Wednesday, September 27, 2006

I Am Not In Jail...

...but ten more minutes in that Prescription Pick-Up Line and I might have done something that would have put me there. Forty-five minutes to pick up one prescription. I think I'm taking my business elsewhere.

By the way: I should have mentioned this before but please don't send me your "you think that's bad?" tales about how your pharmacy screwed things up. Every time I post one of these personal beefs, I get a deluge of stories, many of them quite long and well-written...and I really can't do anything with them. Start a weblog and post them. Maybe that'll get a few companies to snap to attention and fix things.

• Posted at 11:13 PM · LINK

The Drug Crisis

Not long ago, my friendly neighborhood 24 Hour Sav-on Pharmacy became a CVS Pharmacy. My first inkling that the conversion might not be an improvement — or even a zero-sum game — came when I saw all the signs posted around the place promising that as a CVS Pharmacy, the place would have "more convenient hours." More convenient than Always Open? Buckminster Fuller could probably explain how that's possible but I sure can't...and anyway, he's dead.

Actually, the old Sav-on (which I patronized for 20+ years) was about as perfect a pharmacy as one could expect, especially when that one (i.e., me) had the good sense to go in after 1 AM. During the more popular dayparts, the place was blatantly understaffed, which in this case is another way of saying that they did a tremendous business and that the management had not expanded the crew or the facility to service that demand. But in the wee small hours, it was a breeze. If I needed a refill, I could order it on the Sav-on website and go over and pick it up an hour later. If I had a new prescription from my doctor-person, I could take it in and whichever pharmacist was on duty would drop everything and fill it about as fast as humanly possible. The pharmacists were also truly friendly and willing to take the time to answer all questions.

Since the place went all CVS on me, things ain't working. First of all, they made a big show of announcing that all the prescriptions they had from their Sav-on days were still on file and could be refilled just as easily by the new management. This turns out to be untrue for those of us who renew online or even over the phone. We have to physically come in and order refills, even though that's just a matter of showing up and saying, "Gimme another round of my Glucophage." I am assured that once an old Sav-on prescription is renewed, it becomes a full-fledged CVS prescription and will thereafter be renewable online or via telephone. Perhaps...but you'd think someone could have worked that one out a little better.

But mostly, it's been a matter of prescriptions not being ready...when they're supposed to or at all. Two weeks ago, I took in two new ones. For some odd reason — I will never understand women, trigonometry or how my health insurance works — these required "prior authorization" from my insurer. As near as I can fathom, this means that my doctor — who has already filled out a prescription for the pharmacy saying that I need this medicine — has to fill out an extra form for my insurance company saying that I need this medicine. At the same time I took these in to be filled, I also ordered renewals on three other prescriptions, two of which needed okays from my doctor. My doctor authorized everything and filled out all his paperwork immediately but at the moment, the scorecard reads as follows...

Two prescriptions filled more or less promptly. (Both renewals, one of which needed my doctor's okay.)
One more prescription filled a few days later. (The other renewal that needed my doctor's okay. It was ready soon after, even though he okayed both at the same time.)
One prescription totally lost. I don't know where it is. They don't know where it is. My doctor filled out the "prior authorization" form and the insurance company says they authorized the pharmacy to fill it...but the pharmacy has no record of it. In the meantime though, it became moot. When my doctor found out I hadn't started on it a week after he'd prescribed it, he decided to fill it himself. He had me drop by his office where he loaded me down with free samples. I have to tear open a lot of little packets but I have my pills. By the way, this prescription would have cost me several hundred dollars even after the insurance company paid its part of it.
One prescription found, lost, then allegedly found again. The other "prior authorization" prescription was reportedly filled a week ago Monday. On Wednesday when I inquired at the pharmacy, they told me it still had not gone through. Apparently, it was sitting there, waiting to be picked up at that moment. On Saturday, since it had gone unclaimed for more than five days, they returned the pills to stock. I am told it has now finally been filled again and after I post this, I'm going to go see if that's true.

To get the found/lost/found one figured out and filled again, I had to spend well over an hour on the phone last night, most of which spent listening to tinny "hold" music, unsure if anyone would ever come on the line. Twice during that hour, I thought a human being was answering but I was instead disconnected, which is such a lovely feeling. The irony is that I was calling to perhaps save myself a trip over to the drugstore. As it turned out, I could have walked there, repainted the exterior of the building, then walked home in less time.

Thrice this month, I have phoned the CVS Customer Service line. During each call, I have spoken with an extremely nice, compassionate person (a different one each time) who has expressed shock at my experience, agreed with me that it's intolerable and apologized profusely. When I told this morning's Customer Service Person that I'd gone a week without my Omeprazole, she said, "Oh, I take that, too" and I thought she was going to offer to share her supply with me.

I'm not big on apologies from anonymous strangers. I'm never sure why I'm supposed to feel better because someone I don't know who had nothing directly to do with the affront says, "I'm sorry." I am impressed when they move to do something that might make things better, and the CVS Customer Service folks to whom I've spoken have sure sounded like they intended to try. The second had a high-ranking executive of the company phone me to hear my complaint first-hand and that person promised me that if I kept my business where it is, I would see a rapid improvement.

So I'm torn between waiting to see if they make good on this or just taking my business to another pharmacy...which will be farther away and probably not open 24 hours. I haven't decided what I'll do except for this: I am now about to walk (that's right — walk) over to the CVS Pharmacy and see if the prescription they told me was ready for pick up is actually read for pick up. If it is, I'll report back here later that it was. If it isn't, I probably won't post. That's because I will have done something that will put me in jail.

• Posted at 8:55 PM · LINK

From the "Well, That Sucks" Department...

Hey, remember how I told you all to tape or TiVo the Laurel and Hardy film, Our Relations, from Turner Classic Movies? It was a bit of a disappointment. What they ran was (apparently) an old Nostalgia Merchant home video print with a mediocre picture quality, a flat soundtrack and a few seconds missing here or there. Nostalgia Merchant transfers were okay in their day but what you got was a copy made from one 16mm print with no video restoration. So if that print was faded or spliced, that's how the tape came out.

In the past, when Turner Classic Movies ran a bad or incomplete print of something, it has usually been a matter of the rights holder, whoever it is, supplying a bad copy. It used to remind me of the NuArt Theater over in West Los Angeles. Back before home video, it was the main place many of us saw classic films of the past. They ran a different double-bill every evening so they went through a lot of movies and good copies were not always available. Each month, when the following month's schedule came out, it was a moment of excitement ("Hey, look what they're running!") but also of reservation ("Are they going to have that lousy, incomplete copy that's making the rounds?").

The NuArt had a problem that I suppose plagues every "repertory cinema" house. They have to advertise their schedule well in advance but they don't actually get the print of the film until a day or two before the screening date. If it arrives and is chopped-up, scratched and a mass of splices, what can they do? Often with older films, that's the only print the distributor has. I can recall times when people stormed out of a program at the NuArt and demanded their money back. I also recall one time when we arrived there for an advertised evening of (I think) obscure Billy Wilder films and a hand-lettered sign on the box office announced something like, "We received lousy prints of these films at the last minute. If you want to put up with splices and missing scenes, fine. If you don't like it and want to walk out, we'll refund your ticket price. Just don't get mad at us. It's not our fault."

(The NuArt is still open, by the way, still showing old movies, usually for a week at a time. They're even running The Rocky Horror Picture Show at midnight every Saturday and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls at midnight on October 13. Here's a current schedule. Sad to say, I haven't been in the place since vintage motion pictures began coming out on Beta.)

Anyway, when I hear of Turner Classic Movies getting stuck with a bad print, it used to remind me of the NuArt. But then I realized: This is the era of digital video. The company that owns the film can send them a copy well in advance. TCM can demand to see that print before they schedule the film and decline to schedule it at all until they have a good, complete copy. In the case of Our Relations, there are complete, excellent quality DVDs available overseas and plenty in this country. So there's no excuse for this. There really isn't.

• Posted at 5:43 PM · LINK

Ralph Story, R.I.P.

It won't get much attention outside Los Angeles — and maybe even not much here — but Ralph Story died yesterday at the age of 86. Mr. Story had a brief career as a game show host (The $64,000 Challenge) but most of his broadcasting days were spent on local radio and television in Los Angeles. He did interview shows and the local news but was best known for a program he did for six years, starting in 1964.

It was called Ralph Story's Los Angeles and it pretty much consisted of Ralph bringing us interesting tales about our town — its heritage, its history, its very identity. Story was a fine storyteller with a friendly, folksy quality about him. Each week, he'd pick out some odd corner of the city and we'd learn what it was and how it came to be. I was born in this burg but an awful lot of what I know about it was learned from Ralph Story's Los Angeles.

The U.C.L.A. Film and Television Archive lists among its collection, and I quote: "104 two-inch videotapes of Ralph Story's Los Angeles (1964-1970), the highest-rated and most fondly remembered local series in Los Angeles television history." Wish someone would put those out on DVD. I suspect they'd stand up very well today...and the history in them would be more important than ever.

• Posted at 11:21 AM · LINK

Today's Video Link

We have a magic trick for your today...and not just any magic trick. This is Metamorphosis as performed by The Pendragons.

Metamorphosis is an old trick done by so many magicians that it long ago became a cliché. It's the one where one person is tied up a couple different ways and locked in a trunk...then another person stands on that trunk and, before you know it, the two of them have changed places. You've seen it as many times as you've seen the Linking Rings or the Cups and Balls routine and you're sick of those.

Every so often though, a magician comes along who takes an old trick and makes it (a) new and (b) their own. You oughta see Johnny "Ace" Palmer do the Cups and Balls. Amazing. And now, you're about to see Jonathan and Charlotte Pendragon do their version of Metamorphosis. It's so special that when they do it at the Magic Castle, seasoned professionals in the world of magic stop by just to see this trick. They do it faster than anyone ever has...and actually, I think this is an old video and they now do it even faster than the demonstration you're about to see. In person, of course, it's even more stunning.

One other thing before we get to the clip: After you're suitably impressed by the trick (which only takes a minute and a half), notice what Charlotte Pendragon is wearing at the end, then run it back and notice what she's wearing at the beginning. It's another little twist they put on an old trick and many people miss it. Like it isn't already amazing enough.

• Posted at 12:07 AM · LINK

September 28, 2006 • Current • September 26, 2006