New rph open a busy store on Monday : disaster

[ancienbon]

On Monday I walked in a mad house at my store. The scheduler had the nerve to send a new grad with no training as a rph in a store on his first day on the bench ( a store that does over 500 scripts on Monday). During my 8 hrs shift I verified over 500 scripts . And I am not kidding. There were 10 pages in QV when I came in. We did over 590 scripts . My Pic was forced to go on vaction by the scheduler so that new grads can get hours . We have a new scheduler, and she seems to be out of touch .

l
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[Sine Cura]

I'm surprised you have enough people to "force" people to take a vacation.

 

[Carol is Alpha]

Not just any Monday, but the first of the month. Just keep the scheduler's name on "The List" for that special day in the not too distant future when there will be an accounting.

Disclosure: I'm long Terex
http://www.terex.com/environmental-equipment/en/products/eco-range/biomass-chipper-range/index.htm

 

[FarmD711]

If you did 590 and you verified 500....the new grad only verified 90? In an 8 hour shift??


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[ancienbon]

If you did 590 and you verified 500....the new grad only verified 90? In an 8 hour shift??


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Yes . From 2 to 10. And he was from 8 to 4. When i came at 2 i took over qv

 

[ICPharmD]

You're the real mvp here doing 500.

Scheduler must've been out of her mind placing a newly grad with no training into opening a store.


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[Carol is Alpha]

500 is too many. Everybody's slapping you on the back as long as nothing happens, but once someone is served then everybody's got

and they don't know you.

 

[6GodPharm]

Why didn't you open? I always open monday and clear everything out. We don't do as much (about 500) on Mondays but I clear everything out before I leave. Qp and Qv is clear when I'm gone on mondays (only day we have overlap). Very hard for someone to F up 5-9pm when everything is clear.

 

[ancienbon]

Why didn't you open? I always open monday and clear everything out. We don't do as much (about 500) on Mondays but I clear everything out before I leave. Qp and Qv is clear when I'm gone on mondays (only day we have overlap). Very hard for someone to F up 5-9pm when everything is clear.

The scheduler who seems to be out of touch made the decision. She called to apologize as the floater called her to tell her that he can't handle the store. She said she has no idea our store was so busy.. When i called the supervisor about that, he said i have to contact the scheduler as he was on vacation. our previous scheduler would ask me first to cover the pic's vacation before reaching out to floaters. and i am always available.

 

[gwarm01]

Does the scheduler have any sort of pharmacy experience? If not, you have to realize that people outside of our profession have no idea what it takes to be successful and usually think a turtle could do our job. If they were a pharmacist/tech at some point then they have no excuse.

edit: I meant no disrespect to any turtles

 

[FarmD711]

Yes . From 2 to 10. And he was from 8 to 4. When i came at 2 i took over qv

Yikes. I've been there. That new grad has no business being there. I understand they are new and haven't much experience. You need k be able to verify more than 12 scripts an hour.


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[FarmD711]

The scheduler who seems to be out of touch made the decision. She called to apologize as the floater called her to tell her that he can't handle the store. She said she has no idea our store was so busy.. When i called the supervisor about that, he said i have to contact the scheduler as he was on vacation. our previous scheduler would ask me first to cover the pic's vacation before reaching out to floaters. and i am always available.

That supervisor also has no business being a supervisor. They need to train their scheduler as to which stores need competent floaters and which ones are ok for anyone. My supervisor has a list of stores in our district that only approved floaters are allowed to cover in because anyone else is a disaster.


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[6GodPharm]

What I hate the most is that floaters are offered shifts first. Some RX managers and even great staff pharmacist are willing to pick up shifts but they send them to floaters first who are for the most part god awful

 

[zelman]

What I hate the most is that floaters are offered shifts first. Some RX managers and even great staff pharmacist are willing to pick up shifts but they send them to floaters first who are for the most part god awful

Don't you tell the scheduler which shifts they need to cover in the first place?

 

[Lnsean]

you want a cookie?

 

[6GodPharm]

Don't you tell the scheduler which shifts they need to cover in the first place?

Yeah you tell the scheduler which shifts need to be covered, but they send those shifts to the floter pool first. After the floater are done choosing they then send the remaining shifts available out to the rest of the pharmacist for coverage. At least in my district it works like this.

 

[RxPreceptor]

So how much amphetamine were you on? That's like averaging barely over 1 minute per script & accounting for dr calls, phone calls, consultation, insurance claims, patient contacts, narcotics, etc. is just insane

 

[Lnsean]

So how much amphetamine were you on? That's like averaging barely over 1 minute per script & accounting for dr calls, phone calls, consultation, insurance claims, patient contacts, narcotics, etc. is just insane

As is with most stories of self-indulgence and ego-projection, there is great exaggeration. Sure, no one did anything...only OP thrived and came out of the pit marred and a hero. The floater did nothing I tell you....nothing! Techs just stood there as she battled away. On-lookers shook their heads...patients even slow-clapped as she finally stapled their scripts together.

OP, I applaud you. It is what you came here for right? Surely, it wasn't no cookie.

 

[Rukn]

As is with most stories of self-indulgence and ego-projection, there is great exaggeration. Sure, no one did anything...only OP thrived and came out of the pit marred and a hero. The floater did nothing I tell you....nothing! Techs just stood there as she battled away. On-lookers shook their heads...patients even slow-clapped as she finally stapled their scripts together.

OP, I applaud you. It is what you came here for right? Surely, it wasn't no cookie.

pharmacy heroics

 

[Hulkbuster333]

Most new grads are thrust into floater positions. As a new grad myself, I'd much rather be at one store primarily to learn everything but I didn't really have a choice. On top of that, the training this year (in my district at least) was to have new grads go to a bunch of different stores and make their own schedules. Some pharmacists were more helpful than others as far as training goes. I really think it should have been a lot more structured. On top of that my district manager is awful and has no clue what is going on and can't answer any questions clearly and concisely.

I'm pretty sure that I could verify more than 10 prescriptions in an hour but I'm just saying, it's not like new grads chose to be crappy floaters.

 

[Sine Cura]

As a new grad I got a store and I believe I learned a lot more in a smaller period of time than if I had floated to a bunch of stores. Part of it is that you are accountable for the problems you create or the problems you fail to anticipate and prevent, so you learn fast if you want to make your workday tolerable.

 

[6GodPharm]

As a new grad I got a store and I believe I learned a lot more in a smaller period of time than if I had floated to a bunch of stores. Part of it is that you are accountable for the problems you create or the problems you fail to anticipate and prevent, so you learn fast if you want to make your workday tolerable.

I floated for 2 weeks after I got my License and then got a home store. Those 2 weeks helped me. I learned so much of what a **** show some pharmacys are. Took some good things away but mostly things to do the exact opposite on. You learn with experience and the more you are exposed to the better it is.

 

[zelman]

Yeah you tell the scheduler which shifts need to be covered, but they send those shifts to the floter pool first. After the floater are done choosing they then send the remaining shifts available out to the rest of the pharmacist for coverage. At least in my district it works like this.

So, if the staff at that store wants to cover for each other, don't tell the scheduler that the shifts are open in the first place.

If you're talking about other stores' staff, then that's just giving more hours to the people that have hours and screwing the floaters over.

 

[6GodPharm]

So, if the staff at that store wants to cover for each other, don't tell the scheduler that the shifts are open in the first place.

If you're talking about other stores' staff, then that's just giving more hours to the people that have hours and screwing the floaters over.

Yeah I asked why the staff didn't just open on Monday. I would have sent
8-4pm - Staff
2-10pm - Open

I understand floaters should get first dibs but it sucks. Should be on how good you are and reviews. I bet some floaters would start to hustle a little. Especially those that work at a hospital and sit on their ass all day and come to retail for a day or 2 a month to collect a check and have no care how they leave a store. Why should that be rewarded with first dibs?

 

[zelman]

Yeah I asked why the staff didn't just open on Monday. I would have sent
8-4pm - Staff
2-10pm - Open

I understand floaters should get first dibs but it sucks. Should be on how good you are and reviews. I bet some floaters would start to hustle a little. Especially those that work at a hospital and sit on their ass all day and come to retail for a day or 2 a month to collect a check and have no care how they leave a store. Why should that be rewarded with first dibs?

Because if they didn't get first dibs, they'd eventually leave the company and make scheduling impossible.

 

[sosoo]

lets say the staff had open, and keep the queue clean. then the floater works 2-10pm.... how many pages will it be on tueday morning? the scheduler clearly did an excellent job. we have a hero pharmacist who at the end of day clear up the queue. end of day. end of problems. nothing carried over to tuesday. kudos to the scheduler. /// also, if the PIC was forced to go on vacation.. clearly the scheduler didn't have many options to begin with.

 

[ancienbon]

As is with most stories of self-indulgence and ego-projection, there is great exaggeration. Sure, no one did anything...only OP thrived and came out of the pit marred and a hero. The floater did nothing I tell you....nothing! Techs just stood there as she battled away. On-lookers shook their heads...patients even slow-clapped as she finally stapled their scripts together.

OP, I applaud you. It is what you came here for right? Surely, it wasn't no cookie.

There is no point of exagerating on a online forum. I know i verify fast,which can be very unsafe. Yes i did verify 500 scripts from 8 to 10. I wish i could take a picture of the report on m1 and post it but it contains cvs infos.i was surprised too. And yesterday he had to leave at midnight to finish the qv.
And today i had to stay one hour late to verify as much as possible. It is a mess. He verify only in the red.

 

[ancienbon]

lets say the staff had open, and keep the queue clean. then the floater works 2-10pm.... how many pages will it be on tueday morning? the scheduler clearly did an excellent job. we have a hero pharmacist who at the end of day clear up the queue. end of day. end of problems. nothing carried over to tuesday. kudos to the scheduler. /// also, if the PIC was forced to go on vacation.. clearly the scheduler didn't have many options to begin with.

As is with most stories of self-indulgence and ego-projection, there is great exaggeration. Sure, no one did anything...only OP thrived and came out of the pit marred and a hero. The floater did nothing I tell you....nothing! Techs just stood there as she battled away. On-lookers shook their heads...patients even slow-clapped as she finally stapled their scripts together.

OP, I applaud you. It is what you came here for right? Surely, it wasn't no cookie.

And i also i am not saying noone did anything. The techs did wonderful and were on top of production. But the guy was not verifying. Period. .i was really pissed too. And i will have the report to show the supervisor when they come visit us for sure . It is unsafe for sure. But that cvs for you.

 

[6GodPharm]

CVS in general is not safe. I can imagine across the USA how many people are just flying thru DUR's, ready fills to get scripts out. I've been to stores where I have found the 5th fill wrong which means 4 before that went out wrong. Thats what happens when everything is timed.

 

[owlegrad]

CVS in general is not safe. I can imagine across the USA how many people are just flying thru DUR's, ready fills to get scripts out. I've been to stores where I have found the 5th fill wrong which means 4 before that went out wrong. Thats what happens when everything is timed.

My first PIC caught an error on the 9th fill. By that point can't you just say 'Meh' though? Clearly the patient wasn't suffering.

I used to catch so many errors when I worked overnight. Although now that I think about it I bet I catch more at my current job (LTC) than I ever dreamed of catching at CVS.

 

[ldiot]

My first PIC caught an error on the 9th fill. By that point can't you just say 'Meh' though? Clearly the patient wasn't suffering.

I used to catch so many errors when I worked overnight. Although now that I think about it I bet I catch more at my current job (LTC) than I ever dreamed of catching at CVS.

I'm curious how many people actually check data entry on refills. I've seen both extremes. For example, is not checking it on say the 3rd refill commonly accepted practice or considered to be reckless and without regard to patient safety? Obviously physical product and DUR should be checked for every fill.

 

[zelman]

I'm curious how many people actually check data entry on refills. I've seen both extremes. For example, is not checking it on say the 3rd refill commonly accepted practice or considered to be reckless and without regard to patient safety? Obviously physical product and DUR should be checked for every fill.

I do whatever the computer wants. At CVS, every fill; at Walgreens first 2 fills, at Walmart first fill. Follow SOP.

 

[ldiot]

I do whatever the computer wants. At CVS, every fill; at Walgreens first 2 fills, at Walmart first fill. Follow SOP.

I didn't realize WAGS and Walmart were any different. Interesting to know

 

[mentos]

I hate this time if year when useless new grads with no work experience come in. If you've never done QT before, you shouldn't be allowed to be a pharmacist.

 

[owlegrad]

I didn't realize WAGS and Walmart were any different. Interesting to know

Yup, CVS is actually the outlier on that one. My current company is first fill only. Much more efficient obviously but it still feels odd to me not checking data entry on every script.

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[6GodPharm]

I hate this time if year when useless new grads with no work experience come in. If you've never done QT before, you shouldn't be allowed to be a pharmacist.

That is a ignorant thing to say. I was pretty bad at QT when I first started last year and now I can type faster than most techs out there who have been doing it for years. From my experience the techs that b*tch about their pharmacist are usually bad as well. Been to stores where they complain that their pharmacist doesn't help on QT yet I observe not a single nut in there touched it for over 10 minutes.

 

[mentos]

That is a ignorant thing to say. I was pretty bad at QT when I first started last year and now I can type faster than most techs out there who have been doing it for years. From my experience the techs that b*tch about their pharmacist are usually bad as well. Been to stores where they complain that their pharmacist doesn't help on QT yet I observe not a single nut in there touched it for over 10 minutes.

If you can't perform the duties of a pharm tech making minimum wage then you don't deserve to be paid 5-x6 as much. The Rph that the OP describes has no business being the pharmacist on duty. It's BS that the new grad gets paid the same or more than the OP who had to do 5x the amount of work. This new grad should have trained as a pharm tech before pharmacy school, worked as an intern during school, or at the very least become efficient at retail during his/her 6 week rotation. He/she is obviously not ready and needs more training before being the pharmacist. The scores of every store he/she goes to suffer and therefore the staff receive less bonus/incentive at the end of the year even though they work 5x as hard. Customer service suffers, the coworkers suffer, it's just not fair for anyone involved.

 

[Sine Cura]

I can understand that a new grad with no retail experience faces a steep learning curve with barely any training and the fact that you need to work as an actual pharmacist to get accustomed to the verification process and to find an appropriate balance between clinical judgment and efficiency and overcome the reality of non-stop distractions.

Then again, a new grad with any sort of discernment should figure it out within the first month and do the math. In almost no store at any chain can you verify only 10 scripts an hour and not fall behind. I've heard of new grads that check their smartphone literally every single time for every bull**** interaction (even the temazepam 30 mg/day geriatric interaction at CVS). This means they failed to develop ANY insight, from watching pharmacists work on his rotations, that you don't have time for that rinky-dink ****.

I also can't think of a CVS where the pharmacist doesn't have to do anything other than QV tasks. At a slow CVS it's probably you and one tech running the register in the morning or in the evening and you probably have a drive-thru. At a busy CVS at times you have three techs they all might be covering drive-thru, pickup, and drop-off, leaving production to you. QT is pretty basic and learning all the common insurance plans for your store and handling all the basic rejects takes like one week max unless you're an idiot.

 

[trailerpark]

Every new grad should be a full-time grad intern for a couple months while you get licensed and that should be enough to get a solid foundation of tech duties.

 

[ancienbon]

Fact is I was very surprised the next day to see how many scripts I verified in just over 8 hours ( I should have mentioned that I came 20 minutes early ). To say I freaked out is an understatement . Could not believe it . It looked like I was on autopilot for the whole shift. I did talk to the supervisor to let him know about that and to never send an unexperienced pharmacist at the store especially on a busy Monday.
I feel bad for the techs that had to work with him, It was a disaster. Baskets were all over the place, and when patients came , scripts were not ready. The techs had to go dig in pile of baskets to find scripts and to give to him to verify.
What made it worst is that he was at the store for the whole week.

 

[ancienbon]

I also believe it was a sign of disrespect to our staff for the scheduler to believe a new grad with no training as a rph could handle a store that averages more than 500 scripts on a Monday ( 2500 to 3000 scripts a week ). They don't know how hard we cvs rph work . There are days I only eat on the run. I can only do it because I love the customers , I love my staff, they are great.

 

[mentos]

Every new grad should be a full-time grad intern for a couple months while you get licensed and that should be enough to get a solid foundation of tech duties.

Exactly. If a new hire performed that poorly in any other profession (such as engineering, finance, law, sales, anywhere in Silicon Valley or Wall St) they would be fired immediately. They are not fit for the job. It's nothing personal, that's just how the world works. Say what you will about CVS or retail pharmacy but there are much more cutthroat industries out there especially when you're paid 6 figures. Cvs could easily replace this new grad with someone efficient with the oversupply of PharmDs.

 

[ldiot]

Exactly. If a new hire performed that poorly in any other profession (such as engineering, finance, law, sales, anywhere in Silicon Valley or Wall St) they would be fired immediately. They are not fit for the job. It's nothing personal, that's just how the world works. Say what you will about CVS or retail pharmacy but there are much more cutthroat industries out there especially when you're paid 6 figures. Cvs could easily replace this new grad with someone efficient with the oversupply of PharmDs.

I'm pretty sure if CVS or any company had the option of hiring some amazing floater over a newgrad they would but at the end of the day it's about covering shifts. There's no doubt that pharmacy is saturated but CVS floater is probably the least desired pharmacy job in existence. Aside from interns I can only assume they are attracting the bottom of the barrel.

 

[6GodPharm]

I'm pretty sure if CVS or any company had the option of hiring some amazing floater over a newgrad they would but at the end of the day it's about covering shifts. There's no doubt that pharmacy is saturated but CVS floater is probably the least desired pharmacy job in existence. Aside from interns I can only assume they are attracting the bottom of the barrel.

I would argue the floater job at CVS is great. You get paid well, and you have nothing to do with metrics. You can leave a store looking like ****, walk out with a smile and do it again at another store. As a floater you literally stand at qv and do nothing else. You really think the sup gives 2 sh*ts about the floater?

 

[Rukn]

Yup, CVS is actually the outlier on that one. My current company is first fill only. Much more efficient obviously but it still feels odd to me not checking data entry on every script.

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Yet cvs is more unsafe than walgreens or walmart

kind of surprising

and op get over yourself

I've verified like that before as well

I've done around 400 or so in 6 hours

plus I had to help with typing and insurance rejections

that is a higher verification per minute rate than what you did in your 8 hours and 20 minutes

The other day I did 330 or so in 6 hours when we had a tech call out and quit ... plus phones, typing and all that other stuff