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I know you're just trying to illustrate the real plight of your customers, but it's a bad illustration that confuses the discussion.
Second, out of sincere curiosity: what was the future of the industry -- and these particular pharmacies -- if AI hadn't arrived to offer salvation? The role they fill in society is non-optional, so how the market restructuring around these infeasibly narrow margins before?
Apple offers online, telephone, and of course in-person support for hardware and software: https://support.apple.com/?cid=mc-ols-general-homepage-marco...
Amazon offers online and telephone customer support on your “my orders” page.
Netflix offers phone and chat support: https://help.netflix.com/en/contactus
Funny how you danced around google too. They are easily the worst in terms of offering support. People online in all seriousness suggest getting a google business account for 1 month and cancelling afterwards to actually get tech support.
The last time I waited on hold for Apple developer support, I got to enjoy two whole hours of free hold music. So they offer human support, just not very enthusiastically.
> the tech companies that are bigger haven't offered human support to anyone in decades.
When the Coinbase voice agent gave me an address to mail a letter to and hung up, I was so shocked I had to call back and go through the process again. I was told to mail a letter describing my issue to an address on 5th Avenue in NYC.
If my experience is common, most health plans are moving to mail-order for routine, generic, recurring prescriptions. They only want you to visit a retail pharmacy for stuff that is urgently needed or strictly controlled.
AI probably will save the pharmacies some money, but IMO this will probably cause reimbursement rates to decline further, leaving the pharmacies in the same position as before.
The funny part is probably a majority of pharmacies are owned by CVS or Walgreens each of which are insurance companies in their own right, and often people with company health insurance will ONLY allow reimbursements through their company pharmacy.
Insurance companies and PBMs would probably say the same they have competitors (ie:replaceable) and can’t just pay more for this or that, or reject any cost saving measure available.
Of the 88,930 retail pharmacies operating during 2010–20, 29.4 percent had closed by 2021.
CVS And Walgreens both own and operate PBMs. And UHG (Optum), 19 Blue Cross plans collectively own Prime Therapeutics, Kaiser owns one, the DVA has one, Express Scripts is owned by Cigna. There’s likely more I am unfamiliar with too.
I wonder, what changed in America? Why is the mom and pop pharmacy not viable anymore? This sounds like a much bigger problem than having to answer a couple of calls, really.
I don't really understand how everything turns into a mega corp with shareholders in the US. Sure we have some of those here too but why are small businesses not viable?
Deregulation at every level = small/low leverage players get squeeeeezed.
Most likely in Spain (and much of the world), you have controlled pricing of drugs and fixed markups/fees at pharmacies. Quite possibly it’s illegal there for a non-pharmacist to own a pharmacy and they can’t own a bunch as a silent/relatively inactive partner either.
And yes you need to be a licensed pharmacist obviously.
I think the pharmacists mainly make their money on value add stuff and non prescription drugs.
People here mainly pick their pharmacy by familiarity and service not price. They're all the same anyway. I've never been to the other ones close to my house :)
It's kinda weird there's so many but it works so why not. And it's nice that she knows my name and what I'm on in case of issues. I live only 5 doors down the street. I really like that about here.
I love how stating a simple truth gets you downvoted. Deregulation doesn't mean "less regulation". Maybe in the abstract, but in practice after it passes through the political machine it means increasing regulation that entrenches a handful of large "private" businesses, while removing regulations that would constrain those businesses commensurate with their market power.
It's a plain fact - the players in the health care industry are closer to de facto governments rather than productive businesses in a competitive market. But yet they're allowed to squeeze pharmacy owners, patients, and anyone they can due to lack of effective regulation. That is why our small pharmacies are going away.
Note that I personally favor more market based reforms (eg the sheer majority of visits/procedures/medication should have up-front prices, and those prices should be uniform no matter who might be paying). But we've currently got the worst of both worlds and I would basically support any angle of reform as long as it actually reforms rather than resulting in more regulatory capture.
For example the EU just extended mandatory packaging regulations (PPWR and EPR) for businesses of any size, today. Meaning small artists sending as little as one package to an EU country have to register in that country (there is no central EU registry) and pay yearly fees which add up to thousands for all EU countries. In advance, no less. This even applies if you just chuck one single pendant in a tiny bubblewrap envelope, it's ridiculous. And it applies even within the EU where there is supposed to be a free open market. They have to pay the same fees as a Temu or Amazon, for whom a few thousand euros is peanuts.
So a lot of independent artists are cutting shipping to the EU or only allowing some where registration is free. This is one example where regulation is literally targeting small businesses to kill them.
[0] IIUC "right of withdrawal", at least. It's an EU thing where you have a legal right to return products after a purchase, right? Whereas in the US it operates more on custom, customer satisfaction, and marketing.
[1] eg if artists have to start selling through Amazon (etc) rather than shipping direct
If you buy something in a physical shop it is not a right and dependent on goodwill of the seller. Similar to the US. The thinking is that with buying remotely you don't have the ability to examine the product. The supplier may charge a small restocking fee and charge for return shipping, but most don't do that in practice.
You can also use it to return for things like dead pixels, even though some suppliers try to limit that (e.g. saying you must accept x amount of dead pixels), it's not allowed to refuse that, IF you buy remote.
Funny thing is that it also applies if you order something online for pickup at a physical store. So for things like displays this is highly recommended.
Yeaaaah, I don't think that's true at all but I am glad it makes you feel virtuous and helpful.
Just because you think it is an amazing product does not mean the rest of us will agree with you. It's right up there with "I've never had a problem with it so anyone claiming to have a problem is wrong" mentality. It was your comment acknowledging the public does not like your product or products like yours. You just think your product is better than others. That may be true but it again does not mean it is so good that the public enjoys interacting with your product.
https://nashp.org/state-tracker/state-pharmacy-benefit-manag...
https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/boom-the-break-up-of-big-...
https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/inside-the-mafia-of-pharm...
https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/the-real-reason-walgreens...
> But the real reason Walgreens, and the pharmacy business in general, is dying, is because of a failure to enforce antitrust laws against unfair business methods and illegal mergers. Elson touched on it when he mentioned lower reimbursement rates, but I don’t think people appreciate the full scope of what happened to Walgreens, and to the full pharmacy business in general. This is not a case of bad management, it’s a case of desperate management.
I have a lot of pharmacist relatives. This is news to them.
https://schaeffer.usc.edu/research/pharmacy-closures-united-...
The bigger thing is consolidation and independents being replaced by bigger fish because their leverage is very very low.
“Independent pharmacies, often excluded from networks by pharmacy benefit managers, were more than twice as likely to face closure compared to chain pharmacies.”