Sharing our **Pet Pharmacy** Experience

So, Kira has been on medications for Lymphoma etc., since January 2008 (Mike was in St. Louis at the time, dealing with the passing of his father, so I was charged with Kira's well-being)  For each visit to the Vet office I made with Kira, Mike was always on the other end of the speakerphone--but more importantly, because Mike was so far away, I tried to keep detailed notes as to Kira's health needs and all her medical requirements.

After her initial visit, Kira was prescribed six different medications.  Five of the six were smaller, "kitty sized", portions, with some requiring twice a day dosing.  As a result, I created an AM and a PM dosing schedule to make sure all her medications were given as required.  The schedule I created was:

Marbofloxin; 1/2 of an oblong tablet, once a day (AM)

Zantac; 1/4 of a round tablet, twice a day (AM & PM)

Cyproheptadine; 1/4 of a round tablet, twice a day (AM & PM)

Metronidazole; 1/4 of a round tablet, once a day (PM)

Ursodial; 1/6 of powder inside gel capsule, once a day (PM)

All the 1/2s, 1/4s, and 1/6s of each of these medications were sorted for daily AM and PM combinations, each placed together within empty gelatin capsules, so that Kira only had to suffer one dosing each AM and PM.

This schedule has remained virtually unchanged for over 2 years.

After the first four months of this regime, we moved from San Diego to Portland. She had to endure a new veterinary, and we had to locate a new pharmacy in which to fill her prescriptions.  Keep in mind, these are not "people prescriptions", and thus, may be a little less likely to be at your nearby neighborhood pharmacy in the needed doses.  Fortunately, the medications were easy to come by.  Surprisingly, it was the simple gelatin capsules that were a to challenge to find.

We inquired at the Fred Meyer (Kroger), RiteAid, Costco, and Walgreens pharmacies that were nearby.  The local Walgreens seemed to be surprised at our request, but was the only nearby pharmacy that carried the supplies to meet our needs.  Because they did carry the capsules we needed we continued to purchase them from Walgreens.  The fact that the price always changed, from as low as $8 for 400 to a high of $8 for 300, only confirmed our belief that our request was out of the ordinary. (FYI, That is approximately .02 cents to .02 1/2 cents per capsule)

So, why am I writing this post?  With Kira nearing the end of her days, we went to make our (what is likely to be the last) capsule purchase.  This time, only 150, as we feel 75 days at twice a day dosing is very optimistic.  Suddenly, because (we were informed) there has been a demand for the past 18 months, that the price for 150 has sharply risen to $30... (equals .20 cents a capsule; an 800% increase in price). We questioned the price increase, but ultimately paid it, for at that exact moment there isn't really a choice in the matter.

So, I have contacted Walgreens (and am waiting a response).  It is very difficult to navigate prescriptions for ourselves, and for our pets--substantially more so.  Due to all my interactions with pharmacies due to Kira, pet requests seem unusual and foreign to most pharmacies, usually requiring lots of explanation and out-of-the-ordinary responses.  I don't want to believe that Walgreens seized an opportunity for greed, nor do I want to believe the employees were dishonest, so I hope--for the sake of all animal caretakers--that this was just a simple misunderstanding of some sort.  It is already hard enough to have a supportive voice for our pets.

w e d n e s d a y,  . f e b r u a r y . 3, . 2 0 1 0
* * * U P D A T E * * * 

I am sharing our experience with Kira's Lymphoma diagnosis and treatment in hopes that it may be helpful and provide insight to anyone else who may have to go through similar experiences. Needless to say, lacking such info ourselves, there was some shock and anger after leaving the store, due in part by our limited options at that moment combined with the eminent loss on the horizon, so I waited a couple days before contacting the Walgreens corporate customer service number.  Also, I chose not to call to complain about my experience (in which I tend to make too personal, get emotionally charged, and thus an angry situation), but instead my call inquired more generally about how to find valid Walgreens price information in the future, (I repeat:) "in hopes that it may be helpful and provide insight to anyone else who may have to go through similar experiences".

That being said, my corporate return call came about 24 hours later, and unfortunately, I missed the call.  The caller was friendly enough, and this is the message (with names edited out for privacy):

Hi… This is… the Walgreens store manager for the Lombard store and I had received a complaint about some pricing issues. It looks like the compound pharmacist… charged you $30 for 150 pills. We went back and looked at the pricing and the best that we can do on that is $8 per 100.  That basically… protects us from our margins and covers our cost. So the best we can do at this point is $8 per 100 and we have that down, so if you have any questions, you can always talk to me.  I am the store manager… and just give me a call… Thanks.

So I guess a small success.  We can't return our purchase for a lesser quantity and Kira most-likely won't be around long enough for another purchase, but any reader who is going through a similar pet experience and needs gel caps (or any other unusual pharmacy item) should inquire and establish a standard product price immediately once the need is established, no matter at Walgreens or any other pharmacy.  Had we done that, instead of being surprised at $30 for 150, the $8 per 100 is reasonable and we would have made exactly that purchase (150 was just a random number anyway; even purchasing 100 is optimistic at this point).  Walgreens did provide a satisfactory resolve for this situation; however, I doubt we'll have the opportunity to take advantage of it.  (Where to find a valid price list remains elusive)

And a bigger success...  she still is hanging in there.