Some customers say CVS pill bottles miss the target

While the deal to have CVS Pharmacy operate Target pharmacies may be a lucrative one for both chains, some customers are upset over CVS Pharmacy’s switch to different pill bottles than the ones Target has used for more than a decade.

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Shutterstock/Rob ByronSome Target customers are asking the retailer to bring back its novel red prescription bottles, which included color-coded rings, easy-to-read script information on a flat, not rounded, surface, and labeling on the lid.

One Target customer, Christina Mihalek of Cincinnati, said the red bottles are important in order to prevent medication errors. She accidentally took her mom's blood pressure medicine instead of an antibiotic when she was in high school and passed out, according to an Associated Pressreport. Mihalek tweeted to Target, “Perfection was at your fingertips."

Another customer, Vivian Ruth Sawyer, recently dug old Target bottles out of the trash so she wouldn’t have to use the new CVS bottles for her thyroid medication. Even though the old bottles don’t have the right expiration dates, Sawyer said the bottles make it easier to tell her prescriptions apart.

Yet another customer, Shelley Ewalt of Princeton, N.J, said that Target’s bottles were easier to open and asked if the chain might return to the "vastly superior design" of their old bottles.

CVS Pharmacy has heard the complaints and is now “Exploring options for a next-generation prescription labeling and management system that will help patients make clinical gains by making directions easier to understand and improve compliance to their medication therapies,” Amy Lanctot, senior manager of public relations for CVS Health, told Drug Topics.

“We’re also focusing on helping patients manage prescriptions as well as improve health outcomes. These include our pharmacy counseling services and medication adherence outreach programs, as well as innovative digital tools such as online prescription management…and the CVS Pharmacy mobile app,” Lanctot said.

When it took over Target’s pharmacies, CVS simply used the same pill bottle (the standard orange bottle with white-and-black label and white lid) that it uses across the chain. It is more efficient to fill prescriptions using the same bottles at all of its 9,600 pharmacies, a CVS spokesperson told Associated Press.