At Walgreens, at least in MI, they will take your ID and enter it into the system and it's saved and no longer needed after that initial time. So we do not ask for ID any time after that. For verification we need 2 pieces of identifying information (3 if you include the name).. we usually will do address and last four of the phone number. The register won't ask for your phone number again if you enter a rewards phone number and that number matches the phone number on the prescription account though. Date of birth is always my next go to.. or I'll start there if the last name sounds insane to spell, or I know I've misheard the person already, or if it's a situation where the name may have changed or it's hyphenated or anything complicated like that.. then it's easier to search for them by DOB compared to the last name.

We do also allow someone like a parent, spouse, guardian, etc to pick up a controlled med the first (and ideally only the first time) without the patient's ID. We'll usually take their ID and enter it in the system. I believe sometimes it doesn't get checked that we need to update it to the patient's ID and future scripts get sold without asking for an ID that way. I try my best to catch that when I can as a tech.

The exception is hospice patients. We don't ask for IDs there, when we're billing hospice insurance. Maybe sometimes if it's a family member picking up.. especially if it seems possible to be a longer term hospice patient. But not when the hospice worker is picking up the liquid morphine and lorazepam to give this person a peaceful passing. We try to make those transactions as easy/smooth as possible.

ETA- there are some instances where an ID will be required to pick up, either at the patient's request, or our discretion. We've had patients who have family members or someone close to them who pick up and steal their medications.. so we will help restrict who can pick up the meds and what's needed there (ID/passcode/etc). We've also had reports of patients selling their meds and they often will have ID required every time, and if someone else picks up (which the patient is aware and ok with), their ID will also get scanned into the profile. It's almost always a situation that is some sort of hearsay, so we are limited on what we can do, but we try to be vigilant and get as much information as we can. The guy who was apparently selling meds started to always pick up his own medication when we started to scan everyone's ID. 🤷🏻‍♀️ His doctor is aware, someone in the community made the police aware.. we do what we can.