Naval Health Clinic Patuxent River Pharmacy

"OK for routine running scripts, but if you're sick and have an emergent need for something that day you better have a backup plan. Slow and inefficient processes, long wait times and no answering their phone."

"This is the worse pharmacy ever!!! Someone needs to take a look at how things are being run. Have been trying for over 2 weeks to get my needed prescription transferred to my new location. They won’t answer the phone and can’t leave a message. The poor pharmacist I am going to calls multiple times a day with no luck. It will sometimes ring and then says we are busy with other customers, call back later. Someone needs to be let go and new management in place. I feel bad for all the elderly people that go there, can’t imagine what they are going through."

"Needed my pain prescription and blood pressure meds ASAP. They were all activated. I was there on Monday 6/19/23 and waited over an hour before being served. I was told that they were still “working on” my meds. I’m going again tomorrow to see if they are ready. I have NO MORE pain or blood pressure meds! (I totally agree with previous comments that they need MORE PEOPLE to fill prescriptions and do whatever paperwork,)."

"Worse than any other pharmacy on every base l've been to. Some of the staff are rude and will give you the runaround for the simplest of things. And don't even think about calling them instead, they will not answer 90% of the time and if they do, they'll say their wait time is over 30 minutes. Every time. THEY NEED HELP!"

"POOR MANAGEMENT OF THE PHARMACY. MORE SPECIFICALLY THE CUSTOMER SERVICE VIA TELEPHONE CONTACT. THEY NEED HELP. On Wednesday (31 May), I started calling to the pharmacy at 0800 on and off to find out the status of a prescription that I activated on the Thursday (25 May). It took over 2 hours and 26 minutes numerous call attempts to contact a human being. Then once I did get a human being to answer the phone I was placed on hold for 35 minutes. Why??? According to the lady who answered the phone, she stated that there is only one incoming line, that can only handle 10 callers at a single time, and only one person taking care of incoming calls. Concerning the amount of customers that use this pharmacy on a daily basis they would have more phone lines coming in and more people to answer those phone calls. They stated that their priority is to take care of their customers. However, ignoring them is not the appropriate way to take care of them. Current status of my prescription... I activated the prescription was activated on 25 May. As of today (31 May) it is still pending action by a pharmacy tech/pharmacist. What is even more mind-blowing is that my prescription is an auto-injector, which means all one has to do is walk over to the refrigerator, pull the correct box, verifying the drug and the dosage is correct, then placing a prescription label onto that box. Now, I could understand if they were out of the medication and had to order it. However, they did not state this and that they would up the priority, and I should get it either on Thursday (01 June) or Friday (02 June). Since October, 2006, this pharmacy, over the years, has steadily attempted to make improvements to have a positive outcome. However, in reality these improvements in technology have done nothing but caused negatively impacts to their customers. For example. We used to be able to pick up activated prescriptions/refills by a separate window without a ticket. That has gone bye bye. Everyone has to a ticket and wait 15, 20, 30, 45, 60 minutes to simply pick-up a medication that has been filled or a refill order. The longest I ever stood in a line was 5 minutes to pick a prescription that was activated (New) or a refill. Not anymore. Activating a prescription used to be easy with the NHC Patuxent River app. However, now that the app has been disable that process is taking hours to complete. Compared to a out in town pharmacy. I pick up my prescriptions within 30-60 minutes from being prescribed. With the base pharmacy you have to call them or appear before them to actually activate them, then wait forever to get them filled. Something is wrong here and it needs to be resolved. People are being negatively impacted and do not have the time to wait hours, days, or weeks for a prescription. We have jobs as well and we do not get paid sitting at the pharmacy waiting for a prescription to be filled. Update. After being informed that my prescription was ready for pickup. I went to the pharmacy and waited in line for 1 hour. They had only two people working the windows. And it took them one hour to work through 8 people that were ahead of me. The next question is. Does this action or lack of action violate the Pharmacist's and Pharmacy's Fiduciary duty they owe? In that they owe a duty of care to their customers to prevent harm just as a doctor owes a duty of care to their patients. They have a legal duty to fill lawful prescriptions without unnecessary delay. Since they are not able to fill a prescription within a reasonable time would that not be consider a refusal of treatment?"