Pharmacy job market in 2018?

[Potential123]

Will the pharmacy job market start to stabilize in 2018 considering the economy starts to reform, older pharmacists begin to retire and obamacare?

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[Momus]

Gonna be freaking awesome. All the old rphs will be dead or retired, chains will open 200 new stores a day, new hospital in every corner of your neighnoorhood, 50k sign on bonus offer, bmw, hookers, free meal and lodging provided, obama will fix everything, everyone will beg to hire you! Tell all your family and friends to be a pharmacist! They gonna be super rich counting their moolah!

 

[PharmtoCS]

Also, the ACPE will raise standards and close down underperforming pharmacy schools.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using SDN Mobile

 

[BMBiology]

Even if there is an increase need for pharmacists, the number of new graduates will still overwhelm the demand.

These for-profit schools will continue to pump out more and more pharmacists. It is all about profit and with easy access to student loans, these pharmacy schools will continue to thrive. It is about selling false hope to the next generation of students by telling them that they will earn a doctorate degree and if they just work hard, they too will make a 6 figure salary so don't worry about the 250 k in student loans. It doesn't matter that the new grads can't find full time employment or they have to move to the middle of nowhere for a job. They will be an exception. All it takes is hard work. It is that simple.

 

[BMBiology]

Just visit the pre-pharmacy forum. People who can't even handle undergrad work are getting accepted by the bus load.

The well-informed and smart undergraduates have abandoned pharmacy as a career option while the naive and frankly, desperate undergraduates are clinging to the hope of getting accepted to a professional school...any professional school. That's better than working as a tech or being unemployed. That's the next generation of pharmacy students.

 

[grumps]

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgjvkJql9MY&feature=player_detailpage[/YOUTUBE]

 

[BenJammin]

In 2018, people will look at a retail pharmacist and a retail cashier and ask themselves "what's the difference".

 

[BMBiology]

Oh and while you are at it, get an MBA too and take on an additional 70 k in student loan. A worthless degree without any real work experience. Pharmacy students eat all of this crap up and still ask for more.

 

[Potential123]

To do Pharmacy or not? This is something I envisioned myself doing for many years. However, I can't overlook the job prospects. If not pharmacy, what else?

 

[awval999]

To do Pharmacy or not? This is something I envisioned myself doing for many years. However, I can't overlook the job prospects. If not pharmacy, what else?

Look, none of us know what the job market is going to be like in 5 years.

Five years ago, in May of 2008, before the financial crisis, the market was totally different, the entire economy was different.
We were getting sign on bonuses, multiple job offers, it was good. Unemployment was at ~5%.
Do pharmacy if you want to do it. If you want to do the work, retail, hospital or other and it truly is your passion then go for it.
But like anything else, the supply/demand curve is switching. Increased schools, increased student loans and lower paying jobs results.
We've told an entire generation to go into healthcare fields. There's just simply too many students for the jobs.

 

[BMBiology]

Go into pharmacy if:

(1) graduate with less than 150 k in student loan
(2) have really explored the profession and have a passion for it (rather rare)
(3) planning to do something different like work in the industry and more importantly, know how to get there because it is very competitive and most likely, you will need to do post grad training.

One thing I hate about pharmacy is that it is very difficult to differentiate yourself from other pharmacists. People are not going to drive miles to see you like they do with physicians and dentists and certainly, cvs doesn't care that you know so much about pharmacology.

If you have the grades and ambition, go to med school. You can really stand out and quality counts. The days of making a 6 figure salary are long gone so is supporting a comfortable lifestyle. Don't think you will somehow be different either. There is not much opportunity for you to differentiate yourself from the rest of your classmates.

 

[Digsbe]

In 2018 I think pharmacy will be adapting to changes by the ACA and most likely due to pharmacists receiving provider status. If provider status is approved I think the job market for clinical pharmacy, amublatory care, and more positions for pharmacists to manage diseases under CPAs will pop up with them becoming more prevalent. There will be a wider niche for pharmacists to fill which will shift the supply/demand curve a bit. I think some of the older pharmacists that haven't retired due to the economy will retire if anything out of necessity.

In a good scenario, the ACA increases the demand for pharmacists due to increased coverage and prescriptions being filled with minimal decrease in reimbursement rates. Pharmacists will receive provider status under Medicare and will become revenue generators in regards to clinical practice. More clinical jobs will pop up and more pharmacists will be managing diseases under CPAs. More retail stores will pop up assuming the economy has recovered and due to an increased prescription need volume.

In a bad scenario, the ACA negatively impacts pharmacy. Reimbursement rates drop drastically, stores have to fill a higher volume to make the same profit as before without hiring additional help. Pharmacists don't achieve provider status so clinical jobs and other areas will continue to lag. Retiring pharmacists continue to practice, more grads graduate, and the economy is still in a slump.

 

[BMBiology]

When I worked as an intern I told this veteran pharmacist how pharmacists would be reimbursed for clinical services in the future. He just laughed and said, "they said the same thing to me when I was in school!"

 

[Trent Steele]

Just visit the pre-pharmacy forum. People who can't even handle undergrad work are getting accepted by the bus load.

The well-informed and smart undergraduates have abandoned pharmacy as a career option while the naive and frankly, desperate undergraduates are clinging to the hope of getting accepted to a professional school...any professional school. That's better than working as a tech or being unemployed. That's the next generation of pharmacy students.

Wow.. I did just take a look over there and its shocking. People getting multiple interviews with a 2.75 cumulative and 2.5 science?! School was EXTREMELY competitive when I was going...What the hell happened to this profession?

Some of the thread names from the pre pharm thread:

Pharmacy schools who consider 2.5 GPA

failing some prerequisite course

D in orgo I chances?

W.T.F.

 

[desklamp]

Solution: FLEXNER REPORT

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexner_Report

Seriously, does the ACPE make any profit from the accreditation process? Or what purpose does allowing these for profit schools to open serve with the awful residency match rate as it is now? I heard there's a fee or something to stay accredited?

To do Pharmacy or not? This is something I envisioned myself doing for many years. However, I can't overlook the job prospects. If not pharmacy, what else?

Medicine. Physician's Assistant. Nurse (Nurse Anesthetists make more than pharmacists do if the salary was a draw). Dentist. PhD.

 

[All4MyDaughter]

Solution: FLEXNER REPORT

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexner_Report

Seriously, does the ACPE make any profit from the accreditation process? Or what purpose does allowing these for profit schools to open serve with the awful residency match rate as it is now? I heard there's a fee or something to stay accredited?

There are fees for the accreditation process.

You'd be surprised to know that relatively few pharmacy schools are actually "for profit" institutions. Most are at non-profit colleges and universities. Probably < 5 total are "for profit" or proprietary.

 

[BMBiology]

The number of for-profit schools with full accreditation and pending accreditation is a lot more than five.

Don't get me wrong it is not only these for-profit schools that are pumping new graduates, non-profit schools are also opening up and expanding their class size.

They don't tell you that most of the faculty salary comes from the students' tuition. As schools expand, more faculty are needed so students' tuition goes up. The sad part is that these so called clinical pharmacists can't even get a paid hospital position. They are just "volunteers". You think physicians are just volunteers? They get paid by the school and the hospital because they can bill for their services. Pharmacists can't.

 

[All4MyDaughter]

The number of for-profit schools with full accreditation and pending accreditation is a lot more than five.

Don't get me wrong it is not only these for-profit schools that are pumping new graduates, non-profit schools are also opening up and expanding their class size.

They don't tell you that most of the faculty salary comes from the students' tuition. As schools expand, more faculty are needed so students' tuition goes up. The sad part is that these so called clinical pharmacists can't even get a paid hospital position. They are just "volunteers". You think physicians are just volunteers? They get paid by the school and the hospital because they can bill for their services. Pharmacists can't.

Really? How many are actually chartered as proprietary institutions? I know of three. What's your source?

In reality, the "for profit" vs "non-profit" status doesn't matter. They all increase the total number of graduates. One of the biggest contributors to the surplus of pharmacy graduates in certain states is the creation and expansion of branch campuses of state-affiliated colleges of pharmacy. In states where there are fewer schools, there are more available jobs.

And the idea that student tuition funds faculty salaries isn't exactly new. I think everyone knows that?

You do know that the majority of physicians don't get paid by the hospitals in which they work? They typically aren't on the payroll but get their compensation from insurance billing through their private practices.

 

[KARM12]

When I worked as an intern I told this veteran pharmacist how pharmacists would be reimbursed for clinical services in the future. He just laughed and said, "they said the same thing to me when I was in school!"

Just like MTM was going to change the profession back in 2007...never happened...

 

[Ackj]

You do know that the majority of physicians don't get paid by the hospitals in which they work? They typically aren't on the payroll but get their compensation from insurance billing through their private practices.

That can't be right. If the physician's model is like a hairdresser simply renting a chair in a salon, how can the hospital pay for the staff and drugs associated with whatever that doctor does?

 

[lisinopril]

Just like MTM was going to change the profession back in 2007...never happened...

10 yrs ago when I was still in pharm school, the professors were preaching about how we could save lives and money by ultilizing our skills in pharmacokinetics, medication therapy, drug drug interaction.
MTM this, MTM that...ya dah ya dah....ya dah.
Flash forward, here I am.. working as a clinical pharmacist. Reality is so much different from it. Nobody cares when you leave a drug drug interaction note inside the chart/or in computer system. The next day you come back, patient is still on the same drugs. Nobody cares to change to dosage of Teflaro in renal patient. Nobody cares to discontinue the useless Rocephin that the patient has been on for 5 days and the antibiogram obviously indicated E-Coli resistant to it. Nobody cares about the duplication of the patient who is on Cubicin and Vancomycin prescribed by 2 different MDs....pt still on both for several days....

Well, anyway, at least my paycheck is comfortably paying for my bills....moving on.

 

[bacillus1]

That can't be right. If the physician's model is like a hairdresser simply renting a chair in a salon, how can the hospital pay for the staff and drugs associated with whatever that doctor does?

The hospital bills separately from the physician.

I just got 2 surgeries done. Got 2 bills each time, 1 from the physician and 1 that was a "facility fee".

 

[PharMed2016]

Wow.. I did just take a look over there and its shocking. People getting multiple interviews with a 2.75 cumulative and 2.5 science?! School was EXTREMELY competitive when I was going...What the hell happened to this profession?

How can admissions criteria change so much so in just a few years?

I'm just thinking about how everyone will view pharmacist once these individuals finally go through pharmacy school and start to represent the profession. You really don't need to be a rocket scientist to be a pharmacist or a physician for that matter. It's really sad where my thoughts are going... wiping out the small gains made by the profession in the last few years.

 

[pharmasaur]

How can admissions criteria change so much so in just a few years?

I'm just thinking about how everyone will view pharmacist once these individuals finally go through pharmacy school and start to represent the profession. You really don't need to be a rocket scientist to be a pharmacist or a physician for that matter. It's really sad where my thoughts are going... wiping out the small gains made by the profession in the last few years.

because the smarter students are not going into pharmacy anymore. my friend told me that for his class (he is a third yr student) for 180 seats, they would give admissions to 195-200 students to get 180 registered. now for my year (1st yr) he said for 180 seats they admit 280 students!!! I know some people myself who got into pharmacy school but then decided not to go because of the cost (this is in CA where tuition is crazy). There are still lots of applicants to pharmacy schools but the applicant pool has changed - gone from quality to students to a bunch of random people with low gpa's. The smart students who did research and saw no future in pharmacy went into other fields...

 

[Hermes 2000]

Well...tomorrow marks one year of unemployment since graduation!

 

[BMBiology]

And the idea that student tuition funds faculty salaries isn't exactly new. I think everyone knows that?

You do know that the majority of physicians don't get paid by the hospitals in which they work? They typically aren't on the payroll but get their compensation from insurance billing through their private practices.

That's the point. Med faculty members are being paid by the school and for the care they provide while pharm faculty members are being paid solely with students' tuition since they can't bill for their service. There's a direct interest to keep on raising tuition. The higher the tuition, the higher the salary.

I know you graduated from a for-profit school. Are you also affiliated with one?

 

[All4MyDaughter]

That's the point. Med faculty members are being paid by the school and for the care they provide while pharm faculty members are being paid solely with students' tuition since they can't bill for their service. There's a direct interest to keep on raising tuition. The higher the tuition, the higher the salary.

I know you graduated from a for-profit school. Are you also affiliated with one?

Assuming your theory is correct, why is medical school tuition skyrocketing too?

I'm not sure what you mean by "affiliated." I'm not "affiliated" with any college of pharmacy except the two I attended.

 

[BMBiology]

are you being paid by the school?

 

[All4MyDaughter]

are you being paid by the school?

For what?

 

[lisinopril]

. There's a direct interest to keep on raising tuition. The higher the tuition, the higher the salary.

Absolutely disagreed here. The tuition is up to keep up with inflation and cost and of course greed. Costs of school maintenances, cost of materials, etc... rising up part of inflation + greed. Usually tuition ranges from 3%-10% depending on schools. This has nothing to do with salary. A very possible scenario is: a PharmD with no job making 0/year (with 200K tuition debt) vs an engineer making 70K/year (0 debt) with a job.

 

[lisinopril]

How can admissions criteria change so much so in just a few years?

I'm just thinking about how everyone will view pharmacist once these individuals finally go through pharmacy school and start to represent the profession. You really don't need to be a rocket scientist to be a pharmacist or a physician for that matter. It's really sad where my thoughts are going... wiping out the small gains made by the profession in the last few years.

Demand vs supply. Less people want to go to pharmacy schools = worse applicant pool. You made the right choice to go for MD. With socialism and Obama care ahead, more MDs are in demand. You will always need an MD to diagnose and prescribe whereas you can always elimiate paying a pharmD services by machines and robots. It's heading that way.

 

[BidingMyTime]

To do Pharmacy or not? This is something I envisioned myself doing for many years. However, I can't overlook the job prospects. If not pharmacy, what else?

The economy is quite bad, and the job prospects in ALL fields are pretty dismal. I was just reading how 66% of recent college graduates are working in a field that is outside their major (with 33% working in a job that does not require a college degree.) What makes people question pharmacy more than other degrees, is generally the amount of debt required to get the degree. Still, pharmacy is one of the top paying jobs for people right out of school. 5 years from now, who knows--things could be better, or they could be worse. I think the amount of debt one is required to take on should be an important consideration--think about how you would pay off your debt if you couldn't get a job or if you didn't have a job for 6 or more months after graduating (something to think about before taking on debt for ANY college degree)

 

[PharMed2016]

How can admissions criteria change so much so in just a few years?

I posted this more as a rhetorical question although my scared face may have confused some.

Truth be told, I think pharmacy is still a good profession to go into but you have to do it for the right reasons and not just the six figure salary.

 

[PharMed2016]

Demand vs supply. Less people want to go to pharmacy schools = worse applicant pool. You made the right choice to go for MD. With socialism and Obama care ahead, more MDs are in demand. You will always need an MD to diagnose and prescribe whereas you can always elimiate paying a pharmD services by machines and robots. It's heading that way.

The grass isn't always greener on the other side which is what I've found now in medical school. There is a lot of pressure to reduce healthcare cost and physicians are one of the biggest contributors towards it. One way to reduce cost is to increase midlevels and give them independent practice rights (no collaborative agreements) to meet the primary care shortage.

 

[smercer]

Demand vs supply. Less people want to go to pharmacy schools = worse applicant pool. You made the right choice to go for MD. With socialism and Obama care ahead, more MDs are in demand. You will always need an MD to diagnose and prescribe whereas you can always elimiate paying a pharmD services by machines and robots. It's heading that way.

What is to stop a hospital from having less MDs and more PAs?

 

[desklamp]

What is to stop a hospital from having less MDs and more PAs?

I imagine MDs being uber protective of their profession has something to do with it.

 

[confettiflyer]

physicians have the most to lose under ACA/BarryCare, no one wants to come out and say it, but effectively all this legislation is dancing around the idea of:

"Hey, physicians...we need you to treat ALL THESE MILLIONS OF PEOPLE and do it like...ya know...for a fat discount. Can you hook it up?"

Like your neighbor that keeps borrowing your lawnmower for free.

 

[mustang sally]

Well...tomorrow marks one year of unemployment since graduation!

That really stinks. Have you been able to do any non-pharmacy related work in that time?

 

[joetrisman]

physicians have the most to lose under ACA/BarryCare, no one wants to come out and say it, but effectively all this legislation is dancing around the idea of:

"Hey, physicians...we need you to treat ALL THESE MILLIONS OF PEOPLE and do it like...ya know...for a fat discount. Can you hook it up?"

Like your neighbor that keeps borrowing your lawnmower for free.

 

[PharMed2016]

What is to stop a hospital from having less MDs and more PAs?

Nothing besides the limitations of the law currently which proscribe that there needs to be 1 physician to every 4 mid-levels (2NP/2PA) at the hospital level. Some specialties are already moving that direction like in anesthesia where there are more CRNAs than there are anesthesiologists. You can pay a CRNA half (200k ~ fraction of the training) of what an anesthesiologist makes and still come out on top. Some OP clinics are already staffed predominantly by midlevels.

Midlevels aren't exactly a bad thing in my opinion since they reduce the cost of care and provide extended access for those that can't see physicians in shortage areas. What I think needs to be done for midlevels (NPs) is the standardization of education along with the need to show competency through continuing education (increased to requirements to PA level at the very least) and relicensure. Also, I think there should be one main organization which oversees providers. They currently are regulated independently by the board of nursing.

 

[BenJammin]

If midlevels get independent practice rights then, besides the prestige of being a medical doctor, why would anybody go to med school?

 

[All4MyDaughter]

If midlevels get independent practice rights then, besides the prestige of being a medical doctor, why would anybody go to med school?

Ummm. ARNPs already have independent practice in many states.

 

[JoBreeze]

If midlevels get independent practice rights then, besides the prestige of being a medical doctor, why would anybody go to med school?

To be a doctor.

In general it's a fair point though.

 

[PharMed2016]

If midlevels get independent practice rights then, besides the prestige of being a medical doctor, why would anybody go to med school?

That's the question that's being kicked around by some and a few of my classmates right now. The reimbursement, tuition, and changes in practices is what is driving doctors away from primary care and into specialties. Funny thing is that proponents of independent practice rights (politicians and nurses themselves) bring their families to physicians instead of midlevels for their care.

 

[Ackj]

(politicians and nurses themselves) bring their families to physicians instead of midlevels for their care.

Kind of like how Congress wants to exclude themselves from Obamacare. Nobody wants to subject themselves to their own rules.

 

[Potential123]

Pharmacy it is. I'm fully aware I'm playing with fire, but this was my plan for a while. Gonna tell my pops to open up his own independent pharmacy and pray for a job lol. But in all seriousness, I'm gonna put it on all on the line and #GRIND. Hopefully if I study all out for the PCAT, get into a "cheaper" school, and just continue to work. Thanks for all the responses. I can't say I haven't been warned.

 

[vistaril]

If midlevels get independent practice rights then, besides the prestige of being a medical doctor, why would anybody go to med school?

because even in states where autonomy amongst midlevels is more common, salary differences between midlevels and physicians is huge......

it's not at all difficult to make 300k working 7 on/7 off as a general internal medicine hospitalitist in some communities just by picking up a weekend inpatient shift twice a month(during your 7 days off cycles).....that's over 3 times what an np/pa would make in primary care.

Even in the lowest paid specialties, 250-300k is pretty feasible(I know Im in one of the lower paid ones), even working reasonable hours in semi-salaried arrangements. Average salary data from official sources and whatnot can be misleading(ie that internists make only 200k/year and fammed makes 175k/year)....that is true of pharmacy as well(you guys knows that),,,,,,confusion tends to arise when one field uses their own real world examples of what individuals actually make and then fails to do the same to other fields(instead going by lowball listed averages that includes academics, part timers, researchers, etc).....

 

[mustang sally]

Nothing besides the limitations of the law currently which proscribe that there needs to be 1 physician to every 4 mid-levels (2NP/2PA) at the hospital level. Some specialties are already moving that direction like in anesthesia where there are more CRNAs than there are anesthesiologists. You can pay a CRNA half (200k ~ fraction of the training) of what an anesthesiologist makes and still come out on top. Some OP clinics are already staffed predominantly by midlevels.

Pretty much comparable to having one pharmacist oversee as many cheaply-paid technicians as the law in that state allows.

All I ever hear is physician shortage this, physician shortage that (especially being in a rural area). Will health care reform drive the physician job market the way of the current pharmacist market? I really hope not, for the sake of all physicians out there.

And just for the record, we only have CRNAs in our hospital. Though that may be more likely because it is a rural hospital and not just for the cost savings factor.

 

[PharmDCandidate2014]

Gonna be freaking awesome. All the old rphs will be dead or retired, chains will open 200 new stores a day, new hospital in every corner of your neighnoorhood, 50k sign on bonus offer, bmw, hookers, free meal and lodging provided, obama will fix everything, everyone will beg to hire you! Tell all your family and friends to be a pharmacist! They gonna be super rich counting their moolah!

Yup! The new graduate from Campbell University will be handsomely rewarded for ALL THAT HARD work needed to obtain a 2.5 undergraduate GPA, 2.5 pharmacy school GPA with the help of fraternities and test banks, and most of all, ACA/Obumercare is going to provide NEW avenues for the pharmacist. Because after all, it takes a student with a 60% PCAT to fill these CRUCIAL roles in health care.

*cue: Nearer my God to thee*

 

[kendrick lamar]

I completely agree that in pharmacy, you can't differentiate yourself as a student from the rest of your peers. Everybody more or less does the same thing as a student and will do ultimately more or less the same thing in their professional life, with the exception of getting a specialized clinical role (oncology pharmacist, ID pharmacist, etc.) that isn't easy to come by. Even if you do something different as a student, like assist research or do some volunteer work as a student,
nobody really cares, because there aren't many pharmacy positions where doing those can vouch for you making a good pharmacist.
One of the residency managers interviewing me sort of side-eyed my application when he saw I was involved in many activities saying "you've been involved in more things in school than I've ever been in my life". He didn't really say it in a positive way lol.
My friends with other majors; many had the same "major" but had a variety of different internship opportunities and are each doing something different. Sure, they're not making 6 figure salaries (yet) but they're earning a decent starting amount for graduating with a bachelors, while having a variety of skills. In pharmacy, you're stuck with pretty much only one skill. The only comparative degrees I can think of are dentistry and optometry but I don't know if they are getting saturated the way pharmacy is just because the high interest, surplus of graduates and new schools.