You have some good points there. I need to move out of the country and into the woods somewhere, any suggestions? SOmewhere far away from people who call their Medicaid card, "My discount card." I was thinking around the Baltic somewhere: Norway, Swedan, Finland.
Please Stop the CVS Bashing!!!!
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You have some good points there. I need to move out of the country and into the woods somewhere, any suggestions? SOmewhere far away from people who call their Medicaid card, "My discount card." I was thinking around the Baltic somewhere: Norway, Swedan, Finland.
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How about this, change the ****ing ringer on the phones so that I can ignore it if it gets too busy, or add something so that the customer hears "your estimated wait time is 30 minutes". One time I was working with a floater and we were ****ing swamped because it was right before a holiday. Just me and the floater so we were at "5 pharmacy calls" at one point, we decided to just unplug all the phones until it calmed down.
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I worked at a store a couple weeks ago where the phones were down. It was the greatest experience of my life. 90% of calls are people that are asking: "Did Dr. So and So call in my medication?" or "I got a call from you but I don't know why." I know that they're trialing a central calling function which should help with a lot of the calls that really don't require a pharmacist or tech to answer. While phone calls are annoying, I much prefer people to call in with these questions as opposed to those who show up at pick-up or drive-thru with these questions, or think that their med should be there when the doctor has yet to call it in. "But I just left the doctor's office 5 minutes ago, why hasn't he phoned it in yet?!?!?"
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Take this as a certification of your sanity diplomat! Rxnupe is obviously out of his mind if you have read any of his posts here.
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So mountain you are telling me CVS should remove phones from pharmacies and get rid of drive thrus and "welfare customers". Maybe you should open up an independent and hire that intern clown to work with you- you two would make a great teMam
Although I despise the company, their business model is quite brilliant...I just dont want to be a part of it. I could put in a drive through, call people everyday for refills, do PCI, CSI and whatever program they do, but i just dont like what it does to the profession from a professional view. From a business point of view, they know what needs to be done to make money minus all the illegal PBM crap they do.
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How does a drive thru pharmacy make sense to you? The way that it should be is that you tell the patient when to come back for their stuff. If they drop off 10 scripts, they're not getting them until the next day. If their doctor decided to keep them outpatient, it doesn't ****ing matter if they get the prescription 1-2 days after it was prescribed.
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There are valid reasons for having a drive thru. It's the invalid reasons that will make a pharmacy staff angry... For example, I do not sell Plan B from the drive thru at night, because I can't effectively verify who is buying it, and I don't think it's appropriate to sell it, due to the nature of it (people may end up wanting to buy condoms instead), in the drive thru in the first place. So, to me, using the drive thru to buy Plan B is not a valid situation, and if customers get angry about it, I'll get irritated.
Valid reasons include: contagious patients, nausea/vomiting meds, refills, patients with children, and crappy weather.
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Hmm.. Sparda, how would you tell a bipolar patient they can't get their lithium for 1-2 days?
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Or someone who just had knee surgery that they can't have pain meds for 48 hours...
Or the mother of a screaming, febrile child that it will be 2 days before her child's antibiotic is ready....
I could go on.
For the most part I think the stresses of retail pharmacy which are nothing more than annoyances are due to the moral and ethical breakdown of our society. Customer service in any field is going to be difficult. A large portion of society just don't have basic values such as: respect, patience, courtesy, strong work ethic, and self control just to name a few. Going into retail pharmacy I just had different expectations. It just seems that 75% of my day has absolutely nothing to do with pharmacy, medication, or the patient. Most of my day is spent doing duties that can be performed by an insurance representative or a telephone operator subcontracted by CVS and operating in India. I thought retail pharmacy was more than "how much" and "how fast" and where being rude and disrespectful is tolerated and expected. And the #'s that evaluate who is a successful pharmacist and store are nothing more than "speed evaluations": how fast did you receive your prescription?, How long did you wait in drive through?, How quickly did you answer the phone?, How quickly did you answer the drive through,? All this along with working long hours with no break thus putting the patient's life in danger. But this is retail, this is the way it is, this is the way it will always be, you either have to get used to it or find something else I guess.
owlegrad
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Just to play devil's advocate, how annoying is it when patients need their medications NOW, but according to the date on the RX the patient has been letting it age for several days? So NOW it is urgent, but three days ago it was not?
Or when patients need that refill TODAY, as though they were not aware how many tablets were left in the bottle?
Pretty annoying.
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I agree that's annoying. That's not really the type of situation I was getting at anyway.
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Oh no, not at all. Didn't mean to compare the two. Just some random musings about times I have dreamt of telling people to just come back tomorrow.
In the late 1990s, I worked with a male pharmacist who literally did not do anything. He would just sit at his desk and watch the rest of us work; he might flip through a catalog if one arrived, but otherwise, he did NOTHING - didn't count pills, didn't answer the phone, didn't wait on patients, nothing. Another woman, who was near retirement age and was one of those elderly women who believed that any woman who said she was happily married and her husband was a good father was either lying or in denial, attributed this to working with all women
which I knew couldn't be true. We had less work when he wasn't there, because we didn't have to step around him. Sad but true. AFAIK, he's still there nearly 15 years later.How this guy got or kept jobs was a complete mystery. Around this time, I met another pharmacist - a man - who had worked with this guy a few years earlier at Kroger's, and he wouldn't even turn on the computer when he worked weekends.
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Wow that's customer service just unplug the phones- way too go. How about just answering the phone are telling the person on the phone you are sorry about our wait but you will be with them as soon as you handle the customers in front of you.
Do you not think there are other business's that are jut as busy as CVS or busier? Imagine if you were calling an Third Party Insurance and they just unplugged all their phones? Or rather what if your help desk decided the phones were ringing too much say they unplugged their phones? How abut AAA? Do you know how many phones call they get- what if you were stuck and they decided to unplug their pones? 911? You think there phones don't ring constantly? Gosh I wonder if your supervisor knew this was going on? I normally do anywhere from 800 to 1000 scripts on a Monday- if you worked at my store- you would probably shut the gates down or close off the drive thru area??? You are really a bad example of a Pharmacist/tech- the customers/doctors have to suffer because you are too lazy or too busy to answer the freaking fun- what a shame!
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I hate to say this but people like you should be nowhere near a Pharmacy. This is absurd as saying if I place a big order at McDonalds I shouldn't get my order or expect it to be ready much later because it takes too much time to prepare this order??? you can't be serious dude you just can't. I think you are allergic to work plain and simple.
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Owlegrad that's annoying and I think every Pharmacist has dealt with patients who demand that they need their rx's now but the date was a few days old. Speaking of refills that why I am for Automatic Ready Fill on Maintenance medications- if it's done right it reduce Pharmacy workload as well as dereases number of phone calls into your pharmacy.
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I feel that the automatic refill is a mixed blessing that varies based on the patients in your pharmacy.
Ideally, it is there to keep people from being non-compliant by refilling their medicines and placing a phone call to the patient telling them the medicine is ready to come get. The patient tells you what medicines to fill and then we fill them every month.
In reality, this is what happens to some patients. They have medicines they don't know what they are for refilled every month, some of which they don't use or the doctor told them to discontinue. Or the patient fills the medicine somewhere else first and then we get the reject for order too soon. Patients also might not get their medicines on the same day so they are sometimes coming back in a few times a week or a few times a month rather than waiting one day. Sometimes these patients get the message from a few days ago and then come in and we have no idea what they want because THEY have no idea what they want. Also, sometimes the patients don't get the medicine at all and then we have to call them, ask if they want it (they say no or the doctor said not to take it) and then we have a bin of RTS for the meds.
If a pharmacist felt it was in the best interest for the patient and works with the patient, it's great. However, if CVS tells you to do it for every medicine to get the numbers up then some patients suffer and then the pharmacy suffers with busy work of filling the meds, calling the patient, then doing a RTS.
So yeah, you get the good with the bad. I think that if there wasn't a metric on this then automatic refill would be a lot better. This is coming from a tech who worked at CVS and single-handedly (because no other tech would do it and we had mainly floaters come in) increased the readyfill into the double digits from 0. I did this because we were a troubled store (bottom 1% of the CVS chains, somewhere like in the bottom 50 or 100) and wanted to help raise numbers to get out of that status.
Ideally, it is there to keep people from being non-compliant by refilling their medicines and placing a phone call to the patient telling them the medicine is ready to come get. The patient tells you what medicines to fill and then we fill them every month.
In reality, this is what happens to some patients. They have medicines they don't know what they are for refilled every month, some of which they don't use or the doctor told them to discontinue. Or the patient fills the medicine somewhere else first and then we get the reject for order too soon. Patients also might not get their medicines on the same day so they are sometimes coming back in a few times a week or a few times a month rather than waiting one day. Sometimes these patients get the message from a few days ago and then come in and we have no idea what they want because THEY have no idea what they want. Also, sometimes the patients don't get the medicine at all and then we have to call them, ask if they want it (they say no or the doctor said not to take it) and then we have a bin of RTS for the meds.
If a pharmacist felt it was in the best interest for the patient and works with the patient, it's great. However, if CVS tells you to do it for every medicine to get the numbers up then some patients suffer and then the pharmacy suffers with busy work of filling the meds, calling the patient, then doing a RTS.
So yeah, you get the good with the bad. I think that if there wasn't a metric on this then automatic refill would be a lot better. This is coming from a tech who worked at CVS and single-handedly (because no other tech would do it and we had mainly floaters come in) increased the readyfill into the double digits from 0. I did this because we were a troubled store (bottom 1% of the CVS chains, somewhere like in the bottom 50 or 100) and wanted to help raise numbers to get out of that status.
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OMG - I was gonna say that! Automatic Refill is sooooo good if used correctly. What is better, making your patients call every freakin month or just having it ready for them when they are ready for it? It is such a blessing when used correctly.
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If you are doing 800-1000 scripts on a single day, there should be at least 3 pharmacists and 9 techs/interns working. The whole point is to eliminate the need to multi-task.
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Yes, I agree with CVS there are some medications that should not be an option for ready fill. I don't believe you should put everything on Ready Fill just to increase sales because there's been times when I noticed that the Ready Fill filled 2 different strengths on thyroid medications or blood pressure medications so it can be a hassle. Also CVS programs encourages meds like flonase, Nasonex, and inhalers to be on the program which should because they are all as needed medicines. The biggest problem I have is the ready fill program allows control medications to be filled 3 days in advanced- that's a no on in my book- control meds shoul NEVER be on ready fill and I mean NEVER!
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Anything that says "as needed" is not meant to be on readyfill, which I am sure you know. As for multiple types of the same medications being on autofill, whenever someone's medication profile has changed (strength, form, therapeutic switch, whatever), their autofill list should be updated as well - it's not hard.
I am curious about the control meds. Do you make your patients come in on the very day they are scheduled to run out? I don't see the problem with letting someone pick up their Lunesta a day before they run out (or 2-3).
When I worked retail, I would NOT take "Just give them what they had before" for this reason. I learned my lesson about that, believe me. Whenever a new nurse started working at any of the offices, they learned very quickly that at this store, you could not do that and instead had to tell us exactly what the patient needed.
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Flonase/Nasonex are not maintenance unless you're severely affected by allergies. In my case, I only used it for like 3 days, then finished the Z-Pack course, and that's it. 2 months later, CVS calls me to refill Flonase.
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Well actually I think the Ambiens, Lunesta are ok- but if you have a pain medication that's more than 20 day supply it will be eligible for Ready Fill and if you have an abuser or early filler they can keep getting their controls filled early. I have a few doctors in my area who write on their prescriptions must last 30 days so I don't put those on Ready Fill. I had an overnight Pharmacist who worked at a different store who actually hates Ready Fill- he said that a customer called and said she was brusiing very easily it was determined that the MD took her off coumadin 6mg and put her on the 10mg but she had picked up and were taking both the 10mg and 6mg because then6mg were on Ready Fill- so if a Pharmacist member is not careful it could lead to some potentially serious consequences.
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Good points about both the pain meds and the importance of being careful. Like anything else, it all depends on how you use it.
And of course your DM's and above could care less about being responsible - they just want the numbers up. That was what I hated about the program - it wasn't about whether or not it was right for "this" patient, it was all about hitting goal. Actually that's what I hated about all the CVS programs - most of them I could get behind from a conceptual standpoint (seriously, who doesn't want to increase compliance or save the customer some dough where possible) but in practice it is all about hitting the numbers - and CVS hasn't invented a metric that can't be "beat" (read: cheated). I often wondered if "we" spent the same amount of time/energy in just doing our jobs how much better off CVS would be as opposed to all the resources we spent getting around all the acronyms.
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I talked to a DM about possibly a point system for CVS. Rather than having a percentage for PCI call, readyfill, etc. that all have to be met, you get a point total that has to be met each month but can be done with any of the metrics since they all save/make money for the store. Then it becomes the pharmacist's discretion how they get those points and they aren't putting people in danger/causing problems by squeezing every drop from every patient.
He said it was good in theory but that it would make some systems obsolete certain months and also it wouldn't make CVS as much money, which was the bigger point. At least he was honest...
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That is honest.
I quite like my DM - he is a true believer. Every program CVS rolls out gets us one step closer to fulfilling our mission of improving the quality of human life. He honestly believes in the company and sees every program through the rosiest glasses possible. Or he should be working in Hollywood winning best Oscar in every catagory, because I don't believe anyone can fake that level of <can't think of the right word> that he has for CVS.
I wasn't joking when I said I like him - he is a good guy.
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Just curios owlegrad is your DM a Pharmacist or did he come up from the business side because if he's a Pharmacist he should be able to see that many of them are not attainable.
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Owlegrad there are a couple that are foolproof or somewhat fool proof- the 7 day calls the Pharmacist makes I mean if you don't make the calls and the patient doen't pick them up you don't get credit- so the only way you are going to cheat on that program is if you "pay" for their meds which is highly unlikely. Also, I don't see how you can tamper with CSI.
I do agree Ready Fill is misleading you can enroll 95% of your patients in Ready Fill but I promise you 50 to 60% of those meds will be RTS.
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It's been a while since I worked at CVS but is CSI the customer service index? AKA the one where people call in the surveys? Or am I thinking something else?
If that IS what I'm thinking about, we actually just tore off the bottom of the receipt with the survey and called them in ourselves since our customers never did it. My new PIC had a friend who owned his own office with multiple phone lines so he would go over there and call multiple times; the rest of us did one on our cell phones and then home phone/pay phone/other person's cell phone.
My store manager eventually did this, which I thought was brilliant: There was a drawing every month for doing the survey. You get the receipt and call RIGHT THERE on your phone. By doing it, you got a free candy bar (Reeses, Hersheys, etc.) and then you put your info on the back of the receipt and got a drawing for a 25 dollar gift card.
Like I said before though, we were a challenged store so I don't know if that is continued to be done or not.
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That's Triple S you are talking about and yes there are many ways to beat that system as you have mentioned, but i don't think you can call them in from 1-800 numbers anymore- or if you are an employee and your phone is linked to your extra care card it will not give you credit for calling in.
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We changed people's numbers in the system to other local numbers (we had a "dummy" number we used, I can't remember exactly what it was - maybe the local time/temperature? Just some local automated thing that would answer so we could run down the clock) if we couldn't get a hold of them. Don't get me wrong we did try to get a hold of people, but if they didn't answer after so many tries we did the above. So we didn't get credit for them picking up the meds (unless of course by some chance they did), but we did get credit for making the calls. I stand by my claim - the programs promote cheating instead of rewarding actually doing the programs, and it is reasonably simple to beat most of them. I will concede that the one that tracks actually picking up the meds is unbeatable as far as I know.
Yes my DM is/was a pharmacist. He actually was pretty reasonable about the programs - he didn't expect us to meet every goal every time, but he did want us to try and he did believe in them to an almost fanatical degree.
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It takes 3 days until that stuff starts working right, you noncompliant waste of insurance money!
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I felt the nasal congestion clearing up on the first day. Besides, I was in an insurance lapse at the time, so its a noncompliant waste of my money.
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It takes about 36 hours, you placebo affected putz...
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I was going to ask about the flonase LOLOLOL I remember when i worked retail, docs would prescribe flonase for 3 day therapy because a patient had a cold. I LOL'd.
Atrovent would work better, or just jam a Kleenex up there for a cheap solution.
If the patient demanded something, better Flonase than antibiotics of any sort.
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That's just to make it seem like there's a "plan" for tackling that cold.
Wow so glad I found this site.
I get to respond to all this crap laid out by Rxnupe.....I am gonna bash sorry in advance.
I was PIC at CVS, I demoted myself right when the MYSCHEDULE came out. I know of RPh's and Sups that quit over that also.
I am in a situation that does not easily lend itself for switching jobs or trust me I would. So I am riding the glorified slave wagon as long as I can.
My pharmacy was an excellent store for 55 out of 60 months while I was PIC....am I proud? Yes, and we continue to be with my once staff RPh now holding PIC position.
We are not a large volume store 1500 a week average but we have 4 competitors within one block of our store. You might say well no wonder you did so well, its because
it is a very manageable volume. Wrong! We have a budget of 110 tech hours and of course no RPh overlap. We are open 74 hours, so that is what 1 and 1/2 tech per open hour. 6 phones, 4 registers and a drive through. I am here to tell you that you sir are a corporate ***** and will go a long way in your career stepping on people to get to "your" top. Try running in a small volume store with no RPh overlap and you will start to change your mind on things. I know large volume stores are easier to work in due to the fact that one RPh is not being sought at every turn while trying to check rxs! When there is two RPh, one can focus on checking with no interruptions. I can check 60 to 100 rxs per hour if I had another RPh to answer questions, counsel, administer vaccinations, count CIIs.....not to mention clerk sometimes 2 registers at a time. I have more but I must go.....think about it.
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Hey genius:
You do know this item you quoted is over six years old. Just saying. It might have been a little different back in the golden days.......
FYI, he changed his tune not too long ago. he's no longer a CVS homer
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I thought this was a joke when I saw someone was actually taking up for CVS. I have worked at both CVS and Walgreens and CVS takes the trophy of the worst retail to work for. They 100% only care about metrics that will lead to filling a script. Do they care if I counsel someone or if I intervene on a serious drug drug interaction? Do they ever ask me about those times or have any metrics slightly related to counseling/interventions? No. Everything leads to filling a script=$$$ in their pocket. They are a joke. If I am taking my time with a patient and helping them while I have things going red or voicemails going over their magical 10 minutes, guess which one they care more about? I have never been able to throughly talk to a patient about all of their medications. If I take 5-10 minutes to counsel, it is like the place is going to burn down and my technicians are yelling WAITER or DOCTOR CALL in my ear the whole time. Also, let's talk about the ratio of pharmacists to techs that is clearly illegal. I wonder how CVS gets away with this for so long. Why is there such a rule when it's not even enforced? I'm sure everyone is even scared to tell their BOP because CVS will respond with less technicians, because it is unheard of to have another pharmacist working with you. I despise this company and can't wait for the day I can leave. They are lucky there's a system with a huge influx of new pharmacists every where with 100,000+ in debt. I check SDN all the time just to have comfort that I am not alone in CVS-HELL. When I am there, it's like a marathon. CVS wants every person to do the work of 2. They can care less about the quality of your life and health. They have turned pharmacy into McDonalds, lets be for real. Quick service is the top priority. Never mind any of that other pharmacy mumbo jumbo that these pharmacists went to school for years for. Who cares. Just verify and get the money QUICK. Don't forget about ReadyFill. And ScriptSync. And calling them 3 times a day as soon as it's ready. Joke.
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Yes there were and I was there for them. This is a totally different company than the one I joined oh so many years ago.
How was it Back Then ? I have been with them for almost 4 years . IN recent months it has been rough because it is so hard to keep good techs. They just dont want to be there
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