What Type of Industry is Pharmacy?

Is pharmacy a product based industry or a service based industry?

Surprisingly there are many pharmacists that I have talked to that state we are a product based industry. Even more perplexing, they state that we need to become MORE product based and that programs like MTMs are worthless and will never do anything for the profession.

To me, that seems like a massively ill-conceived idea.

Part of the problem that what a pharmacist does is not accurately portrayed to the non-pharmacy public. I cannot even say the non-medical public because there are many medical professionals who do not know what a pharmacist can do. I covered this fact alone in a few months back.

If anything, we need to do more to be seen as a service based industry.

Sure we dispense a product that is sold and the surrounding areas of the store do the same. But that is not what a pharmacy is.

The classical definition of pharmacy is 'the art of preparing and dispensing medication'. I think a more accurate definition would be, 'the study and understanding of how medications react and treat disorders in the body.'

Or something of that nature.

The PBMs can justify the fact they pay us as a product based industry because that's how everyone else views us. No one cries wolf because no one sees anything wrong.

What would happen if doctors were reimbursed solely for the materials they use in an office visit? What would happen if a dentist was paid only for the cost of the filling used during a procedure?

There would be a nationwide outrage, would there not be?

Yet this is precisely what happens on a daily basis in a pharmacy and we are supposed to take it in stride.

What's more, it's not even PBMs that are shooting us in the foot. The four dollar generic program instituted by Walmart a few years ago was the biggest punch in the crotch the profession has endured. As if that wasn't bad enough, other organizations are resorting to giving away meds for free to 'compete'.


Low prices. Always.

Right.

So not only are we already viewed by the public just as someone who puts pills in a bottle, we also do so for free.

How can we function like this?

In truth, we can't. Simple economics state that we cannot continue to devalue our product without devaluing ourselves. We're already dangerously close to a point where the public views us on the same level as the cashier at McDonald's.

And then where we be? Everyone is trying to take the next step in the evolution of the profession, but no one is acknowledging the problems we currently have. Instead, most put on a happy face, throw around terms like 'MTMs' and 'Revolutionary Clinics' and assume all is well.

All is not well, and all will not be well until we start to resolve these problems.

The first step could be as simple as reaffirming to our patients that we provide a service to them. Obviously you can't say that point blank, but you can certainly start presenting yourself in ways that will lend credence to that idea.

Of course the first step is a baby one, as it's the next step that'll be the big one.

Until the majority of pharmacists in this country began to stand up for themselves and take a stand, we won't see this happen. No longer can we afford to sit idly by and be the quiet profession in the medical community.

We have been the whipping boy for far too long, and it's time to assert who we are and what we do.

What type of industry is pharmacy? An irreplaceable service that is being squandered by people ignorant of what the profession actually is.

And that is damned sad.