DiPiro: "Demand is about equal to supply."

[MountainPharmD]

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buddy of mine who works at corporate for walgreens in the midwest told me the plan is to get rid of 7500 positions throughout the midwest and told me they are lying when they say power is being used to free up pharmacists time.

told me this 2 weeks ago

We all know this. The goal of POWER is to reduce labor costs which is Walgreens biggest expenditure after drug purchases. Taking into account not only salary but taxes, and benefits, ect. Walgreens could come close to adding a billion dollars to its bottomline.

 

[bigpharmD]

yeah 7500 seemed like a lot but he was serious. I asked him if he was worried about his job and he said no, he will be busy laying people off and coming up with more ways to cut labor costs.

 

[Jetninjin]

buddy of mine who works at corporate for walgreens in the midwest told me the plan is to get rid of 7500 positions throughout the midwest and told me they are lying when they say power is being used to free up pharmacists time.

told me this 2 weeks ago

Wasn't POWER suspended? Someone alluded to that in another thread since it's architect left.

 

[Jetninjin]

yeah 7500 seemed like a lot but he was serious. I asked him if he was worried about his job and he said no, he will be busy laying people off and coming up with more ways to cut labor costs.

Usually senior management or special project managers decide who to lay off. Usually contract specialists or people related to the finance dept find ways to improve the bottom line. Your friend does both of these? And is privy to long-term strategy sessions? Is he the CEO?

I smell the aroma of exaggeration on teh internetz.

 

[genesis09]

Wasn't POWER suspended? Someone alluded to that in another thread since it's architect left.

That's my understanding. Everything is being delayed.

7500 pharmacy positions for the entire midwest seems a little high. Illinois, one of the largest states in the midwest, has only about 13,000 registered pharmacists.
I know my Wags district is hard up for people and still has a number of openings.
I've heard of no rumors of massive layoffs on the store level. On the corporate level, well that's another story.

 

[type b pharmD]

this is also suspicious because when power was rolled out in florida, they did not lay off too many pharmacists (rather moved them to the CPO) I wouldnt be surprised if they were planning on cutting 7500 techs though.

Sounds like hearsay .. we havent heard of people in arizona or fl complaining of large scale rph cuts . rather moving to cpo..

but this may all be moot considering the CEO left and word on the street seems to be power may be done for?

 

[StaviZFingerZ]

I've said before that the wags were out to cut one billion per year in expenses. this can be achieved by cutting 1 pharmacist per store...that's about 7000 pharmacists at 140k per year in salaries and benefits...that's about billion dollars a year. how do you accomplish this?

easy. the power program.

 

[Mariachi]

I've said before that the wags were out to cut one billion per year in expenses. this can be achieved by cutting 1 pharmacist per store...that's about 7000 pharmacists at 140k per year in salaries and benefits...that's about billion dollars a year. how do you accomplish this?

easy. the power program.

You forgot to consider how many stores are already operating at their legal minimum in terms of pharmacist staffing.

 

[StaviZFingerZ]

You forgot to consider how many stores are already operating at their legal minimum in terms of pharmacist staffing.

No I didn't. Wags can always decrease the hours of operation to lower the minimum required pharmacist hours. What the heck is a legal minimum phamracist staffing anyways?

 

[Jetninjin]

Lol I have an idea ... we can all transfer all our prescriptions en masse to central fill pharmacies, wait for the inevitable misfill, sue the @3&$ out of them, and get some state law sponsored in our name that outlaws central fill 

 

[genesis09]

A normal Walgreens needs 2.5 FTEs of pharmacists to run. This is assuming the store does not have any midshifts. The POWER program has adjusted the hours of the stores that only 2 FTEs are required. The 0.5 FTE is normally handled by a floater or a part-timer.

 

[SHC1984]

Lol I have an idea ... we can all transfer all our prescriptions en masse to central fill pharmacies, wait for the inevitable misfill, sue the @3&$ out of them, and get some state law sponsored in our name that outlaws central fill 

You can only sue if someone dies. 🙁

 

[Jetninjin]

You can only sue if someone dies. 🙁

Maybe it depends on your state. This article indicates there have been lawsuits with living patients on the federal level at least: http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2008-02-13-pharmacy-errors-secrecy_N.htm

And there have been lawsuits over living babies who got too much Heparin (movie stars in CA sued Cedars Sinai over that last year).

 

[genesis09]

Most pharmacies settle misfill lawsuits out of court. You can sue if the misfill caused intense pain and suffering.

 

[EddieL]

So what do you guys imagine the profession looking like in 2015?

 

[confettiflyer]

Most pharmacies settle misfill lawsuits out of court. You can sue if the misfill caused intense pain and suffering.

my favorite has to be "loss of consortium" hahah =(

 

[Coastie]

buddy of mine who works at corporate for walgreens in the midwest told me the plan is to get rid of 7500 positions throughout the midwest and told me they are lying when they say power is being used to free up pharmacists time.

told me this 2 weeks ago

You're pre-optometry? That field has it worse than pharm.

Medicinesux, me, and a few other posters have said for a long time that medicine and pharm are going the way of law, with pharmacy first. Medicine, with new med schools popping up like crazy, will be the same way.

I gave this advice to my hospital based friends back in the early 2000's to make the dough in retail then bust out, but they all laughed, said I was crazy.

How good is this: http://www.pharmacymanpower.com/

It's a website that tracks monthly national and state-by-state pharmacist supply and demand? 😕

 

[bigpharmD]

this is also suspicious because when power was rolled out in florida, they did not lay off too many pharmacists (rather moved them to the CPO) I wouldnt be surprised if they were planning on cutting 7500 techs though.

Sounds like hearsay .. we havent heard of people in arizona or fl complaining of large scale rph cuts . rather moving to cpo..

but this may all be moot considering the CEO left and word on the street seems to be power may be done for?

Dude i lived in florida when it was rolled out and a lot of people were out of jobs or were "forced" to look at other opportunities

 

[bigpharmD]

Usually senior management or special project managers decide who to lay off. Usually contract specialists or people related to the finance dept find ways to improve the bottom line. Your friend does both of these? And is privy to long-term strategy sessions? Is he the CEO?

I smell the aroma of exaggeration on teh internetz.

You guys can continue to make excuses etc...im just telling you what a person who works for corporate walgreens told me....he is a pharmd, mba who is fairly high up

 

[womp]

Medicinesux, me, and a few other posters have said for a long time that medicine and pharm are going the way of law, with pharmacy first. Medicine, with new med schools popping up like crazy, will be the same way.

It's hard for medicine to go the way of law when residency spots haven't increased in decades. At the most, the IMG/FMGs and DOs get the shaft. Medicine is one of those things where you really need the low resident to attendings/faculty ratio. You can't learn surgery by watching it.

The current problem with medicine is that supply and demand doesn't really apply because of the insurance bureaucracy and Medicare/Medicaid.