Owner doesn't like 90 day supplies synchronization

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Sparda29

Sparda29

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Independent owner transferred me as SP of one of the slower stores to his busiest store. The past few months, I've been using prescription synchronization in the system and reaching out to doctors to prescribe 90 day supplies instead of 30 day supplies. So what has happened is, now instead of there being 200-300 scripts steady day to day throughout the week, we are filling probably 800 scripts on one day and then 50-100 the rest of the week.

There also used to be a lot of issues where we would be out of stock on brand name items and we would end up having to deliver it to the patient the next day. My best friend works as the delivery driver for these pharmacies so to make her job and my job easier, I've started ordering extra so that these items are always in stock and that way we can dispense everything to the patient the day they come in instead of having to deliver so many things (we went from almost 25+ deliveries a day to now just like 5-10). The driver gets paid a flat rate per week no matter how many deliveries there are, so this is a major win for her.

The owner wants me to put things back to the way they were before. He says he can't have us ordering $100k+ from the wholesaler in one shot (we have a lot of patients taking Janumet, Farxiga, Lantus Solostar, Novolog Flexpen) because it ****s up his cash flow.

I told him if he's having cash flow issues, then maybe he shouldn't be taking the profit out of the company account so frequently to fund his vacations and cars and should just reinvest the money into the business and take his profit instead once a year. I also said that these changes make it so that pharmacy staff can work super hard one day of the week and relax the rest of the week. I know how much money he makes, the dude ****ing leaves the Chase business account logged in with the user name and password saved so I know what the balances are on the accounts and I can see when he's making big ass withdrawals.

He got pretty pissed and went on a rant about how what he does with the profit is none of my business and that I need to remember that I work for him and not the other way around. He also said that he pays us to work, not to relax so there is no point in trying to make the job more efficient. He said then maybe I'll just have more techs on Monday and cut tech hours the rest of the week.

Is it just me or is this owner being a dick?

TLDR; The Pharmacy used to be a very hectic work environment, no one had a chance to sit, no one had a chance to their enjoy meals, customers complained about things being out of stock, and there used to be a lot of foot traffic making the store very noisy and hot (door always opening = heat keeps coming in making the AC useless).

I made changes to streamline the operation to make it a quiet, cold, relaxed environment.
 
Um it's his business not yours. Listen to the owner. He's correct in giving less help on the slower days too. What you are going to end up doing is the same chains go through, give more 90 day supplies equal less scripts needing to be filled which hurts tech hours.

Even if what you are doing might be best for the store. It's probably going to end up hurting the techs.

And before anyone responds to me, I agree with OP. I don't think the owner understands what is going on but it's still their store. Unless OP can show how his efforts will end up benefiting the owner, the employee should listen.
 
Last edited:
Seems like you did a good job. And most insurance companies pay a 90 days script as three 30 days script so you get paid 3x for 1x the work .
Unless there's an issues where the reimbursement is lower because of 90 days scripts

So you did a good job streamline the operation . Have you tried to pitch to the owner that now with all that extra manpower you saved you can provide extra services and try to generate even more revenue? With the extra services you provide you can possibly even argue for a raise.

Right now you have an easy week but the owner has cash flows tied up so it seems like you benefited at the expense of negatively affecting him .
It's gotta be a win win situation for both for it to work.
 
Well, first thing it's his business and if he wants to pour gas on the floor and torch the place he can. I had an owner that their spouse wanted to buy a motorcycle so she just went over to the cash register and cleaned it out...no joke. It's hard to sync up the medicines, been there still doing that. I've also ordered brand name meds in advance (a week) so we didn't owe the patient or they didn't go without. I understand both points, maybe you could sell him on doing vaccinations just on those "slow" days to improve volume?
 
You should never question the owner on how they choose to spend the profits. You are an employee, not a stockholder. How he chooses to spend it is his own business. You are lucky you were not immediately fired. That is overstepping your place, big time. It may have been better to say something along the lines of "I understand your concerns. Maybe I can review our inventory and ordering processes" instead. You can have too much money tied up in stocking your shelves (an opportunity cost actually). Since he is concerned out opportunity costs, you should be too, or maybe you should start looking elsewhere for work. I doubt he will keep you around much longer now that he knows you think so little of him....
 
pencilandpen said:
Seems like you did a good job. And most insurance companies pay a 90 days script as three 30 days script so you get paid 3x for 1x the work .
Unless there's an issues where the reimbursement is lower because of 90 days scripts

So you did a good job streamline the operation . Have you tried to pitch to the owner that now with all that extra manpower you saved you can provide extra services and try to generate even more revenue? With the extra services you provide you can possibly even argue for a raise.

Right now you have an easy week but the owner has cash flows tied up so it seems like you benefited at the expense of negatively affecting him .
It's gotta be a win win situation for both for it to work.
Click to expand...

Didn't pitch the owner with extra manpower we can do more stuff, I only streamlined it so we could actually have real downtime where we can sit around and chill.
owlegrad said:
Why synchronize everyone’s meds to the same day?! How can you possibly do 800 on one day and 50 on another? That’s crazy!
Click to expand...

I keep a notebook on the major patients with 10+ meds and arbitrarily decided which Monday to give them. If they don't have a **** ton of meds, then I don't bother with synchronizing them.
 
I think the streamlining is fine, but it does cut into his revenues (less prescriptions filled = less dispensing fees). The incentives for retail pharmacy are very perverse. As someone who was in charge of retail operations in the past, cash flow is extremely important in today's pharmacy business environment. Perhaps if you had streamlined the process better by syncing your purchases, you'd be in a better position with your boss. Try to figure out the timing of accounts receivable versus accounts payable, then you'll be in a better position to create a process everyone can be happy with. Also, as a general rule, ordering "extra" of high cost medications is a big inventory no-no (unless you're trying to game the big three letter chain since inventory value is a positive metric). It's money sitting on a shelf with potential loss risk, when it could be money used for any other purpose. These are really simplified suggestions because supplier contracts and payment terms are all different. So take from this what you will.

I'll just echo everyone here as well and say you should never tell anyone how to spend their money if you aren't solicited or in a position to do so (say you were the CFO). In general, being PC is more important than work performance/results when you are not in a leadership role.
 
Sparda29 said:
Didn't pitch the owner with extra manpower we can do more stuff, I only streamlined it so we could actually have real downtime where we can sit around and chill.


I keep a notebook on the major patients with 10+ meds and arbitrarily decided which Monday to give them. If they don't have a **** ton of meds, then I don't bother with synchronizing them.
Click to expand...

if your goal was to sit and chill and theres no extra benefit for the owner then why exactly would the owner be on broad? If I was the owner I would cut hours then to make sure you never have time to sit and chill. Youre getting paid to do work not to sit and chill. the owner is not unreasonable at all.

In your case you benefited while the owner has all his money tied up, why do you think he would be ok with this?
 
Traffic is revenue. By reducing traffic, you make him selling less front end items. If I were the owner, I'd pile bodies on Monday and give you 1 tech the rest of the week, 50-100 rx is easy with just 1 tech, no cashier. Save me $.
 
Momus said:
Traffic is revenue. By reducing traffic, you make him selling less front end items. If I were the owner, I'd pile bodies on Monday and give you 1 tech the rest of the week, 50-100 rx is easy with just 1 tech, no cashier. Save me $.
Click to expand...

Those slow days, I don't need a tech, the most important thing to me is having someone who speaks Spanish to run the register.
 
You're a smart man Sparda, and I admire that. The only problem is that the owner holds the mentality that he doesn't pay you to think.

Props to the other posters who mentioned other points, like reducing in store traffic or transaction fees... those are interesting to think about.
 
Sparda29 said:
Independent owner transferred me as SP of one of the slower stores to his busiest store. The past few months, I've been using prescription synchronization in the system and reaching out to doctors to prescribe 90 day supplies instead of 30 day supplies. So what has happened is, now instead of there being 200-300 scripts steady day to day throughout the week, we are filling probably 800 scripts on one day and then 50-100 the rest of the week.

There also used to be a lot of issues where we would be out of stock on brand name items and we would end up having to deliver it to the patient the next day. My best friend works as the delivery driver for these pharmacies so to make her job and my job easier, I've started ordering extra so that these items are always in stock and that way we can dispense everything to the patient the day they come in instead of having to deliver so many things (we went from almost 25+ deliveries a day to now just like 5-10). The driver gets paid a flat rate per week no matter how many deliveries there are, so this is a major win for her.

The owner wants me to put things back to the way they were before. He says he can't have us ordering $100k+ from the wholesaler in one shot (we have a lot of patients taking Janumet, Farxiga, Lantus Solostar, Novolog Flexpen) because it ****s up his cash flow.

I told him if he's having cash flow issues, then maybe he shouldn't be taking the profit out of the company account so frequently to fund his vacations and cars and should just reinvest the money into the business and take his profit instead once a year. I also said that these changes make it so that pharmacy staff can work super hard one day of the week and relax the rest of the week. I know how much money he makes, the dude ****ing leaves the Chase business account logged in with the user name and password saved so I know what the balances are on the accounts and I can see when he's making big ass withdrawals.

He got pretty pissed and went on a rant about how what he does with the profit is none of my business and that I need to remember that I work for him and not the other way around. He also said that he pays us to work, not to relax so there is no point in trying to make the job more efficient. He said then maybe I'll just have more techs on Monday and cut tech hours the rest of the week.

Is it just me or is this owner being a dick?

TLDR; The Pharmacy used to be a very hectic work environment, no one had a chance to sit, no one had a chance to their enjoy meals, customers complained about things being out of stock, and there used to be a lot of foot traffic making the store very noisy and hot (door always opening = heat keeps coming in making the AC useless).

I made changes to streamline the operation to make it a quiet, cold, relaxed environment.
Click to expand...

[It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia Title Card:
Sparda ruins his sweet gig and gets himself and friend fired ]

Hahaha, bro.

You are so oblivious. Your communication skills are bottom tier AF.
I would be chewing you out if you did that at my pharmacy.

You'd better go beg him not to fire you. I bet your spot is already on Indeed.
In fact- ask him if he wants to hire a top tier, elite pharmacist from Texas that has experience in 5 independents.
Are you aware of the state of the Job market in NYC?

Hope you enjoy commuting to Newark



pencilandpen said:
Seems like you did a good job. And most insurance companies pay a 90 days script as three 30 days script so you get paid 3x for 1x the work .
Unless there's an issues where the reimbursement is lower because of 90 days scripts

So you did a good job streamline the operation . Have you tried to pitch to the owner that now with all that extra manpower you saved you can provide extra services and try to generate even more revenue? With the extra services you provide you can possibly even argue for a raise.

Right now you have an easy week but the owner has cash flows tied up so it seems like you benefited at the expense of negatively affecting him .
It's gotta be a win win situation for both for it to work.
Click to expand...
Nope. 90d/s in general pay worse for indys
 
Last edited:
So why do insurances take so long to pay the pharmacy? I was under the impression that we (the pharmacy) get the money in the account within a few days. Maybe it's time to start writing lawmakers to demand that PBMs pay the pharmacy immediately?
 
Sparda29 said:
So why do insurances take so long to pay the pharmacy? I was under the impression that we (the pharmacy) get the money in the account within a few days. Maybe it's time to start writing lawmakers to demand that PBMs pay the pharmacy immediately?
Click to expand...

You should probably read some of the insurance / pbm contracts... 9/10 of the time; you get paid less money for filling a 90 day supply... does your software system stay up to date with actual costs / pricing to see when you’re making money versus losing money?

(Edit) I say this because I have seen a lot of part d plans pay LESS THAN COST on brand name prescriptions when filling a 90 day supply (/Edit)

Some insurance companies can take up to 90 days to pay you - granted most pay within the first 30 days...

If you were smart about your synchronization - you wouldn’t of done it on certain Monday’s - instead spread it out over the course of the week...

I use to keep a log of big ticket items (ie Gleevac) and order it 2-3 days before it was due... I would also know which patients were “platinum” patients and coordinated each profile to 1 day of the month...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Sparda29 said:
So why do insurances take so long to pay the pharmacy? I was under the impression that we (the pharmacy) get the money in the account within a few days. Maybe it's time to start writing lawmakers to demand that PBMs pay the pharmacy immediately?
Click to expand...

Not a bad idea... when does “immediately” occur? On adjudication or when patient actually picks up medication and drug leaves custody?

Also, would we have to pay them back immediately on reversals?
 
Sparda29 said:
Independent owner transferred me as SP of one of the slower stores to his busiest store. The past few months, I've been using prescription synchronization in the system and reaching out to doctors to prescribe 90 day supplies instead of 30 day supplies. So what has happened is, now instead of there being 200-300 scripts steady day to day throughout the week, we are filling probably 800 scripts on one day and then 50-100 the rest of the week.

There also used to be a lot of issues where we would be out of stock on brand name items and we would end up having to deliver it to the patient the next day. My best friend works as the delivery driver for these pharmacies so to make her job and my job easier, I've started ordering extra so that these items are always in stock and that way we can dispense everything to the patient the day they come in instead of having to deliver so many things (we went from almost 25+ deliveries a day to now just like 5-10). The driver gets paid a flat rate per week no matter how many deliveries there are, so this is a major win for her.

The owner wants me to put things back to the way they were before. He says he can't have us ordering $100k+ from the wholesaler in one shot (we have a lot of patients taking Janumet, Farxiga, Lantus Solostar, Novolog Flexpen) because it ****s up his cash flow.

I told him if he's having cash flow issues, then maybe he shouldn't be taking the profit out of the company account so frequently to fund his vacations and cars and should just reinvest the money into the business and take his profit instead once a year. I also said that these changes make it so that pharmacy staff can work super hard one day of the week and relax the rest of the week. I know how much money he makes, the dude ****ing leaves the Chase business account logged in with the user name and password saved so I know what the balances are on the accounts and I can see when he's making big ass withdrawals.

He got pretty pissed and went on a rant about how what he does with the profit is none of my business and that I need to remember that I work for him and not the other way around. He also said that he pays us to work, not to relax so there is no point in trying to make the job more efficient. He said then maybe I'll just have more techs on Monday and cut tech hours the rest of the week.

Is it just me or is this owner being a dick?

TLDR; The Pharmacy used to be a very hectic work environment, no one had a chance to sit, no one had a chance to their enjoy meals, customers complained about things being out of stock, and there used to be a lot of foot traffic making the store very noisy and hot (door always opening = heat keeps coming in making the AC useless).

I made changes to streamline the operation to make it a quiet, cold, relaxed environment.
Click to expand...

First off. Wow. Where to start. If he's running multiple pharmacies he shouldn't be having cash-flow issues with 100,000 USD I imagine he has around 300,000 USD of liquid float unless he is taking money out of the company like you said. But even if he is taking money out of the company to buy something as ridiculous as Dogecoin it's really none of your business. If you think you can run the operation better start your own independent instead of complaining about how others operate it. I wouldn't have terminated you on the spot of insubordination but I would immediately start looking for your replacement as an owner. Also snooping through other ppl's bank accounts is a serious privacy violation.
 
CetiAlphaFive said:
[It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia Title Card:
Sparda ruins his sweet gig and gets himself and friend fired ]

Hahaha, bro.

You are so oblivious. Your communication skills are bottom tier AF.
I would be chewing you out if you did that at my pharmacy.

You'd better go beg him not to fire you. I bet your spot is already on Indeed.
In fact- ask him if he wants to hire a top tier, elite pharmacist from Texas that has experience in 5 independents.
Are you aware of the state of the Job market in NYC?

Hope you enjoy commuting to Newark




Nope. 90d/s in general pay worse for indys
Click to expand...
"newark"

more like Cherry Hill
 
FinallyOnTrack said:
But Dogecoin is the next bitcoin!! Or was that PACcoin? I get those crappy AltCoins mixed up..


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
we
FinallyOnTrack said:
But Dogecoin is the next bitcoin!! Or was that PACcoin? I get those crappy AltCoins mixed up..


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
"Or was that PACcoin? "

More like PA2PHARMcoin 🙂
 
Sparda I love you to death but if you said to me what you said in your OP I'd fire you on the spot.
 
CetiAlphaFive said:
Eh, I wOuldn't quote that.

That individual seems to be stalking Sparda
Click to expand...

My bad, I don't do this whole reddit thing. Could you delete my quote? You can leave me being quoted so I look foolish still it you want.

I apologize sparda
 
Last edited:
Dude, don't fill 90 days supplies. We don't do it. Medicare Part D doesn't pay you enough for 90 day supplies of brands. We lose money on them. If you want to synchronize, which is a great idea, synchronize to 30 day supplies. That way you fill every 30 days, you don't lose money, and owner will be happy you are filling every single month. It's a win-win. Stop with the 90 days. It only works for certain patients, not everyone. It's more hassle.
 
Certain medicare plans have MTM features that you can submit med sync for and get paid $5 to $50 TIP. Also I have seen TIP paid out for switching 30 to 90 days. This was over a year ago so maybe it has changed.

90 days might hurt front end sales assuming your independent makes money from front end every 30 days when patients stop in. Also during flu season it is nice seeing people every 30 days to remind them to get flu shot or other immunizations. Then again it is competitive market and if patients get sick of stopping in every 30 days they will call insurance or doctor to complain and insurance will refer them to mail order.
 
maria1oh said:
Certain medicare plans have MTM features that you can submit med sync for and get paid $5 to $50 TIP. Also I have seen TIP paid out for switching 30 to 90 days. This was over a year ago so maybe it has changed.

90 days might hurt front end sales assuming your independent makes money from front end every 30 days when patients stop in. Also during flu season it is nice seeing people every 30 days to remind them to get flu shot or other immunizations. Then again it is competitive market and if patients get sick of stopping in every 30 days they will call insurance or doctor to complain and insurance will refer them to mail order.
Click to expand...

Not really.
Not really at all.
 
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