Since October 8, CVS Health pharmacies began to encourage their customers to pick up medications and supplies as Hurricane Delta approaches.
“Across CVS Health, we’re actively preparing for Hurricane Delta’s landfall in the Gulf Coast region. Our priority is the safety of our employees, customers and members, and we’re committed to providing our communities access to the products and services they need to prepare for the storm. Our stores comply with all local evacuation orders, and we’ll re-open any closed stores as soon as it is safe to do so. If a store is forced to close for two or more days, the pharmacy’s phone lines will be rerouted to a nearby open CVS Pharmacy so patients may continue to access their prescriptions. We encourage customers who have scheduled a COVID-19 test at any of our stores in the area to call the store to confirm it is open,” – company announced.
Hurricane Delta
Hurricane was started at 9 of October near Creole, Louisiana. More than 600,000 power outages were reported across Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi as the storm’s remnants moved further inland.
When Hurricane Delta began to approach, CVS Pharmacy start to sending text message and email to their patients to remind them to refill prescriptions. Besides, through such services as, CVS Caremark, CVS Health’s pharmacy benefit manager, the company has activated a process to provide one-time emergency refills of a 10-day supply of medication for plan members in impacted areas.
“Patients within the emergency area taking specialty medications filled by CVS Specialty will be contacted to discuss alternate delivery arrangements, if needed. And through our Aetna Business Unit, our clinical response teams have expanded their engagement with Medicare and Commercial members in potentially impacted counties in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida to ensure member safety, access to emergency services and continuity of care,” – CVS commented.
CVS Health Recommends:
- Follow local evacuation orders. Get to a safe location first and refill your medications at the nearest pharmacy. This allows you to avoid potentially long lines at your local pharmacy, and you won’t need to needlessly delay your evacuation.
- Take a waterproof bag with your current medication – even if the bottle is empty. The information on the prescription label will help pharmacy staff with refill requests. Heat, humidity and sunlight can degrade the effectiveness of medicine, so try to protect it from extreme weather conditions.
- Keep a written record of your current prescriptions in your valuable papers files. If you are taking several prescription drugs, it’s an especially good idea to keep a record of your current dosage and doctor’s contact information.
CVS Health also contacted with local disaster relief organizations to help people in their local communities respond to and recover from the storm.
While Delta was a weaker storm than Category 4 Laura, it brought significantly more flooding, Lake Charles Mayor Nic Hunter said at October, 11. He estimated that hundreds of already battered homes across the city took on water. The recovery from the double impact will be long, the mayor said.
