All you have to do is throw some pills in a bottle!??!?!

[alwaystired]

---

Members do not see this ad.

I had to fill a prescription for a Medrol dose pack & 40 Vicodin on Friday. I wanted to do some shopping so I dropped them off at the pharmacy counter in Target. They told me 25 minutes. They didn't look too busy, but I said fine. It ended up taking me 45 minutes to do my shopping. When I came back to the pharmacy, they said that it will be another few minutes. This is a new Target store that does about 100 per day. It's a wonder they get that many done. I swear they had the world's slowest pharmacist.

I work at Wags and when we say it will be done in 10 minutes, then it usually is. The computer tracks your work flow and gives you the estimate on the screen where you scan in the prescription. This way, you don't promise something that you can't deliver.

yah, it's nice of walgreens to tell you how long its going to take....but a good pharmacy should be able to judge that on their own. If the counter is full and the pickup is nuts it will be 20-30....if you are sitting on your butts it will be 10....it also depends on the number of people you have. Does the walgreens computer take that into account? If you had all the techs call in sick and the DM says oh well, open and go on your own....does the computer adjust the times for you?

sometimes people know they are having a lot of problems but don't want to sound unreasonable (1 hour) so they pick a fairly long wait time (25 min) even though they kinda know it may be longer

 

[All4MyDaughter]

I had to fill a prescription for a Medrol dose pack & 40 Vicodin on Friday. I wanted to do some shopping so I dropped them off at the pharmacy counter in Target. They told me 25 minutes. They didn't look too busy, but I said fine. It ended up taking me 45 minutes to do my shopping. When I came back to the pharmacy, they said that it will be another few minutes. This is a new Target store that does about 100 per day. It's a wonder they get that many done. I swear they had the world's slowest pharmacist.

I work at Wags and when we say it will be done in 10 minutes, then it usually is. The computer tracks your work flow and gives you the estimate on the screen where you scan in the prescription. This way, you don't promise something that you can't deliver.

I called in a refill (Kroger) on a medication that is a one-dose (one tablet) pack. The pharmacist adjudicated the claim while I was on the phone with her and said OK, the label's printing right now. This particular one dose pack is not hard to fill or verify either. So when my husband goes there 1.5 hours later to pick it up, he still had to wait 20 minutes for it...crazy!

 

[All4MyDaughter]

yah, it's nice of walgreens to tell you how long its going to take....but a good pharmacy should be able to judge that on their own. If the counter is full and the pickup is nuts it will be 20-30....if you are sitting on your butts it will be 10....it also depends on the number of people you have. Does the walgreens computer take that into account? If you had all the techs call in sick and the DM says oh well, open and go on your own....does the computer adjust the times for you?

sometimes people know they are having a lot of problems but don't want to sound unreasonable (1 hour) so they pick a fairly long wait time (25 min) even though they kinda know it may be longer

I believe that Wags computer does adjust for the number of people who are working, and other factors.

The estimated wait time is a guess. It's often wrong and needs manual adjustment. At my store, when we get busy we don't put people in as waiters if doing so is going to assign a 10 minute wait time. We put them in as 30, 45, 60 minutes - whatever the pharmacist and senior tech feel is appropriate based on conditions in the pharmacy.

I don't think we should EVER lowball on wait time. If it's going to be an hour, tell me its going to be an hour. Maybe I'll take my sick, cranky kid home and come back later. If you tell me 25 minutes, I'll probably try to wait it out. Then when I come back, after trying to entertain my grumpy child in your store for 25 minutes and it isn't ready and I end up having to wait twice as long when I could have just gone home, I'm going to be unhappy. An honest estimate of how long it's going to be is best, even if it's unpleasant. A patient can always choose to go home and come back or just take their stuff somewhere else. I've done both.

 

[Glowwyrm]

To Zpak...quit being such a pansy & get used to standing up all day - thats what pharmacists do!!! (At least your uterus won't prolapse after 20 yrs!!!)

Ugh, and I was thinking vericose veins and sore feet were the only things I had to worry about. 🙁

 

[dgroulx]

yah, it's nice of walgreens to tell you how long its going to take....but a good pharmacy should be able to judge that on their own. If the counter is full and the pickup is nuts it will be 20-30....if you are sitting on your butts it will be 10....it also depends on the number of people you have. Does the walgreens computer take that into account? If you had all the techs call in sick and the DM says oh well, open and go on your own....does the computer adjust the times for you?

Yeah, it does adjust. The computer monitors every stage. You scan in the script to start. The script image pops up on the monitor to be typed in wait time order. Then, a pharmacist verifies what the tech has typed. If there's a mistake, the pharmacist notes what was wrong and the computer informs the typist. If approved by the pharmacist, a label will print. Another tech will scan the label and scan the bar code of the med bottle, or the filled bottle from the robot. The pills are then recounted on an electronic scale that is hooked up to the computer system. Now the final check is done by the pharmacist who then scans the barcode on the label.

Regardless of time entered, the computer can average how long it is taking for a script to get through the entire process. I've seen the wait time change from 10 minutes to 25 minutes in a short period of time. It's pretty accurate. If the med is a C-II, we add extra time. Also, if someone comes in with 4+ meds to be filled we add extra time. I believe that 10 minutes is the minimum time that appears. I've never seen it drop lower than that even when we're getting them done in 5 minutes.

 

[alwaystired]

Yeah, it does adjust. The computer monitors every stage. You scan in the script to start. The script image pops up on the monitor to be typed in wait time order. Then, a pharmacist verifies what the tech has typed. If there's a mistake, the pharmacist notes what was wrong and the computer informs the typist. If approved by the pharmacist, a label will print. Another tech will scan the label and scan the bar code of the med bottle, or the filled bottle from the robot. The pills are then recounted on an electronic scale that is hooked up to the computer system. Now the final check is done by the pharmacist who then scans the barcode on the label.

Regardless of time entered, the computer can average how long it is taking for a script to get through the entire process. I've seen the wait time change from 10 minutes to 25 minutes in a short period of time. It's pretty accurate. If the med is a C-II, we add extra time. Also, if someone comes in with 4+ meds to be filled we add extra time. I believe that 10 minutes is the minimum time that appears. I've never seen it drop lower than that even when we're getting them done in 5 minutes.

yes, i did a Walgreens rotation and I am familiar with the high tech procedure, but I didn't know how it knew how many people were working....

 

[dgroulx]

yes, i did a Walgreens rotation and I am familiar with the high tech procedure, but I didn't know how it knew how many people were working....

It doesn't matter how many people are working, just how long it takes to go from station to station. It usually just depends on who's working that day, like the world's slowest pharmacist.

 

[sdn1977]

It doesn't matter how many people are working, just how long it takes to go from station to station. It usually just depends on who's working that day, like the world's slowest pharmacist.

Or....what has happened to me....I don't have too much work waiting, but I've gotten involved in something else & I've forgotten about it.

It shouldn't happen, but I will have to be honest & say it does.

Sorry!!! (I hope they apologized - that goes a long way!).

 

[alwaystired]

It doesn't matter how many people are workingQUOTE]


oh but it does. who's going to anwser the phone when it rings. whose going to get the drive-thru, whose going to ring up the customers that are lined up down the aisle because it's 5 pm and they all have to come in after work on monday? If you have 5 people, then all these tasks and getting the Rx through the stations in the amount of time generated by the computer will be a piece of cake. If you and 1 person are there, well.....i guess the computer can't be wrong, so 10 minutes it is b/c the computer can see how many people are picking up and the computer can decide if you really need to answer those OTC questions or not. Sorry to get off topic, but computers are only so great if they don't account for staffing etc....then you have to override them.

 

[dgroulx]

It doesn't matter how many people are workingQUOTE]


oh but it does. who's going to anwser the phone when it rings. whose going to get the drive-thru, whose going to ring up the customers that are lined up down the aisle because it's 5 pm and they all have to come in after work on monday? If you have 5 people, then all these tasks and getting the Rx through the stations in the amount of time generated by the computer will be a piece of cake. If you and 1 person are there, well.....i guess the computer can't be wrong, so 10 minutes it is b/c the computer can see how many people are picking up and the computer can decide if you really need to answer those OTC questions or not. Sorry to get off topic, but computers are only so great if they don't account for staffing etc....then you have to override them.

We had that situation yesterday. All of a sudden there were 10 people at the out window. After they were checked out, the next script I scanned in had the wait time increased to 22 minutes. There was no one to fill, and the computer adjusted for it. No, it can't see that there were people picking up, but it can see if you've stopped filling or verifiying. There will always be special situations where you'll want to manually increase the time, but the computer is usually very, very close.

 

[Requiem]

In summation, Dgroul likes the computer system at Walgreens.

 

[dgroulx]

In summation, Dgroul likes the computer system at Walgreens.

It's from being in IT for 25 years before pharmacy school. It's pretty easy to have computers monitoring system performance, but not everyone gets it right. Walgreens have some decent developers for their computer system. It's still not perfect, yet. I've found a few bugs here and there.

 

[VelvetArt]

So what did the tech say?

 

[spacecowgirl]

Just wanted to post this

Cool.

 

[genesis09]

Interesting, makes you wonder who else is watching.

 

[OHMAN0125]

Interesting, makes you wonder who else is watching.

Who cares. There was nothing wrong w/ this post. I didn't see any racism, etc. Just the truth of the pharmacy world. 👍

 

[VelvetArt]

So what did the tech say? lol

 

[Sharwood]

Yeah...i agree with the question.....what did the tech say?

 

[pharmacistUH]

Yeah...i agree with the question.....what did the tech say?

I would like to know as well, never know when you'll need some ammo...

 

[farmacistaNJ]

Wow this really makes me want to gag. I'm almost done with school and I can't wait to see the line of endless stupid remarks.I must say I still cringe whenever random people ask why I go to school for 6 years just to "count pills".