Pharmaceutical companies make no sense.

My doctor prescribed me a medication that is not on the $4 list at Walmart. It’s a brand name prescription so we were looking at me spending a lot on it. But as a promotional offer, the pharmaceutical company gave my doctor little “Assist Card”s. You’re supposed to present this card when purchasing the prescription and a discount of $35 will be given to your prescription. It’s supposed to offset the price of a deductible.

So I get my insanely expensive prescription and present my Assist Card to the cashier. I’m told it’s going to take them a minute to figure out how to apply it. No problem. I’ll wait for $35 dollars. Or so I think.

After 20 minutes (record time for the Walmart pharmacy, I might add) the pharmacist directs me to the little window and said, “I tried inputting it but it wouldn’t take the card.” I figured that would be the end of the conversation so I began to say my “thank you for trying” speech but he went on. “So I called the company,” he says.

I’m impressed.

“The card is meant only for people who already have insurance to compensate for the deductible they have to pay. It cant be used if there’s no insurance.” He goes on to say, “That makes no sense. The people who need the discount the most are the people without insurance. That just makes no sense.”

At this point I did sincerely thank him for trying and for taking the time to call them to figure out what the problem was. I also sincerely agreed with him that it doesn’t make sense and that I’d have to tell my doctor who gave me the card about this little fine print clause.

As I was walking out, I made a decision. I had two things I could focus on. One, the clearly illogical terms by which that card could be used. Or, and this is the one I went with, how nice it was to see someone going the extra mile. The pharmacist could have given up after he couldn’t get the card to work. I’m sad to say that I probably would have given up at that point. But he didn’t. I’m sure as the Wal-mart pharmacist he had his hands full and probably could have given a try then turned his attention to the next problem at hand but he didn’t. He followed through so that he understood and could explain to me what the problem was.

It was nice to see that kind of follow through and customer service in a world where everything is rushed and hurried. And his actions made me realize that I haven’t been giving my all lately either. I can grow from his actions. So regardless of the waiting, the lack of discount on the script, and ultimately the insanely high price of said script, regardless of all of those things, I chose to walk out of there a better person for having met him. That’s a good day to me.