Walgreens POWER -update

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.

Somatic

Membership Revoked
Removed
10+ Year Member
15+ Year Member
Joined
Mar 5, 2007
Messages
215
Reaction score
1
It seems like it's been a while since I have seen anything on these forums about Walgreens POWER. I have a few specific questions about it and if anyone lives in the states where POWER is live I would appreciate any information.

First of all, I heard that when POWER went live in Florida, 200 pharmacists were laid off. Does anyone know if this is true? Also, what was the magnitude of the lay off in Arizona? Did POWER cover all of Florida and Arizona? Or just major cities? Also did POWER ever end up coming to Texas like it was said to?

Interestingly I looked on Walgreens career website and it looked like they might be hiring pharmacists throughout Arizona and Florida. This surprises me since I woulld have thought these would be 2 very saturated states and the number of pharmacists needed would be much less due to POWER. Does anyone have any insight on this?

Another question is does anyone know their plans as far as expansion to other states? Are they eventually planning to roll this out everywhere? I heard that they are starting POWER very soon in Las Vegas..

I was hoping POWER would be unsuccessful but unfortunately since they are now planning to expand it to Las Vegas (and maybe other states as well) obviously it must be good for the profit aspect of the company but horrible for pharmacists. If this happens and becomes widespread then it looks like all of my professor's predictions about the number of community pharmacists needed in the future being drastically reduced might come true. :scared:

Members don't see this ad.
 
It seems like it's been a while since I have seen anything on these forums about Walgreens POWER. I have a few specific questions about it and if anyone lives in the states where POWER is live I would appreciate any information.

First of all, I heard that when POWER went live in Florida, 200 pharmacists were laid off. Does anyone know if this is true? Also, what was the magnitude of the lay off in Arizona? Did POWER cover all of Florida and Arizona? Or just major cities? Also did POWER ever end up coming to Texas like it was said to?

Interestingly I looked on Walgreens career website and it looked like they might be hiring pharmacists throughout Arizona and Florida. This surprises me since I woulld have thought these would be 2 very saturated states and the number of pharmacists needed would be much less due to POWER. Does anyone have any insight on this?

Another question is does anyone know their plans as far as expansion to other states? Are they eventually planning to roll this out everywhere? I heard that they are starting POWER very soon in Las Vegas..

I was hoping POWER would be unsuccessful but unfortunately since they are now planning to expand it to Las Vegas (and maybe other states as well) obviously it must be good for the profit aspect of the company but horrible for pharmacists. If this happens and becomes widespread then it looks like all of my professor's predictions about the number of community pharmacists needed in the future being drastically reduced might come true. :scared:

Excuse me -- nobody cares because POWER isn't something CVS is doing (yet...). Are you new on this board or something?

Seriously though, "dynamic workflow" is possibly the biggest threat to pharmacy today (including hospital) aside from an Assclown's College of Pharmacy springing up in every town...

I'd be curious to hear an update on this too as Wag's seems intent on destroying every nice metro area (SoCal next?)...
 
Seriously though, "dynamic workflow" is possibly the biggest threat to pharmacy today (including hospital) aside from an Assclown's College of Pharmacy springing up in every town...
As a pre-pharm student, I've been wondering what's up with this. I've looked into POWER a bit to find out what Walgreen's is doing, but perhaps you could expand on the dynamic workflow bit. It sounds like they're trying to do most refills from large, centrally-located warehouses -- is this correct?

I just want to know all the facts about the current situation before accepting any potential offers from schools and spending 4 more years in school...though if I don't go to school, I'll probably just remain a tech for life. :confused:

One more question -- is this limited to certain states? Are there some states that won't allow systems like POWER?
 
Members don't see this ad :)
I work for Walgreens in a non-POWER state but I had a phone interview for a district with POWER last week...

I am not sure that mass layoffs of pharmacists would be because of POWER since all the retail locations are still open and must be staffed for counseling purposes and patient interaction (and these mandatory immunizations everyone is talking about).

Mid-shift pharmacists that are completely overlap could go away (or so I'd imagine) but the mail order facility that is converted into the POWER headquarters would need to pick up extra pharmacist help for remote verification and such... so wouldn't it even out?

From what I can tell, it seems like a good thing from my perspective as the pharmacist who gets more time talking to patients at the retail location and less time looking at the markings on pills and counting.

Am I completely off-base here? Can someone actually working with POWER tell me about some of the glitches and issues that I haven't thought of? I got the offer for the position in the POWER state, but am curious to know more before I decide to move there.
 
I work for Walgreens in a non-POWER state but I had a phone interview for a district with POWER last week...

I am not sure that mass layoffs of pharmacists would be because of POWER since all the retail locations are still open and must be staffed for counseling purposes and patient interaction (and these mandatory immunizations everyone is talking about).

Mid-shift pharmacists that are completely overlap could go away (or so I'd imagine) but the mail order facility that is converted into the POWER headquarters would need to pick up extra pharmacist help for remote verification and such... so wouldn't it even out?

From what I can tell, it seems like a good thing from my perspective as the pharmacist who gets more time talking to patients at the retail location and less time looking at the markings on pills and counting.

Am I completely off-base here? Can someone actually working with POWER tell me about some of the glitches and issues that I haven't thought of? I got the offer for the position in the POWER state, but am curious to know more before I decide to move there.

Last I heard and this was about a year and a half ago was that power was on indefinite hold because the company did not see the efficiencies they hoped to see from it. From what I've heard it was a disaster in the beginning but eventually got somewhat better but not good enough to roll out chain wide. Las Vegas is being called a central fill. Not sure how closely related to power that is or if it's just an acronym for power.

There would be some workforce reduction as a result of power from the consolidation stand point from filling the rxs and handling calls etc. Some states don't allow remote verification or data entry. From what I've read most wags have a payroll cost of 4-5$ per rx filled. The payroll cost per rx filled at a central fill including delivery to stores can be around $2 per rx which is roughly half the labor cost.

The company says it wants to give pharmacists more patient time but they also know they are saving $$$ too. I can understand why they are doing this and if I was CEO I would look at it too. All retail chains are feeling reimbursement pressures so anything you can do to add more profit to your bottom line is worth looking into. As profits get harder to make, look for companies to automate more and try reducing payroll even more.

It's a scary reality and if I was looking to go to pharm school now, I'd have to also look at other professions.
 
The big problem with POWER, is that neither the CPO nor the stores are being staffed properly. First, the 24 hour stores were removed from central verification, and now, low volume stores are being removed.
 
I'm in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. Been with Walgreens before POWER, during POWER roll out and currently.

The beginning was a disaster; however they managed to smooth out a lot of the kinks.

The main problem, as an upcoming Rph, is the fact that I have personally seen many mistypes. They hired a lot of technicians off the streets as many from within the company did not want to go central or move far away for a low paying job. As a result, we have tons and tons of mistakes. I'm assuming the roll over rate is high in these central stations.

The pharmacists at the store are not supposed to be verifying Rxs unless they were sent back to the store for reasons like ineligible, ipledge etc. This being said, my pharm manager still decided to verify a few scripts on certain medications that were typed and verified at "cenfill." We have seen the following errors as a result of technicians mistyping and pharmacists speed verifying to meet their quota. (Supposedly they are very strict on the Rphs and have very little tolerance for mistakes.):

1. Child OD'd on tussionex --rph manager in store caught that by chance, thank God.

2. Scripts filled for the incorrect drugs, quantity and directions -- Hello, chargebacks, hello audits. Wags has to be losing their ass on this.

3. C2s mistyped.

4. Scripts being typed, filled several times for the wrong patient.

5. Have not seen many misfillings by the robots themselves, but then again I only work at this point 10 hours a week.

Overall, the program runs decently - they have cut a huge need for techs and the midshift/floating pharmacists -- some stores are 9-9 and both Rphs will work once a week 9-9 to make up for that floater's shifts.

My store does ~400/day, we used to have 4-6 techs on at a time for one day, we are now cut down to about 2 with the third coming in later for the night shift. It gets chaotic, it's stressful on the Rphs and the hours keep getting cut. Most stores in my district have lost volume to CVS.

Lastly, customers cannot STAND not being able to call the actual pharmacy. And, I also really wonder how much it is costing Walgreens with insurance audits, chargebacks, etc.

The only pro I see? Avoiding Oxy30 stock checks with the phone system. can accidentally "disconnect" and they won't call back as it's annoying to go through the 15 minutes of hassle to get someone in the pharmacy.

Oh, and yes this is state wide not just in south florida. Orlando is the central fill along with miami being a central call station and they cover the entire state.

Sorry so scatter brained but there it is :)
 
Thank you Sulilina for the overview! I can totally imagine customers hating the central call center idea... Hopefully everything else will work out in the end! The only thing constant in this world is change, afterall ;)
 
I'm doing my IPPE at Walgreens in Las Vegas and can share what I have heard. I don't have first hand info because it only affects stores doing more than 100 scripts per day so my store is too slow to use central fill. I heard that it has already started and they fill in AZ and deliver the meds to the stores here. Apparently, the current goal is to get 30% of a store's prescriptions done by central fill. I haven't heard of any major problems but I might not because my store is still doing things the old way. I'll ask around and see if I can get more info.
 
Top