Tech Hours at your Store

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Rph2015

Rph2015

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How many tech hours does your store get?
How many scripts a week?
I work at a CVS that does 2200 and we have 245 tech hours which keeps on going down bc everyone is doing mail order. Btw only 1 pharmacist for 13 hours during the weekdays.
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Rph2015 said:
How many tech hours does your store get?
How many scripts a week?
I work at a CVS that does 2200 and we have 245 tech hours which keeps on going down bc everyone is doing mail order. Btw only 1 pharmacist for 13 hours during the weekdays.
Click to expand...

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me.
Click to expand...
While I'm not saying this is anything resembling the holocaust, the quote's theme is very applicable. PBMs will come for us all...;)
 
Rph2015 said:
How many tech hours does your store get?
How many scripts a week?
I work at a CVS that does 2200 and we have 245 tech hours which keeps on going down bc everyone is doing mail order. Btw only 1 pharmacist for 13 hours during the weekdays.
Click to expand...

Walgreens is even worst. We do 2800/week at my store and we get like 180 tech hours. They are still considering cutting more for the summer. It sucks everywhere, but just know that you don't have it that bad.
 
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Lnsean said:
Walgreens is even worst. We do 2800/week at my store and we get like 180 tech hours. They are still considering cutting more for the summer. It sucks everywhere, but just know that you don't have it that bad.
Click to expand...

I forgot all about the yearly summer cut. Ugh. Here's to hoping I make cut #2!
 
I also work at a CVS and our average is about 1430 a week. We get 141 hours. I thought they had a "flex formula" where you get a base amount of hours based on your budget but your "flex hours" vary based on how many actual scripts you do per week. For example, if we happen to do 1500 in a week, we get 141 + (1500-1430) / 11 <--[the formula we use] to figure out exactly how many hours we can use. So doing 1500 we would get to use 147.3 hours. Same is true if you do less than you are budgeted. Problems happen when you plan on 1400 and do 1200, but used 141 hours. We then have to cut 21 hours off upcoming weeks to make up for the shortfall.
 
That sucks, do you at least have an automatic dispensing machine for your fast movers?
 
Rph2015 said:
How many tech hours does your store get?
How many scripts a week?
I work at a CVS that does 2200 and we have 245 tech hours which keeps on going down bc everyone is doing mail order. Btw only 1 pharmacist for 13 hours during the weekdays.
Click to expand...
I would take that and run with it- I have been doing roughly 4100 a week and I am allotted 340 hours- this past week we did 4567 and I used an extra 24 hours so I did 4567 with 364 techs and keep in mind my store's Scriptpro machine is currently out of commission per corporate.
So if you do the math you have 245 hours based on 2200 scripts- I have 340 hours based on 4100 scripts- can you imagine if you were to tell you Sup that for the rest of the year you believe you can increase the weekly script volume by 1900 scripts and they turn around and say well here's 90 more hours- think of the pain I am dealing with- at one time(2 years ago) I had 402 hours for 4100 scripts- those days are long gone.
 
Lnsean said:
Walgreens is even worst. We do 2800/week at my store and we get like 180 tech hours. They are still considering cutting more for the summer. It sucks everywhere, but just know that you don't have it that bad.
Click to expand...
The bad thing I hate is someone in corporate still thinks with the reduce hours- your customer service had still better be on par and all reports and all metrics still must be great.
 
Lnsean said:
Walgreens is even worst. We do 2800/week at my store and we get like 180 tech hours. They are still considering cutting more for the summer. It sucks everywhere, but just know that you don't have it that bad.
Click to expand...

How is this even possible? Is this with that Power or Project Deuce or whatever the **** its called?
 
Rxnupe said:
I would take that and run with it- I have been doing roughly 4100 a week and I am allotted 340 hours- this past week we did 4567 and I used an extra 24 hours so I did 4567 with 364 techs and keep in mind my store's Scriptpro machine is currently out of commission per corporate.
So if you do the math you have 245 hours based on 2200 scripts- I have 340 hours based on 4100 scripts- can you imagine if you were to tell you Sup that for the rest of the year you believe you can increase the weekly script volume by 1900 scripts and they turn around and say well here's 90 more hours- think of the pain I am dealing with- at one time(2 years ago) I had 402 hours for 4100 scripts- those days are long gone.
Click to expand...

Wow that is quite harsh, in my district I am given 330 hours for a budgeted 3150 scripts, though we do not have a script pro just a much cheaper Kirby Lester that only holds 60 drugs. I could not imagine trying to run my store with your ratio as 70% of our scripts are new and 30% are waiters (with about 100 narcs/day).

I am frightful of things to come as this new "we care" workflow sounds to me like they are going to add even more extra duties while reducing hours.
 
Dr Wario said:
Wow that is quite harsh, in my district I am given 330 hours for a budgeted 3150 scripts, though we do not have a script pro just a much cheaper Kirby Lester that only holds 60 drugs. I could not imagine trying to run my store with your ratio as 70% of our scripts are new and 30% are waiters (with about 100 narcs/day).

I am frightful of things to come as this new "we care" workflow sounds to me like they are going to add even more extra duties while reducing hours.
Click to expand...
Actually at my last budget meeting about 4 months ago the P.I.C who was at the 2nd busiest store in my district who is doing an average of 3000 scripts had 318 tech hours. I later asked my Sup why is it that a store that is doing 1000 less scripts than me and I only have 22 more tech hours- she said that she knew it was not "fair" but she told me that the way it works from her experience is if you are a super slow store or super busy store you will get screwed- if you are somewhere in the middle-say 1800 to 2800 script you have a nice buffer or more tech hours than you really need.
Speaking of Kirby Lester- I had a nightmare about 3 weeks ago- I filled in at a store that had one- it took me about 45 minutes to get my fingerprint registered and I was there only 6 hours and the techs had to call about 5 times because it kept malfuctioning. How do you like Kirby?
 
Dr Wario said:
Wow that is quite harsh, in my district I am given 330 hours for a budgeted 3150 scripts, though we do not have a script pro just a much cheaper Kirby Lester that only holds 60 drugs. I could not imagine trying to run my store with your ratio as 70% of our scripts are new and 30% are waiters (with about 100 narcs/day).

I am frightful of things to come as this new "we care" workflow sounds to me like they are going to add even more extra duties while reducing hours.
Click to expand...
Also Dr.Warlo the one thing that really slows our workflow down is the e-scripts- more and more MD's are starting to prescribe in that manner- so i would say basically around 10am they start coming in masses- we work them as fast as we can but there's always periods in the day where they seem to all "hit" at one time and we could get 50 or more e-scribe prescriptions in the queue at one time- so you have an hour to fill those before they turn "red" and than you have the scripts that are being dropped off in the store and drive thru- it really hurts your workflow.
Supposedly with the new upgrade coming this summer/late fall only "certain" drugs will be locked in for 1 hour.
 
Rxnupe said:
Actually at my last budget meeting about 4 months ago the P.I.C who was at the 2nd busiest store in my district who is doing an average of 3000 scripts had 318 tech hours. I later asked my Sup why is it that a store that is doing 1000 less scripts than me and I only have 22 more tech hours- she said that she knew it was not "fair" but she told me that the way it works from her experience is if you are a super slow store or super busy store you will get screwed- if you are somewhere in the middle-say 1800 to 2800 script you have a nice buffer or more tech hours than you really need.
Speaking of Kirby Lester- I had a nightmare about 3 weeks ago- I filled in at a store that had one- it took me about 45 minutes to get my fingerprint registered and I was there only 6 hours and the techs had to call about 5 times because it kept malfuctioning. How do you like Kirby?
Click to expand...
If it's like our 24 hour stores, the pharmacist hours come off the top, and the ancillary hours are what's left over. So an overnight pharmacist can really screw up the budget hours... :oops:
 
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We do about 2000 a week and we have about 250 tech hours. At Wags, the RPh and tech hours and calculated separately.
Anyone done the My Walgreens survey?
 
genesis09 said:
We do about 2000 a week and we have about 250 tech hours. At Wags, the RPh and tech hours and calculated separately.
Anyone done the My Walgreens survey?
Click to expand...


It's probably more like 250 total hours for that volume...you'd average about 285, so take out 98 RPh, it'd leave you with about 187 tech hours. I know some 24 hour stores who have about a 450 avg are gettting that much TECH budget. Old guide to payroll was 7 rxs/payroll hour. In other words, if you averaged 250 per day, you'd get 250 hours..or 7 rxs/payroll hour. Now, it's probably pushing 7.5 rxs/ payroll hour.
 
genesis09 said:
We do about 2000 a week and we have about 250 tech hours. At Wags, the RPh and tech hours and calculated separately.
Anyone done the My Walgreens survey?
Click to expand...
Since when? One of the other stores does just as much volume as we used to do and a little less now, but they have more tech hours. As far as I understand and what the last PIC was told, the overnighters screw up the ratio, because they come off the top of the total budget hours and subsequently reduce tech hours.

... but if you work with "the beast", then you'll appreciate what I do overnight. ;)

txpharmguy said:
It's probably more like 250 total hours for that volume...you'd average about 285, so take out 98 RPh, it'd leave you with about 187 tech hours. I know some 24 hour stores who have about a 450 avg are gettting that much TECH budget. Old guide to payroll was 7 rxs/payroll hour. In other words, if you averaged 250 per day, you'd get 250 hours..or 7 rxs/payroll hour. Now, it's probably pushing 7.5 rxs/ payroll hour.
Click to expand...
Ha! That's exactly what I thought.
 
When we get our hours there is a column for pharmacist and another one for techs. That's the way it is in my area.
 
genesis09 said:
When we get our hours there is a column for pharmacist and another one for techs. That's the way it is in my area.
Click to expand...
You must have actual communication in your district.

We're stuck just figuring it out. :rolleyes:

Edit: They fax us budget hours, but you still have to account for overnighters, so it effectively reduces tech hours.
 
Last edited:
StevePerry said:
How is this even possible? Is this with that Power or Project Deuce or whatever the **** its called?
Click to expand...

Well corporate's reasoning is:

1. we are 24 hours...so the overnight rph will help clear the work "queue" when automatic refills comes through early in the morning.

2. we have a Yuyama machine that counts and labels the top movers for us. If it weren't for this...it would be physically impossible.

3. walgreens has this "work balancing" system where if you are an rph at one store, you can remotely view and verify scripts for a different location. They expect the rphs at the slow stores to help verify scripts for the busy stores. Of course this doesn't work out because the rph at the slow store is by himself with no tech, running a one-man show (cashier, drive-thru, flu-shots, bp testing, data entry, verification, filling, product review).
 
Lnsean said:
Well corporate's reasoning is:

1. we are 24 hours...so the overnight rph will help clear the work "queue" when automatic refills comes through early in the morning.

2. we have a Yuyama machine that counts and labels the top movers for us. If it weren't for this...it would be physically impossible.

3. walgreens has this "work balancing" system where if you are an rph at one store, you can remotely view and verify scripts for a different location. They expect the rphs at the slow stores to help verify scripts for the busy stores. Of course this doesn't work out because the rph at the slow store is by himself with no tech, running a one-man show (cashier, drive-thru, flu-shots, bp testing, data entry, verification, filling, product review).
Click to expand...

It still just seems like you wouldn't have bodies at stations during the day though?! That is absolutely wild... is this all new since Wags took it up the --- with the ESI thing?
 
Rxnupe said:
Actually at my last budget meeting about 4 months ago the P.I.C who was at the 2nd busiest store in my district who is doing an average of 3000 scripts had 318 tech hours. I later asked my Sup why is it that a store that is doing 1000 less scripts than me and I only have 22 more tech hours- she said that she knew it was not "fair" but she told me that the way it works from her experience is if you are a super slow store or super busy store you will get screwed- if you are somewhere in the middle-say 1800 to 2800 script you have a nice buffer or more tech hours than you really need.
Speaking of Kirby Lester- I had a nightmare about 3 weeks ago- I filled in at a store that had one- it took me about 45 minutes to get my fingerprint registered and I was there only 6 hours and the techs had to call about 5 times because it kept malfunctioning. How do you like Kirby?
Click to expand...

How many pharmacist hours do you get per week to go with your tech hours out of curiosity? We get 115 but use 107 so that we can have about 55 extra tech hours. In terms of the Kirby, it has been ok so far but has been down for repair twice since getting it about 6 months ago. They flew in a tech fairly quickly but it was always a day or two. Speaking of automation, how do you like these new protocols? I find them to be quite annoying though I guess I understand the necessity after recent events.
 
Some stores have lost their automation, and another one got an emergency installation because of a buy out. Their script count went up 25% literally overnight. I've spent time at the quietest store in the market. They average about 100 scripts a day and are not open on the weekends. What I don't get about that store is that they have a 40 hour a week tech. When I'm there, I spend more time reading magazines than actually doing work. They are open 50 hours a week, so, they need a floater for 6 hours a week.
 
genesis09 said:
Some stores have lost their automation, and another one got an emergency installation because of a buy out. Their script count went up 25% literally overnight. I've spent time at the quietest store in the market. They average about 100 scripts a day and are not open on the weekends. What I don't get about that store is that they have a 40 hour a week tech. When I'm there, I spend more time reading magazines than actually doing work. They are open 50 hours a week, so, they need a floater for 6 hours a week.
Click to expand...
Some stores simply have perks like that. It's unfortunate. A slow store that's only open 50 hours a week does not need 90 hours worth of pharmacy staffing. Whereas, at my store, we're gaining volume and rank within the district, yet we have some of the worst staffing around with only 178 tech hours.

It doesn't make any sense...

Most of the staff wants to quit, too. Yet, we're having to use OT tech coverage. It's strange.
 
I asked my boss at Wags over the weekend about the summer cut and he says he doesn't foresee there being one as he doesn't think it would be possible to cut back anymore than we already have. No word on medco/esi :( At least I still have a job :D
 
Dr Wario said:
How many pharmacist hours do you get per week to go with your tech hours out of curiosity? We get 115 but use 107 so that we can have about 55 extra tech hours. In terms of the Kirby, it has been ok so far but has been down for repair twice since getting it about 6 months ago. They flew in a tech fairly quickly but it was always a day or two. Speaking of automation, how do you like these new protocols? I find them to be quite annoying though I guess I understand the necessity after recent events.
Click to expand...
I'd venture to guess they'll cut 15 to 20 more tech hours per store over the summer and then you'll get a "surplus" of hours in the fall for flu shots, but have no techs because they quit bc they couldn't live on reduced hours. Sigh, sad but probably true
 
Out of curiosity, what are the average tech wages at your site? When I worked retail in 2004/2005, I was making 10/hr after certification.
 
rxlea said:
Out of curiosity, what are the average tech wages at your site? When I worked retail in 2004/2005, I was making 10/hr after certification.
Click to expand...

Sadly that is still about what they make. I recently had to fight to get my lead tech 12.50 (meaning she actually had to go out and get another offer which my company matched) who I would put up against any I have ever seen. Granted I live in a low CoL area and some techs make more if they were around during the right time and knew the right people, but it is absolutely shameful what they earn.
 
rxlea said:
Out of curiosity, what are the average tech wages at your site? When I worked retail in 2004/2005, I was making 10/hr after certification.
Click to expand...

Y'all would chit if you knew what my techs are getting paid....
 
Its Z said:
Y'all would chit if you knew what my techs are getting paid....
Click to expand...
Inpatient techs always make a considerable amount more than retail. 4 years ago, techs at the hospital I worked in started at $13, with plenty of overtime opportunities too. Earned more for being certified as well, and I'm sure there was room to grow as your duties in the department expanded.

Given how much you pay your rph, I imagine your techs do quite well too.
 
rxlea said:
Out of curiosity, what are the average tech wages at your site? When I worked retail in 2004/2005, I was making 10/hr after certification.
Click to expand...

My techs start off at $10 with no experience and pay will vary based on experience, HR determines that. One of my techs was making $11 at my store and got a hospital job that pays $16.
 
700 rxs retail weekly, and 540 rxs weekly in LTC and we use around 140 tech hours weekly....and 50 hours weekly for a driver. :)
 
Dr Wario said:
How many pharmacist hours do you get per week to go with your tech hours out of curiosity? We get 115 but use 107 so that we can have about 55 extra tech hours. In terms of the Kirby, it has been ok so far but has been down for repair twice since getting it about 6 months ago. They flew in a tech fairly quickly but it was always a day or two. Speaking of automation, how do you like these new protocols? I find them to be quite annoying though I guess I understand the necessity after recent events.
Click to expand...
We have a total of 210 pharmacist hours- that's between 5 pharmacist- normally we use about 204 hours and 6 pharmacist hours never get used- I wish there's was a way we could use the Pharmacist hours in our tech hour budget but that does not work.
I actually really have no issues with the new protocol- I am crossing my fingers and hoping that they bring our scriptpro online this Friday. Corporate took us offline the last 2 weeks and it's been a living hell. Last wee did nearly 4600 scripts and that's without a script pro- it felt lie we did 10,000 scripts all throughout the day it would be minimum 15 to 20 pages in the queue- normally with script pro online with the same volume we would at the most have 5 to 6 pages in the queue.
 
Ca. Got paid 17/hr min retail - 22ish in hospital/hr. I don't get why retail tech stays retail here...
 
SpirivaSunrise said:
Nope! Give you another clue: about 5800 of those are unit dose syringes drawn up by our technicians.
Click to expand...

Oh....you guys are the world famous "Enemas are Us" pharmacy.:eek:

That's a lot of rectal enema syringes!
:smuggrin:
 
Now that esi and medco are one, mail order will increase even more and stores will be down 10-15% in script volume if your not already down that much.
 
Rph2015 said:
How many tech hours does your store get?
How many scripts a week?
I work at a CVS that does 2200 and we have 245 tech hours which keeps on going down bc everyone is doing mail order. Btw only 1 pharmacist for 13 hours during the weekdays.
Click to expand...

Looks like I'm not the only one feeling the stress. I thought I was nuts calculating how many rx per tech hour in retail. 2200/245=8.98rxs/tech hour. Right now at Target we are doing about 15rx/tech hr, with Target's "scheduling guidelines" they want us to do 25 to 30rx per tech hour. Honestly, those damn corporate decision making kids do not know jack about the list of things we do when we work alone.

1. print out the queue in the morning so we can work without having rx stuck in PDX (plus work around those extra override codes Target invented for "medication safety") yeah, printing rx is a chore with PDX at Target, you have to type on keyborad at least 3 keystrokes just to send ONE simple rx through to print. Let's see 40 autorefills, that's 120 keystrokes, not to count all the extra **** to override DUR, split bills, etc that easily takes 3 or 4 additional keystrokes per attempt, and sometimes take 3 to 4 attempts for ONE split bill because of the multiple "*Target* 3rd party" rejects. Oh, don't even mention how long this takes, I am overall a patient person with people, but for a computer program? I have zero or negative amount of patience +pissed+ for that piece of crap.

2. return to stock (they probably have no idea what this is)
3. take in rx from phone, fax, escript
4. make md calls for dur
5. ring up every rx
6. sign people up for loyalty program at register
7. answer patient's questions
8. answer store customer questions
9. answer phone in questions
10. call for refill when fax failed
11. call for rx because dr offices wait till after they closed their doors to send their rx
12. check voice messages that make the phone ring every 15 minutes
13. recalls
14. send recalled items back if any
15. check pharmacy emails
16. sell sudafeds (with the works - ring the item at register, look up the person's id, enter the amt purchased on the freaking website every single sudafed sale)
17. write cii orders
18. send mckesson orders
19. receive mckesson orders
20. receive cii orders
21. log in cii orders in book
22. okay talking about this makes me tired already
23. sort through pharmacy mail
24. complete training required by Target
25. complete extra monthly forms required by Target
26. I'm sure there are still a lot more stuff I haven't listed

So they want all these done while we fill every single prescriptions alone and then customers complain there is too long to get their prescriptions. It's probably because there is no one to ring them up for a long time because we are too busy doing everything by ourselves, not because we are taking too long to fill the prescriptions. A 10-hr shift easily turns into a 12-hr shift without a tech, and we all know we don't get paid extra for staying over. Doing this 3 or 4 times a week, is exhausting. Just saying. Don't work at a slow Target pharmacy ever.
:barf: this reminds me of CVS a bit, makes me want to barf, minus the annoying "one pharmacy call" dude
 
I have heard about the we care workflow recently. Does anyone know what it means? Like less help or more duties or both?
 
at my old CVS we did 1300 with 180 tech hours and would be over-budget every single week, this was several years ago though. i think they cut the tech hours in half since that time. everyone that i worked with quit since then. it's amazing because even back in the day we felt the corporate crunch on tech hours and it seems from what everyone is saying it's only gotten worse. that's crazy.
 
hatingretail said:
I have heard about the we care workflow recently. Does anyone know what it means? Like less help or more duties or both?
Click to expand...
From my understanding it is "supposed" to "improve" workflow with some of the added features. For example you have better have an efficient tech at drop off because supposedly the drop off station will have a queue of it's own the will actually work new rx's, e-scribes. P/A's etc.
Also, during drive thru- the tech can scan the prescription at drive thru and the image will go to the drop off station so basically if you are at a busy store the tech does not have to walk the prescription to drop off each time- this is assuming that your pharmacy is designed where the drop ff station is not near the drive thru.
I was also told that the system will not lock in all the electronic prescriptions at 1 hour- but merely the prescription that the computer thinks really needs to be filled in 1 hour example: antibiotics, pain meds etc
 
Rxnupe said:
Actually at my last budget meeting about 4 months ago the P.I.C who was at the 2nd busiest store in my district who is doing an average of 3000 scripts had 318 tech hours. I later asked my Sup why is it that a store that is doing 1000 less scripts than me and I only have 22 more tech hours- she said that she knew it was not "fair" but she told me that the way it works from her experience is if you are a super slow store or super busy store you will get screwed- if you are somewhere in the middle-say 1800 to 2800 script you have a nice buffer or more tech hours than you really need.
Speaking of Kirby Lester- I had a nightmare about 3 weeks ago- I filled in at a store that had one- it took me about 45 minutes to get my fingerprint registered and I was there only 6 hours and the techs had to call about 5 times because it kept malfuctioning. How do you like Kirby?
Click to expand...

CVS in my area is 1 tech hour per 11 rx's. They always seem to show preference to some stores that always get more hours. If I am not wrong you were the gentleman that wanted to climb the ladder at CVS. Maybe they think you can handle it and they can save money or maybe you are being passed up for your promotion so they are making it difficult for you. I have never heard of her explanation ever. Sounds made up to me.
 
Rxnupe said:
From my understanding it is "supposed" to "improve" workflow with some of the added features. For example you have better have an efficient tech at drop off because supposedly the drop off station will have a queue of it's own the will actually work new rx's, e-scribes. P/A's etc.
Also, during drive thru- the tech can scan the prescription at drive thru and the image will go to the drop off station so basically if you are at a busy store the tech does not have to walk the prescription to drop off each time- this is assuming that your pharmacy is designed where the drop ff station is not near the drive thru.
I was also told that the system will not lock in all the electronic prescriptions at 1 hour- but merely the prescription that the computer thinks really needs to be filled in 1 hour example: antibiotics, pain meds etc
Click to expand...

Is remote verification a possiblity here (or already in play) at CVS? Unfortunately those ********ers at Walgreens I think have been doing this for a while, not to mention a metric ****-ton of hospitals...
 
SpirivaSunrise said:
Nope! Give you another clue: about 5800 of those are unit dose syringes drawn up by our technicians.
Click to expand...

lol, but if you include the tech hours in the cGMP PET (while not "practice of pharmacy") side of CH your hour count would double.
 
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