For anyone who dreads calling around to find your meds
This post is for anyone who absolutely hates having to call 20 different pharmacies and ask an actual human whether they have your medication in stock, but ESPECIALLY for those in the states who have filled with CVS in the past.
I started filling my prescription at CVS in January, mostly because they have so many locations I could just call them all until fiiiiiinally finding a pharmacist who could confirm they had my medication in stock. I dreaded it every single month.
Recently, CVS switched to an automated phone system, and I've discovered a bit of a hack.
After you get through the initial prompts and give your DOB, the system greets you by name and asks how it can help. If you've filled your prescription at CVS at least once before, say "check inventory."
The automated system will check your medication's availability and tell you whether it's currently in stock. The best part is that you can call ANY CVS and the system will still recognize your information. Just be sure you’re calling from the number associated with your CVS account. Ie.) Don’t call from your work phone if your scripts are tied to your personal number.
I've personally called locations across multiple states while traveling (Colorado, Mississippi, and Louisiana), and it worked in all three! You don't have to be an established patient at each individual location, so long as you've filled your prescription at any CVS at least once before.
So if your usual CVS is out of stock, you can call other locations and check availability without having to explain your situation to a different pharmacist every single time.
I should mention that I am not affiliated with CVS in any way, just a gal who struggles to make those "looking to see if you have my medication in stock" phone calls, only to be told 25 times by the begrudging pharmacist that they do not.
Hopefully this helps someone else, because I wish I'd known about it sooner!