Curious also if this is Canada-wide or just in Ontario:
Recently have had two occasions where Shoppers was pushing me to have the pharmacist prescribe a renewal of something, rather than troubleshoot an error with a renewal request through 1) my family doc and 2) a specialist.
In both cases they wanted to charge me $15.
Case #1 I just said no thanks and called my family doctor, thankfully it was sorted out quickly.
Case #2, Shoppers’ automated system waited until Saturday at 5pm(!) to notify me that the renewal (which I’d requested on Tuesday at 11am) had not gone through. When I called, they tried to charge me the $15 - but I successfully pressured them to give me a few days of the medication while I sorted out the issue (which is what they used to offer).
I can’t help but wonder if this is the ‘enshittification’ of pharmacy services, where they tell you they’ll take care of the automated renewal, but then - oops! - they mess it up and try to squeeze $15 out of a patient who just needs their medicine, and doesn’t have time to make a bunch of calls, or trek over to the walk-in clinic or whatever.
Anyone else having similar issues? If so, it might be worth collecting people’s stories and raising a fuss.
Try a locally operated pharmacy or another option in your area if possible. Shoppers is hit and miss in my experience (majority misses).
Costco has a $5 prescribing fee and doesn’t require a membership for pharmacy. If you have a pharmacy close to a Costco you can try asking them to price match the Costco dispensing fee. It usually works, and then you can support a local pharmacy instead of Costco. If you like the pharmacy and have the funds in the future, you’re always free to pay the original dispensing fee as a show of support - I just mention this as an option, not suggesting anyone must.