Outsourcing Drugs Legally But Without Regard For Customers

I've been using drugstore.com for a few years now and have been pleased with the service and accepting of the price increases. Very recently they decided to outsource their pharmacy business to BioScrip, which claims to be "the go-to place for ordering and managing your prescriptions". Well, they may very well be that place for others; they are certainly not that place for me.

I re-ordered a prescription about two weeks ago from drugstore.com and have yet to receive it although all previous prescriptions have been delivered within less than two weeks of ordering. Instead of delivering the prescription to me, BioScrip telephoned me on Tuesday. I should say a BioScrip robot telephoned me. The robot's responses were keyed to my responses to its questions, but its timing was way off so I had to repeat many of my responses. The robot was telling me that my prescription was delayed and said that I could speak to a live person about it. Unfortunately, to reach that live person required me to suffer through an inordinate number of button pushes and, when I did reach that presumably live person, they had no idea why the call was made.

On Wednesday BioScrip called me again with the same message and when I spoke to the live person all she could tell me was they had not received the prescription that drugstore.com had confirmed receiving 8 days earlier. So I called Ron Kelly, the VP of Customer Service at drugstore.com. He was not in but I was connected to a woman who was head of customer complaints or some such title. She said she'd look into it and get back to me within the hour. She did not, but her agent did. My doctor had not yet been called by BioScrip or drugstore.com was her message. They would address the issue.

Well, addressing the issue did not stop the BioScrip robot from calling me again with exactly the same message as the first and second. In all three of the messages it said something would be done within three days if the issue had not been resolved by then. I guess the robot does not understand that three days from Tuesday is Friday and three days from Wednesday is Saturday and three days from Thursday is Sunday.

This experience will make me an ex-customer of drugstore.com. I recalled a similar experience with AARP when they outsourced their pharmacy. To save a few cents they lost a customer. How many customers can drugstore.com afford to lose?