Preparing for the inevitable

[mentos]

More like 450k with taxes in 5 years, but sure.

Well yeah, no one goes around saying full-time pharmacists make 90k. They give the pre-tax number. Anyway 450k post tax is nearly half a million and should be more than enough to pay off debt and buy a house in 5 years.

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[Modest_anteater]

I switched careers, obviously. Made 60k/year working a stressful office job, stayed late without pay, I felt like I was in the movie Office Space. Now I make twice the income and the job is easy.

thx. nice to hear a happy story.

 

[Pharmacy Kid]

Yeah a little too late man. He lost over 800,000 USD in money that he will never get back from not having his stuff together IMO.

No offense, you are annoying

 

[projektreverb]

No offense, you are annoying

It’s kind of fun to see some of the “off the wall” things he/she says sometimes.

 

[lane one]

Not really ambitious IMO. I'm millennial. I didn't get pharmD until age 30 and I did it. I never blew money on a new car though.

Age
30: pharmD
31: bought ring
32: married (we paid for wedding), loans paid off
33: bought first house for 315k. Put 20% down.
34: first child
35: currently owe 223k on mortgage

If I got PharmD at age 24/25, my mortgage would probably be paid off by now.

Average Rph salary is 120-130k. That's 600k+ in 5 years, should be easy to do these things.

Agree to disagree. Don't know your loan amount or what part of the country you live in, but I can tell you that would be mathematically impossible for me. Also, I didn't "blow money on a new car", I "had to buy a car" which is exactly what my post said.

Congrats to you for accomplishing all of that, but I don't think paying off pharmD loans in 2 years while saving for a house in the norm considering average loan amounts.

 

[mentos]

Agree to disagree. Don't know your loan amount or what part of the country you live in, but I can tell you that would be mathematically impossible for me. Also, I didn't "blow money on a new car", I "had to buy a car" which is exactly what my post said.

Congrats to you for accomplishing all of that, but I don't think paying off pharmD loans in 2 years while saving for a house in the norm considering average loan amounts.

I paid 9k cash for my used car. Borrowed 100k in loans. If I had to borrow more, it wouldn't have been worth it. There is a student loan payoff thread where people post how fast they pay off their loans, if you live like a student it's not hard. Split a 1bed apt with wife for $1200/mo. I didn't own a smartphone until I become a Rph. Live in Boston suburb. My wife also works so it was easier to save for a house with two incomes.

 

[lane one]

I didn't own a smartphone until I become a Rph.

Haha, what? How did you make it through school without mobile data? Lexi? Emails from preceptors?

Look I agree with you on the loan amount, definitely not worth it if you're borrowing over 100k. My point was that the average is much more than that. Add on high COL and you could be looking at 350K for loans plus down payment in 3 years. That's your entire salary, not even including wedding and car.

 

[sozetone]

I feel terrible for the young people just entering into this for class of like 2023 ya know? what will even be left to do? If the tuition were dropped to a good investment , then maybe i could see it, but still no jobs is a problem...... this will all sort itself out around 2025. i cant wait to see what becomes of it.

 

[lane one]

I feel terrible for the young people just entering into this for class of like 2023 ya know? what will even be left to do? If the tuition were dropped to a good investment , then maybe i could see it, but still no jobs is a problem...... this will all sort itself out around 2025. i cant wait to see what becomes of it.

I don't. At this point they know what they're getting into.

 

[mentos]

Haha, what? How did you make it through school without mobile data? Lexi? Emails from preceptors?

Look I agree with you on the loan amount, definitely not worth it if you're borrowing over 100k. My point was that the average is much more than that. Add on high COL and you could be looking at 350K for loans plus down payment in 3 years. That's your entire salary, not even including wedding and car.

I used a laptop for email and Lexi or the school computers. I couldn't afford a smartphone or mobile data as a student lol.

But anyway I said 30s-40s (age 30-49) for loan payoff/house equity, doesn't have to be done in 5 years. That's anywhere from 6-16 years of working as a pharmD for most people.

 

[lane one]

I used a laptop for email and Lexi or the school computers. I couldn't afford a smartphone or mobile data as a student lol.

But anyway I said 30s-40s (age 30-49) for loan payoff/house equity, doesn't have to be done in 5 years. That's anywhere from 6-16 years of working as a pharmD for most people.

That's fair. Your timeline caught my eye since I'm 30, but you're right that is technically 19 years which is more than adequate for those goals. It's good to see so many people on here being responsible with debt retirement and investment btw. It almost restores my faith in humanity.

 

[mentos]

Actually if you're 49 that means you potentially worked 25 years as a Rph, I can't math.

 

[thecoolpharmboi]

Thank you?

You've clearly never read my posts but that's my fault since I don't post much anymore with every thread being the same complaining.

About me: male, greatest pharmacist Walgreens has ever seen, my techs love and would follow me, have been an rxm for Walgreens for 18 almost 19 years, I love this company for allowing me to give my family an amazing life.

As a relatively new RXM (2.5 years), I admire you sir.

 

[wagrxm2000]

As a relatively new RXM (2.5 years), I admire you sir.

Thank you, keep up the good work

 

[TheBlaah]

Let's try to keep the ego stroking to a minimum, or else you may have a bit of a mess on your hands.

 

[sozetone]

As a relatively new RXM (2.5 years), I admire you sir.

He got in at a very different time. AS it stands now, the money and shareholder satisfaction is all that matters. The company will destroy its stake holders to save their shareholders any and EVERY day.... no matter how good you are at your job. WE the stakeholders are being run off as the companies struggle to make their profits due to many reasons. And it does not help the field is beyond saturated. We are ALL replaceable and they wont even blink an eye or give it a second thought. Dont be fooled. corporate loyalty lies ENTIRELY with its SHAREHOLDERS......

 

[confettiflyer]

I specialized into a growing area of pharmacy (onc), but still maintain skills on the inpatient side, that was my little change to help future-proof myself. There's just not that many residency trained oncology pharmacists out there relative to the need. I probably won't take the BCOP exam, though.

The wholly unrelated business on the side remains on the side, but pays for some niceties.

Longer term, I will probably take the bar exam in about 5-6 years time. California allows for individuals to either self-teach (with sponsor) or take correspondence classes at non-ABA accredited law schools. I have no delusions about future employment, but it'll allow me to charge and make formal what I've been informally doing since before pharmacy school started (advise people in real estate).

Yep that's about it.

 

[Momus]

Probably 25 year olds. Making bank... They said you need NBA level skills for this lol >_>; In reality, hard work gets him there.

Not sure why people still go to pharmacy school nowadays. Probably because it's really easy to get into and they just follow some stupid comment from random families/friends googling how much pharmacist makes.

 

[confettiflyer]

Will you try and monetize the real estate law?

Yes, and because the cost to becoming a licensed attorney will be so low for me (probably under $20k total), the ROI will still be good if it becomes kind of a side/prn gig. Pharmacy will still be my primary going forward, but at least this opens up some avenues for independence. I'm really not looking for a career change.

 

[lord999]

Probably 25 year olds. Making bank... They said you need NBA level skills for this lol >_>; In reality, hard work gets him there.

Not sure why people still go to pharmacy school nowadays. Probably because it's really easy to get into and they just follow some stupid comment from random families/friends googling how much pharmacist makes.

Well, what the guy left out was having serious connections and working for startup money companies. That no-name liberal arts school had people already placed in the company's that he was applying for, the bro path. Don't get those connections from even good pharmacy schools. But data scientists and software engineers, getting the basic ones are pretty straightforward. Really good ones, you'd be surprised at how "little" they make as they've traded off fast money for longitudinal security. I'll take the iron rice bowl with nighttime contracting over these jobs any day. He's basically a contractor masquerading as an employee, and it does come back to haunt you as some of you have found out with job hopping in pharmacy applying to a new place now.

But as for contracting for health economics and outcomes, business remains ok for now, but the rumors of impending M&A have started to take a toll on the analytic budgets as they need to be reallocated to management consultants for right-sizing. That's what the day job is for.

I have some thoughts about that guy's lack of basic finite math skills, as 2 and 11 are both wrong (linear algebra could really help this guy), 10 is extremely wrong (why would you leave an unorganized heap when you could just simply program a two-value cache that retains the min and max if it actually is repeatedly queried all the time, and if you don't, then making a sort stack or partition the answers would be in your interest since you want the min and max anyway), and I wonder if he intentionally wrote them that way to separate posers from actual advice. But then again, peak market for programmers, anyone who looks relatively ok is getting a job right now.

 

[vet_doc92]

Man, I joined this forum because of the awesome advice I've found from Google redirecting me here.
Now that i've joined and done more reading it seems that 90% of the pharmacy forum is "Get out of our field before you start because you're drawing my salary down"

At least you're doing a good job at deterring people. Just out of curiosity, I looked back at every facility that I've worked at as a tech, and all of them have multiple pharmacist openings, about 50/50 clinical to staff rph with the average of openings being 7. When I came on as tech I got about the same response in 2012, "oh the field is falling, dont go to pharmacy, go to medical school"

Those same pharmacists are now making 150k+

My other take is that if you think you're going to walk into any of these get rich quick ecom or online businesses without TONS of work then you're wrong. Yes, you can get into internet marketing relatively easy but its just as saturated as pharmacy is, if not more. I don't want to go though all this schooling for 30/hr either but I'll 100% accept a 30hr/wk job with no benefits because I'm retired military. 3/4 time would be baller.

 

[PharmDBro2017]

Man, I joined this forum because of the awesome advice I've found from Google redirecting me here.
Now that i've joined and done more reading it seems that 90% of the pharmacy forum is "Get out of our field before you start because you're drawing my salary down"

At least you're doing a good job at deterring people. Just out of curiosity, I looked back at every facility that I've worked at as a tech, and all of them have multiple pharmacist openings, about 50/50 clinical to staff rph with the average of openings being 7. When I came on as tech I got about the same response in 2012, "oh the field is falling, dont go to pharmacy, go to medical school"

Those same pharmacists are now making 150k+

My other take is that if you think you're going to walk into any of these get rich quick ecom or online businesses without TONS of work then you're wrong. Yes, you can get into internet marketing relatively easy but its just as saturated as pharmacy is, if not more. I don't want to go though all this schooling for 30/hr either but I'll 100% accept a 30hr/wk job with no benefits because I'm retired military. 3/4 time would be baller.

If you've done little to no research on the current job market, it's easy to have this opinion^. Pharmacy is not even at the saturation tipping point yet, just quickly approaching since we graduate 15k pharmacists annually vs. 3k jobs opening annually. Follow the data from the BLS and you'll see things will be getting very bad soon. This forum just tends to pay attention and not ignore the math... the majority of new grads in the upcoming years could have little to zero job prospects outside of moving to BFE/Indian reservation.

Most pharmacists are not making 150k either, the average is 121k according to data. If you only get 30hrs/week, that means you're taking home ~60-70k and having to pay student loans of 150-200k. Good luck.

Pharmacists

 

[vet_doc92]

Veterans benefits paying for my school, and already make about 40k in retirement (untaxed) so thus I said I'm ok with 30hr/wk and no benefits because i'm retired. So, little to no debt, wife owns large business. Works for me.

I've read the BLS data, and again speaking from exerience, my old organization that I left in December has 9 open positions. Your mileage may vary.

 

[confettiflyer]

Saving $20/hr on an employee doesn’t necessarily mean it is cost effective over the long term.

 

[Jbrl]

No pharmacist job is secure anymore. No matter how good or invaluable you think you are, the fact is you can be replaced by a new hire who makes $20-40k less to do the same job.

What are some things we can do to prepare ourselves? Let's come up with some contingency plans.

What you highlighted represents the crux of the issue; even veteran pharmacists with decades of experience are considered largely replaceable by new grads, tossed to the side as commodities.

I would assert that the best thing one can do (aside from prioritizing finances), no matter what age, is to pick fields that value/are selective about 1) skills learned over time 2) years of experience 3) places worked. These three serve as wonderful gating factors and ultimately one would be less replaceable.

 

[vet_doc92]

I feel terrible for the young people just entering into this for class of like 2023 ya know? what will even be left to do? If the tuition were dropped to a good investment , then maybe i could see it, but still no jobs is a problem...... this will all sort itself out around 2025. i cant wait to see what becomes of it.

A good many people I've worked with have come to say the future of pharmacy is where we will take on more provider roles, to fully utilize our education, and providers will move more towards focusing on their specialites.

Technicians will be fulfilling more pharmacist roles, Tech Check Tech becoming more prevalent on things like refills, robot fills, restocks, etc. Most of this is with hospital pharmacy vision, but I currently work with at a regional HQ, and this is what we're seeing at command level. Jobs part will indeed work itself out. The age bubble is on a same scale with the pharmacy bubble, so I think some will retire early, a large majority will move out of pharmacy, and then it'll equal itself out. I took think like you, 5-8 years it'll be leveling out, and graduating in 2023, and then hopefully working into a residency will be around prime time.

We'll see though.

 

[Momus]

A good many people I've worked with have come to say the future of pharmacy is where we will take on more provider roles, to fully utilize our education, and providers will move more towards focusing on their specialites.

Technicians will be fulfilling more pharmacist roles, Tech Check Tech becoming more prevalent on things like refills, robot fills, restocks, etc. Most of this is with hospital pharmacy vision, but I currently work with at a regional HQ, and this is what we're seeing at command level. Jobs part will indeed work itself out. The age bubble is on a same scale with the pharmacy bubble, so I think some will retire early, a large majority will move out of pharmacy, and then it'll equal itself out. I took think like you, 5-8 years it'll be leveling out, and graduating in 2023, and then hopefully working into a residency will be around prime time.

We'll see though.

The last 20 yrs they sell this sh1t to unsuspecting students. Nothing concrete ever comes thru. 2023, it's a guarantee 60% unemployment and Pharm.D degree becomes worth less than a toilet paper. 200-300 applicants for 1 spot here we come.

 

[PharmtoCS]

A good many people I've worked with have come to say the future of pharmacy is where we will take on more provider roles, to fully utilize our education, and providers will move more towards focusing on their specialites.

Technicians will be fulfilling more pharmacist roles, Tech Check Tech becoming more prevalent on things like refills, robot fills, restocks, etc. Most of this is with hospital pharmacy vision, but I currently work with at a regional HQ, and this is what we're seeing at command level. Jobs part will indeed work itself out. The age bubble is on a same scale with the pharmacy bubble, so I think some will retire early, a large majority will move out of pharmacy, and then it'll equal itself out. I took think like you, 5-8 years it'll be leveling out, and graduating in 2023, and then hopefully working into a residency will be around prime time.

We'll see though.

Spoken like a true student/academic. We've beaten the idea of provider status to death for the last 5-10 years with nothing to show for it. Before that it was branded MTM, pharmaceutical care, etc. 10 years ago there was the constant the talk provider status reversing the course of pharmacist saturation. Where are all my provider privileges I was promised while I was a student back then?

Go to your local CVS/Walgreens or even better, work in one. Does it look like the pharmacist there is doing anything related to this elusive "provider status"?

 

[vet_doc92]

Spoken like a true student/academic. We've beaten the idea of provider status to death for the last 5-10 years with nothing to show for it. Before that it was branded MTM, pharmaceutical care, etc. 10 years ago there was the constant the talk provider status reversing the course of pharmacist saturation. Where are all my provider privileges I was promised while I was a student back then?

Go to your local CVS/Walgreens or even better, work in one. Does it look like the pharmacist there is doing anything related to this elusive "provider status"?

100%.
Growing up, going to the pharmacist was a big deal when you had medical questions. In the big face of pharmacy which is basically Walgreens/CVS/Other mainstream retail, you see a pharmacist doing tech work, running around wildly trying to keep up, while doing the same thing the 11.75/hr technician is doing. I see a big push coming from inside on the hospital side of the house, but the retail side where we get all the publicity and recognition is dwindling. But, hopefully that idea stands and in a few years the turnover will level out from both ends and those of us with 20+ years left in the field will be able to put some good into the world with knowing how poor RPh conditions are now.

 

[beautifulrobot]

100%.
Growing up, going to the pharmacist was a big deal when you had medical questions. In the big face of pharmacy which is basically Walgreens/CVS/Other mainstream retail, you see a pharmacist doing tech work, running around wildly trying to keep up, while doing the same thing the 11.75/hr technician is doing. I see a big push coming from inside on the hospital side of the house, but the retail side where we get all the publicity and recognition is dwindling. But, hopefully that idea stands and in a few years the turnover will level out from both ends and those of us with 20+ years left in the field will be able to put some good into the world with knowing how poor RPh conditions are now.

How much experience do you have working in healthcare outside of the federal government? It's a different ball game. There is a reason you dont see too many feds on SDN complaining about work conditions and how the sky is falling. We're fairly sheltered. Ymmv by duty station, and sure there's the possibility of a RIF at any given time, but for the most part we deal with a lot less stress than our private sector pharmacy compatriots. Pharmacists are also viewed differently in the fed - it's not so much how much revenue you can generate as it is about how many gaps in service you can fill and how well you can keep the mission going in a way that makes your boss look good. It's a different mindset that enables pharmacists to do more than traditional pharmacy work, especially since scope of practice is a lot more lax in the fed.

The way you talk about pharmacy's future makes more sense from the federal practice lens, but it doesnt apply well to the private sector. Although even in the fed we have to deal with turf wars, and whats to say that NPs and PAs wont deal with the "more medical stuff" and pharmacists will pretty much have a very limited role focused on formulary management, supervising pharmacy techs, clinical rounds/consults, and drug informatics. In which case we wont really need as many pharmacists, even in the fed.

 

[gwarm01]

Funny, the system seems to be expanding technician roles but not developing pharmacists as providers. I wonder why that is?

 

[vet_doc92]

How much experience do you have working in healthcare outside of the federal government? It's a different ball game. There is a reason you dont see too many feds on SDN complaining about work conditions and how the sky is falling. We're fairly sheltered. Ymmv by duty station, and sure there's the possibility of a RIF at any given time, but for the most part we deal with a lot less stress than our private sector pharmacy compatriots. Pharmacists are also viewed differently in the fed - it's not so much how much revenue you can generate as it is about how many gaps in service you can fill and how well you can keep the mission going in a way that makes your boss look good. It's a different mindset that enables pharmacists to do more than traditional pharmacy work, especially since scope of practice is a lot more lax in the fed.

The way you talk about pharmacy's future makes more sense from the federal practice lens, but it doesnt apply well to the private sector. Although even in the fed we have to deal with turf wars, and whats to say that NPs and PAs wont deal with the "more medical stuff" and pharmacists will pretty much have a very limited role focused on formulary management, supervising pharmacy techs, clinical rounds/consults, and drug informatics. In which case we wont really need as many pharmacists, even in the fed.

About 1.5 years outside fed system, great private hospital but you're right, mostly fed.
I guess we'll see but working Brigade level command thats really getting DHA takeover info on a daily/weekly basis from Region, I see pharmacists expanding. Definitely in the clinical side. Telehealth is becoming large here too, I'm a consultant to that committee too, so we're doing Tobacco Cessation, Diabetes, and some Behavioral Health consults via Telehealth which is a new role for the pharmacists that were just seeing people in their clinics. Now with a small aid station, internet access, computer and a closed room, we can intervene at literally most anywhere in the world.

 

[beautifulrobot]

About 1.5 years outside fed system, great private hospital but you're right, mostly fed.
I guess we'll see but working Brigade level command thats really getting DHA takeover info on a daily/weekly basis from Region, I see pharmacists expanding. Definitely in the clinical side. Telehealth is becoming large here too, I'm a consultant to that committee too, so we're doing Tobacco Cessation, Diabetes, and some Behavioral Health consults via Telehealth which is a new role for the pharmacists that were just seeing people in their clinics. Now with a small aid station, internet access, computer and a closed room, we can intervene at literally most anywhere in the world.

The main problem i see with these types of pharmacist-run clinics (tobacco cessation, birth control, diabetes) is that most of them can easily be taken over by less expensive RNs with a bit of extra training. A lot of these clinics are protocol-based, and more complex patients get refered back to a physician. Maybe you need a pharmacist (or a physician) to get the clinic up and running and the protocols squared away, i.e. working more in a consultant capacity. But once you have everything configured, these kinds of clinics can, and do, run fairly smoothly by RNs. Diabetes may be one exception where pharmacists add unique value, since drug regimens can be quite complex and still managed by a PharmD without needing to refer to an MD. The ultimate question is if insurance will reimburse a PharmD more than a RN for a particular service, and if not, then how do you justify spending more money on the PharmD? There needs to be a clear indication that the PharmD somehow generates more revenue or cuts costs by reducing liability/risk of being sued or fined... as long as RNs can run these clinics "good enough" it doesnt really matter if pharmacists are "better" unless that equates to generating more money for the organization (or cutting costs for the fed).

The main clinical area that pharmacists have a clear advantage over RN/NP/PA and that are beyond the scope of pharmacy techs is inpatient clinical drug therapy services, e.g. pk calculations and drug level monitoring, all things related to IV drug order verification, antibiotic stewardship, etc. These are services that pharmacists are uniquely trained for, and they are complex and risky enough that they are not an easy or even desireable service to want to encroach on. And because there's a lot of liability involved, hospitsls are generally willing (or required by law) to spend more money on a more highly trained inidivdual (i.e. pharmacist) to oversee these tasks. Pharmacists already dominate these services, though. So i dont see much expansion beyond what we already have in place.

Perhaps my imagination is too limited, but it seems to me that the only way pharmacist run clinics become mainstream is if all of a sudden RNs become as expensive as pharmacists, or pharmacists become as inexpensive as RNs.

 

[vet_doc92]

Well in my case, I was speaking to pharmacists working in their clinical jobs with these added on tasks. A nurse isn't licensed to make interventions in medications though for DM. I dunno.But I don't see whole clinics being runs by RN's They need a couple more years of schooling for that lol

 

[projektreverb]

Funny, the system seems to be expanding technician roles but not developing pharmacists as providers. I wonder why that is?

$$$$$$$$$$ cha Ching Cha Ching