Amazon with there automation could possibly offer 4 dollar generics at 30 day supply with free delivery with Amazon prime. Based on articles I have read they want to model themselves after the Costco mail order pharmacy and do cash for generics for mail. Automation at mail orders such as Costco , 2 pharmacist can fill 20,000 rx in a 8 hour shift with the help of 3 technicians. Most mail orders buy big bottles of generics at 5-20 dollars for 500 to 1000 tablets such at HCTZ or Atenolol.(prices on amerisourcebergen and cardinal health do not reflect direct prices from vendors) If a pharmacist makes 60 an hour and techs make 20 an hour. The cost of 1 rx comes to 0.20 to 0.80 a bottle. Shipping fees will be at 1 dollar a bottle based on amazon/usps deal. Roughly a profit of 2 a bottle. If amazon goes national with this, I estimate 1,000,000 bottles a day. That could wipe out a huge portion of jobs. Based on millennials preferring stuff mailed with no human contact this might be the future.
Amazon is going into the pharmacy business?
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You expect a pharmacist to check 1250 rx/hr or 21 rxs/60 seconds? Math, do you speak it?
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And if Amazon goes into pharmacy, our profession will truly become a joke. The new motto won't be CVS and Walgreens destroyed the profession, but instead, "Amazon destroyed the profession". It will make our profession into a laughing stock. Fill as many HCTZ bottles per hour as fast as possible. Free shipping. No human interaction. No pharmacist-patient relationship. Amazon pharmacy = McDonald's pharmacy. Anybody pushing for Amazon pharmacy just wants McDonald's pharmacy. It will make CVS look like the good old days of pharmacy when you could talk to your patients at a consultation window.
Millennials DON'T prefer no human contact by the way. I want human contact when I go to the doctor, when I go to a pharmacy, when I don't know what I'm talking about. Other than doctors, nurses, and pharmacists, people don't know jack shi* about drugs. What they read on the internet to make them an "expert" doesn't make them an expert. I even want human contact when I'm at the grocery store and check out my items. Where I DON'T want human contact is when I am on line at the grocery store and there is someone with 100 items and giving the lady at the register a problem because his or her coupon for 50 cents isn't going through, and a manager needs to be called.
Amazon is horrible. It will eventually become one of these companies that rule the world, and every aspect of our life goes through the Amazon ecosystem. No thanks. This isn't 1984 or anything like that. I loved Amazon when it first came out because it came up with an original idea. Now it is going into other industries and destroying them using it's buying power. I'm anti-Amazon now. Don't like it.
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What is this a business plan for twenty to thirty years from now? Millennials don't get maintenance medications they get acute treatment for their kids. The ones that do get medications, pick up their thirty day supply every fifty days when their wife forces them to and don't want a new shipment coming every 27 days. I can't count the amount of times I get told oh I still have three bottles of that at home when the doctor accidentally sends it to me.
The $4 list and mail order already exists, why would this change anything? No current pharmacist needs to worry about amazon. There's a reason why the big chains don't care about Millennials, that's not where the money is at currently and will adapt if needed.
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And, millennials now in 30 years will be 50 to 60 years old. Their entire mindset and life changes. They will want the human interaction at that age.
Amazon has been an awesome company and successful as well. One of Amazon's goal is to copycat the Costco generic drug mail order system. If that happens, then like the malls, pharmacies will begin to decline. If anyone is to takes Costco's generic for cash to the next level it will be Amazon, since they already have the warehouse space, the computer programmers to do it, the expertise in automation and a huge customer service department by phone.
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That is not exactly reinventing the wheel here.
If you have insurance (most people now under Obamacare) and therefore, deductions, don't you want the pharmacy to run your meds thru your insurance so you can pay off your deductions? Plus, a pharmacy can't decide to dispense only generics. They have to dispense other medications as well.
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You actually have a very good point but Costco is doing this and they have no issues with this business model. Also, they are members only, I believe Amazon probably will not be but with Prime likely free delivery. They will probably start out with this plan first. If it does succeed expect them to go into the brick and mortar and offer mail on the side. I think with a combination of brick and mortar and same day delivery it will compete well vs CVS/WAGS. When you go buy a hard to find drug as CVS they tell you to return tomorrow, but with Amazon they can just same day it.
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Why not? There is no law saying that a pharmacy must dispense all meds. There are plenty of ones that pick and choose (Specialty-only, inpatient-only, compounded-only). Why not "generic-only?"
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If you tie any part of the service to Prime, you have to be aware of the Stark Act. You automatically disqualify a huge population. A population which tends to have more prescriptions.
Mail order pharmacy is the only area of pharmacy which has seen declines. They make their money on speciality medications. Most people don't like mail order pharmacy.
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Hi back from my rant last year sorry I just felt passionate about the future of pharmacy. Doing well in school just went through Spring Semester 3.6GPA.
This topic is interesting to me. I have a different opinion for you all. The awfulness of Amazon IS legendary but the cushiness of tech jobs also is. For experts the amount of benefits at other places such as Google or Facebook is absurd. Imagine getting off lunch break, you feel buzzed because it was Craft Beer Thursday. You developed a big crick in your neck because of all the orders you needed to approve at CVS and fill but its okay India has a new industry, the pharmacy assistant. You don't have to care about filling anymore. You think back to how awful your life was at CVS doing a 30 hour a week job with low benefits, and screaming homeless and elderly begging for drugs every day. You do this while waiting for your personal masseuse to come up to your office. You now make 160K cash+benefits at your workplace in downtown Seattle/San Francisco/Dubai or whatever. Your workplace is now a giant campus without cubicles, any time you have a question about a medication you can easily go to other qualified pharmacists who will be happy to discuss it with you. Oh right, should have talked to Sanjaya she has a PhD in pharmacology too. Finally the collegiality you have always wanted has returned. You are expected to fulfill hundreds of orders per day but thankfully Amazon's computer science experts created a powerful business enterprise system so that you have the ability to look up patient records and any drug they had taken along with helpful notes as to potential medications to replace with if you disagree with the doctors call.
People will trust your judgement because hell, its Amazon baby. They are flawless. Better hurry though you still need to fulfill 200 more orders or Bezos will lay down upon you his merciless wrath.
Now the profession has taken on a more clinical and mechanical approach. People will rarely ever see a Pharmacist in real life, it will be a lot like Librarian where relatively 90% of everyone seen by the public at a library are just technicians and aides. Some Pharmacists will quit their job because they need patient contact. Many will flourish and feel more satisfied than ever.
In the end Pharmacists at Amazon are not factory workers or no-skill replacable widgets. They are needed to create profits and sell more drugs. They are needed to ensure customer satisfaction. Therefore, IMO Pharmacists will be treated as experts in their field and paid accordingly and treated with care and respect, showering them with the benefits Silicon Valley is known for and making a new standard for other online pharmacies to follow.
Who knows who will be right? Hopefully I will be because I'd love to work in my dream pharmacy.
This topic is interesting to me. I have a different opinion for you all. The awfulness of Amazon IS legendary but the cushiness of tech jobs also is. For experts the amount of benefits at other places such as Google or Facebook is absurd. Imagine getting off lunch break, you feel buzzed because it was Craft Beer Thursday. You developed a big crick in your neck because of all the orders you needed to approve at CVS and fill but its okay India has a new industry, the pharmacy assistant. You don't have to care about filling anymore. You think back to how awful your life was at CVS doing a 30 hour a week job with low benefits, and screaming homeless and elderly begging for drugs every day. You do this while waiting for your personal masseuse to come up to your office. You now make 160K cash+benefits at your workplace in downtown Seattle/San Francisco/Dubai or whatever. Your workplace is now a giant campus without cubicles, any time you have a question about a medication you can easily go to other qualified pharmacists who will be happy to discuss it with you. Oh right, should have talked to Sanjaya she has a PhD in pharmacology too. Finally the collegiality you have always wanted has returned. You are expected to fulfill hundreds of orders per day but thankfully Amazon's computer science experts created a powerful business enterprise system so that you have the ability to look up patient records and any drug they had taken along with helpful notes as to potential medications to replace with if you disagree with the doctors call.
People will trust your judgement because hell, its Amazon baby. They are flawless. Better hurry though you still need to fulfill 200 more orders or Bezos will lay down upon you his merciless wrath.
Now the profession has taken on a more clinical and mechanical approach. People will rarely ever see a Pharmacist in real life, it will be a lot like Librarian where relatively 90% of everyone seen by the public at a library are just technicians and aides. Some Pharmacists will quit their job because they need patient contact. Many will flourish and feel more satisfied than ever.
In the end Pharmacists at Amazon are not factory workers or no-skill replacable widgets. They are needed to create profits and sell more drugs. They are needed to ensure customer satisfaction. Therefore, IMO Pharmacists will be treated as experts in their field and paid accordingly and treated with care and respect, showering them with the benefits Silicon Valley is known for and making a new standard for other online pharmacies to follow.
Who knows who will be right? Hopefully I will be because I'd love to work in my dream pharmacy.
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Too much Kool aid for sure...Hi back from my rant last year sorry I just felt passionate about the future of pharmacy. Doing well in school just went through Spring Semester 3.6GPA.
This topic is interesting to me. I have a different opinion for you all. The awfulness of Amazon IS legendary but the cushiness of tech jobs also is. For experts the amount of benefits at other places such as Google or Facebook is absurd. Imagine getting off lunch break, you feel buzzed because it was Craft Beer Thursday. You developed a big crick in your neck because of all the orders you needed to approve at CVS and fill but its okay India has a new industry, the pharmacy assistant. You don't have to care about filling anymore. You think back to how awful your life was at CVS doing a 30 hour a week job with low benefits, and screaming homeless and elderly begging for drugs every day. You do this while waiting for your personal masseuse to come up to your office. You now make 160K cash+benefits at your workplace in downtown Seattle/San Francisco/Dubai or whatever. Your workplace is now a giant campus without cubicles, any time you have a question about a medication you can easily go to other qualified pharmacists who will be happy to discuss it with you. Oh right, should have talked to Sanjaya she has a PhD in pharmacology too. Finally the collegiality you have always wanted has returned. You are expected to fulfill hundreds of orders per day but thankfully Amazon's computer science experts created a powerful business enterprise system so that you have the ability to look up patient records and any drug they had taken along with helpful notes as to potential medications to replace with if you disagree with the doctors call.
People will trust your judgement because hell, its Amazon baby. They are flawless. Better hurry though you still need to fulfill 200 more orders or Bezos will lay down upon you his merciless wrath.
Now the profession has taken on a more clinical and mechanical approach. People will rarely ever see a Pharmacist in real life, it will be a lot like Librarian where relatively 90% of everyone seen by the public at a library are just technicians and aides. Some Pharmacists will quit their job because they need patient contact. Many will flourish and feel more satisfied than ever.
In the end Pharmacists at Amazon are not factory workers or no-skill replacable widgets. They are needed to create profits and sell more drugs. They are needed to ensure customer satisfaction. Therefore, IMO Pharmacists will be treated as experts in their field and paid accordingly and treated with care and respect, showering them with the benefits Silicon Valley is known for and making a new standard for other online pharmacies to follow.
Who knows who will be right? Hopefully I will be because I'd love to work in my dream pharmacy.
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What is the market share of Costco mail order? I expect it to be pretty small. Doesn't that say something about this type of business model?
I don't know what is the big deal about same day delivery. Is that all Amazon going to offer? Amazon got into the grocery business like 20 years. It ended up buying Whole Food because people don't want their fresh grocery in a box on their the porch while it is being baked in the sun. Same thing with medications. People want to go to the pharmacy and pick up their medications. They don't want to wait and get it from their mailman.
You are also talking about cheap generic drugs here so the profit margin is already thin. Can you imagine the cost of shipping these drugs plus ice to keep them cool?
Amazon has been great at setting up the infrastructure for other businesses to sell their own product. But when they start to sell their own product, it is a different game. Are they going to be as generous? Are they willing to take a hit when Mrs Jones doesn't like the blue lisinopril tablets?
If all Amazon going to do is offer same day delivery then it is not a game changer. That is something the mail order can set up too but they are not going to because delivery cost would kill their margins. Same thing would happen to Amazon. In addition, Amazon would need to add hundreds, perhaps even thousands of pharmacies for them to offer same day delivery.
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Some pharmacies get away with it because their location is in an industry park or on the 8th floor of a building. But if a patient somehow find their pharmacy and want his viagra fill, then the pharmacy would have to. This makes sense or the pharmacy can selectively decide what medications to dispense based on their profit margin.
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I guess the next question to ask is how feasible will Amazon be if they decide to buy RAD at a reasonable 3 Bil market cap. Amazon could contract with a major insurer and provide mail order services and also have brick and mortar if they acquire RAD. With brick and mortar pharmacies in RAD and whole foods, I can see them pushing your future refills with auto mail order. It happens now where a person has a plan that only allows the first fill at a local pharmacy and must get refills through mail order. It makes sense as most insurance companies are looking for reduce their reimbursement on drugs and this is done by utilizing mail order which has a lower cost per prescription dramatically. I can also see a future where Alexa is giving out recommendations for OTC and aiding in customers simple pharmacy questions. Your thoughts?
Since mail order has been proven cheaper but unliked by the masses, why not start thinking about charging dispensing fees to customers for in store pick up? If you offer a service that people prefer over one with lower input costs why not charge for it and see how it plays?
And just for the
The shakeout has to happen and what has value and what doesn't has to be allowed to play out. Let chips then fall where they may.
And just for the record I mean this from a philosophical standpoint not practical. This race to the bottom has led to too many things of value to be given away for free. I work overnight and I am the only retail rph (And sole employee mostly) working in 2 1/2 counties. I answer all sorts of questions on the phone and in store for free. Can I call a lawyer or nurse or plumber and immediately get free advice? Nope. Last night I filled 7 prescriptions for an AARP Medicare D member and between copay and plan reimbursement I think we got around $11. Filled, billed and counseled in 15 minutes where there was no other place to go and they sat in there air conditioned car at the drive thru waiting... $11. And then add on the adherence calls that have to be made on those prescriptions per CMS.
The shakeout has to happen and what has value and what doesn't has to be allowed to play out. Let chips then fall where they may.
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Varies by state. But they have the resources to set up in whichever state allows it.
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I agree with those who said this this isn't a "game changer" BUT will def hurt the profession and amazon will gain some market share of maintenance meds and hurt our profession. Can't wait to hear customer bitching to CVS that amazon prices are way cheaper, like they do with costco prices...
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Hi back from my rant last year sorry I just felt passionate about the future of pharmacy. Doing well in school just went through Spring Semester 3.6GPA.
This topic is interesting to me. I have a different opinion for you all. The awfulness of Amazon IS legendary but the cushiness of tech jobs also is. For experts the amount of benefits at other places such as Google or Facebook is absurd. Imagine getting off lunch break, you feel buzzed because it was Craft Beer Thursday. You developed a big crick in your neck because of all the orders you needed to approve at CVS and fill but its okay India has a new industry, the pharmacy assistant. You don't have to care about filling anymore. You think back to how awful your life was at CVS doing a 30 hour a week job with low benefits, and screaming homeless and elderly begging for drugs every day. You do this while waiting for your personal masseuse to come up to your office. You now make 160K cash+benefits at your workplace in downtown Seattle/San Francisco/Dubai or whatever. Your workplace is now a giant campus without cubicles, any time you have a question about a medication you can easily go to other qualified pharmacists who will be happy to discuss it with you. Oh right, should have talked to Sanjaya she has a PhD in pharmacology too. Finally the collegiality you have always wanted has returned. You are expected to fulfill hundreds of orders per day but thankfully Amazon's computer science experts created a powerful business enterprise system so that you have the ability to look up patient records and any drug they had taken along with helpful notes as to potential medications to replace with if you disagree with the doctors call.
People will trust your judgement because hell, its Amazon baby. They are flawless. Better hurry though you still need to fulfill 200 more orders or Bezos will lay down upon you his merciless wrath.
Now the profession has taken on a more clinical and mechanical approach. People will rarely ever see a Pharmacist in real life, it will be a lot like Librarian where relatively 90% of everyone seen by the public at a library are just technicians and aides. Some Pharmacists will quit their job because they need patient contact. Many will flourish and feel more satisfied than ever.
In the end Pharmacists at Amazon are not factory workers or no-skill replacable widgets. They are needed to create profits and sell more drugs. They are needed to ensure customer satisfaction. Therefore, IMO Pharmacists will be treated as experts in their field and paid accordingly and treated with care and respect, showering them with the benefits Silicon Valley is known for and making a new standard for other online pharmacies to follow.
Who knows who will be right? Hopefully I will be because I'd love to work in my dream pharmacy.
What the f*ck are you talking about? You have to be kidding me..
And drinking beer at work isn't a perk. It's fu*king stupid, especially if you are a pharmacist.
Hi back from my rant last year sorry I just felt passionate about the future of pharmacy. Doing well in school just went through Spring Semester 3.6GPA.
This topic is interesting to me. I have a different opinion for you all. The awfulness of Amazon IS legendary but the cushiness of tech jobs also is. For experts the amount of benefits at other places such as Google or Facebook is absurd. Imagine getting off lunch break, you feel buzzed because it was Craft Beer Thursday. You developed a big crick in your neck because of all the orders you needed to approve at CVS and fill but its okay India has a new industry, the pharmacy assistant. You don't have to care about filling anymore. You think back to how awful your life was at CVS doing a 30 hour a week job with low benefits, and screaming homeless and elderly begging for drugs every day. You do this while waiting for your personal masseuse to come up to your office. You now make 160K cash+benefits at your workplace in downtown Seattle/San Francisco/Dubai or whatever. Your workplace is now a giant campus without cubicles, any time you have a question about a medication you can easily go to other qualified pharmacists who will be happy to discuss it with you. Oh right, should have talked to Sanjaya she has a PhD in pharmacology too. Finally the collegiality you have always wanted has returned. You are expected to fulfill hundreds of orders per day but thankfully Amazon's computer science experts created a powerful business enterprise system so that you have the ability to look up patient records and any drug they had taken along with helpful notes as to potential medications to replace with if you disagree with the doctors call.
People will trust your judgement because hell, its Amazon baby. They are flawless. Better hurry though you still need to fulfill 200 more orders or Bezos will lay down upon you his merciless wrath.
Now the profession has taken on a more clinical and mechanical approach. People will rarely ever see a Pharmacist in real life, it will be a lot like Librarian where relatively 90% of everyone seen by the public at a library are just technicians and aides. Some Pharmacists will quit their job because they need patient contact. Many will flourish and feel more satisfied than ever.
In the end Pharmacists at Amazon are not factory workers or no-skill replacable widgets. They are needed to create profits and sell more drugs. They are needed to ensure customer satisfaction. Therefore, IMO Pharmacists will be treated as experts in their field and paid accordingly and treated with care and respect, showering them with the benefits Silicon Valley is known for and making a new standard for other online pharmacies to follow.
Who knows who will be right? Hopefully I will be because I'd love to work in my dream pharmacy.
Sorry, but that special type of treatment is only reserved for software engineers and developers to retain talent, as there is actually a shortage of these professionals in the job market. Pharmacists have become a dime a dozen and will work under assembly line conditions with quotas to meet. Just look at how Amazon treats its warehouse employees.
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Goldman Sachs breaks down how Amazon can jump into health care
Goldman Sachs breaks down how Amazon can jump into health care
We are screwed. You Walgreens and CVS guys need to get ready to add the Amazon logo to your white coat. Amazon Pharmacy will make current CVS work conditions look like heaven.
Goldman Sachs breaks down how Amazon can jump into health care
We are screwed. You Walgreens and CVS guys need to get ready to add the Amazon logo to your white coat. Amazon Pharmacy will make current CVS work conditions look like heaven.
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Pharmacy is highly regulated, and there are a lot of barriers to entry. Amazon is a joke. I appreciate what they want to do with tele-medicine and EMRs, but they are not going to do anything new or amazing with prescription medications. They are going to do the same shi* as CVS and Walgreens. That's it. If anything, they will destroy the profession even more. Pharmacy is more than just distributing medication; it's about working with local doctors and health care providers, monitoring patient treatment and compliance, and being a reliable source of health care information for the community. Amazon is not going to provide any of those things. Finally, again, I don't know how many times I have to say this, but old people are not going to use Amazon. They want to go to their local pharmacy. And young people, when they get old, don't give a shi* about online delivery. They, too, will want to go to their local pharmacy. You need the human interaction. You people freak out too much like every day is the end of the world.
And Goldman Sachs are a bunch of fu*king idiots. Once highly respected, I don't give a shi* or don't even trust any of the garbage they put out anymore. How many times can they be dead wrong over and over again? It's like people are just blind or forget.
And Goldman Sachs are a bunch of fu*king idiots. Once highly respected, I don't give a shi* or don't even trust any of the garbage they put out anymore. How many times can they be dead wrong over and over again? It's like people are just blind or forget.
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I agree with you that human interaction and our roles as health care providers is hard to replace. However, just like mail order, Amazon can take a share of our business. There will be those who want or accepting of receiving meds by mail. To each their own, which is why I think it will further reduce job opportunities for retail rph, which is the Majority of our profession.
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I use mail order for my meds. Waiting in line at a retail pharmacy is a waste of my time. For some patients the face time with the pharmacist is good but in my experience, the majority of patients get very little meaningful time with retail pharmacists.
Hi back from my rant last year sorry I just felt passionate about the future of pharmacy. Doing well in school just went through Spring Semester 3.6GPA.
This topic is interesting to me. I have a different opinion for you all. The awfulness of Amazon IS legendary but the cushiness of tech jobs also is. For experts the amount of benefits at other places such as Google or Facebook is absurd. Imagine getting off lunch break, you feel buzzed because it was Craft Beer Thursday. You developed a big crick in your neck because of all the orders you needed to approve at CVS and fill but its okay India has a new industry, the pharmacy assistant. You don't have to care about filling anymore. You think back to how awful your life was at CVS doing a 30 hour a week job with low benefits, and screaming homeless and elderly begging for drugs every day. You do this while waiting for your personal masseuse to come up to your office. You now make 160K cash+benefits at your workplace in downtown Seattle/San Francisco/Dubai or whatever. Your workplace is now a giant campus without cubicles, any time you have a question about a medication you can easily go to other qualified pharmacists who will be happy to discuss it with you. Oh right, should have talked to Sanjaya she has a PhD in pharmacology too. Finally the collegiality you have always wanted has returned. You are expected to fulfill hundreds of orders per day but thankfully Amazon's computer science experts created a powerful business enterprise system so that you have the ability to look up patient records and any drug they had taken along with helpful notes as to potential medications to replace with if you disagree with the doctors call.
People will trust your judgement because hell, its Amazon baby. They are flawless. Better hurry though you still need to fulfill 200 more orders or Bezos will lay down upon you his merciless wrath.
Now the profession has taken on a more clinical and mechanical approach. People will rarely ever see a Pharmacist in real life, it will be a lot like Librarian where relatively 90% of everyone seen by the public at a library are just technicians and aides. Some Pharmacists will quit their job because they need patient contact. Many will flourish and feel more satisfied than ever.
In the end Pharmacists at Amazon are not factory workers or no-skill replacable widgets. They are needed to create profits and sell more drugs. They are needed to ensure customer satisfaction. Therefore, IMO Pharmacists will be treated as experts in their field and paid accordingly and treated with care and respect, showering them with the benefits Silicon Valley is known for and making a new standard for other online pharmacies to follow.
Who knows who will be right? Hopefully I will be because I'd love to work in my dream pharmacy.
At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
In all seriousness, you can't honestly believe this could be a possibility. Even assuming that this did happen, how many of these beer-drinking, 160k/yr, clinical jobs do you think are going to exist? If you think this is the direction that this field is going I'd say you haven't been paying attention.
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Hi back from my rant last year sorry I just felt passionate about the future of pharmacy. Doing well in school just went through Spring Semester 3.6GPA.
This topic is interesting to me. I have a different opinion for you all. The awfulness of Amazon IS legendary but the cushiness of tech jobs also is. For experts the amount of benefits at other places such as Google or Facebook is absurd. Imagine getting off lunch break, you feel buzzed because it was Craft Beer Thursday. You developed a big crick in your neck because of all the orders you needed to approve at CVS and fill but its okay India has a new industry, the pharmacy assistant. You don't have to care about filling anymore. You think back to how awful your life was at CVS doing a 30 hour a week job with low benefits, and screaming homeless and elderly begging for drugs every day. You do this while waiting for your personal masseuse to come up to your office. You now make 160K cash+benefits at your workplace in downtown Seattle/San Francisco/Dubai or whatever. Your workplace is now a giant campus without cubicles, any time you have a question about a medication you can easily go to other qualified pharmacists who will be happy to discuss it with you. Oh right, should have talked to Sanjaya she has a PhD in pharmacology too. Finally the collegiality you have always wanted has returned. You are expected to fulfill hundreds of orders per day but thankfully Amazon's computer science experts created a powerful business enterprise system so that you have the ability to look up patient records and any drug they had taken along with helpful notes as to potential medications to replace with if you disagree with the doctors call.
People will trust your judgement because hell, its Amazon baby. They are flawless. Better hurry though you still need to fulfill 200 more orders or Bezos will lay down upon you his merciless wrath.
Now the profession has taken on a more clinical and mechanical approach. People will rarely ever see a Pharmacist in real life, it will be a lot like Librarian where relatively 90% of everyone seen by the public at a library are just technicians and aides. Some Pharmacists will quit their job because they need patient contact. Many will flourish and feel more satisfied than ever.
In the end Pharmacists at Amazon are not factory workers or no-skill replacable widgets. They are needed to create profits and sell more drugs. They are needed to ensure customer satisfaction. Therefore, IMO Pharmacists will be treated as experts in their field and paid accordingly and treated with care and respect, showering them with the benefits Silicon Valley is known for and making a new standard for other online pharmacies to follow.
Who knows who will be right? Hopefully I will be because I'd love to work in my dream pharmacy.
LMAO! You realize that 99.9% of all pharmacists perform non-billable work, right? Engineers and developers create products that generate sales and profits. Every hour that they work on a project gets billed to the client, usually at 3x their hourly rate. For example, an engineer gets paid $50/hr, the client gets billed $150/hr, and the employer keeps the rest. That's why tech companies can afford all these perks for their employees so easily. Pharmacists, on the other hand, are OVERHEAD. Corporate views pharmacists only as a business expense just like a McDonalds employee, except at 5-6x the cost. Not to mention, only a few in the world have the skills to work at Google whereas anyone these days can become a pharmacist.
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Based on all the news surrounding Amazon lately, it seems apparent that the company is seriously considering entry into the Pharmacy business. Whether Amazon will go or not go into the pharmacy business I think is not a matter of 'if' as it is more a matter of 'when'. The company has repeatedly looked for large industries to disrupt and in my opinion the pharmaceutical industry fits the mold perfectly.
So my question goes out to all the existing pharmacists - Where do you see the role of pharmacists if Amazon were to invade the pharmacy industry?
Since I'm not a pharmacist myself, I can't answer that question as I don't know ALL the duties and responsibilities a pharmacist performs. (Someone please tell me what verifying Rxs means?) But I would assume everything that a pharmacist does can be automated (no disrespect) leaving a vast majority of existing pharmacists in retail unemployed?
The way I look at it is this: AmazonRx enters the world. CVS and Walgreens try to hold on but eventually go under as they don't have the delivery infrastructure in place to provide delivery in 24-48hours. AmazonRx crushes CVS and Walgreens as its main competitors, forcing their pharmacy to close. Retail pharmacists working there become unemployed.
Sure AmazonRx will need some pharmacists but no where near the numbers employed by the CVS/Wags today. AmazonRx will probably role out automation (robots) to their fulfillment centers and employ only a handful to abide by Rx laws that a pharmacists must be onsite to dispense (Don't know the law exactly correct me if I'm wrong). Then they'll probably hire another handful to provide mobile Rx counseling.
So the way I see this pharmacist field is once Amazon makes its entry into the Pharmacy business, there goes the profession into the grave, as automation will be the norm. Its a sad doom and gloom assessment but someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
I've been accepted into a pharmacy school and have been deliberating heavily on whether I should go or not. I like the science behind it and respect the profession hence why I applied in the first place. However, it just seems so so SO RISKY to go in debt 200K+ come out to an established saturated market with an impending entry from Amazon to be the final straw that broke the camels back taking the profession and the majority of retail positions into the grave.
So my question goes out to all the existing pharmacists - Where do you see the role of pharmacists if Amazon were to invade the pharmacy industry?
Since I'm not a pharmacist myself, I can't answer that question as I don't know ALL the duties and responsibilities a pharmacist performs. (Someone please tell me what verifying Rxs means?) But I would assume everything that a pharmacist does can be automated (no disrespect) leaving a vast majority of existing pharmacists in retail unemployed?
The way I look at it is this: AmazonRx enters the world. CVS and Walgreens try to hold on but eventually go under as they don't have the delivery infrastructure in place to provide delivery in 24-48hours. AmazonRx crushes CVS and Walgreens as its main competitors, forcing their pharmacy to close. Retail pharmacists working there become unemployed.
Sure AmazonRx will need some pharmacists but no where near the numbers employed by the CVS/Wags today. AmazonRx will probably role out automation (robots) to their fulfillment centers and employ only a handful to abide by Rx laws that a pharmacists must be onsite to dispense (Don't know the law exactly correct me if I'm wrong). Then they'll probably hire another handful to provide mobile Rx counseling.
So the way I see this pharmacist field is once Amazon makes its entry into the Pharmacy business, there goes the profession into the grave, as automation will be the norm. Its a sad doom and gloom assessment but someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
I've been accepted into a pharmacy school and have been deliberating heavily on whether I should go or not. I like the science behind it and respect the profession hence why I applied in the first place. However, it just seems so so SO RISKY to go in debt 200K+ come out to an established saturated market with an impending entry from Amazon to be the final straw that broke the camels back taking the profession and the majority of retail positions into the grave.
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Stopped reading after this. Every job can be automated, including mds. Please don't create an account to belittle our profession.
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As I said elsewhere, the thinking is too limited, and also, Amazon is the anti-Google in terms of a corporate environment. It's not a pleasant place to work. For it's major stars, I would liken it to a law firm where there's some minor perks but not major ones (and even Google has cut down on some of the more outrageous perks).
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Now looks pretty good, picked some up under 950. Might buy more if it drops that far again. It's been stuck in this range for months now. Time for another push up.
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It was not my intent to come off as belittling the profession. I am only trying to understand what Amazons entry into the pharmacy business would mean for existing retail pharmacist. I actually praise the profession, am frustrated by the current saturation, saddened by the greed possessed by the schools and associations, and overwhelmed by the decision to spend 200k+ and 5 years of academia to BECOME a pharmacist. So belittling was not on my agenda!
It seems to be that Amazons entry into the pharmacy space would cause a mass unemployment for the existing Retail pharmacists at CVS or Walgreens. Wouldn't you agree?
You make a valid point that every job can be automated....but the question is WHEN! For the field of pharmacy, automation on a full scale is more imminent versus automation for an MD., hence why Amazon is interested in it in the first place.
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The same question could have been asked 17 years ago when I first started. Guess what, it hasn't. You can't just pick a profession and say, automate it. There are laws in place and Amazon can't just magically change them.
What exactly do the think a family practitioner does that can't be automated?
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You get paid a salary right? So you get paid to answer questions...
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Did you intentionally ignore theb explicitly stated and intended message of that post?
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"I don't believe in immunizations, foreign chemicals entering my body through medicines, or unnatural therapies (however, takes Xanax, Ambien, and Adderall). Are all your meds gluten free? What isle has the ayurvedic healing crystals and Chinese herbal remedies?"
owlegrad
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owlegrad
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So I can call your office and get free advice? Since you "get paid a salary"?
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I dont get a salary. I work for myself. I only get paid when I work.
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So you are kind of like a pharmacist operating an independent pharmacy (except for the fact that you get compensated for the services that you provide). I see patients for medication counseling and follow up at the clinic I’m practicing out of, but it is difficult to bill for the services that I am providing. Pharmacists need the ability to bill insurance for services provided in order to make those services more accessible to patients. My salary is justified because of the other job functions I perform, but a lot of clinics can’t afford a pharmacist because insurance won’t pay for pharmacist services. Provider status is not an expansion of scope of practice, it just allows pharmacists to bill insurance for certain services that we are already providing.
owlegrad
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You pay yourself a salary, therefore you should answer questions for free. I guess? I didn't really understand your point about getting paid a salary and why that obligates answering questions for free.
Just FYI, I also only get paid when I work. I think that applies to virtually everyone on this board.
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Let's not forget this guy prescribes based on what coupons drug reps give him.
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You clearly missed the point. The topic was about no compensation for work provided to the business which in turn is killing the industry of retail pharmacy for everyone.
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Do you think a doctor's office should be billing a patient after they force them to come in just to get refills?
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Apples and oranges
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Just curious
