eli5: Why does filling a prescription take so long?

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Most times I have a prescription filled it take much longer that I would guess. A recent example, at a simplistic level, all that was needed was for 10 pills to be put into a bottle, however, it took nearly an hour. There did not appear to be other customers waiting. Is the delay because there is a complex process with controlled drugs, or they are under-staffed, or are other things going on?

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36 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Because you have an insanely inefficient system.

I’m a pharmacist. My mean time spent on a customer is three minutes. That includes getting the prescription, printing the labels, getting the medication and any extra information the patient needs. No messing around with insurance, rarely need verification of scripts. And we don’t count out individual pills to fill in a bottle! Standardized packaging ftw!

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