I once had a prescription filled at Eckerd for two powerful anti-virals. The receipt and price quote the pharmacy handed had the words "POSSIBLE OVERDOSE INDICATED" because the pharmacist couldn't read the doctor's prescription and filled it incorrectly. They were going to give me 10x the recommended dose, until I pointed it out to them.

As a caring retail pharmacist, I resent such a one-sided story. In defense of our industry, when it is reported that "despite techonogical advances" pharmacy error rates have not changed. They do not however even mention the million more prescriptions that are filled in any day now compared to then. I agree that any error is too many but the article is not showing all that has taken place in this time frame. As for reporting errors, where I work and at all the retail pharmacies that I know of, there is a stringent program for reporting errors. In fact, there are serious ramefecations if you do NOT report an error. But 20/20 didn't divulge that or even ask anyone. All pharmacy technicians in this state are required to be "nationally board certified" They undergo formal education and then must pass a national exam. Most states I know of are this way or are heading towards this standard. The practice of hiring untrained highschool students is unheard of. I am particularly irritated with the statement "that very few customers buying aspirin were warmed of potential side affects if taking warfarin". By law, no one but a phamacist may give medication advise. That means, no clerk, pharmacy tech or assistant may give you ANY advise about any medication use, period. If you think we have little time to counsel now, how about we go to the counter everytime someone buys aspirin to inquire if they are taking warfarin? That would be great. What about the millions of aspirin that are sold where there is no pharmacist? I just think the example is far-fetched. As for counselling less, the chain I work for is always striving to allow MORE time for us to counsel. Again I refer to HUGE and ever-growing increase in prescriptions and much more complex medication regimens. Pharmacists have a rigorous and lengthy education to accomplish. Most schools only graduate 90 or so new pharmacist a year. Considering that a pharmacist has many choices as to what venue to practice in. Will it be retail, hospital, the DEA, the FDA, the CIA, any of the pharmaceutical companies,HMO's, the list is HUGE. Retail get a small slice of the pie. Also here's something to consider, Do you have any idea how much of the public comes to us for advise INSTEAD of making a doctors appointment? We spend a lot of time with the public helping them to figure out what is needed. Does the situation require a doctor or can I help and lend a sympathetic ear? Unlike doctors, we do NOT receive any extra monetary compensation for this service. It is FREE .........for now. For me, my job is ALL about making someone's day or life better. My job IS stressful and there is a lot of distraction but I would choose no other career.

Pharmacy errors are a reality, but the report had alot of misinformation and spin. The State Boards of Pharmacy have statistics on medication errors reported to them. If you feel that the pharmacy you get your medication filled made a mistake or is doing something illegal, please report it immediately to your State Board of Pharmacy. A pharmacist should always be present while a pharmacy is open and is soley responsible for any medication that leaves the pharmacy. The pharmacist does the final check and should always counsel new prescriptions in compliance with most state regulations.

I am a liscensed pharmacy intern and I have been working in a retail pharmacy for six years. I did work behind the counter when I was sixteen years old and I had no problem handling the job whatsoever. Even if I did make a mistake, the pharmacist was there to catch it. There was never a time where I filled a prescription and it went out to the patient without the pharmacist checking it. That was a very misleading part of the "report" aired on 20/20. You made it seem like untrained high school aged technicians were filling prescriptions without supervision. I also did not like the fact that the one pharmacist was blaming the company for urging him to fill faster. Much of that demand is customer driven. Customers will complain if they have to wait more than five minutes to get their medication. They think that all we are doing is taking pills from a big bottle and putting them in a little bottle. Then when an error happens, it is suddenly a more complex job and people should be taking more time to make sure everything is correct. It seems as if pharmacists cannot win. The time issue is the reason why there are so many more technicians working than pharmacists. There is generally only one pharmacist working at a time, and the rest are technicians or interns. That is what makes the aspirin example so weak. From looking at the video, it appeared that it was only technicians that rang up the product with the warfarin without saying anything. It was also unfair to say that the "patients" in the example left without having any knowledge of the aspirin/warfarin interaction. The bottle of warfarin probably had an auxillary label on it that said "Do not take with aspirin or aspirin containing products." The patient also has to have some responsibility to know what they are signing. It says right there on the paper what exactly they are signing for. The tape did not show if the technician asked if the patient had any questions. If the patient responds "no", then that is a refusal to counsel. The last part of the "investigation" that troubled me was that 20/20 basically received 100 fake prescriptions. Who wrote those prescriptions, and who were they for? Is that legal or ethical? If you're going to go that far to show some kind of problem with the industry, why don't you also spend a day in a pharmacy and count the number of times the pharmacist saves somebody's life? If you did a study on that, there would be an exponential examples of that over even the smallest filling error.

I would like to respond to your pharmacy error report. While mistakes are made in every profession, health care providers do everything in their power to prevent this. I think if you dug a little deeper, you would find out that the reason pharmacies rely on technicians to do the bulk of the processing work is because insurance reimbursement for prescriptions is ridicuously low.There is no way that any pharmacy, chain or otherwise could afford to have multiple pharmacists on a shift to process the prescriptions. The insurance industry and government programs have slashed reimbusement levels to bare minimums. This is where the blame lies, not on business owners and/or pharmacists who do their best and always have the best interest of the patients at heart.

This is concerning your “Undercover Pharmacy Investigation”.

While I am not defending prescription errors and the actions of some pharmacies having teenagers dispense medications, I would like to make some positive comments about Walgreens and other observations.

My wife and I both have long term health problems. We have received excellent service from our local Walgreens. They have gone out of their way to assist us and some of the pharmacists have even made the effort to remember our names.

One of the reasons I changed from an HMO to an insurance company accepted by Walgreens and others, is because the “in house” pharmacy of the HMO dispensed the wrong medication to my wife. This was not one of the “country's best known chain drug stores.” We caught the blunder before my wife took the medication.

The final responsibility for ensuring a person takes the correct medication lies with that person or a care giver. People should read the label and the information that comes with the medication. I don’t know if you made this point during your program but if you did not, then you did a disservice to your viewers. Doctors could help in this area by writing prescriptions so that patients can read them.

On two separate occasions, the shape and color of two of my medications changed. Both times I immediately checked and found that it was the same medications, only by different manufacturers. I have called the pharmacy more than once with questions on medication compatibility and the pharmacists have been very patient and helpful.

While all pharmacies have room to improve, too many people are too quick to shirk personal responsibility. Read the label folks, it is your life or health, or that of a loved one.

I am a lisensed pharmacist who worked in retail for several years. I finally left and now work in a hospital. The reason I left is because the general public assumes alot of false information about the role of a pharmacist. The 20/20 new brief did just that. There are 4 major reasons for medication error. First, the general public does not understand that a pharmacist is busily trying to check your prescription for correct dosage, interactions, make sure its appropriate for a certain age population so forth. The general public still insists on interupting a busy pharmacist to ask where the toothpaste is. Or they come to the pharmacy counter to have their toothpast rung up even if they are not filling a prescription. This is unsafe and distracting to a pharmacist. Second the general public does not understand that a PHARMACIST or even the pharmacy does not decide how much you must pay for your prescription. The patients INSURANCE COMPANY does. It is surprising how many times a patient complains about that to the pharmacist and wastes their time when they can not do anything about it. In fact if you did an investigation you will probably find that 90% of the time when a person actually says "Yes" to the question "do you have any questions for the pharmacist" it is about their insurance, not the medication itself. This misunderstanding is again a real distraction. Third the general public likes to treat a pharmacy like a fast food restaurant. They are really upset when they are told they will have to wait even 20 minutes for a prescription. In all honestly having to only wait 20 minutes for a prescription when there are probably at least 2 dozen in front of you is not safe, however that is what is asked of a chain pharmacist. Forth, chain drug stores add to these problems by insisting that customer service be the most important. When dealing with someones life I do not think it is right for the chain store to expect someone to drop what they are doing and run to the counter to ring a patient out, or run to the drive up as if you work at Burger King.

There would be fewer errors if medical records and communication between different sectors of medicine were more open. We can hope for technologic improvements or to hold more pharmacists more accountable, but that will just avoid a more global solution. Why do insurance companies have detailed information of all prescriptions filled by a patient, but withhold this information from pharmacists. In the story above where Pam is wise enough to double check doses between the hospital and community pharmacy records- why did the pharmacy have no access to those same records?
We can continue to point the finger at the pharmacy, but improvements in error prevention will only come when attention is placed on the entire system, versus just one player.

As a pharmach technician for walgreens pharmacy. I cannot beleive that a show like 2020 would only investigate one side of this matter. No one knows what we go through to insure that patients get the correct medication. Most times they are at the counter yellin at us to fill their prescriptions faster and rushing us and all we are trying to do is get them right. there is alot of work involved and you can either have it right or fast. at my pharmacy we do over 800 prescriptions a day 7 days a week out of those we might only let 1 get by wrong in any given week. we have very caring pharmacy staff who would go through almost anything for the safety of their patients, calling dr's to verify strengths and directions 5 or 6 times while still trying to counsel and fill rx's. what we go through is incredible. you should go behind the scenes in a pharmacy and look at the other side of this matter. Also what about the dr's errors, at least half of the errors in the pharmacy is because the dr wroth the wrong strength or directions. Dr's handwrightings are another issue, i applaud the dr's who print all of their prescriptions on the computer we can read those and their is no confusion as to what it is. dont get me wrong i am not saying mistakes are never made, but the leaps and bounds we go through to help people and make sure their prescriptions are done correctly is incredible. i have been a faithful 2020 viewer for over a year now and i am sick the way you pertrayed the retail pharmacy business. we are in it to help people and the people should know our side of the story also. that is all i have to say about the matter thank you

Do you realize the increase in cost the consumer would have to pay if we had a pharmacist counsel every patient who buys asprin. The patient complaines constantly because it takes more than 5 minutes to fill their rx, and because it too expensive, we handle insurance problems, dr calls, patient problems, checking out customers, people buzzing us in drive through, typing, filling, checking, double checking, double counting, and checking every single think we do for error. we care deeply about the patient. I am seriously ticked about this report and you are scaring people into not filling their vital medication because of fear that we may make a mistake. I had a woman call and counsel all of her medication today because she didnt want to have a potentally deadly mistake made. It took me over 30 minutes to convince her that she needed her synthroid and antibiotics. I hope you all are happy. You may have just killed more people than all the mistakes we have make that caused deaths in the past 5 years.

I am a pharmacist for walgreens and have worked for two other major pharmacy chains s in my 15 years as a pharmacist walgreens as a company does more than any other chain I've worked for to assure pharmacists have sufficient , trained technicians to help with their work and a pharmacist always checks the final prescription if it is a new prescription all customers are offered a pharmacist consultation mistakes do happen but walgreens and most pharmacies do everyhting they can to prevent errors and report them and institute preventative measures wherever possible. Also as one of my colleagues noted people can always check with their local board of pharmacy to check on errors by a specific pharmacist or pharmacy. As professionals we take responsibility for our actions but people need to acknowledge the difficulties of filling prescriptions give pharmacists the time they need to fill prescriptions and read the labels and directions and call their pharmacy with any questions, Doctors should also write legibly or use computers or electronic prescribing to help prevent errors. If we all work together seriuos errors can be averted. laying all the blame on one pharmacy chain o r pharmacies in general is irresponsible and incorrect.-

I would like the producers of 20/20 to come into a pharmacy and show the country what it is that we do every day. As a certified pharmacy tech working in a retail chain I feel almost unappreciated, people just don't understand the things that we deal with on a daily basis. We do not just have to "slap a lable on it" like most people think. We check first to see if the patient has had the meds before, if they are allergic to anything and if the dosing is correct, half the time we need to call the doctors office because either something is incorrect or we can't read the script. Now the patient needs to wait longer. I really wish we could bring cameras into the pharmacy and show people what really goes into filling prescriptions, I think it would open alot of eyes.

I would like to point out the 1 sidedness of this story. I am a certified technician and I work in a retail pharmacy. The pharmacy that I work in fills at least 3000 scripts in a week. Pharmacist work up to 12 hour days. I understand mistakes shouldn't happen, but everyone makes mistakes. I see alot of doctors making errors in prescribing, dosing etc. And I take great offense to the fact that technicians are to blame. I agree that a pharmacy is no place for a teenager to work, unless they intend on persueing a career in pharmacy. But as a technician I can assure you, I know my role and responsibility. And no matter what the final product comes from the pharmacist. We may put it all together but it goes through a rigourous examination before leaving our pharmacy, via the pharmacist. So I don't appreciate the negative light spread onto technicians. And I can't speak for all pharmacies, but we have some very thorough pharmacist in our district. It is extremely judgemental to lump together all pharmacies and its employees. Trust me it's not an easy job, dealing with sick, elderly and down right cranky people everyday. Maybe you should have investigated other aspects of what goes on in a daily pharmacy setting before going out and bashing hard working and intelligent people. A mistake made by one pharmacy or pharmacist, is not a reason to degrade all pharmacies. It's a tough profession with alot of training and hands on experience. Which clearly now everyone will see, that pharmacist are idiots and just question them more on their judgements and recommendations. So thank you for making my job that much harder.

What about the training of X-Ray techs and other "skilled" medical positions? They take warm bodies off the street just like pharmacies do.

I'm a technician at Walgreens and a fan of 20/20 and ABC. I'm very dissappointed at ABC, specifically at 20/20 for Friday night's episode. The program's single sided and narrow view of the situation. Your report was so influenced by our competitor CVS/Sav-ons, whom associated with your station. Dispensing medication is a big responsibility. A mistake can be fatal. On that point, big chains pharmacies, such as Walgreens have protocols and policies to eliminate mistakes. FYI, Walgreens technicians, as I AM, are required to be licensed by State Board of Pharmacy and Walgreens strongly recommend us to be Nationally licensed(by the PTCB -you might want to check them out at ptcb.org ). Which I Am. Both licenses are required to be renewed every two years and the national license required 20 units are hours of continue education every two years, before they issue the renewal. I'm not here to say we don't make mistake but I'm here to say how you smear the thousands of great individuals who take great care of people medication needs every day. The technicians and pharmacist I've worked with, at Walgreens, are great individuals whom take great care and cautious in dispensing medication. They understand how important it is to get it right. Another FYI, CVS/Sav-ons have their patient signed when they pick up medication has a hidden purpose. Their staff don't tell you that when you signed you're declining to be consulted. You thought you're signing to provide them proof of the pick up of your medication. There only a fine print indicating you're declining by signing. I know this because a colleague of mine, at Walgreens used to work at CVS/Sav-ons. ABC gives me a negative feeling about the station just like you've gave negative feelings to many people about Walgreens and the pharmacy professions. I have such high regards for ABC but after this I don't have such regards but now have great many doubts about your station.

I am a Nationally Certified Pharmacy Technician. I am not a high school student or just someone off the street. The company I work for is a great company. I had to go through a lot of training to get my pharmacy tech licenses. I had to study hard and I have to keep up my license with continuing education every two years. I think your report gives us CPht a bad rap. In my store also we don't wear white. I never answer a question about a medication I always go and get our Pharmacist in charge, as I was told to do. I think this report is one sided, and very political. I think that you should talk to all of the people that we help day in a day out. And also if people would realize that if they need to get a Rx filled that it is more than just putting pills in a bottle. No matter where you go there is always some wait. You have to wait in a doctors office, you have to wait for you medication also. I think that is the main problem is that people have no patience anymore. I don't think that it is fair for these people in the report to have to be marked with a scarlett letter the rest of their lives. My heart goes out to the families of those in the story who were affected by those mistakes. We are only human. I have the most respect for the Pharmacist I work with. I would trust them with my medication and my families. They are dedicated, and help everyone that needs their help. They also make sure to give out of the drug reactions and precautions. I think ABC needs to think about the other side.

I absolutely agree that it is shocking that there are no records of pharmacy errors. Until there are records, it is imperative that the patients read the inserts that come with their medicines. Fortunately, Walgreens and CVS include a picture and color/markings with a detailed description of the medication. Patients can be more assured that the medication dispensed is correct by comparing it to the picture. Also, patients should write down what their doctors prescribe so when they pick up their prescriptions, they can make sure that they have received the correct medicine and dosage. It is more work for the patient, but it is worth it. After all, it is your health!

One thing to remember is that some states do have stricter requirements for technicians. I teach a pharmacy technician training program in California. In this state it is required that an individual obtain a state license, by completing a training program, or passing the National PTCB exam. In addition they must be 18 years of age, a high school graduate/GED and have a background check.

Another important point is that Pharmacy Technicians are one step in the fill process, and only one set of eyes responsible for preventing medication errors. The fact of the matter is that pharmacists are the more highly trained individual, and are ultimately responsible for checking each and every medication leaving the pharmacy.
As a teacher for the profession I continually emphasize accuracy, and and patient care. I agree with the above poster. A negative light has been shed on the entire profession.
In all areas of medicine errors are made, because of human error, there is no perfection. However, the effort and training that goes into error prevention is extensive.
Your story is not so much an expose, as pharmacies have always made errors to some extent.
Instead of casting a negative light on an entire industry, you should instead educate patients on how they can be more aware of what medications they are taking and why. Patient education is the final step in the process of preventing medication errors. A patient should always question their doctor regarding their prescriptions and find out what the name, strength and directions should be for the medication they will be taking.

I am a certified hospital IV/Pharmacy technician and a nursing major. Age has no bearing on one's capability to be thorough and efficient. I see plenty of older technicians/pharmacists who do a much poorer job than a 16 or 17 year old. They become so comfortable in their experience and environment that they haphazardly throw these things together and do not check their work.

And as a side note, the work of technicians is ALWAYS checked by the pharmacist before ANYTHING goes out. It is their license and expertise at stake. The reason they went to school for 6 years was precisely to be able to catch any errors made before the med goes out. Perhaps if customers were not screaming at technicians, cashiers, and pharmacists because they have to wait 15 minutes, everyone may be able to do their job a little better. I doubt in your workplace that you are expected to be at 100% productivity while people berate and yell at you.

P.S. I was a 17 year old technician at CVS. Never made a mistake.

Hi,
I am a pharmacy Technician been one for 20 years. Yes I did work retail for a short time. But what I did not like was the ability not to have a lunch unable to sit or go to the bathroom. Because when your store was busy you could not do those things. Also most of the chain stores let unqualified technicians work in their stores. Just like your program states. Yeah there's training but guess what if they want to be trained. If you do not take the training you can still work in the pharmacy. We have complained about this for years about retail because they refuse to pay a technician who is highly skilled and qualified to work in the pharmacy the money she/he wants to earn. That is why their are some many teenagers in the pharmacy. Please feel free to contact me for more info

Here's the thing. Many of these mistakes have no correlation to training - it's attention to detail and having a process to double check prescriptions prior to them going to the customer. I recently had a very similar issue with Walgreen's and when I started asking questions to try and figure out why my son was having an allergic reaction - I got the run around and was treated with a complete lack of respect because I didn't understand the terminology being used. I got my pediatrician involved and the pharmacy staff changed their tune. 2 weeks later I gave them another chance and tried to fill 4 prescriptions give to me from the hospital for an allergic reaction I had to Omnicef - the tech got irrated with me when I wanted to check the what he gave me - even after I asked for no generics. I got 1 generic and they didn't even tell me that they we out of stock on one prescrip - the EpiPen - which can be life saving for those with sever allergic reactions. I had to ask for the prescription back - which the tech was irritated because "they were busy". Very disappointing. Needless to say I'm changing pharmacies.

I am a 27 yr old pharm tech for a major chain and have been for the past 7 yrs and I am insulted by this report. I take my job very serious, I think it's the public that has a problem. They need to take some responsibility for their own lives. I can't even keep count of how many times a day one of us gets yelled at because we tell someone the wait is 15 min. we always hear "really, you just have to put a pill in the bottle and slap a label on it..." I think you need to put a hidden camera behind a pharmacy counter and see how we get treated. Oh, and if it's been 1 second past that 15 mins people will stand at the counter and stear at the pharmacisit and ask what is taking so long. Now you tell me that wouldn't make you a little uneasy while you're DOUBLE checking a script. You people have no idea what we go through on a daily basis and how stressful this job really is, oh and how little we get paid for it. On a side note when there is a problem reading, or a dosing question on a script and have to call a doctor do you even know how long it takes to get an answer back if we even do...and again people get mad they have to wait. So i guess my point is maybe if the public gave us a little more respect a chance and some time to our jobs and stop treating a pharmacy like a fast food place perhaps these "mistakes" wouldn't happen. FYI we are only human, and I doubt anybody out there can say they have 100% accuracy at their job people have to remember that and that gets lost in all this hipe.I have so much more I could say but what would it really matter you don't care about the other side of the story that is plain to see.

I work at Walgreens as a pharmacy technician and I see how our pharmacists and tech go out of their way everyday to help our patients. I see our pharmacists work very hard to care for the people who come in to fill thier rx's, they do pay attention and try their best with everyhting they do. I can't believe how your program made it seem like Walgreen's as a company and each of thier pharmacists just don't care, becuase they do. There is a thing as human error and I'm pretty sure that doctors and nurses have made mistakes too...and sure their mistakes turned out tragic for the patient. It's sad, but it happens and for your prgram to make it seem like Walgreens doesn't care at all is wrong. I suggest you talk to one of the CEO's and find out exactly how much money Walgreens is spending everyday on bettering their technology so mistakes happen less often. We do have the best technology out there and it's not so we can look good...it's so we can help our patients better, how about you put that on show?!

This is extremely one-sided, which if you read what has already been posted, it is already clearly stated. I am a pharmacist working for one of the chains you heavily targeted in your investigation. I am not represented in your investigation, except by 1 pharmacist that ran outside to talk to a patient, because I have done that before. I do more than the required continuing education for both of the states that I am registered in. I particularly do CE in areas that I think are my "weak" areas, as to strengthen them. I am constantly counseling my patients. Sometimes they get tired of me telling them things that I've told them before, but I want to remind them. The pharmacy I work at does have an error reporting system. It is a learning process. It errors are made, we must come up with an action plan as to how to prevent that error from occurring again. And everyone in the pharmacy knows about the error, not just those that are involved in it. I am constantly educating my technicians, who are eager to learn. I teach them about max doses, new medications, why things interact, etc. No they are not allowed to counsel the patients, but the more they understand the better. I am the person who is solely responsible for what goes out of my pharmacy, but the more eyes that see that prescription and understand the significance the better. There are many steps in the process of filling prescriptions that are required in order to prevent errors. We use barcode technology and automation when we can. I care about my patients. And realize that they are my patients, not my customers. It does frustrate me a great deal though when these patiens huff and puff over a 20 minute wait on a prescription. You will wait 30 minutes easily on a pizza, but 20 minutes on something that can be life-saving, humph. In America we like to shift responsiblity away from ourselves. The cases that you chose to display are very saddening. If I was involved in those cases, I think I would have to step down from my position, but there is a certain responsibility the end-user must take on. I don't know how many times I have someone come to the pharmacy and they don't even know what doctor they saw or the patient's date of birth. I want to be accurate always, but the patients need to help me be so.

I worked as a retail pharmacist for many, many years. I left to take a job in a state run managed care program. I felt I could no longer do my job as it should be done. I was constantly dealing with management regarding reducing payroll, customer service, wait time, inventory, and countless paper work. And make sure the 750 prescriptions that were filled daily were done correctly and each new patient was counseled. This was "company policy". However, I was not given the personnel to do my job. If business slowed, we were expected to send people home. The store manager, who was not a pharmacist, had part of his bonus based on our profits and routinely insisted we cut, cut, cut. It was never enough. Our staff was overworked, stressed, and underpaid. I worried about the potential errors and the lack of time I was able to spend counseling. I decided to get out before something terrible happened. I would never go back to retail pharmacy. It is no longer a profession...it is a rat race.

My pet peeve is with doctors who DON'T write legibly. What is the point in seeing a doctor if they are going to put your life on the line with sloppy penmanship?

There should be a LAW that ALL prescriptions MUST BE TYPED, not written.

See Michael Moore's upcoming movie "Sicko's". Due out this year.

I used to be a pharmacy tech for Walgreens and then a pharmacist. Yes, I started in high school. They are not a terrible employer by any means but I would like to point something out. They are the ones who came up with the drive-thru window for pharmacies. I wish the person who proposed that idea had to work a week in a pharmacy with a drive thru window. If we, pharmacists, are viewed by the public as nothing more than fast food type of employees, I think we have Walgreens to thank for some of this. I now work for another chain with drive thru windows. They were put in just so they can compete with Walgreens. I hate to think about what they (Walgreens) will come up with next.

I would like to have someone, perhaps the state boards of pharmacy, look at the ratio of prescriptions filled per person (employee) per hour in any given pharmacy. It can be astounding. There should be some standards set for requirements in this area. One of the biggest problems is lack of adequate staffing. If you are going to have a drive thru window, it sure would be nice to have an extra employee behind the counter to take care of it! But that is not the case. It is added on to an already heavy workload.

And here is something that I think is really a hazard, lack of breaks. I can work 10 hour shifts without a break for a meal or anything else. I have to eat "on the fly". Not all the time but many times. That does not improve my concentration ability. I think this is a *very* serious issue. It may make a good reason to shop early in the morning.

After the show aired on ABC, I had the good fortune of working the weekend and the FIRST Monday of the month, which is always among the busiest and it now overwhelms and saddens me that this story will ultimately do more harm than good. I happily took calls from many of my patients finally wanting counseling regarding their medication so for that I thank you. However, there were many patients with disease states that cannot afford to be off their medication wondering if they should continue it, if myself or the doctor knew of the interaction and complications, if mistakes had EVER been made and they were not made aware of it.

I had to convince an elderly man with a history of decubitous ulcers to continue his diabetic medications! This is what happens when one reports on a portion of the story. The public depends on health care professionals to be the expert and specifically the pharmacist to be the drug expert, just as they trust journalists to report honestly and ethically, which to my patients, yes they are my patients not customers, to their detriment you have not done so. One problem we face in the health care profession is patients who underuse their medication because of cost, etc now you have added another burden to the patients list and another possible reason they will have hospital admissions or ER visits unnecessarily because they are not properly using their medication due to this scare tactic for the purpose of ......what was it again??

As a Pharmacist with 33 years experience, I must take great exception to the selective "reporting" that was done on this program. I have worked as an independent pharmacist for 20 years and for Walgreens for the last 13. I found your "facts" did a great dishonor to all the hard working, and committed Pharmacists and Technicians no matter whom they work for.

I would venture to say I have caught hundreds of lethal or potentially damaging drug overdosages or interactions over the course of my career. I can only speak for the state of Illinois, where I work and reside, but to the best of my knowledge there is no system to report Doctor's errors to the state. However, Walgreens has a very comprehensive and thorough error reporting system, and you folks conveniently ignored that. If my technician does everything right on a label, but accidentally types zero refills instead of one, and if I dont catch it, thats an error and it is reported.

But I can't tell you how many times I ask the patient what is the name of the doctor you saw, and the patient stares at me with a blank look because they never bothered to ask the name of the doctor at the emergency room or urgent care center. i cant tell you how many times people demand to know why I am checking the bottle the tech just handed to me instead of just putting it in a bag so they can go. I can't tell you how many times I have had doctor's write for prescriptions for foreign drugs not available in the U.S. because their patient asked for it! Think about that for a second; a doctor writes a prescription for a drug he knows nothing about because the patient asked for it!!!

As a pharmacist, I have the following suggestions to the general public:

1). Choose your pharmacist like you would your physician.

2). Ask them how long he works in a single day, how much help he has, and if he gets a lunch break or other type of break.

3). Ask them how many prescriptions they fill in an hour. Using this as a guide, 20 prescriptions per hour equals one every 3 minutes. Personally, I think one prescription every 5-6 minutes is the bottom line as far as safety is concerned.

4). How do they feel about counseling you on your medications (including OTC products).

5). STICK WITH ONE PHARMACY! Don't chase the stores offering transfer coupons. This way you will get to know your pharmacist and they will get to know you, what your are on, how you take it, and over time they will become attached to you and become your biggest advocate.

You go to McBurgers. You wait in line, then hand the burger tech your insurance card and your order: a burger with extra pickles, large fries, and a Coke. You go to the waiting area and several minutes pass. You are called back to the drop-off window, where you are told that there might be a delay in your order. Extra pickles are not covered without Prior Authorization: your insurance company needs forms filled out by your doctor depicting the necessity of extra pickles. Also, your insurance doesn't cover Coke, but they cover Pepsi. Your doctor is contacted to ok the change and given the contact information to begin the Prior Authorization process. Your order for fries is entered into the computer and reviewed by the manager. Then your fries are double counted by the tech before the manager checks them again and verifies everything is accurate. You are asked to pay a co-pay of $25; medium fries would have been $5, but neither your doctor nor McDonald's has access to the formulary for your insurance.

Have a nice day.

As a pharmacy Intern I am also shocked and discusted with 2020 for this one-sided report. I was that 16 year old working for CVS and I was better than both of our 35 year-olds that worked there. I am shocked that as such a well-respected news organization you would make such claims without having any FACTS to back what is merely your OPINION.

The pharmacy techs are underpaid and the entire staff is overworked. Have YOU went an entire 12 hour shift without sitting down to eat, or eating at all for that matter? Have you ever had to refrain from urinating just because you were too busy for the last 4 hours? The answer is allowing our pharmacy staff a little break. Don't expect us to have your prescription ready in 5 minutes if you want it to be right.

Also, why is this one of the only professions where you have a doctorate degree but yet you are worked like a servant with no breaks, no lunches and constantly being questioned and criticized. They outlawed slavery years ago! So how about the consumers doing their part to stop complaining about things that are out of our control and waisting our time. This will allow us to do our job better and more efficiently.

I am a clinial pharmacist who works in a teaching institution and also works for CVS on an as needed basis. I feel a bit torn about the report presented by 20/20. Granted it was one-sided but somebody had to bring to light what is going in retail pharmacies today. The pharmacist in retail are over worked without enough help. What other profession exist out there where you are not even able to go to the restroom without everything falling apart.

Additionally the fact that there is no designated lunch period for pharmacist in retail baffles me. Nobody should be expected to work a 12 hour shift and not even have a 1/2 hour break to refuel. When I compare the hospital enviroment to retail I am shocked at the lack of mandatory reporting of medication errors. Medication error reporting should be non-punitive.

District managers should not place pressure on retail pharmacist to fill more scripts at a quicker rate. If a store does not meet a certain script quota help will never be provided in the form of a technicina or cashier to assist that pharmacist. The pharmacist would be expected to ring up toilet paper for patients regardless of what is pending in the back. It is time for change. Govermental agencies need to monitor work loads for pharmacist and medication errors to protect pharmacist and the public from cooperate retail chain owners.

I cannot believe the unresponsible journalism that went into this story. I am a pharmacist in Canada, and I am disgusted by this piece. Pharmacists already have an uphill battle without ridiculous stories like this being aired.

Get all the facts before reporting a sensational story. I didn't think 20/20 was a tabloid.

I'm not exactly sorry I missed the 20/20 program slamming the pharmacy profession. I think that most people are so accustomed to instant gratification that they almost have a melt-down because they have to wait a few minutes for their prescriptions. I would love to see patients run into the Doctor's office and demand a thorough check-up and to make it speedy all the while complaining about their co-pays and try to bargain with the physician to give a cheaper rate. These types of people will NEVER be satisfied!

My least favorite people to help is those on state or federal assistance that think they are entitled to everything, like we OWE them something! Most of the time they bring in more prescriptions than anyone else and they expect you to hurry to fill them. In general, they are the most demanding and usually the least thankful for services rendered. What they don't understand is that reimbursement on their prescriptions is so minimal that it is almost not worth filling them. In any other country they would just do without, just like the rest of those that are uninsured.

Overall, I believe that mistakes happen because of distractions. There are too many hoops to jump through just to fill a prescription. Just to mention a few: Is it a valid prescription?, Is it the right dose for the patient's age/weight/etc.?, Will insurance pay for it?, Will the pharmacy be reimbursed properly for the product?, Does it need special authorization from insurance company/state assistance program?, Do we have to special order the product and risk keeping a partial bottle on the shelf until it expires?, Now, will the patient pay for the medication? ETC...

1)The video was good and informative but laced with such negativity in an attempt to push viewers into unnecessary alert when it comes to mistakes in the pharmacy. but then again, that is what the media does, and what it's good at. Considering pharmacies DO fill anywhere from 100 to 700 scripts a day, mistakes unfortunately CAN happen but does not happen OFTEN. walgreens especially has adopted new measures in limiting mistakes from happening, ie, installing a machine that matches a bottle of drug to the label itself, ensuring the right pills go into the right bottle, for example. That was not in the video.

2) ALSO, it is NOT TRUE that pharmacists are expected to fill 300+ medications on ONE SHIFT. i would say a pharmacist usually fills half of that during his entire shift, and in the case of extremely busy stores, more than one pharmacist is staffed. at walgreens, we also keep track of mistakes that happen, as opposed to what hte lady interviewed on the video said (though i dont recall if she was a rep from walgreens or not).

3) we (walgreens) do have a system that logs mistakes, who did the mistakes, and courses of action to take in the future to limit a similar mistake from happening again.

It always amazes me we people outside of any occupation attempt to explain another. Do police officers drive around all day shooting the good guys? Do teachers only have sex with their students? The answer is NO, but this is the stuff that gets reported.

I'll admit that mistakes do happen, but they are less often and less severe than your story reports.

As for teenage technicians working in the pharmacy, I started as a technician when I was 16 and will graduate in June as a Doctor of Pharmacy. Everyone has to start somewhere! Teenagers are great employees and can handle working in a stressful work environment. A pharmacist cannot complete all the steps needed to fill a prescription. Did Brian Ross and Justin Rood do everything for their story or did they need other people to help? As for reporting errors, some pharmacies report to their company not to the state.

I am a CPhT working for Walgreens. I have been employed there for apporximately 2 years, and in that time I have NEVER worked with a teenage employee who would be better off flipping burgers. I have however worked with many dedicated pharmacy technicians that work themselves to the bone in the face of the GEBERAL PUBLIC, which is the most unforgiving, thankless, tactless and unreasonable entity known to this planet. I am deeply dissapointed in ABC for not properly doing their homework and understanding the role of technicians in the pharmacy. First, it is completely illegal for a pharmacy technician, CPhT (CPhT is the professional designation for a Rx tech who is nationally certified)or not, to counsel patients in any way on their medications. Your story about the coumadin / aspirin interaction is blown very far out of proportion. The individual ringing up patients at the counter is 99% of the time a pharmacy technician, and probably a junior tech at that. It is completely unreasonable to expect them to inform the patient of the dangers associated with mixing prescription drugs and OTC's. Please, let's have the world at large take just a little bit of responsibility for what they decide to put in their bodies! And don't go trying to blame the Pharmacist, who's probably tied up with a million other responsibilities. The public needs to wake up and start realizing that we cannot always hold everyone's hand. That's why we place warning labels on prescriptions. .

I have been a pharmacy technician for almost 7 years. In the whole time as a tech, I have never witnessed an unlicensed individual verify any prescription.
20/20 has inaccurately portrayed the profession of pharmacy. They need to take another look at what really goes on, on a daily basis. They need to take a closer look at the number of times pharmacists intervene positively, which save patients lives.
Doctors make mistakes and the pharmacist is there to catch those mistakes. That is a positive influence on a patients life that you have neglected to portray. Trust your pharmacist as you would any health care professional. This is very disappointing.

I consider it my personal responsibility to know as much as possible about all of the medications I take, before I even take the first pill. I educate myself, because I can rely upon myself.

Mistakes happen at pharmacies. I have only had it happen to me once in 30 years, and it was corrected immediately upon bringing it to the pharmacist's attention. I have had pharmacists catch multiple problems before they arose, however, and they have always gone out of their way to help me when I have had questions or needed more intensive advice.

It is lamentable that mistakes occur, but given the pressures these people work under, it behooves patients to educate themselves about their medications. It is important for patients to know the dosage of their pills before the doctor even hands them a prescription.

After 36 years as a CPhT in a hospital setting I find your report
very sensationalized. Techs are only part of the process of filling a script and the final check is with the Pharmacist. Nobody is perfect and a Pharmacist that would not thoroughly check his or her scripts filled in their name does not value the time and work of 6 years in school to obtain that degree. I and many other Techs I have worked with are very dedicated to their job and take offense to your generalizations about Pharmacy Techs.

A pharmacy tech is NOT licenced to dispense a Rx - the ultimate responsibility is that of the pharmacist - they should provide the final check.

In am a certified Pharmacy Tech and have worked in that capacity for several years in both the retail and hospital environments. I was EXTREMELY appauld at your "undercover investigation". The first thing that comes to mind when I watched your video is that the VAST MAJORITY of pharmacy techs are Nationally Certified. That means we are ALL educated in both medication and legal aspects of pharmacy. Not the just out of high school teenagers that worked in a movie theater your show depicted. Futhermore, I was also appauld that those so called pharmacy professionals who "over-shaw" your investagistion would allow fake prescriptions to try to trick someone into making an error to be filled at ANY pharmacy. That should be not only illegal but more importantly, unethical!!! Who were these prescriptions for? How DARE you! I work in a hospital now and the same issue is in the fore front of our pharmacy as well as our industry...wait time. If patients would just understand that the pharmacy is their LAST line of defense, then maybe they would be a little more understanding. Do these same patients complain as loudly when they make a doctor's appointment and have to wait 2 hours to get in to see the doctor? Most likely they don't. People have to understand that pharmacy is an extremely high stress, high visablity and fast paced work place and ALL of us who work there have our patients best interest and safty at heart. We have to be 100% certain that we have everything right before giving the medication to the patient. PLEASE...people take responsibility for your OWN health care. This will not only help you, but help us help YOU!

well i did not watch 20/20 that day but i heard about what was casted. fortunately I had a chance to view the topic on-line it's really time for the media to focus on the problems that today pharmacist facing. overly working pharmacist without any break standing on the feet for 12 to 14 hours a day. There is a really problem in staffing the people in the pharmacy areas of the big chains some follow the weekly budget others follow the script count to determine how much help can pharmacist can get. Its very sad that 20/20 did not give any advise to the people not to interupt your pharmacist regarding the front store sales like what's the price for toilet tissue,can you ring thisup for me.constant telephone interuptions regarding the front store sale items.
As a media it's also yor responsibilty to make the people aware of how busy is the pharmacist and also make them aware that filling a prescrition is not a joke its dealing with some one's life. Would you please advise the public not to iterupt you pharmacis for silly things that donot reqiure pharmacist attention in fact there are front store personal to help. just the day after the 20/20 a woman interupting for the soap that was on the sale for the week she did not care that I was on the phone with doctor and writing a oral order for one of my patient, all she care about her soap.
cell phoes are the second biggest issue. Peolple on the phone constatly talking when they approch pharmacy counter they really donot care much about the signs that says donot use the cell phone at the drop-off or pick-up counters.

As a licensed pharmacy technician of 8 years and intern of 2 years I do not feel that your story on Prescription Errors was fair. The story was slanted to make everyone believe what you felt was a good story. All heathcare professionals make mistakes, but the truth is; they do everything in their power to try to avoid the mistakes. The Pharmacist is very educated and knows and understands the potential dangers of the medications on today's market! I think you need to do a story on the decreased reimbursment that pharmacies are receiving from Medicaid, Medicare Part D, and all of the varius HMOs and insurances compies. The decrease makes it almost impossible to provide enough help in the pharmacy. Instead the pharmacists, techs, and interns are the ones that have to increase turnout of prescriptons and decrease the amount of help they need. Ultimately this may result in errors that may have been preventable. I'm not saying that the people that made the mistakes are not to blame, but maybe you should look more into the problem and not jump to conclusions and blame the first person you can think of. There were errors deeper in the system that contributed to the prescripton error. I know many hard working, caring pharmacists that go out of their way to help customers. Where is the story on that?

I take high offence of the one sided view that 20/20 reported of, in regards to our pharmacy(Walgreens). Out of all the companies i've worked for private and public, Walgreens provides the most training and support to the staff and dedicate the most support to their RX staff requiring their managers to be cerified by the PTCB. We have a hard enough job without having to deal with vias reports such as did. Negatively bashing us without viewing both sides of pharmacy operations.

my 6 year old daughter was on 1 mg. of hytrin for exactly a year. refills were always filled at our local cvs, in garverville new york. one year later instead of 1 mg we were given 10 mg of medication. she took 8 days of this before we noticed there was something wrong. then when we were trying to get to the bottom the pharmacist finally admitted one week later, it was his fault and he did not check it after the technician had filled it. it shouldn't matter how busy a pharmacy is, each prescription should be given as much time as needed to go out properly. my only hope is that this particular pharmacist slows down and doesnt make this mistake again. and that he caught this 20/20 segment, to see what happens when in these situations when "mistakes" are not caught and to see what these families are now suffering who weren't fortunate enough to catch these "mistakes" early on.

Sadly, I was unable to catch the original airing of this report..because I was working, at Walgreens, as a Pharmacy Technician. However, I DID catch the report online. With every minute.. my blood boiled and my stomach churned. I cannot count on my fingers and toes how many times I have been Yelled at, called STUPID and IDIOT and Incompetant by the patients because they had to wait for 25 minutes to get their prescriptions, but they will accept a 45 minute wait at TGIFridays to get a artery clogging burger?! Come on, ABC! Give me a BREAK! I love my patients. I care a great deal for them. However i am NOT a pharmacist. I am not allowed to Counsel. We always are instructed to ask the patient at every point of sale if they have ANY questions about their medications. and If infact they do, We direct them to the Patient Consultation Window. And in most cases.. their question is.. WHy does it cost so much? WE DONT KNOW! ASK YOUR INSURANCE COMPANY!! Our Pharmacist is WAY too busy to be burdened with copay questions.. Your investigation was very one sided, with so much spin, its ridiculous. And Again, when it comes to the clerical Errors.. ask our Senior Techs how many times they have to call a dr in a day to VERIFY directions.. or strengths.. because the Dr wrote it incorrectly? ... A patient wants a refill on a prescription.."What is the name of the medication?" I ask. "I dont Know.. its my water pill" I look in the profile.. 3 different Diuretics. and this patient has NO CLUE what they are taking. So they Guess. We fill what they tell us to, (it just so happens to be the wrong one,, but I left my Psychic cap at home that day) and then.. its OUR fault.. CALL THE DEA!! The demand for Pharmacists is MUCH MUCH greater than the supply, and many pharmacists work doubles, and sometimes 6 days a week.. and Why? to keep the patients happy.. Do you want it done fast? or do you want it done right? We have 2 teenagers working in our Pharmacy. and one is a 1st year student at St louis College of pharmacy.. and the other is planning on attending st louis college of pharmacy. They both show great dedication to their job and future profession. 20/20, I'm going to set up a hidden camrea behind my In Window and Ill send you what My fellow Technicians, my pharmacists and I go through on a Daily Basis. That will INDEED teach you about the meaning of FAIR AND BALANCED REPORTING!!

Both of the featured cases involving patient harm occurred several years ago. Is there a follow-up program scheduled to show what steps the industry has made to decrease mistakes? Also in the recent past, requirements for technicians working the pharmacy have increased, with most states now requiring passing a test that demostrates that the technician is competant in the tested areas. Also I was curious if in the follow-up program, we could see how in-house training has evolved over the past several years in the industry. Another interersting point would be to give examples of "medication errors/contraindication of therapy" that were prevented by the intervention of the pharmacist. I'm sure that you all of these question will be answered when your follow-up segment airs.

As a nationally certified and state licensed pharmacy technician, I was dismayed and disgusted by this report. How is this "news" intended to help anyone, or improve their lives in any way? I do not work for Walgreens yet have spent the past four days defending their reputation. It just makes me sick that a "news" program that is geared toward the same demographic that most frequents pharmacies would cause such undue distress and anxiety to our patients, most of whom are already sick and do not need to be worrying any more about their medication than they already do. The worst part is telling Americans that they are "waiving their right" to receive any information on their medication when they sign for their prescription. This is an outrageous lie. Anybody, at anytime, can approach a pharmacist and ask a question, whether they are recommending a multivitamin or discussing the side effects of their prescription. When we have you sign, that is after we ask if you have any questions and is proof that counsel was in fact offered. If you do not accept counsel at that moment, you are in no way waiving your right to speak with the pharmacist.
I am so upset by these broadcasts. We were warned last week that 20/20 would be portraying pharmacies in a negative light, but I never expected such a work of fiction.