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House approves pharmacists oversee 6 techs
Started by Hope1974
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I wouldn't mind having 6 techs if my store budget allowed it. The goal is to have the pharmacist as distraction free as possible and our technicians are what accomplish this for us. The more techs I have, the less technician work I have to do and the more time I can do verification and counseling.
I disagree. The more techs, the more distractions. Especially if untrained. What the chains want to do is cut the extra pharmacist in the busiest stores. Say a store that does 800-1000 on Mondays has an overlap rph from 11am-7pm. That shift will be gone.
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I find overseeing 4 or 5 technicians overwhelming. It's not uncommon to have them surround me with "urgent" things that need checked right away or be reminding me for the 3rd time that I have 3 calls waiting as well as someone out front who wants to talk with me. Certainly having more technicians is better than less technicians, but they do nothing to cut down on distractions.
The bottleneck is not the number of techs. It's the rph's single focal point of attention going from from one fire to the next. Upping the number of techs won't change how the number of OTC consults, the drug questions from nurses and patients over the phone/fax, prescription orders on voice mail, and data/product verification load. If anything the flow of problems techs can't resolve needing a rph to resolve will be increased.
Looks like a Florida RPh in Broward County should be contacting Rep. Joe Gibbons as he needs a bit more education as to what this could mean for patient safety.
If we don't tell representatives what we do and why we're a critical link in keeping patients safe, they make decisions like this with bad data. Get out there and tell them what pharmacists are good for!
If we don't tell representatives what we do and why we're a critical link in keeping patients safe, they make decisions like this with bad data. Get out there and tell them what pharmacists are good for!
How do you figure having more technicians running around in the pharmacy will create a distraction free environment for the pharmacist? Who is supervising the extra technicians? Unless they are going to be allowed to counsel patients or take new verbal prescriptions or give immunizations I fail to see how it will help alleviate distractions from the pharmacist.
With six technicians you are going to need more time for verification. There is only so much one pharmacist can safely do. How does doubling the amount of technicians pushing work to you free you from distractions? The way I see it doubles your distractions.
The answer is not adding more technicians it is adding more pharmacists.
FYI to all this is Florida specific - my first question was "when did pharmacy laws fall under federal control?"
Did anyone say it did?
It is pertinent to everyone because it sets a precedent for Walgreen's and CVS to pursue similar change in other States.
Sounds like this is going to cut pharmacist jobs at busier stores like someone mentioned earlier....
State boards should mandate more RPH's based on script numbers in busy stores if they want to free up RPH's and keep patient safety as a priority. Thats the best way to free up pharmacists and better ensure patient safety. I don't really think that would realistically happen and I'm not sure how it would be implemented or the methods to determine what stores need more RPH's but I think realistically this is the best method. Chains obviously would'nt like that.
I have mixed feelings on this.
Fact of the matter if the "extra" RPh overlap is just lick, stick and pouring what truly is the point of that person being there when they could hire 4 techs for the same cost?
If the profession of the retail pharmacist is just lick, stick, pour and count it's just a matter of time before they are all replaced.
But honestly--- doesn't WAG, CVS and RAD just call these extra techs, "clerks" or something. I don't see how this is really going to effect anything.
Fact of the matter if the "extra" RPh overlap is just lick, stick and pouring what truly is the point of that person being there when they could hire 4 techs for the same cost?
If the profession of the retail pharmacist is just lick, stick, pour and count it's just a matter of time before they are all replaced.
But honestly--- doesn't WAG, CVS and RAD just call these extra techs, "clerks" or something. I don't see how this is really going to effect anything.
They really don't care about patient safety. At least not to that point.
If we wanted near complete 100% patient safety--- only RPhs would be allowed to work in the pharmacy. But obviously there is an acceptable error rate because as a society we don't want our Rx's costing $100/each.
Good points grumps.
Good to see you made this point without using the words "false flag", "gold" or "bernanke" 😀😀
One of the earlier articles about this that someone linked stated that ~12 states have no limits to the number of techs a pharmacist can oversee. The article also stated that these states tend to have lower error rates than those with limits. It didn't link hard data, but I thought it was interesting. Not quite sure where I land on the issue but I agree with a previous poster that the feds shouldn't be pushing control over this issue.
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There is a happy medium that has to be found. 2 RPh's can oversee techs easier, and have enough spare time to counsel patients. That way one RPh can focus on the tech's and filling the Rx's and the other can help but be available for patient interaction. The busiest stores should have a system like this, that way patient counseling and safety don't get sacrificed in order to fill more prescriptions.
There's no way WAGS/CVS got behind this to increase the technicians in the stores when they are continually cutting tech hours. This is obviously just a way to increase production at the central fill facilities. I'm sure that's the only place this new bill will be put to use.
The fires will always be there, except many of them can be handled by my techs. There aren't a lot of problems 'competent' techs can't resolve on their own after a quick thumbs up or down from a pharmacist. My techs are good at what they do and are my extra shields against bull ****. What eats up MY time is having to run to my triple drive thru to cash someone out, or the multitude of time wasting phone calls for refills or 'script ready yet' calls that my techs can't pick up because they're handling customers, or countless other tech work that I could be saved if I had a higher ratio. The more "techy" work I have to complete, the less time I have for final verification.
I agree. I've supervised five at a time before and it was just fine. That place didn't have a drive-thru, either. If we'd had one, an additional tech would have been good.
Currently working at Target where tech help is very scarce. 100/10 hour day feels like a lot when you are doing everything yourself. At my PRN job, I can do 200-250/8 hour day and not break a sweat. The difference? Plenty of help at the PRN place. I can just be the pharmacist.
