A former pharmacy tech, who worked for a “three-letter pharmacy corporation” that commenters took to mean CVS, shared her experience using GoodRx coupons to help customers with expensive prescriptions—and how one of the pharmacists there specifically told her not to do that.
TikTok user Jade (@dogtier) shared her story in a viral video that has garnered over 14,000 views in five days on the platform.
“Oh my God; finally, I get to talk about my experiences as a pharmacy technician,” she began. “For a hot minute, I was a pharmacy technician for a three-letter pharmacy corporation until I quit. And there were many incidents that led to my decision to quit. But, like, if I had to attribute it to one incident, it was this one.”
@dogtier Replying to @marahxxmarie yeah youre entirely correct. corporate metrics and dealing with health insurance pushes pharmacists and technicians alike into apathy. sorry for all of the jump cuts i was walking my apartment in the same fashion that you do when you’re on the phone ##pharmacy##pharmacytechnician##pharmacytech##healthcareworker##healthcare##pharmaceutical##pharmaceuticalindustry##goodrx##storytime ♬ original sound – jade !!
The TikToker explained that “there’s very little good news” when working in a pharmacy, and she would often have patients who could not afford their medications due to insurance coverage issues.
“Well, whenever I would encounter this as a pharmacy technician, what I would do is I would literally go into the system, and I would put in a GoodRx coupon for them,” she said. “Like, I would look it up on my phone. … I would let them know the new price, and I would adjust it for them right there at the window.”
But there was a hitch in this plan, as it turns out. Jade said one of the pharmacists told her she wasn’t allowed to look up coupons for customers. Instead, it was supposed to be “up to the patient to download the app and look up all of the information” for themselves, after which Jade would “copy down the code and then put it into the system.”
“And like, I know why she did this,” Jade explained. “It’s because GoodRx costs pharmacies money. So, if I’m sitting there pulling it up for every patient that needs it, that’s costing the three-letter corporation a lot of bucks.”
Though Jade understands why her company would not have wanted her to look up the coupons for customers, she said it was also “a timesaving measure.” She explained that since she worked in the drive-thru, it would have taken “10 times longer” to walk an “80-year-old man” through downloading and using the app, copy the code from him, and put it in the system.
She then said, “And I literally ignored her, and I just kept doing it.”
After, the creator explained her reasoning for going against the pharmacist’s directions. “Because, like, I will be damned if I’m going to look at a patient in the drive-thru with a $180 charge for their medication and say, ‘Sorry, there’s nothing we can do’ when there is something I could do. I could do something.”
“But yeah, this commenter is entirely correct,” she said, referring to a TikTok comment on the screen that inspired the video. “Nice, courteous pharmacy technicians are constantly pushed out of the industry because most pharmacy technicians don’t have people skills, and they just want to sit there filling the prescriptions all day, and most pharmacists don’t deal with patients all that often.”
Commenters had thoughts, including one who specifically name-checked CVS and others who used the same coded language the creator did.
“I was also a tech for 3 letter company,” one remarked, “and I left because I was tired of the lack of compassion from company and pharmacists.”
“Literally every C*S is drowning at all times,” said one, using an asterisk in place of the V. “You were literally saving them man-hours in their understaffed pharmacies.”
At least one commenter reported being able to use GoodRx at multiple name pharmacies, noting, “Every pharmacy I go to do the GoodRX for us. I’ve been to Walmart, CVS, and Walgreens,” before observing, “I can’t believe they would not want workers to help people. Gross.”
But others saw the story as a sign of greater problems with American health care and even American society. As one person opined, “This is Capitalist Corporate-Fascism in an anecdote. This is the government we have chosen.”
The Daily Dot contacted Jade via TikTok comment and CVS via email for further information.
