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Old 04-20-2012, 03:57 PM   #1
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For those of you who work for Walgrenes, how do you meet the goal of 14 psc cards every week?
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Old 04-20-2012, 04:11 PM   #2
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For those of you who work for Walgrenes, how do you meet the goal of 14 psc cards every week?
Varies by store. I think ours was 5 per week and we usually did one every other. It's the dumbest program. " Hi, would you like to spend 20/yr for a program all our compeitors give you for free? Oh and you get 10% back on gas station mark-up style items." Srsly?

Dumb marketing strategy IMO.
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Old 04-20-2012, 04:16 PM   #3
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Varies by store. I think ours was 5 per week and we usually did one every other. It's the dumbest program. " Hi, would you like to spend 20/yr for a program all our compeitors give you for free? Oh and you get 10% back on gas station mark-up style items." Srsly?

Dumb marketing strategy IMO.
I hate it too. some pharmacists/ technicians would even trick patients by signing them up in advance and making them sign at the register for it....
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Old 04-20-2012, 04:49 PM   #4
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I hate it too. some pharmacists/ technicians would even trick patients by signing them up in advance and making them sign at the register for it....

It's so degrading. Pharmacists acting as salespeople, trying to dupe customers into buying this stupid program all in the name of money. Makes me sick.
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Old 04-20-2012, 05:02 PM   #5
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I hate it too. some pharmacists/ technicians would even trick patients by signing them up in advance and making them sign at the register for it....
Well a big barrier to enrollment is patients don't want to wait while the whole PSC is set up. Even if the tech/intern gets it done quickly the rx gets sent back into F4 which adds additional delay. So if your tech can call the patient ahead of time and explain it to them, or even just setting up the leaflet ahead of time so the patient has a choice at pickup. If they don't want it that's okay. It's perfectly ethical to set it up ahead of time and explain it at pickup and if they don't want it cash it out imo.
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Old 04-20-2012, 07:08 PM   #6
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Yeah, I don't have a problem doing it ahead of time, if I know it is in the patient's best interest. The point is, if they want to come to Walgreens, I want to give them the best service I can. Even though you can get the prescriptions at the same price somewhere else without a membership fee, obviously Walgreens has done something else for these people to make them stand out. Otherwise, they would just go to the other places.

Besides, I think the reason they do the PSC thing is so they can get better reimbursement from the insurance companies? Am I off base there?
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Old 04-20-2012, 07:12 PM   #7
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Someone want to clue in the uninitiated?
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Old 04-20-2012, 07:43 PM   #8
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Accept the fact you aren't going to meet the goal and move on with life. My store is on the edge of a not so great area, and so, half are on Medicaid or Medicare. In WI, in general, 20% of the population is on Medicaid. The program is changing on first of the month.
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Old 04-21-2012, 01:14 AM   #9
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Someone want to clue in the uninitiated?
http://www.walgreens.com/pharmacy/ps...rview_page.jsp

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Accept the fact you aren't going to meet the goal and move on with life. My store is on the edge of a not so great area, and so, half are on Medicaid or Medicare. In WI, in general, 20% of the population is on Medicaid. The program is changing on first of the month.
Or whenever the card is $5 again, they could sell enough for the entire year!
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Old 04-21-2012, 06:50 AM   #10
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CVS has had this since forever...and you need to pay for a "membership" as well.

Though they don't make us try to sell it. It's just there if people want it.
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Old 04-21-2012, 06:56 AM   #11
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Someone want to clue in the uninitiated?
I'm not uninitiated, I know what the PSC is. I was just saying, since they charge a higher cash price than their "club" price, they can show the insurance companies what they charge cash paying patients as an argument to get better reimbursement. I'm not saying it actually works...
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Old 04-21-2012, 07:30 AM   #12
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I'm not uninitiated, I know what the PSC is. I was just saying, since they charge a higher cash price than their "club" price, they can show the insurance companies what they charge cash paying patients as an argument to get better reimbursement. I'm not saying it actually works...
*I* was the uninitiated.

I guess that they will refund you back the difference if you don't make it back is kinda neat. Like Mikie said, CVS has this too - it's just not one of our metrics.
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Old 04-21-2012, 05:42 PM   #13
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Working at a 24h store makes it easier as we get uninsured or ESI pts that are paying cash on ER scripts. If I can save them even a dollar over the cost of the card then it works. Only thing that sucks is my store is in a pilot area for the new zip code based prices and I have to run a dummy script on each script to calc prices for the pts to see if its worth it for them while everyone else can just type in the drugs under F10.
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Old 04-22-2012, 12:52 AM   #14
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CVS has had this since forever...and you need to pay for a "membership" as well.

Though they don't make us try to sell it. It's just there if people want it.
Something other than the ExtraCare card?
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Old 04-22-2012, 04:37 AM   #15
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Something other than the ExtraCare card?
The CVS Health Savings Pass.

There are a lot of people that show interest in it. I have to print out a dozen or so new drug lists a week...and the program is at least as old as I've been there. The $15 fee at both Wags and CVS is kinda odd to me given that its free so many other places, but, hey, whatever.
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Old 04-22-2012, 05:25 AM   #16
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The CVS Health Savings Pass.

There are a lot of people that show interest in it. I have to print out a dozen or so new drug lists a week...and the program is at least as old as I've been there. The $15 fee at both Wags and CVS is kinda odd to me given that its free so many other places, but, hey, whatever.
The fee pays to maintain the drive-thru.
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Old 04-22-2012, 07:32 AM   #17
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The CVS Health Savings Pass.

There are a lot of people that show interest in it. I have to print out a dozen or so new drug lists a week...and the program is at least as old as I've been there. The $15 fee at both Wags and CVS is kinda odd to me given that its free so many other places, but, hey, whatever.
Yeah, it's a mystery to me as well. You can get it for $4 at that one place, free at some other places, or you can pay $15-20 annually to get it for that price at CVS/Walgreens. Yeah, makes perfect sense.
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Old 04-22-2012, 08:13 AM   #18
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Yeah, it's a mystery to me as well. You can get it for $4 at that one place, free at some other places, or you can pay $15-20 annually to get it for that price at CVS/Walgreens. Yeah, makes perfect sense.
Just go to the grocery and have them price match Meijer's free meds and get the discount on your gas on the way out. Don't forget your transfer coupon
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Old 04-22-2012, 03:30 PM   #19
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For those of you who work for Walgrenes, how do you meet the goal of 14 psc cards every week?
I use to work for Walgreens and I sold a ton of those cards. You just have to be really sweet, smile and ask every single customer if they are interested. If you try to make converstation and ask all your customers to buy one it really does help. I made $3 per sale and $5 per sale on Fridays. It was a good deal.

Selling those cards is pretty much the only thing I did really well at Walgreens. That and selling flavoring for $2.99. LOL... I really should go into sells instead of pharmacy.
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Old 04-22-2012, 07:01 PM   #20
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Yeah, it's a mystery to me as well. You can get it for $4 at that one place, free at some other places, or you can pay $15-20 annually to get it for that price at CVS/Walgreens. Yeah, makes perfect sense.
I was "reprimanded" by my SM because we had an elderly lady come to us with one month fills on her meds as her mail order supplies were accidentally destroyed and her insurance refused an override for early refill.

Our cash price was about $1,200 more than Target down the street... so I sent her to Target.

I'm not going to cross my moral and ethical boundaries just so WAGs can make an extra $20, but apparently that wasn't in the "best interests of the company."
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Old 04-23-2012, 07:48 AM   #21
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CVS has had this since forever...and you need to pay for a "membership" as well.

Though they don't make us try to sell it. It's just there if people want it.
I think our CVS hsp fee is worth it. I automatically enroll my customers if they are paying cash. The cost pays for itself in the first fill because they would be paying that anyway.

I also enroll patients automatically if they have a script for terbenafine. It saves me time from getting a pesky PA and the cost is usually about the same as their co-pay.
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Old 04-23-2012, 08:01 AM   #22
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The Wags card will also give you a 10% credit on all Walgreens and Nice brand products. They do include photo. It is a very easy sell for pet rx.
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Old 04-25-2012, 03:21 PM   #23
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I think our CVS hsp fee is worth it. I automatically enroll my customers if they are paying cash. The cost pays for itself in the first fill because they would be paying that anyway.

I also enroll patients automatically if they have a script for terbenafine. It saves me time from getting a pesky PA and the cost is usually about the same as their co-pay.
I do the same same as well- and customers usually accept because in the long they will pay less- but I had no idea generic lamisil was on that list.
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