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submitted 2 days ago by patatas@sh.itjust.works to c/canada@lemmy.ca

Curious also if this is Canada-wide or just in Ontario:

Recently have had two occasions where Shoppers was pushing me to have the pharmacist prescribe a renewal of something, rather than troubleshoot an error with a renewal request through 1) my family doc and 2) a specialist.

In both cases they wanted to charge me $15.

Case #1 I just said no thanks and called my family doctor, thankfully it was sorted out quickly.

Case #2, Shoppers' automated system waited until Saturday at 5pm(!) to notify me that the renewal (which I'd requested on Tuesday at 11am) had not gone through. When I called, they tried to charge me the $15 - but I successfully pressured them to give me a few days of the medication while I sorted out the issue (which is what they used to offer).

I can't help but wonder if this is the 'enshittification' of pharmacy services, where they tell you they'll take care of the automated renewal, but then - oops! - they mess it up and try to squeeze $15 out of a patient who just needs their medicine, and doesn't have time to make a bunch of calls, or trek over to the walk-in clinic or whatever.

Anyone else having similar issues? If so, it might be worth collecting people's stories and raising a fuss.

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[-] JohnnyCanuck@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 days ago

Shoppers is the worst. They are terrible to their pharmacists, customers and other employees. If you're wondering why there are so many small pharmacies that have started up its because shoppers was so terrible to their pharmacists łand wouldn't allow them to provide good, personal care) that pharmacists left and started their own businesses (at great risk) so they could provide proper care to their customers. And in a lot of cases the customers followed.

Instead of taking this as a sign they should do better, shoppers just put more pressure on their low paid pharmacists to gouge customers and extract every dollar they can out of the insurance system and customers.

Great business model.p

this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2026
59 points (98.4% liked)

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