We have just started offering this valuable professional service and CVS treats it like popcorn

Just when you think that grocery stores (the bottom of the professional ladder) have done their worst, a major drug store company diminishes your professional standing with this.

The perception that pharmacists provide a valuable professional service has been diminished, if not outright killed, by all of these bargain Rxs and give-away Rxs.  Now, CVS is attacking another professional service that we provide before we even get out of the gate.

For decades, included in the definition of pharmacist is The Administration of Drugs.  That could include putting the tablet in the patients mouth, I guess.  Perhaps applying the cream or sticking the suppository.  Certainly, administering vaccines applies.

There was a day when giving shots was perceived as a particular talent that nurses had.  This was when most doctors were fee-for-service, ran their own businesses and wanted that revenue stream for themselves.

Any idiot can take blood pressure, but I got my ass chewed in 1978 for doing it.  I worked in a slow Rx volume mall drug store and put a sign on the counter.   A doctor jumped me with a question like,

“Don’t you think that you should leave that to people who are skilled?”

“What skill is that?”  I kept on doing it and found two men in the most dangerous group.. young, black, male .. to have dangerous numbers.  I advised both of them to take the day off and get to a doctor.  Both returned with prescriptions.  Both thanked me profusely.  Taking blood pressures was a valuable professional service and I did it for free.

You and I know that any idiot can be trained to stick a needle in the arm and press the plunger.  That idiot may not know what to do if that 59 year old gasps, grabs his swelling throat, starts wheezing with his eyes bugging out.

We know enough to start popping him with Epi-Pen, one after the other if he stays in distress, until the EMTs get there.

We now have a valuable professional service that we can sell and, trust me, we will eventually be paid for it.  (just as we will be paid for MTM) 

So, what does CVS do, as CVS seems so eager to do…. they lay another turd in the punchbowl.  CVS is not a big box store.  CVS is not a grocery store.  CVS is a drug store company.  How does CVS think they will get the best pharmacists if they do this kind of shit?

This is all about CVS.  The company is huge.  Second only to WAG in number of stores.  CVS is the rap star playah of the industry.  CVS looks good on the outside, but they treat their professional staff like they are not competent to make the appropriate choices.  CVS times everything, including the drive-through.  CVS is the control freak of our industry.  Pharmacists can get in trouble if they don’t swipe the patient’s discount card.  The word from Cape Cod is that drive through customers in the vacation area are invited to ask for out front items items that they need.  Can you smell a technician going out front for beer, chips and sandwiches with your eyes closed?   

Now, they take our newest, highly respected professional service and give it away if you buy enough Charmin, Dawn, Tide and Cruisers Diapers.

I’m sick of it.  If a grocery store did this, I would be pissed off, but not surprised.  To have a drug store company engage in this bull shit is treachery.   It is deceit. 

One of these days, there won’t be enough H1B Visa holders to keep CVS pharmacies open.

Diana Prince is a weak woman. General Darnell has her intimidated. Where is Wonder Woman when we need her? Double Click On Cartoon

From: JP’s 20 Simple Rules for the Successful and Satisfying Practice of PHARMACY

I have watched female pharmacists just stand there and take it.  Frozen while an aggressive male verbally abuses her.  She is almost unable to assert her right to some little bit of dignity by just walking away.

Set your boundaries early.  Every adult has limits or should have them.  Assert yourself vigorously and you will never have to again.                                                  

Sexual harassment no longer works only in one direction.  It runs both ways.  You female pharmacy managers who have been sleeping with that handsome intern, watch out.  Tommy Boy could have your ass when your company is ordered to pay damages and this kid is able to pay off his student loans with one check.  You can’t win. 

Running his fingers through your hair is not normal management behavior.  Put a stop to it right now.  If you laugh off harassment, it will only be exponentially more difficult to bring to an end.  In a letter sent by Certified Mail, just mention the words Employment Equal Commission Opportunity all together in the right order, in on sentence, and watch them jump. 

Boys, you may think that a pat on the fanny from an attractive female manager is sort of cool, a compliment, but it is harassment if it is unwanted and you can get that company to pay for your ride for a long time if it continues.

Second Edition Bonus Material:  In 1978, the technician I was sleeping with asked me for a raise when we were in bed one afternoon.  I almost dropped the after-cigarette and burned us both to death.  I fired her and she wrote a damning letter to my boss.  He came to San Diego from LA and asked, “What were you thinking?”  He bawled me out for a few minutes and then he became a man.  This technician was beautiful and exciting.  He let me know that he would love to have had that kind of chance with her.  That was in 1978.  It would never happen today.  In the 21st Century, sexual harassment is severely punished.  In my case, it would have been “He said, She said”  She would win! 

You are a pharmacist, the most important employee that a drug store company employs.  Without you, they can’t even call it a drug store.

Billy Bill’s Car Wash Free Antibiotics We Take Coupons Pharmacy

Is this what it is coming to?

Next thing we know, Home Depot will have pharmacies.

Grocery store companies did not just blindly fall into the pharmacy business.  They saw what was coming a couple decades ago.  They saw an opportunity.

Big Box store companies fell right in line.

They saw a blossoming population. 308,000,000 million now.  They saw an aging population.  They saw a Big Pharma dedicated to profit bringing out new and expensive drugs.

90% of all doctor visits end up at the bottom of the funnel.. That’s YOU.  Everybody wants to be at the bottom of the funnel.

So, my friends, what’s next.  Heino Heinkanen’s Neighborhood Sauna and Pharmacy.  Come in, take the steam, get real clean and have your prescriptions filled while a buxom blonde is pummeling you with a sheaf of vitta.

How about the neighborhood massage parlor.  Come in, get a massage and ancillary services and have your Viagra filled with no wait.

Mazowski’s Tire Center.  I’m just having fun.  You make some up.  

 

Is this better "Pharmacy Chica"?

Two Technicians discussing a doctor’s handwriting

In the wordsof Ben Franklin, RPh, "The Pharmacist in Vegas who doesn't have babes for Techs is an Idiot."

Two Tecnicians discussing the patient wearing a heavy gold Italian horn on a thick gold chain nestled in his chest hair. Tipping the Technician with a $100 chip from Caesar’s.  Only in Vegas.

Who Cares How Much They Charge?

We get paid no matter what…. so Wal-Mart can charge whatever they want.  Publix can give away antibiotics.  Giant Eagle can hand out free metformin and glyburide XL.

Our value to the patient and to the company will be our professionalism.  Essentially all forms of counseling.

That is good.  Pharmacists need to separate themselves from the filling process and therefore from the price of the commodity.  I like that. 

Now, let’s freak out some of you who still have dreams of Masters of The Universe, Scions of industry, a second house in Barbados.  How about we have the government buy all of the drugs.  They could drive some hard mother-effing deals. 

Our techs prepare the prescriptions.  We dispense and counsel.  Total fee of $20.00 per Rx.  I pulled that out of the hat.  200 Rx a day.

$4000.00 a day to pay the pharmacists, techs and overhead.  The playing field would be leveled and most of you would be scrambling to get into your own place where you know you could out-service the big boys in a minute.

The big boys would then raise wages to stay in the game.

Call it socialized pharmacy.  I call it win win.

Get real, Plagakis.  Okay.  Give it all away. Just let me counsel and pay me every two weeks.

 

 

This is a Fucking Disgrace!

It is time for pharmacists to strand up and say "NO". Give your Giant Eagle brothers and sisters your support.

 Hey JP. Thought you might be interested in the latest and greatest gimmick to come to pharmacy, FREE diabetic meds. Check out the link: http://www.gianteagle.com/pharmacy/home Giant Eagle is a large, very profitable, very high rx volume regional grocery chain based out of Pittsburgh, Pa. I live and work very near to quite a few of their larger stores and can quite honestly say that this could be a MAJOR turning point for pharmacy in PA, OH, WV and, eventually, other areas. Programs like these are why I cannot share in your unbridled optimism as to the future of the profession. Let me know what you think.

 

                                     Pharmacyslave2000 

Thank you, Pharmacyslave for the heads up.   Back when Wal-Mart came up with the $4.00 professional humiliation, the pharmacist at Wal-Mart were ambushed.  They had a chance in Florida to stop it, but they just went on willy nilly.

Then Publix Grocery Stores said, “Hey, let’s give antibiotics away free.”  Again the pharmacists were ambushed.  They stood there like deer in the headlights.  The same at Meier.  Then Giant Eagle.

Do you notice that these are not drug store companies.  The brains are certainly not pharmacists.  They do not give a shit about you or the profession that you spent years preparing yourself for.  The brains are mostly likely not as smart as you.

There is NO DIGNITY in this.  The pharmacists who allow it can’t possibly hold onto golden self-respect.  Where is the professional integrity? 

Now, with this…DIABETIC MEDS FOR FREE…. All three, dignity, self-respect & integrity, are in the Giant Eagle toilet.

This time you see it coming.  No ambush this time.  They are jerking your chain and laughing at you.  “These assholes aren’t gonna say word ONE about this.  We’ll fire a couple of them and that’ll be it.”

Not if five of you take a stand.  Watch them line up behind you.  Could be the start of a guild.  Now, that will scare the Eagle.

I urge all Giant Eagle pharmacists to start taking back our profession today.  Refuse to give away your services.  You provide a valuable professional service.  Giving it away devalues it.  Perception is everything in the 21 st Century.   Unfortunately. many of our patients are trash.  You give it away, your service becomes a piece of shit and you become a “Hey you, Pharmist.  Where are da garden hoses on sale?”

I can’t wait until Pennsylvania and Ohio force you to counsel according to the law as they are in Texas.  All of a sudden, overhead goes up and when you have to spend too much time with an illiterate, dull knife on her Amoxicillin Rx that you are giving away for $0.00.

What will Giant Eagle do then?  Tell you Eagleaires to “suck it up”?

This is your time.  Evil can only flourish when good people keep silent.

Free prescriptions are evil.

Definition:  Evil.  Profoundly immoral or wrong.

Jay Pee!

8-5-2010

I don’t always agree with Peon, but I think he has nailed it in his comments.