Cvs is getting worse.../ Time to leave

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ancienbon

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In my district 8 pharmacists left in the past 3 months . It keeps getting worse... . They expect great metrics while they drastically cut tech hours. Yesterday I filled 334 scripts with only 16 tech hours. Now the district leader is telling us the job has be done even it means staying 2 to 3 hours over without pay . I will leave as soon as I am able to find something.....
 
That's a shame.

Meanwhile...
pwc-settlement-tbw.gif
 
ancienbon said:
In my district 8 pharmacists left in the past 3 months . It keeps getting worse... . They expect great metrics while they drastically cut tech hours. Yesterday I filled 334 scripts with only 16 tech hours. Now the district leader is telling us the job has be done even it means staying 2 to 3 hours over without pay . I will leave as soon as I am able to find something.....
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Are you hourly pay? Tell your DL that violates FLSA laws.
 
A lot of pharmacists come in early and/or stay late, and it may help a little in completing tasks or cleaning up the queue, but it doesn't solve the source of the problem. There are a number of stores here in Phoenix which routinely have 40+ pages in QP, along with 10+ totes sitting on the floor from the previous week's warehouse delivery - I imagine that it's the same throughout the country
 
lightbringer said:
A lot of pharmacists come in early and/or stay late, and it may help a little in completing tasks or cleaning up the queue, but it doesn't solve the source of the problem. There are a number of stores here in Phoenix which routinely have 40+ pages in QP, along with 10+ totes sitting on the floor from the previous week's warehouse delivery - I imagine that it's the same throughout the country
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Last week I stopped by a friend s of mine s store. He had 100 pages.. I am not kidding
 
ancienbon said:
We are salaried
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Ask your DL to change the schedule so that it reflects actual hours worked, then you'll stay after. Otherwise metric reports will be inaccurate, saying you did better for amount of hours budgeted than you actually did.
 
ancienbon said:
In my district 8 pharmacists left in the past 3 months . It keeps getting worse... . They expect great metrics while they drastically cut tech hours. Yesterday I filled 334 scripts with only 16 tech hours. Now the district leader is telling us the job has be done even it means staying 2 to 3 hours over without pay . I will leave as soon as I am able to find something.....
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We get threatened for being fired for working off the clock. Thank goodness for being hourly and being in CA.
 
ancienbon said:
In my district 8 pharmacists left in the past 3 months . It keeps getting worse... . They expect great metrics while they drastically cut tech hours. Yesterday I filled 334 scripts with only 16 tech hours. Now the district leader is telling us the job has be done even it means staying 2 to 3 hours over without pay . I will leave as soon as I am able to find something.....
Click to expand...

If you are a CVS veteran, why quit your $70 hourly job at CVS to do the same thing at Walgreens for $50? The reality is that retail is in attrition mode. Things are only going to get worse. This is why CVS is diversifying out of retail and Walgreens is implementing massive budget cuts.

As the big dogs continue their scorched earth policy, smaller players will have no choice but to follow suit or close shop.

Now is not the best time to go looking for greener pastures. Instead, I recommend hunkering down and accumulating as much F-you money as possible in the next 5-10 years. Alternatively, look for jobs outside of pharmacy.
 
Lnsean said:
and on top of that, the bean counters will think that ya'll be getting by with the new cuts, so next time, they'll cut even more.
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Exactly. I would report your DL to the higher ups because asking you to work that many hours off the clock to make his numbers look better is straight up lying.
 
ancienbon said:
Last week I stopped by a friend s of mine s store. He had 100 pages.. I am not kidding
Click to expand...
Last month, the DL came in to a couple of stores after closing, made the PICs stay, and helped clean up the queue for a couple of hours (off the clock for the Rx manager, of course) - but what's going to happen when there is not enough tech help or when no one cares about the store anymore? Scripts start to back up again and the pharmacy is back to square one. There is a defeatist attitude settling in where the staff is caring less and less, because upper management appears to care less and less. Once the queue hits so many number of pages, it almost becomes like a joke and people paradoxically don't work as hard.

Contrast this with the Great ExpressScripts-CVS Merger debacle a decade ago, where pharmacy staffs at least hustled and worked really hard to clean up the stores and take care of patients. But then again, that was a different time and era in terms of the pharmacy landscape.
 
lightbringer said:
A lot of pharmacists come in early and/or stay late, and it may help a little in completing tasks or cleaning up the queue, but it doesn't solve the source of the problem. There are a number of stores here in Phoenix which routinely have 40+ pages in QP, along with 10+ totes sitting on the floor from the previous week's warehouse delivery - I imagine that it's the same throughout the country
Click to expand...

Wtf?! 40 pages in qp?!! Good lord. Whats your wait time look like? A week? Lol
 
Timbo said:
Exactly. I would report your DL to the higher ups because asking you to work that many hours off the clock to make his numbers look better is straight up lying.
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Yeah they should report to ethics line. They have modules that specifically state no working off the clock.
 
Timbo said:
Exactly. I would report your DL to the higher ups because asking you to work that many hours off the clock to make his numbers look better is straight up lying.
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Don’t report him to CVS. Report him to the labor board.
 
Adsum said:
Instead, I recommend hunkering down and accumulating as much F-you money as possible in the next 5-10 years. Alternatively, look for jobs outside of pharmacy.
Click to expand...

This guy would be lucky if he is still sane after 1 more year.
 
Adsum said:
If you are a CVS veteran, why quit your $70 hourly job at CVS to do the same thing at Walgreens for $50? The reality is that retail is in attrition mode. Things are only going to get worse. This is why CVS is diversifying out of retail and Walgreens is implementing massive budget cuts.

As the big dogs continue their scorched earth policy, smaller players will have no choice but to follow suit or close shop.

Now is not the best time to go looking for greener pastures. Instead, I recommend hunkering down and accumulating as much F-you money as possible in the next 5-10 years. Alternatively, look for jobs outside of pharmacy.
Click to expand...
I agree with this...take 'em for what you can....work the scheduled hours at the rate you can safely handle...there are worse things than getting the boot..and making a bad mistake will cook you for good.. BTW..get a small notebook and make what notes you can with time and date..the so called management will often talk themselves into trouble as many criminal types do..for a manager to confiscate your little book would be theft...Watch out for HiPPa....Too bad it has to be this way...but no one cares about you but you...
 
ancienbon said:
In my district 8 pharmacists left in the past 3 months . It keeps getting worse... . They expect great metrics while they drastically cut tech hours. Yesterday I filled 334 scripts with only 16 tech hours. Now the district leader is telling us the job has be done even it means staying 2 to 3 hours over without pay . I will leave as soon as I am able to find something.....
Click to expand...
It's not legal for them to make you work with no pay. Contact Department of Labor.
 
hye345 said:
I’ve seen 140+ pages before. At that point, the most time-consuming part of the job isn’t filling/typing/ringing people out, it’s trying to find the stupid label in the que so you can print it out.
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It's been a while since I worked there but can't you print a label from the profile, then scan it in QP and it'll change from print ready to fill ready?
 
hye345 said:
I’ve seen 140+ pages before. At that point, the most time-consuming part of the job isn’t filling/typing/ringing people out, it’s trying to find the stupid label in the que so you can print it out.
Click to expand...

Wtf?! 140 pages?! Lol so they were essentially a week behind?!
 
You should ask those pharmacists who left if they found other jobs.
 
hye345 said:
I’ve seen 140+ pages before. At that point, the most time-consuming part of the job isn’t filling/typing/ringing people out, it’s trying to find the stupid label in the que so you can print it out.
Click to expand...

Isn't that what expediting is for?
 
I would have figured that turnover would have gone down with the new metrics but in my market turnover has skyrocketed in the last 4 months. CVS has nearly 900 pharmacist positions open right now online, up from about 500 a few months ago when I checked
 
mentos said:
It's been a while since I worked there but can't you print a label from the profile, then scan it in QP and it'll change from print ready to fill ready?
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If I remember correctly, once it’s in QP, it won’t let you print an extra label.

VictorOfHungerGames said:
Wtf?! 140 pages?! Lol so they were essentially a week behind?!
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More like 2-3 weeks...

owlegrad said:
Isn't that what expediting is for?
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Ordinarily yes, but when you have 50 or so pages that have been expedited, it kind of kills the purpose.
 
Prepharm1214 said:
It doesnt matter if they are salaried employees and not in California
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It doesnt matter if you are salaried or not, you are still eligible for overtime if over 40 hours unless you are considered management.
www.dol.gov

Overtime Pay

An employer who requires or permits an employee to work overtime is generally required to pay the employee premium pay for such overtime work. Employees covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) must receive overtime pay for hours worked in excess of 40 in a workweek of at least one and...
www.dol.gov www.dol.gov
 
You guys post hourly here all the time. Are you hourly or salary? If they give you 30 hours a week but you stay for 40 to help out, don't you get paid for 40?
 
TikiTorches said:
You guys post hourly here all the time. Are you hourly or salary? If they give you 30 hours a week but you stay for 40 to help out, don't you get paid for 40?
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In California, yes. For part-time pharmacists, yes. For the vast majority of full-time pharmacists, no. Although it is a little more complicated than that. Most pharmacists do get paid for picking up an extra shift but not for staying late or coming in early. The "hourly" rate that gets post here is based on how many hours the person is salaried for, not how many they actually work.
 
TikiTorches said:
It doesnt matter if you are salaried or not, you are still eligible for overtime if over 40 hours unless you are considered management.
www.dol.gov

Overtime Pay

An employer who requires or permits an employee to work overtime is generally required to pay the employee premium pay for such overtime work. Employees covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) must receive overtime pay for hours worked in excess of 40 in a workweek of at least one and...
www.dol.gov www.dol.gov
Click to expand...

That is adorable. Thank you for coming here and explaining our salaries to us. I assume everyone here just didn't realize what the labor laws are, from now on we will make sure to get paid our overtime. I am sure the corporations have no way around it now that you have posted that for us.
 
owlegrad said:
That is adorable. Thank you for coming here and explaining our salaries to us. I assume everyone here just didn't realize what the labor laws are, from now on we will make sure to get paid our overtime. I am sure the corporations have no way around it now that you have posted that for us.
Click to expand...

TikiTorches said:
It doesnt matter if you are salaried or not, you are still eligible for overtime if over 40 hours unless you are considered management.
www.dol.gov

Overtime Pay

An employer who requires or permits an employee to work overtime is generally required to pay the employee premium pay for such overtime work. Employees covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) must receive overtime pay for hours worked in excess of 40 in a workweek of at least one and...
www.dol.gov www.dol.gov
Click to expand...


No, that includes you too supposedly as a physician if you supposedly think on the job 🙂 (JK).

This is why (from the DoL sheet):

Professional Exemption
To qualify for the learned professional employee exemption, all of the following tests must be met:
• The employee must be compensated on a salary or fee basis (as defined in the regulations) at a rate not less than $455* per week;
• The employee’s primary duty must be the performance of work requiring advanced knowledge, defined as work which is predominantly intellectual in character and which includes work requiring the consistent exercise of discretion and judgment;
• The advanced knowledge must be in a field of science or learning; and
• The advanced knowledge must be customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized intellectual instruction

I'd be curious if someday, someone offers less than $455 ($11.38 which is beneath minimum wage in several states) in exchange for FLSA "protection." Remember, FLSA reform basically exempted practically every standard middle-class employee.
 
lightbringer said:
Last month, the DL came in to a couple of stores after closing, made the PICs stay, and helped clean up the queue for a couple of hours (off the clock for the Rx manager, of course) - but what's going to happen when there is not enough tech help or when no one cares about the store anymore? Scripts start to back up again and the pharmacy is back to square one. There is a defeatist attitude settling in where the staff is caring less and less, because upper management appears to care less and less. Once the queue hits so many number of pages, it almost becomes like a joke and people paradoxically don't work as hard.
Click to expand...

Fire the burnt out pharmacists and bring in hungry new grads with $200K+ student loans, I suppose.
 
lightbringer said:
Once the queue hits so many number of pages, it almost becomes like a joke and people paradoxically don't work as hard.
Click to expand...

I totally agree. There is something psychological about “clearing the que”. As long as it is possible or seems possible it is a goal you can work towards. When it gets laughably impossible to even attempt the response is to just do less work, after all you aren’t going to get it all done anyway. What’s the point at that point?

It is also a snowball effect. Once you give up it is basically impossible to go back to caring. That’s one reason long term employees can often be the hardest to work with - they have been there, done that and just don’t care anymore.
 
mentos said:
Yeah that would be torture to read through every line for 140+ pages.
Click to expand...
ancienbon said:
Or you type f in Qp and type the first to three characters of the patient s name
Click to expand...

Honestly, I forgot a lot of the ins and outs of the CVS system... maybe they’ve changed it in the past few months, I just remember that if it was print-ready in QP, the system wouldn’t let you.
 
TikiTorches said:
It doesnt matter if you are salaried or not, you are still eligible for overtime if over 40 hours unless you are considered management.
www.dol.gov

Overtime Pay

An employer who requires or permits an employee to work overtime is generally required to pay the employee premium pay for such overtime work. Employees covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) must receive overtime pay for hours worked in excess of 40 in a workweek of at least one and...
www.dol.gov www.dol.gov
Click to expand...
You're really cute. We must introduce you to the pre-pharm forum
 
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