Pharmacists to order and administer vaccines to children nationwide

[rickyroxy]

In Major Win, HHS Authorizes Pharmacists to Order and Administer Vaccines to Children Nationwide During the Public Health Emergency

In Major Win, HHS Authorizes Pharmacists to Order and Administer Vaccines to Children Nationwide During the Public Health Emergency

CONTACT: Frank Fortin 202.223.7189; [email protected] The American Pharmacists Association applauds today’s announcement by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which authorizes licensed pharmacists to provide all vaccines recommended by the CDC’s Advisory Committee on...

www.pharmacist.com

Get ready for increased quota. Just waiting to see how quickly chains grab this and start rolling out half baked like Covid testing roll out.

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[Marzapan]

Someone please explain to me how this is a win? Wake me up when we get paid to immunize...

 

[moolman]

In CA, we always allowed Rph to vaccine kids according to the CDC schedule, we didn't block it at our plan but many rph didn't feel comfortable immunizing kids, so didn't see much utilization. Also, was depending on company policy.

 

[PharFromNormal]

Someone please explain to me how this is a win? Wake me up when we get paid to immunize...

I can list several large employers of pharmacists that include immunizing as a core job responsibility. Therefore I’d say wake up, to get paid as an employee of several large employers of pharmacists you must immunize. Or said another way you are paid to immunize. Refusing to categorically not immunize can result in you not getting a paycheck and getting promoted to customer.

Don’t like their rules... go independent and don’t give any immunizations, or do and give all the admin fees you pull in to yourself. The big chains got plenty of cheap grads that have been trained in immunizations since their white coat ceremony as if it was an essential part of their profession. Probably a lot more relevant training and expectation setting for the large majority than learning the old school trade secrets of compounding powder packets, reading microfilm, or using a typewriter to create an rx label.

Professions changed man. Wake up... better yet stay sleep.

 

[moolman]

Someone please explain to me how this is a win? Wake me up when we get paid to immunize...

We never paid Rph directly but the administration fee for many plans is $20 per immunization. Not counting the cost of the vaccine.

 

[moolman]

I can list several large employers of pharmacists that include immunizing as a core job responsibility. Therefore I’d say wake up, to get paid as an employee of several large employers of pharmacists you must immunize. Or said another way you are paid to immunize. Refusing to categorically not immunize can result in you not getting a paycheck and getting promoted to customer.

Don’t like their rules... go independent and don’t give any immunizations, or do and give all the admin fees you pull in to yourself. The big chains got plenty of cheap grads that have been trained in immunizations since their white coat ceremony as if it was an essential part of their profession. Probably a lot more relevant training and expectation setting for the large majority than learning the old school trade secrets of compounding powder packets, reading microfilm, or using a typewriter to create an rx label.

Professions changed man. Wake up... better yet stay sleep.

He's just pointing out Rph don't get paid extra. They have to do all their current number of fills then they get a vaccine quota and no increase in help or money. And the chains can do that cause you have no choice. like you are pointing out. Do it or get out. And that's what they tell pharmacist. Do more work for the same pay or get out. Isn't that the problem with the profession right now?

 

[PharFromNormal]

He's just pointing out Rph don't get paid extra. They have to do all their current number of fills then they get a vaccine quota and no increase in help or money. And the chains can do that cause you have no choice. like you are pointing out. Do it or get out. And that's what they tell pharmacist. Do more work for the same pay or get out. Isn't that the problem with the profession right now?

Id actually argue the problem with the profession right now is we don’t have a massive wave/pipeline of drugs going brand to generic anymore that was fueling quite a good run of balancing out profitability for pharmacy businesses and permitted for a lot more cash to be spent on labor. Those same prescriptions are now worth pennies and the business needs to find other pools of money to try to be able to afford even the barebones scheduled and salaries of what’s left. Immunizations carry their weight and more to offset the extremely low margin prescriptions that we have to fill.

If this guy is worried about the money they have their priorities mixed up. This dude shouldn’t be asking when will we get paid for immunizations, rather when will we get paid for the underwater prescriptions that they spend time on to lose their company money.

The other thing wrong with this profession are these pioneers/innovators that are trying to push scope of services without any clear defined reimbursement terms or rates. Doing more free stuff isn’t sustainable. Immunizations do not fit this bill IMO as you yourself mention above about the pretty favorable admin fee compared to dispensing fees associated with other prescriptions. Regarding getting no additional compensation or bonus per shot... I considered us lucky. I think based on the current labor supply pool there are many pharmacists probably priced very high compared to market rates for what’s needed. We can sit here and point fingers of the pharmacist supply and demand problem but that doesn’t make it go away and it doesn’t change the fact that there are likely many pharmacists out there that could very well be replaced with another pharmacist willing to do the exact same job for $10-15/hr less. Consider that 10-15/hr more you’re making ... you’re immunization bonus.

 

[zelman]

Has any BOP commented on this yet?

 

[moolman]

Id actually argue the problem with the profession right now is we don’t have a massive wave/pipeline of drugs going brand to generic anymore that was fueling quite a good run of balancing out profitability for pharmacy businesses and permitted for a lot more cash to be spent on labor. Those same prescriptions are now worth pennies and the business needs to find other pools of money to try to be able to afford even the barebones scheduled and salaries of what’s left. Immunizations carry their weight and more to offset the extremely low margin prescriptions that we have to fill.

If this guy is worried about the money they have their priorities mixed up. This dude shouldn’t be asking when will we get paid for immunizations, rather when will we get paid for the underwater prescriptions that they spend time on to lose their company money.

The other thing wrong with this profession are these pioneers/innovators that are trying to push scope of services without any clear defined reimbursement terms or rates. Doing more free stuff isn’t sustainable. Immunizations do not fit this bill IMO as you yourself mention above about the pretty favorable admin fee compared to dispensing fees associated with other prescriptions. Regarding getting no additional compensation or bonus per shot... I considered us lucky. I think based on the current labor supply pool there are many pharmacists probably priced very high compared to market rates for what’s needed. We can sit here and point fingers of the pharmacist supply and demand problem but that doesn’t make it go away and it doesn’t change the fact that there are likely many pharmacists out there that could very well be replaced with another pharmacist willing to do the exact same job for $10-15/hr less. Consider that 10-15/hr more you’re making ... you’re immunization bonus.

The generic pipeline is not my there's no money. It's the reimbursement rates regardless of anything else. Even if there are less brands going generic, there's specialty drugs, etc.

Pushing for additional services is the right thing to do. You need to push for it to get reimbursed, the problem is that with big corporations running the show and like you said, people willing to take less money, there's no need to ask for more reimbursement. They just reduce pay, which the root cause is the excess supply of pharmacist.

 

[Sine Cura]

Have fun doing this **** in an unruly, unkempt, all-around shabby work environment (not even a private room for most chain pharmacy locations)

 

[PharFromNormal]

The generic pipeline is not my there's no money. It's the reimbursement rates regardless of anything else. Even if there are less brands going generic, there's specialty drugs, etc.

Pushing for additional services is the right thing to do. You need to push for it to get reimbursed, the problem is that with big corporations running the show and like you said, people willing to take less money, there's no need to ask for more reimbursement. They just reduce pay, which the root cause is the excess supply of pharmacist.

Maybe you’re missing what I’m saying. I’ll try again. Yes low reimbursement rates are why there is ultimately no money. However, we had a good run of several years where several non-speciality (dispensed by everyone not just like 10 pharmacies) blockbuster drugs were going generic every year. Their reimbursement ultimately also becomes terrible but there is a period of time when the product goes generic and into the break open phase where retail pharmacies significantly benefit and profitability is lucrative as the acquisition prices drop lower, faster than the reimbursement rates. Ultimately, yes the reimbursement rates aren’t good but waves and waves of brand to generic blockbusters provided a very healthy margin offset to pharmacy businesses that even then faced significant reimbursement challenges. This is not really a debate, the CFOs from all the big chains used to make mention of this as a tailwind on profitability nearly every analyst call several years ago. And then it stopped. The new novel drugs aren’t retail drugs, they are speciality, biologics, etc. The strong wave is over and there’s not much providing a healthy offset anymore.

Regarding root cause on pharmacist supply problems, I strongly disagree on your assessment. If you think major corporations want to start doing services for free or no reimbursement you are wildly mistaken. There were many pharmacist demand projections made by those with much much closer to academia than the big corporations. There were going to be huge demands for pharmacists to do MTM and all these services that just never really reached expectations because once again their profitability, consistency, and availability was far below than what the pushers of services thought would come about. If I’m running a business and after paying the labor, supplies, overhead etc. I’m making $1 on a thing that takes 2 minutes to do vs $5 on a thing that takes 30 minutes to do. The choice is easy where I’d rather spend my limited time.

Regarding pushing for services prior to reimbursement. I also disagree. Once it’s pushed and accepted that a pharmacist COULD do something there is an all out assault to actually try to get them to do said thing. There are other pharmacist opportunists that exploit this working in non-retail pharmacy jobs. All the sudden you see retail pharmacies that if they want to be in a preferred network or not have even lower reimbursement rates from DIR they have to do these additional services that are not only underwater to complete but not doing them puts their business further underwater. But the company that created the platform for the service profits and they advertise it as advancing the pharmacist beyond traditional dispensing.

 

[Marzapan]

I can list several large employers of pharmacists that include immunizing as a core job responsibility. Therefore I’d say wake up, to get paid as an employee of several large employers of pharmacists you must immunize. Or said another way you are paid to immunize. Refusing to categorically not immunize can result in you not getting a paycheck and getting promoted to customer.

Don’t like their rules... go independent and don’t give any immunizations, or do and give all the admin fees you pull in to yourself. The big chains got plenty of cheap grads that have been trained in immunizations since their white coat ceremony as if it was an essential part of their profession. Probably a lot more relevant training and expectation setting for the large majority than learning the old school trade secrets of compounding powder packets, reading microfilm, or using a typewriter to create an rx label.

Professions changed man. Wake up... better yet stay sleep.

My point is that this news is not groundbreaking or a "major win," as APhA calls it - it's not like we've gone from no immunizations to all of a sudden giving immunizations, it's that we can now immunize children and per moolman there are plans/pharmacies that already allow for this but they haven't seen an uptick in volume. The reality is that demand isn't going to be manufactured as a result of the passage of a law, and that's the problem. What vaccines can pharmacists give now that they couldn't already give? None.

Of course, the reason why APhA calls this a "major win" in my opinion is because this profession has gone down the drain so much that ANY news in pharmacy not about job cuts, wage cuts or saturation is good news and must be spun as "progress" and celebrated.

 

[PharFromNormal]

My point is that this news is not groundbreaking or a "major win," as APhA calls it - it's not like we've gone from no immunizations to all of a sudden giving immunizations, it's that we can now immunize children and per moolman there are plans/pharmacies that already allow for this but they haven't seen an uptick in volume. The reality is that demand isn't going to be manufactured as a result of the passage of a law, and that's the problem. What vaccines can pharmacists give now that they couldn't already give? None.

Of course, the reason why APhA calls this a "major win" in my opinion is because this profession has gone down the drain so much that ANY news in pharmacy not about job cuts, wage cuts or saturation is good news and must be spun as "progress" and celebrated.

Demand for health care services manufactured from the passage of law rather than the aligned incentives of the marketplace is the problem. Healthcare services shouldn’t just be created for a law, it should benefit health, improve outcomes etc.

Even if you were to take something more progressive say pharmacists with full autonomous prescribing rights, you wouldn’t create new demand of new people needing more prescriptions for more things. This announcement indicates an additional unlock of a market of demand that previously many pharmacists could not provide services to where other professions could. Does this increase the overall size of the pie for all healthcare spending opportunities, no. Does it allow pharmacists to try to grow their slice of pie by immunizing where only others (pediatricians) could, yes. Win for pharmacy business. Increased competition of service providers for child vaccinations = win for capitalisitic view of healthcare system.

In your view what would be progress? Strong labor rules implemented in pharmacy and no where else that mandates pharmacists get some direct specific compensation from their employers for each unit of work completed? To be honest that’s swimming against the current bud. It’s all for paying for outcomes not paying for services.

 

[rickyroxy]

Have fun doing this **** in an unruly, unkempt, all-around shabby work environment (not even a private room for most chain pharmacy locations)

I don't even have privacy screen. I asked for one this year and was told its on back order.!

 

[Marzapan]

Demand for health care services manufactured from the passage of law rather than the aligned incentives of the marketplace is the problem. Healthcare services shouldn’t just be created for a law, it should benefit health, improve outcomes etc.

Even if you were to take something more progressive say pharmacists with full autonomous prescribing rights, you wouldn’t create new demand of new people needing more prescriptions for more things. This announcement indicates an additional unlock of a market of demand that previously many pharmacists could not provide services to where other professions could. Does this increase the overall size of the pie for all healthcare spending opportunities, no. Does it allow pharmacists to try to grow their slice of pie by immunizing where only others (pediatricians) could, yes. Win for pharmacy business. Increased competition of service providers for child vaccinations = win for capitalisitic view of healthcare system.

In your view what would be progress? Strong labor rules implemented in pharmacy and no where else that mandates pharmacists get some direct specific compensation from their employers for each unit of work completed? To be honest that’s swimming against the current bud. It’s all for paying for outcomes not paying for services.

Healthcare moving to a "pay for performance/outcomes model" is EXACTLY why pharmacists are being squeezed out of the system and why things like immunizations and MTMs are simply "services" and nothing more - because you can't demonstrate a hard ROI from these activities, and even if you somehow did, these are activities that can be easily outsourced to pharmacy techs or other healthcare workers who are cheaper than pharmacists, so it begs the question of "why should we pay more to have a pharmacist do this when a tech can do it too?" It's really sad how the future of pharmacy is built on fighting for scraps that other HCPs decide to give to us.

Aside from the obvious closing down of schools and the such, "progress" to me in pharmacy starts with a complete overhaul of the pharmacy school curriculum. If the play for pharmacy in the future is to expand into the primary care setting, then there needs to be more emphasis on diagnosis, specifically pathophysiology (physio is covered in schools but not pathophys), and being trained to have a skillset more similar to what you'd get from going to nursing/PA/medical school. Mirror the nursing/PA/med school curriculum but cut classes that are irrelevant and substitute with more pharmacology or therapeutics courses - that's how I would design a modern day pharmacy school curriculum.

For the rest of us? Well, it's pretty hopeless. It doesn't matter what "rights" we are given in the future because let's be realistic, the majority of us wouldn't be adequately trained to engage in such activities, and you don't just become more knowledgeable all of a sudden. If we unlocked provider status today, for example, the only pharmacists that this would benefit would be the folks who practice in ambcare, and current amb care residents. Does the unemployed desperate new grad benefit or have the skillset to step into such a role if these jobs started springing up? No. Likewise, does the long term cog-in-the-wheel retail pharmacist have a skillset contemporary enough to transition into a PCP-type role? Also no. But students can be trained differently, their skillsets are still malleable. So schools better start equipping them with skillsets that will be transferrable instead of training them for jobs that don't/won't exist. After all, children are our future. That is what I will call progress.

 

[wazoodog]

Little surprise, but AAP disapproves

AAP: HHS action on pharmacy vaccination ‘misguided’ | AAP News | American Academy of Pediatrics

www.aappublications.org

 

[Hels2007]

I would be very much against vaccinating children. Not only is it extra time to administer more vaccines and having to keep inventory of stuff you might use once in a blue moon, it's also having a ton of calls from worried parents with AE reports, parents tend to worry about kids' any little problem much more than adults do for themselves. Don't see a lot of demand for it either... usually regular kids' vaccinations are tied to other pediatrician check ups as well, so it would probably be the flu shots and maybe some missed vaccinations for which school requires proof... totally not a major change for the profession, that provides no additional benefit and potential for additional trouble. Can't APhA do something useful for a change? Of wait, then they wouldn't be APhA.

 

[Marzapan]

I would be very much against vaccinating children. Not only is it extra time to administer more vaccines and having to keep inventory of stuff you might use once in a blue moon, it's also having a ton of calls from worried parents with AE reports, parents tend to worry about kids' any little problem much more than adults do for themselves. Don't see a lot of demand for it either... usually regular kids' vaccinations are tied to other pediatrician check ups as well, so it would probably be the flu shots and maybe some missed vaccinations for which school requires proof... totally not a major change for the profession, that provides no additional benefit and potential for additional trouble. Can't APhA do something useful for a change? Of wait, then they wouldn't be APhA.

As I said, APhA is just spinning this to be positive when in reality this is a non-story. Similar to how the fake news media has been spinning the story that 'Joe Biden is leading in the polls by a landslide!' LoL.

 

[RxPreceptor]

Ok, state to state there is variance on what age and need for parent/guardian consent required too. Yet another obstacle to consider is insurance restrictions; plenty of payers excluding patients from getting vaccination in a pharmacy setting simply for being < 18yo. Just another huge waste of time for RPh

Article posted previously makes some good counter points for this "solution" not really addressing the issue/root cause of lower vaccine rates during pandemic

AAP: HHS action on pharmacy vaccination ‘misguided’ | AAP News | American Academy of Pediatrics

www.aappublications.org

FFS no one tell any DLs/DMs...all they will want is more action plans, metrics, quotas, conference calls/webex meetings asking "why aren't you vaccinating more children"/"why can't you answer your phones (whilst you need to attend 5 conference calls a week, have RPh help register/drive through/drop off/production, vaccinate, take MD calls, etc.), etc. etc. ****ers could seriously use a dart of haloperidol + lorazepam

 

[Gombrich12]

Demand for health care services manufactured from the passage of law rather than the aligned incentives of the marketplace is the problem. Healthcare services shouldn’t just be created for a law, it should benefit health, improve outcomes etc.

Even if you were to take something more progressive say pharmacists with full autonomous prescribing rights, you wouldn’t create new demand of new people needing more prescriptions for more things. This announcement indicates an additional unlock of a market of demand that previously many pharmacists could not provide services to where other professions could. Does this increase the overall size of the pie for all healthcare spending opportunities, no. Does it allow pharmacists to try to grow their slice of pie by immunizing where only others (pediatricians) could, yes. Win for pharmacy business. Increased competition of service providers for child vaccinations = win for capitalisitic view of healthcare system.

In your view what would be progress? Strong labor rules implemented in pharmacy and no where else that mandates pharmacists get some direct specific compensation from their employers for each unit of work completed? To be honest that’s swimming against the current bud. It’s all for paying for outcomes not paying for services.

Do you think academia or the pharmacy organizations will ever admit or realize that dispensing is 95% of what makes us valuable? It's clear that MTM is a failure and provider status is dead in the water with the explosion of available mid-levels. We used to have compounding but widespread fraudulent billing took that away.

 

[PharFromNormal]

Do you think academia or the pharmacy organizations will ever admit or realize that dispensing is 95% of what makes us valuable? It's clear that MTM is a failure and provider status is dead in the water with the explosion of available mid-levels. We used to have compounding but widespread fraudulent billing took that away.

I think they realize it yes and I think this is why they aggressively pushing for new services, additional scope. Anything over time should become more efficient with technology improvements and streamlined processes. Academia and pharmacy orgs also want growth in their own domains as they want to have a bigger impact. I think they can acknowledge that this is the fact (although we can argue if 95% is the exact number or not) but they aren’t happy about it. They have incentive to push this number down, which isn’t necessarily a bad aspiration, but if they start cashing in on the reward of their efforts before their efforts turn successful, everyone is in for a colossal failure and they ultimately will have egg on their face. Instead of trying to grow schools and academic positions etc. they’ll be forced to close, reduce demand for academic pharmacists etc. all at their own expense all while watching their arch nemesis the corporate retailers that they all hate get to benefit from their mistake with cheaper labor and greater ability to dictate what the pharmacists role is.

 

[KidPharmD]

I would like to offer a different perspective. This isn't about "childhood vaccinations." For one thing, most of those are given before the age of 3. For another, most are tied to a check up. This is about two things, Flu and COVID.

As a Dad, the only way for me to get my two kids their flu shot these last two years were to make appointments at their pediatricians office. These "appointments" were usually a couple of weeks out since they had to be in the well visit time and they too 45min to an hour each time. Many pediatricians offices are doing an even worse job, requiring parents to schedule a full appointment with the physician so that they can bill for a preventative care visit.

As a pediatric pharmacist, this year is going to be even worse regarding flu vaccination rates. No one wants to take their kids to the pediatrician if they don't have to. I have other parents worried that the vaccine will cause their kids to have a small fever that will keep them out of school. This year is more important than ever to have a good vaccination rate, but it will be drastically worse. Anything we can do to make it less of a burden for parents to go get their kids the flu shot will be good for the community.

I used to do retail, so I know that there already isn't enough time in the day to do what you have to do plus more vaccines. All I ask is that you think of these parents who bring their kids to you for a flu shot this winter and remember that if you didn't do it, then maybe no one will.

 

[Marzapan]

I would like to offer a different perspective. This isn't about "childhood vaccinations." For one thing, most of those are given before the age of 3. For another, most are tied to a check up. This is about two things, Flu and COVID.

As a Dad, the only way for me to get my two kids their flu shot these last two years were to make appointments at their pediatricians office. These "appointments" were usually a couple of weeks out since they had to be in the well visit time and they too 45min to an hour each time. Many pediatricians offices are doing an even worse job, requiring parents to schedule a full appointment with the physician so that they can bill for a preventative care visit.

As a pediatric pharmacist, this year is going to be even worse regarding flu vaccination rates. No one wants to take their kids to the pediatrician if they don't have to. I have other parents worried that the vaccine will cause their kids to have a small fever that will keep them out of school. This year is more important than ever to have a good vaccination rate, but it will be drastically worse. Anything we can do to make it less of a burden for parents to go get their kids the flu shot will be good for the community.

I used to do retail, so I know that there already isn't enough time in the day to do what you have to do plus more vaccines. All I ask is that you think of these parents who bring their kids to you for a flu shot this winter and remember that if you didn't do it, then maybe no one will.

But honestly though... with distance learning being the norm across most levels of education this year, how many flu shots among the 0-26 year old demographic are we really expecting in the fall?

 

[owlegrad]

I would like to offer a different perspective. This isn't about "childhood vaccinations." For one thing, most of those are given before the age of 3. For another, most are tied to a check up. This is about two things, Flu and COVID.

As a Dad, the only way for me to get my two kids their flu shot these last two years were to make appointments at their pediatricians office. These "appointments" were usually a couple of weeks out since they had to be in the well visit time and they too 45min to an hour each time. Many pediatricians offices are doing an even worse job, requiring parents to schedule a full appointment with the physician so that they can bill for a preventative care visit.

As a pediatric pharmacist, this year is going to be even worse regarding flu vaccination rates. No one wants to take their kids to the pediatrician if they don't have to. I have other parents worried that the vaccine will cause their kids to have a small fever that will keep them out of school. This year is more important than ever to have a good vaccination rate, but it will be drastically worse. Anything we can do to make it less of a burden for parents to go get their kids the flu shot will be good for the community.

I used to do retail, so I know that there already isn't enough time in the day to do what you have to do plus more vaccines. All I ask is that you think of these parents who bring their kids to you for a flu shot this winter and remember that if you didn't do it, then maybe no one will.

The undercurrent of your argument seems to be that going to the pediatrician is too much work so kids should just get their shots at the pharmacy. I would suggest that going to the pharmacy is probably a poor substitute for a pediatric visit. I presume the pediatrician is doing more than just giving a vaccine.

I will agree that a kid getting a vaccine is better than a kid not getting it though.

 

[rickyroxy]

I would like to offer a different perspective. This isn't about "childhood vaccinations." For one thing, most of those are given before the age of 3. For another, most are tied to a check up. This is about two things, Flu and COVID.

As a Dad, the only way for me to get my two kids their flu shot these last two years were to make appointments at their pediatricians office. These "appointments" were usually a couple of weeks out since they had to be in the well visit time and they too 45min to an hour each time. Many pediatricians offices are doing an even worse job, requiring parents to schedule a full appointment with the physician so that they can bill for a preventative care visit.

As a pediatric pharmacist, this year is going to be even worse regarding flu vaccination rates. No one wants to take their kids to the pediatrician if they don't have to. I have other parents worried that the vaccine will cause their kids to have a small fever that will keep them out of school. This year is more important than ever to have a good vaccination rate, but it will be drastically worse. Anything we can do to make it less of a burden for parents to go get their kids the flu shot will be good for the community.

I used to do retail, so I know that there already isn't enough time in the day to do what you have to do plus more vaccines. All I ask is that you think of these parents who bring their kids to you for a flu shot this winter and remember that if you didn't do it, then maybe no one will.

You make valid points. My neighbor asked me same thing if I can vaccinate their kids but I can not anyone under 18 in my state. Although I agree to the concept of allowing pharmacist administer vaccines to pediatric patients, the mindset of what pharmacist does behind the counter has to change.

There has to be private rooms available in pharmacy for this service. Also appointments must be mandatory, it will be still lesser visit time compared to Dr's office. Access to full history of child including medical conditions, allergies and vaccination history, also time to review those information.

Patients and corporate has to start respecting and giving resources to pharmacist to perform these duties. Billing insurance for the time spent, not only dispensing fees for vaccines.

It is possible and chains have deep pockets to make it happen. You can just look at Covid roll out and see how within 3 months, they came out with strategy, training, supplies and resources to jump start covid testing and scale it up in no time.

But its all about their willingness and true motives. Their motive is not to increase vaccination or testing in community. Its about how to make more money in shortest time and resources spent. Which leads to cutting corners.

I would not advise anyone in current scenario to go to chain pharmacy with their kids to get immunize. I currently do not have a privacy screen where I immunize patients. I feel ashamed having elderly patients undress, lift shirts, pull down blouse in front of everyone to get much needed vaccination. All because my employer which has $256 billion revenue and $6.6 billion in profit can not afford $100 privacy screen and make an excuse that its on "backorder".

I can only imagine how many pharmacies are cleaning their pick area, chairs, drop off and drive thru counters according to protocol every hour. Mine is not for sure, there is no time to do that. !

 

[VA77]

I would like to offer a different perspective. This isn't about "childhood vaccinations." For one thing, most of those are given before the age of 3. For another, most are tied to a check up. This is about two things, Flu and COVID.

As a Dad, the only way for me to get my two kids their flu shot these last two years were to make appointments at their pediatricians office. These "appointments" were usually a couple of weeks out since they had to be in the well visit time and they too 45min to an hour each time. Many pediatricians offices are doing an even worse job, requiring parents to schedule a full appointment with the physician so that they can bill for a preventative care visit.

As a pediatric pharmacist, this year is going to be even worse regarding flu vaccination rates. No one wants to take their kids to the pediatrician if they don't have to. I have other parents worried that the vaccine will cause their kids to have a small fever that will keep them out of school. This year is more important than ever to have a good vaccination rate, but it will be drastically worse. Anything we can do to make it less of a burden for parents to go get their kids the flu shot will be good for the community.

I used to do retail, so I know that there already isn't enough time in the day to do what you have to do plus more vaccines. All I ask is that you think of these parents who bring their kids to you for a flu shot this winter and remember that if you didn't do it, then maybe no one will.

Need to have more hospitals have IMZ clinics this fall if the numbers are this bad. Retail pharmacy wasn't built for this. Have you seen the little booths? Seriously, there is more privacy in those old photo booths that used to be around.

Yeah nobody cleaning those areas. Barely got time to change out gloves between patients.

 

[BidingMyTime]

Has any BOP commented on this yet?

This is what I was thinking. It's the BOP in every state who sets the rules for immunizing pharmacists. No nationwide organization has the authority to make such a statement for all pharmacists in all states.

 

[KidPharmD]

But honestly though... with distance learning being the norm across most levels of education this year, how many flu shots among the 0-26 year old demographic are we really expecting in the fall?

In our larger area there are a lot of students physically in the classrooms. The largest city has done 100% distance learning, but most others are only offering it as an option, and it isn't the common choice. I hope that we can get a good coverage for flu this fall. If we don't then we will have a lot of people with "COVID-like" symptoms this fall. Unless we get a good rapid test then we will have to assume all of these patients are positive until tests come back.

The undercurrent of your argument seems to be that going to the pediatrician is too much work so kids should just get their shots at the pharmacy. I would suggest that going to the pharmacy is probably a poor substitute for a pediatric visit. I presume the pediatrician is doing more than just giving a vaccine.

I will agree that a kid getting a vaccine is better than a kid not getting it though.

The last two years we have spent an hour in the office for us to only see the MA who gave the shots. So, no, the pediatrician is not doing more than just giving a vaccine.

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Overall I am of the opinion that operational barriers to expanding our practice isn't a good reason to not work toward legally expanding our practice. CVS and Walgreens are the bag guys here. The fact that they are being kind of evil doesn't make the expansion of immunizations a bad idea.

 

[BenJammin]

Has any BOP commented on this yet?

It's not their business due to pre-emption by federal statute.

 

[owlegrad]

It's not their business due to pre-emption by federal statute.

Which federal statue is that?

 

[zelman]

It's not their business due to pre-emption by federal statute.

It’s literally their business. They can talk about things they can’t legally change.

 

[Sine Cura]

Anyone remember the following. If so what is the big deal w.r.t. to HHS authorization

By doing so, such pharmacists will qualify as “covered persons” under the PREP Act. And they may receive immunity under the PREP Act with respect to all claims for loss caused by, arising out of, relating to, or resulting from, the administration or use of FDA-authorized COVID-19 tests.

https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/authorizing-licensed-pharmacists-to-order-and-administer-covid-19-tests.pdf

 

[BenJammin]

Which federal statue is that?

The Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act. No State or political subdivision of a State may establish, enforce, or continue in effect with respect to a covered countermeasure any provision of law or legal requirement that is different from, or is in conflict with, any requirement applicable under this section

So they can talk about it all they want but they have no authority to change federal law.