Provider status and its economic/job impact on pharmacy

[Digsbe]

I know this petition has been brought to light, but it has passed the number of signatures needed to guarantee a response by the Obama administration: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/recognize-pharmacists-health-care-providers/3lkFWfvw

APhA has also made it a major goal and appears to be taking action on the issue: http://www.pharmacist.com/providerstatusrecognition

I was just wondering what others think the economic impact this may have on pharmacy practice, jobs and clinical pharmacy opportunities. Currently my goals are to go into clinical pharmacy and do a residency (heme/onc is very appealing to me). Do you think if pharmacists are classified as providers that can bill for clinical services that clinical pharmacy jobs will increase or salaries will go up? Do you think there will be more incentive for pharmacists to work under collaborate practice agreements and manage therapies since we could bill for our services? I was just wondering what everyone else thinks the economic impact of provider status may have on the profession and jobs.

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[525329]

I know this petition has been brought to light, but it has passed the number of signatures needed to guarantee a response by the Obama administration: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/recognize-pharmacists-health-care-providers/3lkFWfvw

APhA has also made it a major goal and appears to be taking action on the issue: http://www.pharmacist.com/providerstatusrecognition

I was just wondering what others think the economic impact this may have on pharmacy practice, jobs and clinical pharmacy opportunities. Currently my goals are to go into clinical pharmacy and do a residency (heme/onc is very appealing to me). Do you think if pharmacists are classified as providers that can bill for clinical services that clinical pharmacy jobs will increase or salaries will go up? Do you think there will be more incentive for pharmacists to work under collaborate practice agreements and manage therapies since we could bill for our services? I was just wondering what everyone else thinks the economic impact of provider status may have on the profession and jobs.

Hopefully, reimbursements will increase, creating various opportunities for pharmacists. Retail is never going to advance the profession forward, and it was never meant to be. With the majority of jobs in retail, I would like more jobs to be diverse and what PharmD's were taught in school will actually be utilized. If you can classify a pharmacist as a 'provider,' salaries should increase. But then again, I'm just hypothesizing and want this to come true, ha.

 

[grumps]

I think the future for all healthcare professionals holds a painful readjustment. Obamacare represents a foreclosure on the present model. What we're witnessing now is all the players in the game desperately morphing into vampire squid mode siphoning any possible source of revenue to maintain what is unsustainable.

 

[PENVK]

Since when does pharmacy school has any impact on what you do at work(retail). I had a prof once worked for rite aid as a floater and got chewed out for not able to fill a narcotic RX. So much for respect and admiration from the general public. Pharmacists will never be viewed in the same level as MD and PA. That's a fact, regardless of what status we achieved.

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[zelman]

Since when does pharmacy school has any impact on what you do at work(retail). I had a prof once worked for rite aid as a floater and got chewed out for not able to fill a narcotic RX. So much for respect and admiration from the general public. Pharmacists will never be viewed in the same level as MD and PA. That's a fact, regardless of what status we achieved.

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The issue is about billing for services, not respect. Why can a nurse bill Medicare for spending an hour talking to a patient about meds, and we just screw up workflow/productivity for free?

 

[pezdispenser]

I don't think there will be any overall economic impact or pay increase. There may be some shift in our job functions, but because the new functions can be handled by existing pharmacists, while the old functions are done more efficiently or handled by techs or someone else, there may be no overall increase in the number of pharmacist jobs.

For example, when pharmacists started immunizing, they got the shaft because they had to do shots ON TOP OF their dispensing duties, with no additional help or pay. If you're talking about billing for MTM and counseling in retail pharmacy, it will be the same. More work. Same hours. Same pay. Well maybe Walgreens is leading the way by making dispensing more efficient with their Power/Well Experience concept, which frees up the pharmacist to do other things. Which is good because dispensing is becoming less and less profitable.

Students sort of get the shaft as well, because you have to go through more and more education (PharmD) and training (residency) just to get your foot in the door of a stagnant or shrinking employment base.

 

[grumps]

The reality is that you are not going to pay someone instore 140k to do flu shots, cholesterol screenings, bone density, BS, BP, otc consults, MTM, etc. Maybe a certified nursing assistant at $15/hr with access to a telepharmacist from India via a kiosk. And even if they get tech-check-tech the whole premise of a retail box dispensing drugs just can't compete with the scale of a rx-by mail netflix model. Rather than have 8000 inefficient boxes holding too much slow-turnover inventory and requiring too much labor&fuel to keep it stocked, a smaller footprint of maybe 1000 ninja mail order facilities next to Fedex or UPS depots might make more sense. You could have same day delivery of acute meds and otc's.

 

[Digsbe]

Personally, I see it as a good thing that would help out the profession. For one, I think it would give incentive to create more clinical pharmacy jobs. I think many jobs are created with the incentive of decreasing costs related to poor medication management, if pharmacists could directly bill for clinical services the incentive to create these positions would increase due to the fact that the insurance company will now eat some of the cost and it won't be completely on the employer.

As far as retail goes it may be very good for independents. An independent pharmacy could market MTM or consulting services and get paid for them. Chains may try to do this, but unless they changed workflow I don't think it will be possible. Things are already almost to the point where workload is close to being unfeasible when it comes to remaining productive. A retail pharmacist wouldn't ever have the time to sit down with a patient and review their meds for 30 minutes and counsel them appropriately/write up recommendations to their other providers. Who knows, we may be able to tack on a consulting fee along with the dispensing fee on all new drugs. The laws mandate that we counsel them on new drugs, why not be able to charge for it and maybe even have a model where effective patient medical counselling can happen without it being a short 30 second lecture on the "do's" and "don'ts" of the med.

Overall I think this would be a good thing for the profession and advance the practice of pharmacy. I don't see a reason why physicians would be upset with it, but the groups that may would be NPs/PAs if we ever had a niche into what they do with us possibly doing follow-ups on patients diagnosed by the physician and us managing the disease in collaboration (which is what happens to some degree with NPs and PAs.)

 

[Muse600]

for us as pharmacists? not a whole lot

for big companies that are good at leveraging business opportunity? profit!

 

[halipharmd]

http://www.pharmacytimes.com/contri...us-will-change-health-system-pharmacist-roles Getting paid for what we already do!