No, they are not like a corporate retail pharmacy. They are an HMO outpatient pharmacy (they have inpatient pharmacy as well, but they don't interchange). That means, they only have certain medications on their formulary & they can have wait times as long or as short as they want since their patients either have to put up with what it is or they go somewhere else & pay cash.
Many of my patients who have Kaiser insurance will get their inexpensive medications from a retail rx. Its faster & costs the same.
For pharmacists, Kaiser is governed by seniority. You have to be there a long, long time to get out of the poor shift schedules. Its also very "ingrained" which can be good and bad. Its good in that when pharmacists start in the system they stay in the system & often don't leave until they get tired of doing the same thing over & over. It also allows you to know that if you get hired to do anticoag, peds or heme/onc...thats probably what you'll do as long as you're employed. But, the bad part about that is you can get really tired of doing anticoag day after day, cause thats the only thing you do all day. You won't be doing ID - someone else is doing that.
I know many people who have spent all their professional lives at Kaiser & wouldn't do anything else. I never entertained the thought because I would never have Kaiser insurance if I could have a choice of something else. But, I also know people who try it for 4-5 years & can't ever see themselves getting off the evening shift & jump out.
So - its an option, but not everyone is going to take it. In CA, the pay is comparable. I wouldn't say the benefits are the same because they obviously encourage you to use Kaiser (I think there might be another option now, but I admittedly haven't looked in a long time). Kaiser is an HMO which comes with all the negatives of an HMO as a source of health insurance.
