Long-Term Care Pharmacy

[pinkyrx]

What is long-term care pharmacy like in your area? Would you ever consider working in long-term care? What are the pros/cons?

I did a rotation in LTC a few months back and I enjoyed getting to see a totally different environment instead of the typical retail/hospital type setting. (my actual rotation was 85% consulting with only 15% in the actual pharmacy) With that being said, I'm not sure if it's something I want to pursue after graduation or not.

It definitely seemed like a much less stressful environment compared to a busy retail setting. The company I did my rotation with had specific people that dealt with insurance as well as specific pharmacists that handled all the calls from the facilities. So, that left the other pharmacists basically just doing order entry and then checking boxes/carts before they went to delivery. (I think they may have rotated spots)

The biggest negative I saw was that you have to be on call... how often depends on how many pharmacists work there I guess. The other negative was that unless you were the pharmacist taking calls from the facilities you basically never talked to providers or patients. While that could be considered a positive for some people, I'm concerned that I would forget everything I ever learned in school if I wasn't challenged with questions from time to time. One more... you don't have set hours because you can't actually leave the building until all orders have been sent out for delivery. In other words you stay until the orders are all done.

Are these issues in most LTC pharmacies or are these unique to the place I was at?

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[JerryPharmD]

I've worked in one for 2 years a while back (got bought out by omnicare), and just a 5 week rotation in one. The pharmacists are great there. They dose aminoglycosides and some do consulting at the homes. There are quite a bit of compounds. They wore jeans when at the pharmacy (very laid back). They do take turns being on call, but a lot of times they don't need to go to the pharmacy. Consulting is awesome, and the IV room was a blast (though pharmacists don't usually mix them). The only negative is the idiocy of some of the calls that they took. It is actually worse than retail in some ways it seems. Callers (mostly nurses) constantly complain about "where's my meds?" The fax in a new admit 15 min before the run leaves and expect it to be there, interesting because the cut-off is 90 min before the run leaves. A positive though is any and every imaginable question is asked. The pharmacists make a bit less there too (my guess is around 48 an hour), but it was a great place for rotation and I might even see myself working in a place like that post grad...

As for pharmacists there only doing one thing, they did rotate. The pharmacist that did most the drug checking there did that because they wanted to. I think that this person liked checking the drugs rather than check orders or take calls.

As for closing, this place turned the phones off at 10 and they usually got out by 10:30. They turned the phones on at 830am, but people started working at 7am. I used to work in a place that closed at midnight, and we were usually out from 1215am to 1230 am.

 

[pinkyrx]

I've worked in one for 2 years a while back (got bought out by omnicare), and just a 5 week rotation in one. The pharmacists are great there. They dose aminoglycosides and some do consulting at the homes. There are quite a bit of compounds. They wore jeans when at the pharmacy (very laid back). They do take turns being on call, but a lot of times they don't need to go to the pharmacy. Consulting is awesome, and the IV room was a blast (though pharmacists don't usually mix them). The only negative is the idiocy of some of the calls that they took. It is actually worse than retail in some ways it seems. Callers (mostly nurses) constantly complain about "where's my meds?" The fax in a new admit 15 min before the run leaves and expect it to be there, interesting because the cut-off is 90 min before the run leaves. The pharmacists make a bit less there too (my guess is around 48 an hour), but it was a great place for rotation and I might even see myself working in a place like that post grad...

As for pharmacists there only doing one thing, they did rotate. The pharmacist that did most the drug checking there did that because they wanted to. I think that this person liked checking the drugs rather than check orders or take calls.

Love your avatar, btw!

Thanks for all the info! The pharmacy that I was at had a business casual dress code but I know at another LTC pharmacy here in town they can go in wearing their pajamas if they want to! Now that would be comfy!

So, did the pharmacists at your place rotate all around or did some of them get stuck just verifying labels? They had several part time pharmacists and I'm not kidding, they never changed tasks... I felt like that would get pretty boring. Although, boring isn't always a bad thing! LOL

I really loved the consulting side of things! I think I would like being able to consult and then do about a day a week in the actual pharmacy. (Or like I said in a previous post maybe work a few days a week in a community pharmacy)

 

[JerryPharmD]

Love your avatar, btw!

Thanks for all the info! The pharmacy that I was at had a business casual dress code but I know at another LTC pharmacy here in town they can go in wearing their pajamas if they want to! Now that would be comfy!

So, did the pharmacists at your place rotate all around or did some of them get stuck just verifying labels? They had several part time pharmacists and I'm not kidding, they never changed tasks... I felt like that would get pretty boring. Although, boring isn't always a bad thing! LOL

I really loved the consulting side of things! I think I would like being able to consult and then do about a day a week in the actual pharmacy. (Or like I said in a previous post maybe work a few days a week in a community pharmacy)

Thanks 😀

They had 2 primary stations and most pharmacists rotated around. There were 2 order entry verification/phone stations. The had a receptionist that directed all the phone calls; honestly one of the best ideas I've ever seen. There was specifically a phone pharmacist who took the calls, the other 2 spots just took spilled calls. Then there is 1 primary drug verification pharmacist who doesn't want to be bothered with phones or order entry(this particular individual personally likes/chooses to check). This pharmacist does take some calls at night when everyone goes home. A second pharmacist will come and check drugs the half-hour before the run. There's a controls room and ER boxes, so these locations have to be rotated through and checked. I can see how life would be hell if they didn't rotate and just checked bingo cards as in your situation.

One of the pharmacists has been there a year after working in grocery stores/retail for 10 years (I talked to him quite a bit). He said the extra couple dollars an hour isn't worth it. He told a story where he was the manager and needed a tech. Upper management wouln't approve the posting of a job opening, so he spent his own money to put an ad in the paper for the job.