02/18/2026
Medicine has changed in the last 6 or 7 years and not in a good way. Some pharmacies have lost sight of the most important thing and that is working together to help our patients. Pharmacists are an essential part of the care team. I think some pharmacies have lost sight of that. So many are not doing right by our patients but I wanted to highlight the good that Costco continues to do.
Last night a patient of mine needed an antibiotic. The pharmacy told them it was not covered by their insurance and they needed to contact my office. They also failed to mention that they did not even have said antibiotic in stock. They did not call the on call number, they just sent an after hours fax. While working on charts, I noticed the fax at about 8:30 pm. Too late to get another pharmacy in the area to get the medication to my patient. The message was, pick a medication covered by patients insurance but no suggestions on what was covered.
Today I called the pharmacy, and asked what is covered? They offered me a 1-800 number to call the patients insurance. I have been doing this for a long time, this is something they can figure out for me within two minutes or less. My patient decided to pay cash for the drug, Surprise! that's when we learned it was out of stock. The pharmacy told her to wait another 24 hours to get her ANTIBIOTIC. No call to me, no offer to send to another pharmacy in town that may have this common drug.
Enter Costco pharmacy. With my patient's permission, I resent the prescription to Costco. The pharmacist had a question and guess what he did, he called ME. We had a conversation. He ended it with I am going to get right on processing this. Costco pharmacy always meets my expectations. Kudos to Costco! My patients deserve a Costco pharmacy experience!
