Have a complaint about CVS? So do pharmacists: Many just walked out
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It wasn't just the volume of customers and prescriptions to fill - she specifically cited the automated loudspeaker messages of "call waiting" that occur several times per minute all day as people phone in with questions.
CVS and Walgreens both seem like awful places to work (with the obvious caveat that this is drawn from a few very local datapoints). Extremely understaffed, so the staff was harried and had to deal with customers who were often pretty irritable by the time they got to the front of the line (I waited 30 minutes yesterday at Walgreens, 40 minutes at CVS a few months back).
I would have expected the pharmacy at the Super Walmart to be one of the worst in terms of working conditions, but they had a lot of people working, so the line moved pretty fast and no one behind the counter looked anywhere near as harried as the pharmacy techs at Walgreens/CVS.
Then you'll see the neighborhood whiners show up on toxic Nextdoor to talk about the CVS experience, however many will offer smaller local pharmacies as a solution this past year. It's a well known issue with both CVS and Walgreens. Yet if you visit a Costco pharmacy it's loaded with staff, never a problem. I feel bad for the staff but it's all on CVS to manage better.
The last time I visited a few weeks ago, drive thru was fast at this location so hopefully it stays consistent.
It's a deprecated name, like "American Telephone and Telegraph Company".
And if you know for a fact you need to ask someone there a quick question, there is no way to do that over the phone without going through one of the most hostile phone trees I’ve ever experienced. Say, if you need to ask if they’ve got some drug in stock before telling your doctor to send it there (why the everloving fuck customers have to do this seems-like-it-should-be-automated labor themselves is another question—but we do, and CVS makes it about as unpleasant as possible)
They take insurance and even when insurance doesn’t cover a drug, the prices are comparable to PBM (think GoodRx) rates. Plus shipping is free and next day and I get 5% back with my Prime Visa. They also work with doctors on the backend to get prescription refills — I don’t have to do anything. I haven’t stood in line at a pharmacy for drugs in years (I still go to my local Safeway pharmacy for vaccines though).
The only downside is if you need your drug same-day, Amazon Pharmacy won’t work for you. But otherwise I’ve found it to be cheaper, and way less hassle than visiting a retail pharmacist.
The long & short is the conversation was that Walgreens management simply had no concept of how to talk with their workers and relations had broken down.
Simply raising salaries would solve most of their problems but the inability of Walgreens to address is likely a symptom of a deeper problem.
Edit: for the replies I see to this thread so far, I think they are off the mark. The problem is not running a business. The problem is the way things are setup between the insurance companies and drug manufacturers almost requires cvs to become a middle man. most independents are still at the mercy of cvs.
The biggest issue to running a pharmacy independently by far is insurances. When you're not big enough to negotiate drug prices with the drug companies, or the payouts with the insurance company you get squeeze out in fast order.
Couple of examples, he worked at <big name grocery store chain with pharmacies> and they averaged a revenue of $3 per script. This managed this because they were able to negotiate prices with both the insurance company and the drug companies. For someone not big enough to negotiate, many drugs will cost the pharmacy more than insurances will reimburse. Another example is billing insurance companies. This grocery store paid 5 cents per insurance bill, and rebills were free. When he worked at an independent pharmacy, it cost them $1.50 to bill insurance, and rebills were not free. Keep in mind, the big company was able to negotiate $3 of revenue per script after negotiating. In almost all cases, an independent pharmacy loses money on the vast majority of their prescriptions.
Largely, independent pharmacies stay afloat by taking on massive debt and doing other value add services. The independent he interned at did warfarin clinics and diabetes stuff (not sure what). It's a passion project for the person owning the pharmacy. Not a profit center.
Insurance companies though, they rake in tons of money.
I'm fascinated by CostPlusDrugs. I can't figure out why they started taking insurance.
But even if you ignore all the crazy regulation and compliance stuff (a huge thing!) - you don't even get past the "this business is simply not viable" stage. Independents are being squeezed out - you can't even reliably expect to be paid your cost for a given medication.
It seems like it could be such a nice, low-key, lifestyle sort of business if you find the right area - but I found no effective way to make it even pay for itself, much less turn a profit or be able to attract any investors even looking to find community projects vs. maximizing returns.
Many areas in the US are like this these days. What should be thousands of small little competing shops being eaten up by the oligopoly. Same thing happened/is happening to pretty much all independent physician groups, and is also now happening to dentists. Every single bit of professional autonomy is being slowly eaten away.
At this point you can't even do one as a passion project it seems, unless you are independently wealthy of the sort to be able to operate at a loss indefinitely as some form of charity.
My sympathy to any pharmacists, and anyone else, working there.
Accordingly, I make a point to print the price of at least one of my items each time I buy from CVS (for morale).
If my local pharmacist has a delivery by mail program, I'd totally use them.
Two complicating factors - A: latency, when I’m sick, I need antibiotics now, not tomorrow afternoon. B: - It isn’t legal to mail some classes of drugs. These includes, but os not limited to, pain meds, anxiety meds, and sleep meds.
My local CVS was offering free mail delivery for the first year or so during Covid. My experiences were generally good, but I have a couple meds in the unable-to-be mailed category, so I end up having to by there every couple weeks anyway.
Last few insurance plan sheets I’ve looked over have also all had higher copays (like 3x higher, iirc) for mailed drugs. Not sure why.
They were probably 90-day supplies. Most mail order is.
- Online prescriptions are very cost-effective compared to retail. Typically free next-day delivery. I don't have any hard stats, but my estimate is that at least 50% of prescriptions are filled online.
- Deliveries are typically shipped to the house's/apartment's mailbox or when chosen so or if the package doesn't fit, to the closest pickup place, typically inside a grocery store. When that happens you need to show an ID to pick it up.
- Retail drug stores, particularly in small villages have been forced to raise prices dramatically. Essentially an old-people tax. :( It's not unusual for them to have 2x prices in retail compared to online.
- There is some debate about shipping hard drugs directly to mailboxes. Some want to require those things going to a pickup-place with ID verification. That makes a lot of sense, I think.
So classic it's brand new news?
Not whataboutism-- this seems to be universal right now?
Example: I had an appointment at a doctor's office in a medical office park. By "medical office park" I'm referring to a plot of land with lots of doctor and specialist offices, which are not part of a single chain, provider, or medical group.
During the appointment, I was told to pick up some over-the-counter medication. I noticed that, in the middle of the medical office park, there was a pharmacy. So, I went over there.
There was a single employee on duty, a pharmacist. I was the only customer there. This was around 11:30, so I expect at least one person was at lunch. Though there was work to do, the pharmacist seemed relaxed, not hurried. They asked what I wanted, found it, asked some questions (to identify possible complications), and handled payment.
Since this pharmacy is in the middle of this office park, I expect they are mainly getting business from the individual medical offices nearby.
They usually will have a pharmacy that is largely used to service other providers in park/campus, and thus is typically pretty laid back. A large number of these keep a retail counter open almost as an afterthought, but in a hospital setting usually meant for patients being discharged or whatever I imagine.
Most of these will take anyone off the streets. Recently this has started to change so I expect in a few years most will no longer take "retail" (the secret is long out, so more and more control-seekers are wasting staff time) customers at all and only service inpatient.
It's worth driving an extra 10 minutes if you have such an option. Otherwise if you must go chain I've had the best luck and heard mostly good things from staff about Costco. Walmart also seems to have a quite functional pharmacy - but it can be quite hit or miss depending on location, and is starting to suffer from the general overworking conditions the rest of the chains have.
/s