career change suggestions for current pharmacist?

[Tua09053]

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hello i am current pharmacist 13yrs in retail and 1 year in managed care rph... i love managed care but currently work contract position and its competitive in philly, pa. I have 4 state licenses. ideally would love a laid back rph job doing something more clinical... i do not want to 12 hour shifts and do not want to deal with patient care too much and do not want to deal with too many narcotics? managed care is super competitive? is there any suggestions for something like a 1-2 year certificate i can go into? background: i am pretty tech savvy, enjoy projects, business ideas, have side business real estate rental making 40k/yr? i would love to own my own haunted house or do something creative?

 

[BMBiology]

I don’t get what you are trying to ask...there are too many “?” in your post.

 

[gwarm01]

I think you should pursue this haunted house thing.

 

[Lnsean]

hello i am current pharmacist 13yrs in retail and 1 year in managed care rph... i love managed care but currently work contract position and its competitive in philly, pa. I have 4 state licenses. ideally would love a laid back rph job doing something more clinical... i do not want to 12 hour shifts and do not want to deal with patient care too much and do not want to deal with too many narcotics? managed care is super competitive? is there any suggestions for something like a 1-2 year certificate i can go into? background: i am pretty tech savvy, enjoy projects, business ideas, have side business real estate rental making 40k/yr? i would love to own my own haunted house or do something creative?

Find an abandoned RiteAid or Eckerds and open a Halloween store.

 

[M0df]

So if you are making $40k/yr doing real estate part time, can't you do it full time? Of course we are pharmacists and most of us prefer something more secure. Something laid back and more clinical would probably yield you $80k/yr with your current skill set, which is summed up by 13 years in retail.

 

[greenteapanacea]

hello i am current pharmacist 13yrs in retail and 1 year in managed care rph... i love managed care but currently work contract position and its competitive in philly, pa. I have 4 state licenses. ideally would love a laid back rph job doing something more clinical... i do not want to 12 hour shifts and do not want to deal with patient care too much and do not want to deal with too many narcotics? managed care is super competitive? is there any suggestions for something like a 1-2 year certificate i can go into? background: i am pretty tech savvy, enjoy projects, business ideas, have side business real estate rental making 40k/yr? i would love to own my own haunted house or do something creative?

Is the managed care work you're currently doing at a prior authorization call center, or reviewing formulary changes? You could try leveraging that into a market-access position or a med-info industry position.

A better idea would be to focus on growing your real estate business if your day job isn't too tiring.

 

[JustFillIt]

Find an abandoned RiteAid or Eckerds and open a Halloween store.

Lmao! This is awesome!

 

[BidingMyTime]

If it was easy to get a "chill" RPH job, then everybody would have one. Might as well buy a lottery ticket if you are feeling that lucky.

 

[Pharmacy is a Scam]

Is the managed care work you're currently doing at a prior authorization call center, or reviewing formulary changes? You could try leveraging that into a market-access position or a med-info industry position.

A better idea would be to focus on growing your real estate business if your day job isn't too tiring.

Prior auths for sure.
1) Retail doesn’t translate into anything else in managed care except MTMs.
2) I don’t think contract formulary positions exist (for obvious reasons). But you always need people to do PAs because it’s a boring job so there’s always going to be high churn.

 

[Mambo#5]

Prior auths for sure.
1) Retail doesn’t translate into anything else in managed care except MTMs.
2) I don’t think contract formulary positions exist (for obvious reasons). But you always need people to do PAs because it’s a boring job so there’s always going to be high churn.

Prior auths use more clinical knowledge than retail, and it’s more interesting than verifying/proofreading scripts all day. The hard part of doing PAs is sitting at a desk for so long. The turn over where I worked in San Antonio for SilverScripts(owned by CVS) had high turn over because the company kept promising the pharmacists that in 3 months they would be full time. After 3 months they said the same thing. In addition you had quotas( 7 PAs an hour to start and I believe it went a little up from there maybe 8 or 9) to make so no one took their breaks, only the 30 min lunch. Guess what happened if you couldn’t keep up and make the quotas.....Turn over was also due to the fact that you knew at some point you might miss somewhere on the forms filled out by the doctor that the PA needed to be done in 24 hours(there are many different ways this could be written and in no particular spot on all the scribble you viewed on the form.) You miss this and it’s a 10k fine for the company. Miss a couple and guess what.... Hence the empty cubicle that you see the next day and soandso is gone. Then there were mandatory weekend hours. Mandatory meaning, show up on Saturday and Sunday or don’t show up on Monday. These are the reasons there were so much turnover.

Turnover had no impact on the company because they got cheap labor and every week there were a new batch off pharmacists as replacements.

This was in 2015. The majority of the pharmacists were from Houston looking for full time work and doing this in the meantime.

Most pharmacists found something else except those who had worked years retail or didn’t want patient interaction or enjoyed the computer applications that went with putting a PA through and solving PA issues.

 

[greenteapanacea]

Prior auths use more clinical knowledge than retail, and it’s more interesting than verifying/proofreading scripts all day. The hard part of doing PAs is sitting at a desk for so long. The turn over where I worked in San Antonio for SilverScripts(owned by CVS) had high turn over because the company kept promising the pharmacists that in 3 months they would be full time. After 3 months they said the same thing. In addition you had quotas( 7 PAs an hour to start and I believe it went a little up from there maybe 8 or 9) to make so no one took their breaks, only the 30 min lunch. Guess what happened if you couldn’t keep up and make the quotas.....Turn over was also due to the fact that you knew at some point you might miss somewhere on the forms filled out by the doctor that the PA needed to be done in 24 hours(there are many different ways this could be written and in no particular spot on all the scribble you viewed on the form.) You miss this and it’s a 10k fine for the company. Miss a couple and guess what.... Hence the empty cubicle that you see the next day and soandso is gone. Then there were mandatory weekend hours. Mandatory meaning, show up on Saturday and Sunday or don’t show up on Monday. These are the reasons there were so much turnover.

Turnover had no impact on the company because they got cheap labor and every week there were a new batch off pharmacists as replacements.

This was in 2015. The majority of the pharmacists were from Houston looking for full time work and doing this in the meantime.

Most pharmacists found something else except those who had worked years retail or didn’t want patient interaction or enjoyed the computer applications that went with putting a PA through and solving PA issues.

Thank you for providing so much insight. I never really learned about the managed care side.

 

[Pharmacy is a Scam]

Prior auths use more clinical knowledge than retail, and it’s more interesting than verifying/proofreading scripts all day. The hard part of doing PAs is sitting at a desk for so long. The turn over where I worked in San Antonio for SilverScripts(owned by CVS) had high turn over because the company kept promising the pharmacists that in 3 months they would be full time. After 3 months they said the same thing. In addition you had quotas( 7 PAs an hour to start and I believe it went a little up from there maybe 8 or 9) to make so no one took their breaks, only the 30 min lunch. Guess what happened if you couldn’t keep up and make the quotas.....Turn over was also due to the fact that you knew at some point you might miss somewhere on the forms filled out by the doctor that the PA needed to be done in 24 hours(there are many different ways this could be written and in no particular spot on all the scribble you viewed on the form.) You miss this and it’s a 10k fine for the company. Miss a couple and guess what.... Hence the empty cubicle that you see the next day and soandso is gone. Then there were mandatory weekend hours. Mandatory meaning, show up on Saturday and Sunday or don’t show up on Monday. These are the reasons there were so much turnover.

Turnover had no impact on the company because they got cheap labor and every week there were a new batch off pharmacists as replacements.

This was in 2015. The majority of the pharmacists were from Houston looking for full time work and doing this in the meantime.

Most pharmacists found something else except those who had worked years retail or didn’t want patient interaction or enjoyed the computer applications that went with putting a PA through and solving PA issues.

To add to this, working as a pharmacist in a PA call center is like participating in the Hunger Games, where the metrics are designed around driving operational efficiency i.e. only the fittest will survive. I’ve worked in some big PBMs and their metrics were crazier than 7-8 cases/hr — the target usually ranged from 15-20 cases per hour. On top of that, some PBMs also have an additional metric to lay off the bottom 15% of performers of those who met the minimum quota each quarter, meaning that if the quota was 20 cases and you worked 20 cases but everyone else worked 30 cases then you’d get the axe. From a business perspective this actually makes a lot of sense because it weeds out the “slow” pharmacists and the pharmacists who try to do the bare minimum and when they hit their goal for the day start playing around on their phones or whatnot. It also allows PBMs to push for more ridiculous metrics at will because you know that the PA pharmacists who are still left standing at the end of it all are the ones capable of doing more cases in less time.

Also, totally agree about the contract positions and masses of new contract pharmacists they bring on and kick out every couple of weeks. Use them till they break then find cheaper replacements (which you can easily do because there is an infinite supply of retail pharmacists who have no clue what they’re getting themselves into).

So to the retail pharmacists who think the “grass is greener” in managed care/prior auths, you’ll be massively disappointed if you make the jump because you’ll just be going from one metrics-based system to another.

 

[greenteapanacea]

To add to this, working as a pharmacist in a PA call center is like participating in the Hunger Games, where the metrics are designed around driving operational efficiency i.e. only the fittest will survive. I’ve worked in some big PBMs and their metrics were crazier than 7-8 cases/hr — the target usually ranged from 15-20 cases per hour. On top of that, some PBMs also have an additional metric to lay off the bottom 15% of performers of those who met the minimum quota each quarter, meaning that if the quota was 20 cases and you worked 20 cases but everyone else worked 30 cases then you’d get the axe. From a business perspective this actually makes a lot of sense because it weeds out the “slow” pharmacists and the pharmacists who try to do the bare minimum and when they hit their goal for the day start playing around on their phones or whatnot. It also allows PBMs to push for more ridiculous metrics at will because you know that the PA pharmacists who are still left standing at the end of it all are the ones capable of doing more cases in less time.

Also, totally agree about the contract positions and masses of new contract pharmacists they bring on and kick out every couple of weeks. Use them till they break then find cheaper replacements (which you can easily do because there is an infinite supply of retail pharmacists who have no clue what they’re getting themselves into).

So to the retail pharmacists who think the “grass is greener” in managed care/prior auths, you’ll be massively disappointed if you make the jump because you’ll just be going from one metrics-based system to another.

I am getting so much info from this thread, and I'm not even OP haha. They definitely made managed care sound even more rosy than hospital clinical positions during school. Thank goodness I had a few friends rotate through them and steer me away.

 

[King2440]

I second the Haunted House thing. Now that’s a business that all jobless RPhs should do. There are just no haunted houses during non Halloween time. And I’m being serious

 

[grizzlesgrizzlies]

Every day is Halloween for a new grad with 200k loans and no job lol

 

[mentos]

I am getting so much info from this thread, and I'm not even OP haha. They definitely made managed care sound even more rosy than hospital clinical positions during school. Thank goodness I had a few friends rotate through them and steer me away.

You mean the school gave a false impression of what the real world is like? Unfathomable!

 

[nextyearrx]

hello i am current pharmacist 13yrs in retail and 1 year in managed care rph... i love managed care but currently work contract position and its competitive in philly, pa. I have 4 state licenses. ideally would love a laid back rph job doing something more clinical... i do not want to 12 hour shifts and do not want to deal with patient care too much and do not want to deal with too many narcotics? managed care is super competitive? is there any suggestions for something like a 1-2 year certificate i can go into? background: i am pretty tech savvy, enjoy projects, business ideas, have side business real estate rental making 40k/yr? i would love to own my own haunted house or do something creative?

MBA program will give you a good job (like pharmd and mba with some big company)!!

 

[PikminOC]

Some PA jobs are from home.

 

[Sabril]

So if you are making $40k/yr doing real estate part time, can't you do it full time? Of course we are pharmacists and most of us prefer something more secure. Something laid back and more clinical would probably yield you $80k/yr with your current skill set, which is summed up by 13 years in retail.

yeah why not grow the real estate side job? Not going to beat pharmacist's salary but at least still worth the time and effort.

Also, totally agree about the contract positions and masses of new contract pharmacists they bring on and kick out every couple of weeks. Use them till they break then find cheaper replacements (which you can easily do because there is an infinite supply of retail pharmacists who have no clue what they’re getting themselves into).

So to the retail pharmacists who think the “grass is greener” in managed care/prior auths, you’ll be massively disappointed if you make the jump because you’ll just be going from one metrics-based system to another.

Doing PA can't require too much clinical knowledge can they? If they can just grab retail pharmacists off the street and use them for a couple months

 

[NorthwestRph]

To add to this, working as a pharmacist in a PA call center is like participating in the Hunger Games, where the metrics are designed around driving operational efficiency i.e. only the fittest will survive. I’ve worked in some big PBMs and their metrics were crazier than 7-8 cases/hr — the target usually ranged from 15-20 cases per hour. On top of that, some PBMs also have an additional metric to lay off the bottom 15% of performers of those who met the minimum quota each quarter, meaning that if the quota was 20 cases and you worked 20 cases but everyone else worked 30 cases then you’d get the axe. From a business perspective this actually makes a lot of sense because it weeds out the “slow” pharmacists and the pharmacists who try to do the bare minimum and when they hit their goal for the day start playing around on their phones or whatnot. It also allows PBMs to push for more ridiculous metrics at will because you know that the PA pharmacists who are still left standing at the end of it all are the ones capable of doing more cases in less time.

Also, totally agree about the contract positions and masses of new contract pharmacists they bring on and kick out every couple of weeks. Use them till they break then find cheaper replacements (which you can easily do because there is an infinite supply of retail pharmacists who have no clue what they’re getting themselves into).

So to the retail pharmacists who think the “grass is greener” in managed care/prior auths, you’ll be massively disappointed if you make the jump because you’ll just be going from one metrics-based system to another.

OMG so glad I'm reading this. Thank you!

 

[carmer90]

hello i am current pharmacist 13yrs in retail and 1 year in managed care rph... i love managed care but currently work contract position and its competitive in philly, pa. I have 4 state licenses. ideally would love a laid back rph job doing something more clinical... i do not want to 12 hour shifts and do not want to deal with patient care too much and do not want to deal with too many narcotics? managed care is super competitive? is there any suggestions for something like a 1-2 year certificate i can go into? background: i am pretty tech savvy, enjoy projects, business ideas, have side business real estate rental making 40k/yr? i would love to own my own haunted house or do something creative?

My son is the individual who is pursuing the Pharm degree BUT I have experience in the haunted house industry. HH industry is also a tough business. You should check out Haunt Swap on FB, go to some of the haunt related cons, etc. You really need to know your area - how saturated is the market in your area? Oh and don't expect to make a profit the first year (at least)

 

[mentos]

My son is the individual who is pursuing the Pharm degree BUT I have experience in the haunted house industry. HH industry is also a tough business. You should check out Haunt Swap on FB, go to some of the haunt related cons, etc. You really need to know your area - how saturated is the market in your area? Oh and don't expect to make a profit the first year (at least)

Does that mean you'll profit in the second year? If so I'd say that's pretty good. Many businesses don't profit even after 5 years.

 

[BidingMyTime]

MBA program will give you a good job (like pharmd and mba with some big company)!!

MBA's are a dime a dozen. Like lawyer school, most MBA's are next to worthless, because of the school that issued them. One must pick their school wisely to obtain a valuable MBA. Next, the value of networking with classmates is more valuable then the MBA itself....if one is anti-social and doesn't know how to network, then the MBA is doubly wasted on them, regardless of the school issuing it. MBA's can be valuable, but for most people who get them, it turns out to be as worthwhile as a JD.

 

[firework]

Thank you for your information, i did not know PA is like that. During a normal day, who will PA pharmacists interact the most? Prescribers? Patients? Or do they interact with people at all?

I just come up with a genius metrics system, it goes like this: pharmacists are payed by each case. Say $4/case, and whoever gets the least error rate are given priority to start new cases.

Prior auths use more clinical knowledge than retail, and it’s more interesting than verifying/proofreading scripts all day. The hard part of doing PAs is sitting at a desk for so long. The turn over where I worked in San Antonio for SilverScripts(owned by CVS) had high turn over because the company kept promising the pharmacists that in 3 months they would be full time. After 3 months they said the same thing. In addition you had quotas( 7 PAs an hour to start and I believe it went a little up from there maybe 8 or 9) to make so no one took their breaks, only the 30 min lunch. Guess what happened if you couldn’t keep up and make the quotas.....Turn over was also due to the fact that you knew at some point you might miss somewhere on the forms filled out by the doctor that the PA needed to be done in 24 hours(there are many different ways this could be written and in no particular spot on all the scribble you viewed on the form.) You miss this and it’s a 10k fine for the company. Miss a couple and guess what.... Hence the empty cubicle that you see the next day and soandso is gone. Then there were mandatory weekend hours. Mandatory meaning, show up on Saturday and Sunday or don’t show up on Monday. These are the reasons there were so much turnover.

Turnover had no impact on the company because they got cheap labor and every week there were a new batch off pharmacists as replacements.

This was in 2015. The majority of the pharmacists were from Houston looking for full time work and doing this in the meantime.

Most pharmacists found something else except those who had worked years retail or didn’t want patient interaction or enjoyed the computer applications that went with putting a PA through and solving PA issues.