CVS Pharmacy

Definitely do not rely on the pharmacy being open at 8am. I went out of my way to be there at 8:10am and the person apparently hadn’t even shown up to work yet and no one could give me an estimate of when they would.

After waiting in line, I was told flat-​out by the pharmacist that he would not fill my prescription. When I asked why not, the pharmacist told me it was because he was «uncomfortable» doing so and recommended a pharmacy half a mile away. I asked my friend who is a lawyer and apparently this is legal… But wow! As someone with a chronic condition I’ve had thousands of pharmacy visits in my life, and this will be remembered as the worst interaction I’ve ever had. Not only rude and inconvenient but humiliating, as there were people behind me in line who saw me essentially be rejected with a legitimate prescription in my hand. I’ll add that I had never been here before and the prescription was neither contraception-​related nor a pain med, so it remains a mystery why this person had some moral objection to my medical treatment plan.

Staff are pleasant enough but if you’re going into pick up medication it usually will not be ready in the hour that they specify on the phone. They’re always backed up. So save yourself waiting in line and go several hours or the next day after the pick up time

Do not go to this pharmacy if you need good service on pharmacy items. They are very commercial so they will take your order, keep on taking care of other orders, and delay the delivery of your prescription at their own will — even if it is the simplest medicine to prepare. I have been willing to get hold of a prescribed medicine to start a treatment and they cant care less. Terrible customer service, and poorly trained staff.

Needs a change in management. Or just get shut down.
Whenever I need medication, I trek to a pharmacy 1.5 miles away despite living one block away from this one because this one is consistently out of stock on everything. They don’t answer their phones and when they do they put you on hold for 30 minutes and hang up.
So very unlike many other CVS pharmacies in the area… just terribly mismanaged.
I get that they hate their jobs… so fire them so they can do something else they hate that doesn’t require interaction with other humans!
Hire better people here PLEASE!

AVOID AT ALL COSTS! An absolutely HORRIBLE store. Astonishingly slow cashier service and no self-​service kiosks to alleviate the problem. Confusing layout, perpetually understaffed. They play horrible music, often at ear-​splitting volumes. A nightmarish experience.

Updated: spoke with the managers. Hopefully they deal with the unpleasant and angry Mirna.

Although the pharmacy staff was a bit rude and rushed, the hold time was minimal and the person was at least thorough.

Most terrible CVS ever. They are lazy, incompetent, and do not care for any customers.

Probably the worst CVS pharmacist I’ve ever been to. I use it out of convenience, but it has no redeeming qualities.
The check out lines are long because the cashiers don’t know what they are doing.
And the pharmacy is equally bad if not worse. The pharmacists are rude and are inexperienced.
Do not use this pharmacy if you can help it.

Very convenient though I only go when I REALLY need something. CVS is pretty expensive… especially the DC locations.
The employees have been nice and helpful.

When I am downtown, this is a nice place to grab a food bar or drink. The store is never crowded. That also means you can’t always find someone upstairs to help you. The employees are nice enough. I visit for convenience and not bargains at this location.

This is the closest location to my home, so I went there for a flu shot. Got to the pharmacy 6 – 7 minutes before it closed, but the pharmacist refused to give me the shot because it would take too long to process. This is the last straw in a string of bad experiences at this store. I won’t be going there again.

Second star is for the cleanliness and the selection.
The pharmacy is so understaffed that it takes me an average of 2 trips there to accomplish picking up a prescription successfully. The front checkout isn’t much better… usually 1 cashier and a whole line of people. Blah.
Also, the prices are often mislabeled… more than twice now, I’ve paid close to $ 5 for a gallon of milk that was labelled something in the $ 3.50ish range.
The management realllly needs to step it up!

This is still a pretty abysmal CVS in a lot of ways. A lot of items will just randomly not be stocked, a lot of the employees seem pretty lackadaisical about actually working, a lot of products lie around the story in piles waiting to be stocked… these are amongst the reasons why I prefer to use the CVS in Pentagon City when I can (a workable preference given that I work in Pentagon City). This isn’t always possible though, including because you may just not remember you need something until you’re on your way home.
However, FINALLY, someone at this store seems to have gotten the hint that they can’t be running a solitary open register while the line keeps piling up during busy hours, such as the rush hour «passing the store on their way home from the Metro» crowd. Recently they’ve gotten a lot better about keeping two registers open (and having a single line feed both of them as they become available) during busy hours, and it’s amazing what a dramatic difference you get just by going from one register to two registers – someone trying to argue over coupons or whatever doesn’t bottleneck the entire line. So at least now it’s not complete torture waiting in line here at 5:30 PM on my walk home from work; it’s still not the fastest line ever but as stated, it’s a huge improvement over before.
(It would be nice if they had self-​checkout and would have largely alleviated their prior tendency to only run one register at a time. A review from September 2011 makes it sound like they used to have self-​checkout here… going off the fact that a number of products at this location are under lock and key when they aren’t at the Pentagon City store makes me think that they felt like they were having theft issues associated the self-​checkout?)

Pharmacy only:
Ask for Maspa. I had an urgent issue with my insurance and she got it resolved within the hour, even after the pharmacist on columbia road told me it was impossible.

It’s really easy to write this review.
Don’t go here. If you need a pharmacy, go across the street to Target. They’re cheaper, faster, and (gasp!) competent. The only downside is that they have more restricted hours.
If Target isn’t an option, find a guy on the street. Okay, CVS might be better than that. Might.
After asking CVS to take my prescriptions off auto-​refill probably seven or twenty times, being stalked by e-​mail, phone, and text, having them refill prescriptions I didn’t want refilled and losing my records (then magically finding them after I got a new one), I couldn’t take it anymore.
Do I occasionally go in there if I need some gum or if they have Diet Coke on sale? Sure. But I stick to the front of the building, and never venture to the dark side in the back of the building.

You know the term «the crown jewel» of the empire? Well, this location is the exact opposite of that in the CVS empire. Let me list the ways:
1) Constantly dumping trash in the alley leading to a rat bang and breed-​a-​thon 24 hours a day.
2) The pharmacy is brutally slow
3) Nothing is every fully stocked, especially sale items
4) Good luck getting help from an employee, I think they only employ 1 person on the floor
5) Rude employees, including one who was showing the signs of a meth-​related hygiene issue before he was fired a few months ago
I only go here because it’s nearby, otherwise I’d avoid it at all costs.

This is just a review of the pharmacy. I went there to pick up a prescription that had been sent in that morning. The tech, who was extremely helpful, told me that he couldn’t find my prescription there nor could he find it at any other CVS pharmacy (I was afraid that I told my doctor to send it to a 14^th street address, but the wrong 14^th street address). I called the doc again the next day and had it sent again. Rather than waste another trip, I called the pharmacy and AGAIN they said they didn’t have it. I even checked my online account and nothing showed up.
The doctor’s office insisted that they had sent it, and I believe them because I always use the Georgia Ave CVS and it’s never been a problem. I’ll often get a call saying that my prescription is waiting for me to pick up. By this time I had to get the doctor’s office to send the prescription to another CVS in California, since I was going home for two week. s That CVS promptly notified me that the prescription was available. No problem.
And today, after two weeks, I get a call from a testy CVS individual informing me that my prescription had been waiting there for two weeks. WHAT???
I don’t know what the eff these people are doing, but I will not be using this CVS for my medication anymore. It took me over five days between calling my doc several times and resending the prescription several times without a satisfying end result.

I go to CVS stores because they have convenient locations. I was excited to find this location so close to my house but I have been severely underwhelmed by my service here.
The first time I visited, I went to pick up a prescription I had called in several hours earlier (and selected a pick up time). The prescription had not been filled despite the fact that the pharmacist was on what was an obviously personal phone call. She was the only one working behind the counter, too.
On a subsequent visit, I picked up a Sudafed voucher from the medicine aisle and took it to the counter. When the cashier exchanged the voucher for the actual box, the total came out to more than what was listed. I asked the employee about the price that I had closely checked before buying the product but had already run my debit card. I tried to cancel the transaction by hitting «cancel» only to have the charge go through. The employee insisted that it was the correct price and blamed me for hitting the wrong button causing the swipe to go through. (Okay, seriously, why have a «cancel» button when all it does is proceed to a credit purchase from a debit purchase instead of canceling the entire transaction?) I was in a hurry, so I left irritated by the transaction only to discover that she had given me a box of 48 pills instead of 24. Awesome… no way I’ll ever go through that.
Bottom line: It’s convenient, the store is new and clean (for now), the employees don’t do customer service, and the pharmacy is slow. Prices are slightly higher than, say, a Target. Pretty much any CVS you’ll ever go to.