We were forced to go to Safeway in Chestermere, to purchase my daughter's biologic. The reasoning, from the insurance company, is that Safeway was soooo much cheaper and would save me money. Um yeah, not when I have to make about a 70 km round trip to get it. They said Shoppers was 'too expensive' - yeah, they charged an entire $11 more than Safeway, which we offered to pay so we didn't have to drive so far out of our way for ONE medication, but they refused. My husband's company just switched insurance providers who said they didn't give a crap where we got the med, so we immediately transferred the biologic back to Shoppers.
We never chose Shoppers for the loyalty program and getting points for the meds. Was it a bonus? Oh sure. But, we chose them because we got excellent service from them, for several years - our former insurance company was difficult, the funding for the meds was split 3 ways, and it was an all around pain in the ass, and they handled it all wonderfully. They were incredibly helpful with her meds and delivered to us a few times, when we couldn't leave the house. We also chose them because they are a national chain, and we figured that if we were ever away from home and a medication issue came up, the stores could perhaps communicate with each other more easily, to ensure we got the meds without any hassles (in case we had to transfer a med temporarily or something). When we first moved here, we got our prescriptions at the Co-op but they kept losing our insurance information, and a whole host of other problems, plus their hours sucked - so as soon as Shoppers opened here, we switched over to them, and have been with them 5 years.
As I said to the lady at the insurance, they really shouldn't have try to quantify it as a savings to me, because 70 km out of my way isn't any kind of savings, not over a paltry $11, that I was willing to pay.
I spoke with one pharmacist who said he knew of people holding back on picking up their meds because they were waiting for a 10x points event or something. I find that hard to believe - plus, I don't think you can get a 10x points bonus on prescriptions - those events are usually quite severely restricted as to what is eligible.
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