on that letter we can confirm the names of ppl that we are authorizing to pick up meds for us, and if you cannot physically come in, call us and we can have our delivery man bring the form to you." She turned and walked over to one of the clerks and got a paper which she brought back to show me. "Look here, we now get a list from the county coroners office once a week listing everyone who died in our county in the last 7 days, and when we get that list we have one of the clerks post the info on our computer to insure no one can get any meds for that person." She then told me that although this is a policy in thier store, they are rapidly convincing other pharmacies in the area, both CVS & others to adopt the same policy. Not only will it help control the ammount of prescription meds that are ending up on the street, it will ultimately help reduce medical costs as well... Personally,,,I am all in favor of it.

delilah66 - The way it works with Replace A Lens is you order the lenses online. Then they will tell you where to mail the frames and the prescription. If you dont have a prescription you can mail them a pair of old glasses with a current prescription. They fit the lenses to the frames and insert them. They then mail back your frames with the lenses already inserted. I like this process because the lenses are very cheap, they will allow you to use old frames, and you can buy readers or any other frames that you come across without spending a fortune. I really like Eyebob readers. A normal optical shop would never put prescription lenses into reader frames. They would say that the frames are not durable. My experience has been that they actually work great. My favorite glasses are the ones I just lost. I purchased them off Ebay for around $40 and the lenses cost me another $40. I used those frame for about 4 years before I lost them. I also had lenses put in $3 sunglasses I purchased on Amazon. I pick up frames all the time for this purpose and have never had a problem, except from the horrible company that I used in NY before I learned about Replace A Lens. I need single vision lenses. They start at $39.