Bill R.
Yelp
Jack Webb said: "Just the facts. Nothing but the facts."
Today, 8 February 2025, my wife and I went to the Walmart Supercenter on Pyramid Way in Sparks, Nevada for a scheduled appointment at 12:20 PM to receive vaccinations. We are both senior citizens with Medicare (A&B) as Primary and private insurance as secondary. We both have diagnosed medical conditions meeting the requirement for Medicare to function as the primary payer for vaccinations.
Both of us were there for a Covid-19 vaccination and, in addition, my wife was supposed to receive the Pneumonia vaccine.
We arrived a few minutes ahead of the appointment time and registered with "Rolando" (His badge read: "Rolando, Customer Service in Training") at the Pharmacy and submitted both of our Medicare and private insurance cards for processing. We were quickly told by Rolando that our insurance did not recognize either of us as clients of our secondary insurance, a company where we have been insured for over 30 years. He told us to call our insurance company. As to our primary coverage under Medicare he completely avoided taking any of the information from our Medicare documentation and returned our Medicare cards without perusing any of the information on those documents. He told my wife that our Medicare only covered Hospital situations, although our cards are clearly marked to include both Medicare part A and B.
A quick review at CMS.gov, the U.S. government website for Medicare, reveals:
"Medicare Part B covers the following types of vaccines and their administration:
Preventive vaccines specified in statute: Examples include the Influenza, COVID-19, Pneumococcal, and Hepatitis B vaccines, which are used to prevent illness"
https://www.cms.gov/medicare/payment/part-b-drugs/vaccine-pricing
Rolando did not check with anyone else at the Pharmacy regarding his erroneous handling of this situation and so we opted to go elsewhere since he was of neither disposition nor inclination to be of any real "Customer Service", whether "in Training" or in reality. He was of no help. More "Training" is needed.
Subsequently later this afternoon, my wife called Walgreens at the corner of Pyramid Way and Eagle Canyon in Sparks and the pharmacist advised her she did not need an appointment, and we could just show up as walk ins at their facility. We did just that and were received cordially at the pharmacy desk at 2:28 PM today and we completed all the questions required in the screening process, reviewed our Medicare and secondary health insurance information and the Walgreens employee said that there was no problem with any of our insurance or information. Walgreens had exactly the same information that we presented to "Rolando, Customer Service in Training" only about 2 hours after we left Walmart and "Rolando".
We left the Walgreens facility with vaccinations completed at 2:53 PM today, a total time of only 25 minutes to do all the preliminary paperwork, insurance verification and RECEIVE THE VACCINATIONS.
25 minutes for the whole shebang.
Comparisons matter! In this comparison there is only one clear winner:
Walgreens!!!
Bill and Sandy Ryan