Saturday, November 24, 2007

Why Corpo Pharmcies Suck

I work for an independent chain, meaning we have 7 retail pharmacies and a nursing service pharmacy but we are not affiliated with a national chain. Generally when you come into one of our stores its just like walking into an independent pharmacy in a rural area. Every one is usually rather friendly and you get to know one another quite well. I always figured this was the main reason someone would transfer over from Walgreens or Wal-Mart, but I found yet another reason today.

A woman came in today and asked to get her Lisinopril transferred over from a Walgreens in town. She was a new customer to us and while the pharmacist was getting the copy I was shootin' the shit with her. I asked her, for my own curiosity, why she switched to us. She stated it was because the last time she had her Lisinopril filled they told her it would take up to 12 hours or more to fill.

Now understand there were refills on this medication, she had a stable insurance plan and she was a very friendly, and competent, woman. We could have filled this prescription in under five minutes. Fifteen minutes max if we're rather busy. So how in the hell would it take them over 12 hours to fill something as simple as a 30-day Lisinopril prescription.

I can understand that they have a higher volume than us (they usually beat us by a 2:1 ratio) but they can't have more then 5, maybe 10, waiters at one time. Even in that scenerio, this prescription shouldn't take longer than that 15 minute max (unless a difficult customer/phone call interupts). What in the hell could they be doing during this time? Needless to say I gave some thought to it and this is what I came up with.

  1. Playing the "I found this tablet on the floor and I don't know what it is, but I'll take it and see what it does" game
  2. Looking at transvestite porn
  3. Looking at midget porn
  4. Making a Soufflé
  5. Looking at midget transvestite porn
  6. Performing a tooth extraction (see previous post)
  7. Looking at midget transvestite porn who have no teeth

Other than these items I have no idea just what in the world they're doing back there. Maybe they have orgies or something, and if thats the case I'm putting in my app right now.

2 comments:

futurerxist said...

Obviously you havent worked in corp RX. High volume stores fill anywhere from 600-1300 RX'S a day. Between insurance calls, patient calls, new rx's, refills, shipments, rx pick up, general questions to find products, and consults, with just a handful of RX-ists and techs working because hours are cut short what would normally take 5 mins can take 30min to an hour. No we dont browse the webs nor play "name that tablet" games. We do work. Hard. Thanks for encouraging the divide between those that work within the RX field. Isnt it bad enough between RX'st and Physiscians?

Mad Pharmacy Tech said...

I have to respectfully disagree with the previous comment. I have worked in a retail setting for 14 years in a "high" volume store. Our waiters, unless it was an extreme circumstance, our waiters were always done in 15 or less. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that regardless of how busy it because in my experience, waiters were always the first priority. So I don't think any divide has been created at all.