Amazon Pharmacy is Official

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mentos said:
How do they even screen that many applications, look at the first ten then ignore the rest? Imagine the hours and hours of wasted time all those 1,000 applicants put in to apply.
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I applied for PillPack a month ago. The listing is still open. But I actually heard back yesterday and got invited for a 1hr virtual interview. Supposedly they’re doing interviews all this week and next for a start date end of December
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WVUPharm2007 said:
OK. Until they buy a PBM and increase their retail footprint, I'm not convinced.
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This.

Amazon is a beast, but its not this form that will take down the brick and mortars. It will take several evolutions for them to do that (if it happens at all).

Current entry is just to get their feet wet....where it goes from there is anyones guess.
 
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humapa said:
How efficient is mail order vs retail?

Anyone got a back up plan in case this pharmacy thing doesn’t work out?
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Teaching myself coding. I've been progressing quite slowly though...mostly because I've actually been slammed with lots of hours lately.
 
This is just to provide more service to their prime members.. This will be on a similar scale as pill-pack IMO. People who think this will change the shape of the industry, I don’t know what you guys are smoking.

Some folks just have the fascination with unknown.
 
www.statista.com

Largest pharmacies by Rx drugs market share 2022 | Statista

The leading U.S. pharmacies in 2022 were CVS Health, Walgreens Boots Alliance, and Cigna, with a combined market share of over 52%.
www.statista.com www.statista.com

Here is estimated prescriptions filled per chain. Walmart who have been operating pharmacies for several years are only at 4.7% despite their lowest pricing.. Now people think Amazon would just show up tomorrow and sweep Cvs/ Esi/ Humana? Healthcare in general isn’t easy to break into. This is like saying Walmart care clinics will soon replace dentists and pcps..

Give me a break!
 
Walmart didn't really make money directly off their $4 list? Weird!
 
WVU,

I don't see anything groundbreaking from Amazon but just to list some screwups on the 'tech' side of things for CVS recently... All of a sudden date of birth doesn't work in Zebra. Then verification screen displays off by one date of birth. Patients getting text messages telling them they have 4 scripts ready when they don't. New PCQ calls are not functional. I'm probably forgetting some other issues that required fixes because I don't work for them so much.

These are typical from my experience with CVS. Plus lets not forget that the stores are chronically short staffed. So to get scripts out and deliveries out in a timely fashion could be an issue. If you had to pick CVS app vs Amazon. If you had to pick CVS website vs Amazon. If you had to pick customer service. I would probably go with Amazon on those. Lets be honest here. Service in the pharmacy could be a lot better these days.
 
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notspecial(ty) said:
Remote interview. Actual position at the fulfillment facility. Maybe an in person tour is part of the interview process if you make to the next steps
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Are you new grad? What state? I want to get into but I haven’t applied yet. I wonder if they consider new grads
 
Farmgurl20 said:
Are you new grad? What state? I want to get into but I haven’t applied yet. I wonder if they consider new grads
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I am not. C/O 2015. The listing says 1+ years experience in retail, LTC, or mail-order pharmacy required. Preferred 3 years. I have LTC and mail order background.
 
notspecial(ty) said:
I am not. C/O 2015. The listing says 1+ years experience in retail, LTC, or mail-order pharmacy required. Preferred 3 years. I have LTC and mail order background.
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That’s good. Yeah that’s why. I have classmate who got in for same spot but he did intern for them in last year of pharm school. Do you have any tips on how to get into mail order as new grad, I have worked in retail.
 
People like to actually have a place where they can go to complain LOL
 
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M0df said:
WVU,

I don't see anything groundbreaking from Amazon but just to list some screwups on the 'tech' side of things for CVS recently... All of a sudden date of birth doesn't work in Zebra. Then verification screen displays off by one date of birth. Patients getting text messages telling them they have 4 scripts ready when they don't. New PCQ calls are not functional. I'm probably forgetting some other issues that required fixes because I don't work for them so much.

These are typical from my experience with CVS. Plus lets not forget that the stores are chronically short staffed. So to get scripts out and deliveries out in a timely fashion could be an issue. If you had to pick CVS app vs Amazon. If you had to pick CVS website vs Amazon. If you had to pick customer service. I would probably go with Amazon on those. Lets be honest here. Service in the pharmacy could be a lot better these days.
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No argument from me there. CVS has the worst computer system on the planet.
 
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Farmgurl20 said:
That’s good. Yeah that’s why. I have classmate who got in for same spot but he did intern for them in last year of pharm school. Do you have any tips on how to get into mail order as new grad, I have worked in retail.
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From my experience, mail order is a cushy job. You don’t need to know specifics cause they’ll train you.

Maybe you’ve heard this before but as a new grad, the only advice I can give is to:

Work on tailoring your resume - make sure it fits the listing

Work on interviewing skills - this will require some sort of self reflection on who you are, what you can bring to the company, what situations you’ve been in that showed your skills. Tell them how you’ve been proactive. It’s easier to moan and groan while you wait for a job, but when you get that interview and they ask you what you’ve done, what will you say?

If you’re able, network - I feel like this part is harder than it sounds. I had no connections at my current mail order job. Maybe I got lucky, who knows. Maybe ask your classmates who got jobs for help. It’s not the time to be embarrassed about not having a job yet. I feel like new grads this year are given benefit of the doubt when it comes to delayed employment because of covid and all.

It’s a tough market for sure. Depending on how badly you wanna keep trying and stay in pharmacy is up to you. I wish you luck.
 
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rxkrafted said:
i can already see pharmacy schools preparing to use this as a talking point for new opportunities for pharmacists to play a more active role in patient care and less dispensing.
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Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose; they talked about it this way when I was in school in the early 1990s re: mail order.

Honestly, as a person who now has a home-based business that is kept afloat by Amazon, I'm horrified.
 
humapa said:
I have also sold things on Amazon. They make the seller eat it if things are not delivered even when it is amazon’s fault.

I am thinking they will do the same thing with drug manufacturers. In order to be on their preferred manufacturer list, they would need to replace any lost or stolen medication which is not expensive for manufacturers.
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I sold a used textbook years ago on Amazon. Sold it in September and the mofo buyer returned it in December after using it for the semester. Of course a new edition came out shortly after that, making the version I sold worthless. Amazon told me to pound sand. Haven't sold anything on Amazon since then.
 
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mentos said:
I sold a used textbook years ago on Amazon. Sold it in September and the mofo buyer returned it in December after using it for the semester. Of course a new edition came out shortly after that, making the version I sold worthless. Amazon told me to pound sand. Haven't sold anything on Amazon since then
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Did you actually issue a refund? When was this? Nowadays, Amazon only allows refunds for 30 days after a sale.

Right now, I'm getting a string of people who are saying things like "The package was intact, but the item arrived in 2 pieces" when I know darned well that I didn't send it that way, so I just tell them, "Return it and I'll refund your money." I also got a memorable series of e-mails from a man who was definitely not a native English speaker who wanted to know why the book was covered in crayon marks, which I also knew hadn't left my house in that condition. I kept telling him to return it if he wanted his money back, and he never did.

Most of the textbook-on-Amazon stories I see on the vendors' message board are things like the vendor who had once purchased a $200 textbook and it arrived in a brown paper grocery bag that had been sealed shut with electrical tape - but it did arrive and was in the condition described on the website.
 
rph3664 said:
Did you actually issue a refund? When was this? Nowadays, Amazon only allows refunds for 30 days after a sale.

Right now, I'm getting a string of people who are saying things like "The package was intact, but the item arrived in 2 pieces" when I know darned well that I didn't send it that way, so I just tell them, "Return it and I'll refund your money." I also got a memorable series of e-mails from a man who was definitely not a native English speaker who wanted to know why the book was covered in crayon marks, which I also knew hadn't left my house in that condition. I kept telling him to return it if he wanted his money back, and he never did.

Most of the textbook-on-Amazon stories I see on the vendors' message board are things like the vendor who had once purchased a $200 textbook and it arrived in a brown paper grocery bag that had been sealed shut with electrical tape - but it did arrive and was in the condition described on the website.
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Amazon pulled the money from my account. I had no option. This was about 7 years ago.
 
They probably filed an A-to-Z report. I got one of those a few months ago, but Amazon didn't penalize me because it was actually the post office's fault for losing the item. Amazon itself refunded the item; it wasn't much money, probably about $10, but I was glad they made that decision.

One thing I can guarantee is that people buy THE.WEIRDEST.STUFF.
 
The elephant in the room for Amazon or anybody is the PBM. Caremark has 40% of that market. And the PBM's most certainly collude with each other through their lobbying arm, PCMA. People don't go to CVS because they like the experience. They go to CVS because their insurance makes them. Is Caremark going to give Amazon similar access out of the kindness of their heart? Caremark has a heart? Caremark also gets to decide what Amazon or anybody else gets paid.

People also like CVS because they can go in at 8:45 P.M., all major holidays(Christmas, etc.), and Sunday.

I'm no fan of CVS, Walgreens, or any other chain but those guys have this industry wrapped up. The PBM's own us.

On another note I have noticed Walgreens starting to build smaller footprint brick and mortar stores. Amazon has significantly disrupted the front end for the box stores.
 
southpharmindy said:
The elephant in the room for Amazon or anybody is the PBM. Caremark has 40% of that market. And the PBM's most certainly collude with each other through their lobbying arm, PCMA. People don't go to CVS because they like the experience. They go to CVS because their insurance makes them. Is Caremark going to give Amazon similar access out of the kindness of their heart? Caremark has a heart? Caremark also gets to decide what Amazon or anybody else gets paid.

People also like CVS because they can go in at 8:45 P.M., all major holidays(Christmas, etc.), and Sunday.

I'm no fan of CVS, Walgreens, or any other chain but those guys have this industry wrapped up. The PBM's own us.

On another note I have noticed Walgreens starting to build smaller footprint brick and mortar stores. Amazon has significantly disrupted the front end for the box stores.
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I think your comments are a perfect example of how shortsighted pharmacists can be.

People don't go to CVS because they like the experience. They go to CVS because their insurance makes them.

Insurance doesn't force patients to go anywhere. Ever. If you want to pay $5 for 30 days worth of levothyroxine then you must go to CVS. But what if you could get 30 days for $1. Insurance can't tell you to not use a pharmacy that offers a price like that.

Amazon isn't getting into the pharmacy business. They're getting into the PBM business. You just don't know it yet.
 
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BenJammin said:
I think your comments are a perfect example of how shortsighted pharmacists can be.

People don't go to CVS because they like the experience. They go to CVS because their insurance makes them.

Insurance doesn't force patients to go anywhere. Ever. If you want to pay $5 for 30 days worth of levothyroxine then you must go to CVS. But what if you could get 30 days for $1. Insurance can't tell you to not use a pharmacy that offers a price like that.

Amazon isn't getting into the pharmacy business. They're getting into the PBM business. You just don't know it yet.
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So funny how pharmacists think they're more business savy than Amazon!
 
BenJammin said:
I think your comments are a perfect example of how shortsighted pharmacists can be.

People don't go to CVS because they like the experience. They go to CVS because their insurance makes them.

Insurance doesn't force patients to go anywhere. Ever. If you want to pay $5 for 30 days worth of levothyroxine then you must go to CVS. But what if you could get 30 days for $1. Insurance can't tell you to not use a pharmacy that offers a price like that.

Amazon isn't getting into the pharmacy business. They're getting into the PBM business. You just don't know it yet.
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Believe me when I tell you. I hate and despise CVS/Caremark. I'm an independent. I love Amazon as far as buying all of my personal stuff.

But pharmacy is a different animal. The PBM's hijacked our profession and have created a monopoly. Hopefully Amazon or somebody else can create a viable alternative to the PBM model or we get PBM reform.

Even Amazon cannot undercut CVS/Caremark or Walgreens prices. CVS partners with Cardinal Health in the Red Oak Sourcing Group; its the largest purchaser of generic drugs in the world. Walgreens owns part of AmerisourceBergen. The Walgreens/Boots Alliance is right there with the Red Oak Sourcing group. Between the 2 they control 80% of the PBM market, purchase most of the generic drugs, and fill 70% of the prescriptions.

Its a horrible setup but that was before my time and way above my pay grade.

I'm not a fan of the chains but they've got all of the cards locked up. I don't see this as any different than PillPack
 
mentos said:
So funny how pharmacists think they're more business savy than Amazon!
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Not at all. The pharmacy profession is in a death spiral. We'll all be out in 10 years. Thankfully I'm listening to guys like you and WVU with investments. We're going to be able to walk away from this. But we've all been working for over a decade.

Without reform you're going to see a much different landscape in the future. Its why none of my kids will be going to pharmacy school.

I just don't see this as any different than PillPack until Amazon buys a big PBM (which CVS and Walgreens own)
 
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Here’s some things to consider... John Lavin the former Caremark guy that was getting blocked to work at Amazon with a non-compete looks like he’s off his non-compete now. His LinkedIn has him at amazon for payer relations starting in November. Coincidence with the latest announcement, I think not. I predict they’ve got some other Mavericks from the industry up there that can ratchet things up faster than the operation can handle right now. Lavin’s got a deep Rolodex and knows the rules of the game very very well because he wrote half of them.

To the people saying cvs has little to fear because they can control share with aetna/caremark.... you are misguided. CVS can always have share yes but they can’t lose the cream of share that makes the retail operation profitable. The street cares about the segment performance which is why they always break it out. If retail dies so will it’s stock. The ones they can more easily lock in like the managed Medicaid isn’t where amazon is going to compete. You really only want to start going after that stuff when you have a maxed out cost model and your incremental cost to fill is pretty low. Amazon is going to start scraping the profitable patients first (which is also likely in line with Amazons already target demo). While it might not seem heavy on script count it can be top heavy on profitability which can be very dangerous for cvs if they keep a high quantity of low to negative margin scripts on board with no offset.
 
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So what has been happening so far from what you guys have seen?

Patient A. I won't be filling here anymore. I am going to Amazon. - NP. Should we inactive your scripts here? - Sure.
Patient B. Fax from Amazon to transfer scripts. Not even a phone call. Fax asks that even scripts with no refills should be faxed back to them to provide information. How ridiculous is that? Pick up the phone and call me like the rest of the pharmacies do when you attempt to grow your business. I guess they are too busy or too technologically advanced to bother. It seems that I should be doing more work than Amazon is willing to do when I'm not the one filling the script. I guess they are sticking with pillpack model of getting transfers.
 
southpharmindy said:
I just don't see this as any different than PillPack until Amazon buys a big PBM (which CVS and Walgreens own)
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Amazon doesn't need a PBM. That's what you guys just don't understand and why your PBM reform obsession is a waste of time. Next chance you get I want you to look at your wholesaler ordering system and your pricing tables. Atorvastatin 40mg #90, metformin 1000mg #180, and Synthroid 100mcg #90. If you can't beat $110 for those 3 prescriptions, no PBM reform will save you from Amazon. They don't have to pay pharmacists a dispensing fee because the business model doesn't depend on it.

The only thing saving independent and chain pharmacies is a national system like what they have in the UK. Until then, you can't compete with Amazon on price and neither can the PBMs.
 
M0df said:
So what has been happening so far from what you guys have seen?

Patient A. I won't be filling here anymore. I am going to Amazon. - NP. Should we inactive your scripts here? - Sure.
Patient B. Fax from Amazon to transfer scripts. Not even a phone call. Fax asks that even scripts with no refills should be faxed back to them to provide information. How ridiculous is that? Pick up the phone and call me like the rest of the pharmacies do when you attempt to grow your business. I guess they are too busy or too technologically advanced to bother. It seems that I should be doing more work than Amazon is willing to do when I'm not the one filling the script. I guess they are sticking with pillpack model of getting transfers.
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Those and/or thirdly, they figure there are some transfers that people will respond to (if they do best expense/turnaround to them), I wouldn’t be surprised if they are also in parallel sending a request to whatever doctor the patient said and telling the patient up front in a better way most pharmacies do today that they can also tell their doctor to send new ones.

The true patients they are getting (not any they are getting through disception) won’t be phased by something amazon can spin as a cvs/other mortar pharmacy flaw (patient already wants to leave their old pharmacy). These are the profitable ones. Ones that are staying for cents to low $ copay advantage are less likely to also be a managed care program that is paying the best margin. The cheap find the cheap and complain for more cheap. Just being forced to listen to all that complain ain’t cheap. Amazon don’t want to invite it in first.
 
Market caps:
Amazon - 1.56 trillion
CVS - 86.9 billion
WBA - 32.5 billion

Do you know how much more a trillion is than a billion? Amazon could eat CVS and Walgreens alive, take a dump and still be hungry.

This sounds just like the UPS/FedEx argument. Everyone thought they'd be dependent on this middleman. Amazon gave them a big middle finger and bypassed them with their own delivery fleet, charged $80 for prime and everyone gladly paid. Then they increased prime to $120 and customers bent over and still paid.
 
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Can I ask the group a really quick question? I don't want to make a new topic for this but I think it's appropriate here. If your patients had the opportunity to get a 6 months supply of their medications do you think they'd do it? Ignore cost when answering this.

 
Depends. Some older people like coming to the pharmacy and refuse 90-day Rxs because they don't want to waste their money if they die between now and then. Most people, I image, would be fine with a 6 months supply.
 
LMAO at these snowbird stores they bitch and moan when they get a 30 day supply instead of the expected 90-day supply and you didn't tell them.

The fewer interactions the better
 
BenJammin said:
Can I ask the group a really quick question? I don't want to make a new topic for this but I think it's appropriate here. If your patients had the opportunity to get a 6 months supply of their medications do you think they'd do it? Ignore cost when answering this.

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Can’t see poll either but hard to ignore cost. Taking cost out of the equation I’m sure there are people out there that would want year supplies or longer. There are people that like to hoard things and people that would probably just enjoy not having to take as many trips to get their meds. Hell I’m sure some of my patients would prefer to get their years worth of meds at their doctors office at their annual physical.

I can think of many patients that would want lifetime supplies of viagra and cialis. Just run into drug expiration date issues.
 
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humapa said:
Would you rather have them call you? Wouldn’t that take more time than just faxing it?
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Are they doing it this way to make it easy on me? Honestly, if I am doing 1-2 transfers, verbal is faster for me. If I am doing 5+ I would rather fax. But that is not even the point. No one else is doing it that way. Pillpack was doing it that way too. Tell me why should I spoon-feed information on prescription that has no refills? Ludicrous. How about doing some work to obtain scripts you want to fill.
 

Amazon Pharmacist Jobs

119 Amazon Pharmacist jobs. Search job openings, see if they fit - company salaries, reviews, and more posted by Amazon employees.
www.glassdoor.com www.glassdoor.com

no jobs around me.
 
I wouldn’t do 6 month supply since lot of people claim they either lost or didn’t get the full supply of their medications. And it would be a nightmare trying to figure what would happen next; especially on expensive stuff like Eliquis..

3 month is just fine..
 
The sad part is people do claim to lose their **** and then want to beg the pharmacy to fix it.

Yeah you can pay for your lost medication like you would if you lost anything else? If you got shorted shouldn't you have said something the moment you found out instead of chucking all your loose **** in a paper bag and shaking up the contents.

Don't think Amazon really wants to draw the mentally deficient crowd
 
Sine Cura said:
Don't think Amazon really wants to draw the mentally deficient crowd
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This is one thing I don't think Amazon gets. Most of Amazon's employees get to work in an offices shielded from having to work with those who are not like like minded. They severely underestimate the stupidity and entitlement of the general public.
 
mentos said:
How do they even screen that many applications, look at the first ten then ignore the rest? Imagine the hours and hours of wasted time all those 1,000 applicants put in to apply.
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From my experience they have some sort of algorithm set up to instantly kick out people that don't match their minimum requirements. Then they start at the top. Find 10 or so that are manually reviewed, interview who they want, and if they find someone, they hire them without looking at the rest. Our hospital would do something similiar, no hospital experience, instant reject, then HR would send batchs of 10-20 or so, and we had to reject so many before they would release us more to review.
 
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