CVS Fined for Prescription Errors and Poor Staffing at Pharmacies

[rickyroxy]

CVS Fined for Prescription Errors and Poor Staffing at Pharmacies (Published 2020)

Regulators faulted four locations in Oklahoma, a rare action that followed complaints at drugstore chains across the country.

www.nytimes.com

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[Xenophylia]

"No retaliation..." Yeah right. I'm sure CVS cleaned house in those stores....

 

[PromisedNeverland]

Nice now there are 4 more job opening for pharmacist in OK

 

[Prepharm1214]

22% error rate what

 

[owlegrad]

I think my favorite line was the one about the investigator noting a computer screen that showed over 99 prescriptions that needed to be filled and over 99 calls that needed to be made.

Sounds like a very slow CVS to me.

 

[ancienbon]

I think my favorite line was the one about the investigator noting a computer screen that showed over 99 prescriptions that needed to be filled and over 99 calls that needed to be made.

Sounds like a very slow CVS to me.

99 + means it could be over 80 pages tou! . The computer reports anything over 7 pages behind as 99+

 

[Xenophylia]

One state taking things a "little" seriously isn't much of a victory....and that fine is a complete joke. I'm surprised it wasn't the pharmacists themselves who were fined...

 

[RxPreceptor]

What else is new? Typical corporate response - says they will do a lot of things but clearly lacking in the whole action department. Corporate: words >>> actions. Claiming metrics have been cut back is flat out ridiculous

I bet DM's plan is having PICs create action plans addressing (F'ing adult homework) situation one-on-one with all employees via one on one sit downs/interviews all off the clock in elaborate detail and typed up in word on PIC's own time....all fluff work with no one caring to address the main issue: chronic understaffing/"skeleton scheduling" with constantly changing and higher company metrics to meet just to keep the same allotted hours. Squeeze every penny ><

 

[WVUPharm2007]

Corporate will say one thing. Middle management will say another. That's how they do it.

 

[Sine Cura]

Written off as the cost of doing business

 

[Xenophylia]

Yeah I doubt CVS would even flinch at that error rate... Just more evidence their metrics and distractions are working to make the place a living hell for their pharmacists. Mission accomplished. Merlo gets an extra milliion next year....

 

[PharmDBro2017]

Some very significant errors noted in this article.

It's sad that CVS refuses to staff stores appropriately and continues to endanger public health.

 

[Momus]

The DM who spoke out got fired too lmao. Why am I not surprised?

She found a better job at VA.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-j-dixon-a1819855

 

[BenJammin]

Nothing says taking care of business quite like fining pharmacists tens of thousands of dollars because they were thrown into situations over which they had no control. If you work for CVS you are insane. Quit now.

 

[sfachine]

I dont know the stats but I have not known of any retail error causing death in my not so illustrious career. There may be even less now with the advent of new technology. I am not saying there is not a problem but I bet it is just a tiny fraction of the the amazing stat of 250000 deaths caused by medical errors each year.If you follow corporate policy errors should be rare.The trouble is they dont give you the staff nor tools to follow policy and meet the metrics.

 

[Xenophylia]

Nothing says taking care of business quite like fining pharmacists tens of thousands of dollars because they were thrown into situations over which they had no control. If you work for CVS you are insane. Quit now.

I've always said the only way to fix CVS and Walgreens is for the new grads to stop feeding them with warm bodies. Granted, with their $$$$ they'd probably lobby and get the laws changed so their pharmacies didn't need pharmacists at all. After all, it's not like we have any professional associations which would lobby on our behalf. (lol)

 

[owlegrad]

Nothing says taking care of business quite like fining pharmacists tens of thousands of dollars because they were thrown into situations over which they had no control. If you work for CVS you are insane. Quit now.

The fine was against CVS, not the pharmacists.

 

[Xenophylia]

Yeah I was surprised the pharmacists weren't fined. They usually nail the "help" as well for being "complicit" in the sh*tty working conditions. As if pharmacists have ANY control over that....

 

[jacksmith228833]

this was from an article by Ellen (nyt) in Jan:

"For Mary Scheuerman, 85, the error was discovered only when she was dying in a Florida hospital in December 2018. A Publix pharmacy had dispensed a powerful chemotherapy drug instead of the antidepressant her doctor had prescribed. She died about two weeks later. "

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE SUE!!!!!! small fines and bull**** corporate responses will not save lives.... a nice fat lawsuit of many, many millions might

I wonder if the corporate office or APhA sent flowers...

 

[Xenophylia]

No, but they probably paid for the cost of a QUICK cremation so the body couldn't be exhumed later. Gotta love corporate lawyers and I'm sure CVS has the slimiest!

 

[Deja]

decrease metrics? CVS is about to roll out the new pcq calls where you have to write soap notes for patients lol I honestly don't know how anyone will have time to do those

 

[SunshineDays84]

decrease metrics? CVS is about to roll out the new pcq calls where you have to write soap notes for patients lol I honestly don't know how anyone will have time to do those

Is this for real??? They are making retail pharmacists do this??? Rphs who are WAYYY to busy for this and also have no access to patient’s charts or history (other than medication profile and verbal information from pt)??

 

[Sine Cura]

Gonna fit those in along with COVID-19 testing and a 30 flu shots

 

[Chrish]

Is there any Cvs where queue gets cleared by the end of business day? Reading about Cvs in general makes me feel you guys are always 15 pages behind.

 

[WVUPharm2007]

Is there any Cvs where queue gets cleared by the end of business day? Reading about Cvs in general makes me feel you guys are always 15 pages behind.

I get it done just about every day.

 

[mentos]

I get it done just about every day.

But there's always a few pages when you start right? I've never started a third shift with a completely clean queue.

 

[WVUPharm2007]

But there's always a few pages when you start right? I've never started a third shift with a completely clean queue.

Depends on the day and the pharmacist. The Philly market has some stellar ass verification machines that leave it clear for me at 8PM. I'll walk in and they are sitting there playing on their phones. They already did tomorrow's RTSs. Those are the days. I can just kick it for a few hours. It happens now and then.

I'd say the average is like a page or two of QP and maybe 2-3 pages of QV. I generally have it clean by 11PM. Just enough time to do narc counts and RTSs.

 

[mentos]

Depends on the day and the pharmacist. The Philly market has some stellar ass verification machines that leave it clear for me at 8PM. I'll walk in and they are sitting there playing on their phones. They already did tomorrow's RTSs. Those are the days. I can just kick it for a few hours. It happens now and then.

I'd say the average is like a page or two of QP and maybe 2-3 pages of QV. I generally have it clean by 11PM. Just enough time to do narc counts and RTSs.

Dang no wonder you like your job. I routinely walked into 7-9 pages in QP, had to do RTS before midnight by myself, had to put away the warehouse order myself, my one tech left at 10pm, foot traffic and drive thru didn't die down until midnight or 1. The robot always had 40+ empty cells. If I ever left anything in the queue by morning, they would all complain and ask what I did all night.

 

[WVUPharm2007]

Dang no wonder you like your job. I routinely walked into 7-9 pages in QP, had to do RTS before midnight by myself, had to put away the warehouse order myself, my one tech left at 10pm, foot traffic and drive thru didn't die down until midnight or 1. The robot always had 40+ empty cells. If I ever left anything in the queue by morning, they would all complain and ask what I did all night.

You must have had **** coworkers.

 

[mentos]

You must have had **** coworkers.

I did. My overnight partner was an ass. He would fill the robot cells just enough to get through his shifts then everything would be empty when my rotation started.

Whenever I covered shifts at other stores, it was much easier. I was never able to transfer.

 

[RxPreceptor]

I did. My overnight partner was an ass. He would fill the robot cells just enough to get through his shifts then everything would be empty when my rotation started.

Whenever I covered shifts at other stores, it was much easier. I was never able to transfer.

Similar experience with my partner doing overnights...would set him up for success/make things easy when he would start his week (fill machine, do state counts, fill supplies/get supplies from back room, script pro RTSs). He would never do the same for me though/just did the bare minimum to get through his shifts

*Glad I no longer have to compensate for his lack of effort/"wipe his @$$" for him

 

[hye345]

Hehe... here I was, window-shopping on LinkedIn, THIS close to throwing my hat in the ring for a staff position w/CVS

 

[mentos]

Similar experience with my partner doing overnights...would set him up for success/make things easy when he would start his week (fill machine, do state counts, fill supplies/get supplies from back room, script pro RTSs). He would never do the same for me though/just did the bare minimum to get through his shifts

I visited my store a couple of weeks after I quit to drop off my key. It was the morning after the warehouse delivery. There were still tons of totes left to put away, and looked like nothing had been verified all night. They were probably going to run out of bins lol. I got NO gratitude at all while I was there for 4 years. No goodbyes, no cake, no card, no thank you or good luck. So that felt pretty good to see them drowning after I left.

 

[Chrish]

I get it done just about every day.

Cool. I remember reading about the situation few months ago where every Cvs was several pages behind and they weren’t answering the phones when we called for transfer. Did Cvs finally give you guys more help?

 

[Chrish]

I visited my store a couple of weeks after I quit to drop off my key. It was the morning after the warehouse delivery. There were still tons of totes left to put away, and looked like nothing had been verified all night. They were probably going to run out of bins lol. I got NO gratitude at all while I was there for 4 years. No goodbyes, no cake, no card, no thank you or good luck. So that felt pretty good to see them drowning after I left.

Where are you these days? Another retail chain?

 

[mentos]

Where are you these days? Another retail chain?

I work overnight at a LTC. I am fortunate to have a unicorn job. It was unexpected and I only got in because I knew someone.

 

[VA77]

I could care less about the fine. I just hope they keep getting bad press.

 

[Dr Wario]

Perhaps it is time for us all to write letters to our respective boards of pharmacy letting them know that this issue is occurring at nearly every CVS in the country. If not for the board to take action, at least as a proactive step we have taken in case we make an error and are personally sued.

 

[Chrish]

I work overnight at a LTC. I am fortunate to have a unicorn job. It was unexpected and I only got in because I knew someone.

Overnight at LTC? Didn’t know such jobs existed. How did you get that job? Did you have any prior experience?

How safe do you feel about your job given current climate?

 

[rickyroxy]

Perhaps it is time for us all to write letters to our respective boards of pharmacy letting them know that this issue is occurring at nearly every CVS in the country. If not for the board to take action, at least as a proactive step we have taken in case we make an error and are personally sued.

Agree. Also keep feeding the press would be another option. I am sure fines don't affect them but bad press definitely brings out some response. Someone higher up needs to dig out some data on calls per hour coming in, prescriptions to be verified. DURs blown off.

Compare what we do to any other professional job out there. To me phone calls are biggest distraction and time waste out there. Imagine doctors answering phone calls while seeing patients.

 

[Chrish]

But can we really blame the companies though? PBMs are the ones squeezing all the money. Drug stores are business who are there to make profit. They have to meet the bottom-line in order to attract the investors. How do you expect them to react when PBMs are taking away huge portion their potential profit?

Cvs has always had a bad rep but now other companies are also following the suit and I can’t honesty blame them despite my urge to do so.

 

[VA77]

But can we really blame the companies though? PBMs are the ones squeezing all the money. Drug stores are business who are there to make profit. They have to meet the bottom-line in order to attract the investors. How do you expect them to react when PBMs are taking away huge portion their potential profit?

Cvs has always had a bad rep but now other companies are also following the suit and I can’t honesty blame them despite my urge to do so.

CVS owns their own PBM so they are part of the problem. This is like the pot calling the kettle black.

 

[Chrish]

CVS owns their own PBM so they are part of the problem. This is like the pot calling the kettle black.

They also have to deal with Medicaid, Medicare, ESI, United Health etc.

 

[VA77]

Perhaps it is time for us all to write letters to our respective boards of pharmacy letting them know that this issue is occurring at nearly every CVS in the country. If not for the board to take action, at least as a proactive step we have taken in case we make an error and are personally sued.

Yes sir. For years, the BoP have been calling this a "labor" issue and not a "safety" one. Many times I have gotten that response immediately from them but OK has talked this head on and now allows all of us to reach out to our Boards and ask if someone else can see this as a safety issue then why not them?

 

[VA77]

They also have to deal with Medicaid, Medicare, ESI, United Health etc.

Exactly as all other healthcare entities but CVS is in vertical mode and controlling more of the process and their own reimbursements from Caremark.

 

[Chrish]

Exactly as all other healthcare entities but CVS is in vertical mode and controlling more of the process and their own reimbursements from Caremark.

None of pharmacies are doing well. Cvs stock isn’t going anywhere. Wag reporting loss this quarter. Walmart pharmacy portion doesn’t make money either. Cvs is better positioned than others but fact of the matter is there isn’t money left in pharmacy.

 

[rickyroxy]

Still there is a way to do business. Its not rocket science. Even with low margins and PBMs taking cut, they should be able to figure out how to distribute resources so it does not affect safety and well being of patients as well as employees. They have lot of fat at corporate level that can be cut down and money could be used to run stores well.

They spent so much time, money and energy to roll out new programs which barely have any significance at store level. They should have focus group of pharmacists and technicians giving honest feedback to improve processes. Rather they have clueless DLs and RDs who just sits in office looking at numbers and try to diagnose and solve problem. Fake visits to stores and every one licking their bosses ***.

Inventory is one example where lots of money is lost and nothing is done to improve. I know they are coming up with new way to label shelves and all that but they should have done that long ago. Loss prevention is just a gimmick at least in pharmacy. I never get all the info about loss from non-intuitive quantities and from physical inventory until its too late. They should invest in technology to better manage stores. If all stores are given sufficient tools and resources to reduces inventory losses, they will have saved enough money to hire staff.

 

[PharmtoCS]

I visited my store a couple of weeks after I quit to drop off my key. It was the morning after the warehouse delivery. There were still tons of totes left to put away, and looked like nothing had been verified all night. They were probably going to run out of bins lol. I got NO gratitude at all while I was there for 4 years. No goodbyes, no cake, no card, no thank you or good luck. So that felt pretty good to see them drowning after I left.

Ha! Almost the exact same happened to me when I left my overnight position at a 24-hour store. Always getting blamed for problems that occur during the day shift. Forget about cakes and cards - getting out of that dumpster fire was more than good enough for me.

Even one of the front end managers admitted that good overnight pharmacists are hard to come by.

 

[mentos]

Ha! Almost the exact same happened to me when I left my overnight position at a 24-hour store. Always getting blamed for problems that occur during the day shift. Forget about cakes and cards - getting out of that dumpster fire was more than good enough for me.

Even one of the front end managers admitted that good overnight pharmacists are hard to come by.

It's always the overnights fault in retail, you can't win.

 

[Deja]

It's always the overnights fault in retail, you can't win.

well they have to blame someone, and since no one works with you, you are an easy target... they aren't going to blame themselves lol

same concept as new hires are always getting the blame even if sometimes it isn't their fault