Any Florida Wags pharmacists experiences with POWER

Jeddevil · Jun 30, 2008

I believe Wags is calling the new central call center set-up Power, and it has been in operation in Florida for a while. Any Florida pharmacists have any input on the usefulness of it? I hear things like it should cut back on your calls 80%, free up time for pharmacists to counsel more, etc. I believe it is supposed to be rolled out here in AZ next, and I am excited about it. I can't wait to get rid of all the "Is my script ready?" and "Do I have any refills"? phone calls.

Trancelucent1 · Jun 30, 2008

Jeddevil said:
I believe Wags is calling the new central call center set-up Power, and it has been in operation in Florida for a while. Any Florida pharmacists have any input on the usefulness of it? I hear things like it should cut back on your calls 80%, free up time for pharmacists to counsel more, etc. I believe it is supposed to be rolled out here in AZ next, and I am excited about it. I can't wait to get rid of all the "Is my script ready?" and "Do I have any refills"? phone calls.

I have a friend working at a pharmacy which rolled this out. He said it's drastically reduced phone calls (he said it's kind of weird how quiet it can be).

dgroulx · Jul 1, 2008

I'm in the Tampa Bay area of Florida. This has not happened in my area. All that's happened is a further reduction in technician hours, which leaves us with one pharmacist and one tech for a good chunk of the day. I spend more time working the out window and drive through than doing pharmacist duties.
There are a lot of phone calls. Mainly people who need you to punch in their refill numbers because they cannot do "touch tone" or "internet". This is actually a good thing, because there is a "feature" in Wags computer system that touch tone refills revert to the original fill.

Example: Someone brings in a script for 30 pills plus 6 refills. It requires a prior auth, so they decide to pay cash for 10 pills until the prior auth goes through. Now, every time they want to refill their prescription, it reverts to a quantity of 10. This results in much screaming and yelling from the customer.

I am starting with another company on July 21st.

Requiem · Jul 1, 2008

dgroulx said:
I am starting with another company on July 21st.

Hahaha. It would have been awesome if this was your entire post.

YapYap6 · Jul 2, 2008

God, I hope they roll this out in Illinois soon! Nothing worse than the phone ringing off the hook during a rush.

aboveliquidice · Jul 3, 2008

So far - it is rather impressive. The main component is the CPO actually typing the scripts / insurance issues. Secondly, the technicians utilize the RFP system - which matches drug in bottle to NDC and the correct weight to pill ratio. The RFP cannot be over-ridden. If there is an issue - the rx is sent to the pharmacist to do a manual DUR. The pharmacist spends most of the day doing consultations and / or manual DURs - but the amount of DURs can be somewhat proportional to the experience of the technicians.

All in all - I like it, but it does have some scary things associated with it...

~above~

pharmdinfl · Jul 7, 2008

dgroulx said:
I'm in the Tampa Bay area of Florida. This has not happened in my area. All that's happened is a further reduction in technician hours, which leaves us with one pharmacist and one tech for a good chunk of the day. I spend more time working the out window and drive through than doing pharmacist duties.
There are a lot of phone calls. Mainly people who need you to punch in their refill numbers because they cannot do "touch tone" or "internet". This is actually a good thing, because there is a "feature" in Wags computer system that touch tone refills revert to the original fill.

Example: Someone brings in a script for 30 pills plus 6 refills. It requires a prior auth, so they decide to pay cash for 10 pills until the prior auth goes through. Now, every time they want to refill their prescription, it reverts to a quantity of 10. This results in much screaming and yelling from the customer.

I am starting with another company on July 21st.

Are you switching to another large chain? Just curious. I am always interested to hear about opportunities as I'm dealing with the same issues on the east coast of FL.

pharmacist5870 · Jul 7, 2008

Requiem said:
Hahaha. It would have been awesome if this was your entire post.

hahah yea, if you had said that, and only that, I would've lmao.

dgroulx · Jul 10, 2008

pharmdinfl said:
Are you switching to another large chain? Just curious. I am always interested to hear about opportunities as I'm dealing with the same issues on the east coast of FL.

Nope, going with a small (100 script per day) pharmacy. No drive thru, I get to close the pharmacy for lunch, more time for patient care, full internet access.

Walgreens just upped pharmacist's salaries in Tampa to $112k per year because 25 of us have left this year. My salary at my new job will be $109k.

MountainPharmD · Jul 10, 2008

dgroulx said:
Nope, going with a small (100 script per day) pharmacy. No drive thru, I get to close the pharmacy for lunch, more time for patient care, full internet access.

Walgreens just upped pharmacist's salaries in Tampa to $112k per year because 25 of us have left this year. My salary at my new job will be $109k.

Good for you!!!!!

You can always say "Hey I put my time in hell, I worked for Walgreens."

pharmacist5870 · Jul 10, 2008

I've been with Walgreens for 6 years and just got into pharmacy school. $112k a year not bad...I'm in some tampa district...tampa west maybe I don't know...district 132

dgroulx said:
Nope, going with a small (100 script per day) pharmacy. No drive thru, I get to close the pharmacy for lunch, more time for patient care, full internet access.

Walgreens just upped pharmacist's salaries in Tampa to $112k per year because 25 of us have left this year. My salary at my new job will be $109k.

PharmDstudent · Jul 12, 2008

dgroulx said:
Nope, going with a small (100 script per day) pharmacy. No drive thru, I get to close the pharmacy for lunch, more time for patient care, full internet access.

Walgreens just upped pharmacist's salaries in Tampa to $112k per year because 25 of us have left this year. My salary at my new job will be $109k.

Thanks for the information about practicing in Florida. I really appreciated it.

qwead · Nov 19, 2008

I am currently a tech working Full Phase of power, and yes its convenient, with minor kinks but be WARNED....outsourcing will lead to job loss...my manger has been told by the company that Walg will be firing 20-30% of it techs and 20% of its pharmacists(in Florida where Power is in use)....the pharmacists in my job are really alarmed and scared, they are receiving buyouts for early retirement, will this outsourcing and Power lead to the future of pharmacists being not as bright as we thought??

meister · Nov 20, 2008

Haha jesus christ, and I thought all the bull**** gimmicks CVS used to come up with were bad. If CVS ever rolls anything like this out I expect them to cut tech hours in half, if not more.

dgroulx · Nov 21, 2008

Walgreens already has a hiring freeze for new pharmacists in some areas of Florida.

MountainPharmD · Nov 21, 2008

dgroulx said:
Walgreens already has a hiring freeze for new pharmacists in some areas of Florida.

Florida hasn't ever had a shortage of pharmacist as far as I know. In fact it wasn't untill a few years ago Florida had thier own licensing exam and did not reciprocate with any other states. The reason being they had to many pharmacists especially out of state retires who were working part time taking all the jobs.

Any Florida Wags pharmacists experiences with POWER

Jeddevil

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Trancelucent1

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dgroulx

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Requiem

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YapYap6

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aboveliquidice

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pharmdinfl

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pharmacist5870

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dgroulx

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MountainPharmD

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pharmacist5870

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PharmDstudent

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qwead

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meister

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dgroulx

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MountainPharmD

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