I get a three-month supply of Vyvanse\Lisdexamfetamine, and starting with my previous resupply, shortages were finally impacting me personally. My doctor (who I've come to believe is a shithead) wasn't much help (and continues to be no help). Instead of calling around to every tom-dick-and-harry pharmaceutical establishment, I signed up for mail-order meds through my insurance, which I only learned was available to me on my last resupply.
Anyway, on the last resupply it took me almost three weeks to get things sorted and delivered, so I was out for almost a month. This resuply wasn't any different. I get perscribed the generic, the mail-order pharmacy sends me a message that only says "We have an issue with your perscription, we've sent a message to your doctor." A few days later, I contact the doctors office after no updates to see why the pharmacy contacted them, only to be met with "Nobody contacted us. We have nothing." (rude, and not helpful) So I call the pharmacy and they help me sort things out on their end (nice, and very helpful). They also tell me the contact information they have for my doctors office, and confirm they used those numbers to contact them. They confirmed they faxed and left a voice mail. The women I was working with on the phone told me "I've never seen the namebrand be out of stock here. The generic is out of stock all the time. Its $30 more for the namebrand." ($40 instead of $10).
I call back the doctors office, I don't bother interigating them about loosing a fax, or not responding to the pharmacy because they've done this before and my doctor told me last time, straight up, "it's not really my job to hunt around and find where its available". This was in response to a message from the pharmacy inquring for alternatives. I get it, you're not going to call other pharmacies, but you didn't even reply (in both instances now), to the message to see if the name brand was in stock or what the fuck ever. (This, among other reasons, is why he's a shit head and I need to find a new one). I get them to fill for the name brand and I finally get a shipping notification.
Well now the Post Office fucked up my delivery. I know from the first resuply using mail-order that I have to sign for it when it arrives. So I left from work early to be at the house to sign for my shit, but a mail truck never arrived. The status update changed to "Awaiting delivery - expect delivery next business day" so I waited a day, then before they closed that day I went to the Post Office to see if they had it (which is what I had to do last time). This time, they had nothing... They said someone would look for it at the main post office in town and call me back (the guy was nice, took my info, called that office, gave them my number). I get no call back at all.
So today, after getting zero sleep for a bunch of compound reasons (some being related to lack of medication and stress over lack of medication), I camped out in the post office parking lot until it opened (worked out to be an hour wait based on all the other morning shit and how it ligned up with them opening). They had my shit, it was sitting on a shelf they use to hold the "Adult Signature Required" packages, and no one loaded it into the truck.
END RANT
So anyway, now I'm wondering if it would be easier to just get a P.O. Box at the post office explicitly for having my medication delivered there. I didn't think to ask it while I was there, but I imagine that gets me around the "Adult Signature Requierd" step, since I have to go there to get anyway. I also figure, since this is going to get fucked up for me every 3 months, and I have to go to the post office anyway, they can put my shit in the P.O. Box instead of somewhere in their warehouse.
This can't be just a me thing right? Is there a way to optimize this outside of the reality that I might have to fuck around every 3 months with figuring out whats in stock? (that should be easier thanks to the mail-order place just having a vastly larger inventory).
I'd be loosing my shit right now, but I'm on my medication, so I'm feeling a lot better.
I had a lot of similar troubles trying to fill addy rx and it's the absolute worst fucking shit. My doctor ended up being cool and he literally doubled my rx just to make sure I always had extra. So then I started trading them for weed.
LOL Yeah, that's the worry I get into. Because it's a scheduled drug, I need the signature, and if it gets lost in the mail, I fear that either the doctor, pharmacy, or insurance are going to just say "This guy is trading pills for weed and not for his ADHD, so we're not prescribing\sending\covering the pills anymore". That's not to imply YOU trading them for weed is causing ME an issue, I just know that's already what these places THINK I'm doing with this shit anyway. I'm shocked I can get 90 days worth in one shot, frankly. Don't think the idea of "if I take it every other day, I could have a cool little side business" hadn't crossed my mind. Maybe if I was single+no kids, that might be what I'd be doing.
What's funny is the main reason I did it is my plug also had ADHD, but he's a black guy with face tattoos who smells like weed all the time and doctors wouldn't give him an rx at all
Ha! That's wild, and makes me angry on his behalf, I would have done the same thing.
In theory... I think you can contact the post office where your regular mail carrier is routed from and fill out some simple paperwork that should give instructions for what to do with your letters/packages that fall into this category.
If you can actually talk to the person who runs the mail to your physical mail box, assuming its the same person every time. They might know what the paperwork is.
Also... if you can stand reddit... reddit.com/r/usps is mostly for USPS employees to bitch about how much it sucks to work at the USPS but you might be able to find information about telling the correct post office to just hold your "signature required" letters/parcels and leave you the pink slip in your mail box telling you to come get your stuff.
PO Boxes are a pretty safe bet, assuming that the retail lobby is open normal/full hours, but its gonna cost you and you won't get mail service to your physical address. You'll still have to sign for things, postal employees caught "forging" signatures to make the hand scanners happy get in trouble.
Funny, they called me today to check in and make sure I got my stuff because it was marked delivered. It sounds like I can have a signature on file for the box. I might be able to have it delivered to a pharmacy too though so I'm going to look into that too.