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I still would. It's not about money for me.
then you have your answer and can disregard the quote. Wish there is more people like that that also know how to budget.
I still would. It's not about money for me.
you see, if more people would just come out and say why they did pharmacy like this, i wouldnt have a problem....but seriously, how many would join if salaries were around 55k? 65k?? shoot 70k??? to tell me its passion over compensation seems very....off for most people
Salaries are already around $70-80k when adjusted for student loans and being in a higher tax bracket.
yes i know this, more reason to state how many more people would go through with the facts. With a 28-31% tax going in, with the 800 - 2200 monthly payment to loans (depending how fast many want to get out of debt) not to mention other X-factors, I think once again its important to ask another question: How many know how to budget
Why are you on the student doctor forum? Im not buying that you are trying to warn people about the lack of jobs out of the kindness of your heart. How do you figure business or finance is better? there are pharmacies popping up left and right seems to me they would have job openings.Not trying to be a troll...but I am very curiouheart? people think about this. Please explain why you go to pharmacy school, pre-pharmers. Thank you.
Why are you on the student doctor forum? Im not buying that you are trying to warn people about the lack of jobs out of the kindness of your heart. How do you figure business or finance is better? there are pharmacies popping up left and right seems to me they would have job openings.
Why are you on the student doctor forum? Im not buying that you are trying to warn people about the lack of jobs out of the kindness of your heart. How do you figure business or finance is better? there are pharmacies popping up left and right seems to me they would have job openings.
What scientific method of determining the job availability. How many open or not is not what's important but rather how many open compared to the number of students graduating per year.
If you've watched the news lately, you'd know that a large amount of CVS's have let go of all their overnight pharmacists to return the store to regular store hours. Walgreens has also acquired Rite-Aid, which will inevitably lead to terminations with so many of their stores in close proximity to each other.
That is correct. Not only are pharmacies consolidating/closing due partly due to low PBM reimbursements, but pharmacy schools are popping up left and right. With the oversupply of new grads, any available openings will be flooded with applications.
In my opinion, finance, business, engineering, and computer programming are safer routes as of now because they do not require you to take out $200k+ student loans yet still have similar job security and take-home pay.
That is correct. Not only are pharmacies consolidating/closing due partly due to low PBM reimbursements, but pharmacy schools are popping up left and right. With the oversupply of new grads, any available openings will be flooded with applications.
In my opinion, finance, business, engineering, and computer programming are safer routes as of now because they do not require you to take out $200k+ student loans yet still have similar job security and take-home pay.
news flash X2 you have no idea what your are talking about I have a business degree and unless you want to lick someone butt all day being and admin. asst. you are screwed.That is correct. Not only are pharmacies consolidating/closing due partly due to low PBM reimbursements, but pharmacy schools are popping up left and right. With the oversupply of new grads, any available openings will be flooded with applications.
In my opinion, finance, business, engineering, and computer programming are safer routes as of now because they do not require you to take out $200k+ student loans yet still have similar job security and take-home pay.
how would you even know that number? you have searched every possible job opening and compared it to the number of graduates? I dont know your situation but if you have a degree in pharmacy and cant find work it may be because you dont know how to look for a job. you need to network. get to know people volunteer do what it takes. so if you are a slacker who had your parents do everything for you until now, eg apply for school talk to professors get you tutors, you will have a hard time. in life no matter what the field.What scientific method of determining the job availability. How many open or not is not what's important but rather how many open compared to the number of students graduating per year.
If you've watched the news lately, you'd know that a large amount of CVS's have let go of all their overnight pharmacists to return the store to regular store hours. Walgreens has also acquired Rite-Aid, which will inevitably lead to terminations with so many of their stores in close proximity to each other.
how would you even know that number? you have searched every possible job opening and compared it to the number of graduates? I dont know your situation but if you have a degree in pharmacy and cant find work it may be because you dont know how to look for a job. you need to network. get to know people volunteer do what it takes. so if you are a slacker who had your parents do everything for you until now, eg apply for school talk to professors get you tutors, you will have a hard time. in life no matter what the field.
*I* cant.Don't know why you went on that little tangent on how *I* should find a job all based on a hypothetical. It really doesn't apply to me or most of the people who are having difficulty finding a job currently (though I won't deny some people fit your hypothetical situation).
But if you must know, I'm happily employed with relatively little effort. Though not without having to make a few small compromises.
As for your first question, I only *truly* know about the job availability in my state. I never said that I knew the job market everywhere firsthand. But it's easy to see some of the general trends going on nationwide such as the ones I mentioned before and more schools opening.
The sad reality is that our youth don't focus on the sciences, thus, the number of undergrads able to complete the prerequisites for any Rx school will be lower than what you'd think. It's a sad reality. There are a number of schools, but a lot of them are satellite campuses still affiliated with major public schools, which can be regulated with more ease than say, independent private institutions.
I do agree that many new grads may live 20-30 mins further than where they'd like, and really, a young pharmacist may have to raise a family in BFE...but is this so terrible?
I really think that it could be much, much worse than pharmacy. I will say this though, I am an arduous proponent of making SURE, that new pharmacy schools don't water down the prerequisite courses. I don't really care about one test score....but the day they start removing calc, Orgo Chem, and physics, will be the day I will say yes, all the haters were accurate in their prediction. But that probably won't happen.
When I graduated in 2011 there were lots of jobs in my home state. When I completed my community residency in 2012 there were not, at least not where I wanted to live. I took a job one state south and moved when I found a position in a city I wanted to live in for a company I wanted to work for. It turned out that the manager there was a difficult person to work for and with, and I was working fewer hours than promised. After 15 months, I gave notice and took a pharmacy manager job at another pharmacy, where I had also had prior experience as a tech and knew I would like. It has been a great place to work and I will probably leave only if my husband gets a promotion within his company that causes us to move.
I can see saturation being problematic in some markets. Since it is easiest to network for jobs where one goes to school, people may want to consider going to school where they would like to ultimately live and avoiding schools in zones of saturation.
If we start seeing over saturation on a national level, schools will start to close or reduce seats and shift to other professional programs.
said pre-pharmI don't understand this thread at all. If someone has a passion for pharmacy and they want to do it, who are you to tell them not to? Maybe some of us aren't in it to get a fat paycheck or live a perfect life, some of us have a passion for the field and are rewarded by merely being able to do that job. To say there will be NO jobs is unrealistic. Yes there may be less jobs, but that doesn't mean there's none. Just like every other job out there, you have to be flexible and work hard to get a job. If you truly love pharmacy and you know it is something you want, having to relocate or taking a job in a branch of pharmacy that maybe isn't your number one perfect choice shouldn't matter that much, because in the end you're still getting to do something you love. Reading this post and seeing some of the prepharmers saying things like "I don't even want to do this anymore" and "I regret this choice" highly concerns me, because if that's how you feel you shouldn't be in the field to begin with. If a few statistics and concerns turn you away from the field completely, then I don't think you made the right choice to pursue this anyways.
Yes it may be hard to find a job, yes we may have some student loans, yes we may have to make sacrifices along the way, but that just means we need to work hard for the things we want, not turn away and give up because circumstances are less than ideal and we won't just be handed what we want on a silver platter.
Don't get me wrong, I am totally aware of the concerns and have put countless amounts of thought into them as well, but in my personal opinion it just fuels me to work harder, and the passion I've developed for this field will always be enough to overcome these concerns.
BLS is the most BS organization ever....
BLS is the most BS organization ever....
You can own all you want. I have owned 5 pharmacies the past 10 years and currently own 2. You will have to fill more scripts than you think to actually break even. Reimbursements are falling by the day. Our median profit (reimbursement minus cost of drug) on a generic medication is about $2. Competing against big box stores is not the problem. The PBM monopoly is the problem. If you own a pharmacy you will have to learn to deal with PBM games like predatory audits that focus only on high $$$ items, mandatory mail order, and negative reimbursements. Usually patients will be able to use your pharmacy for 2 fills then must use the mail order. The negative reimbursement model is used by optum and cigna where a patient would have a $15 copay for Zpack. .then on the back end the PBM takes away $12.50 from you ...leaving you with $2.50 on an item that costs $1. If the patient paid that $15 with a credit card, then you owe the credit card company 3% for conducting the transaction. If the rx was escribed...you pay 18 cents for the escribe and 8 cents to send the claim electronically to the PBM. Pharmacy went down the toilet when Walmart came up with the $4 rx and CVS was allowed to purchase Caremark. The national pharmacy organizations focus too much on MTM and "provider status" instead of fighting for fair reimbursement. A pharmacy will never be able to generate much income from MTM and there are enough providers (NP,PA,MD,DO) available to perform assessments and treatment plans that pharmacist "prescribers" are not needed. If you decide to own a pharmacy then the dispensing part of the pharmacy should be used to bring the patient in so they can buy other items in the store. Hope this helps.Hello!
I read through this post and I have a question!
is it possible for a pharmacist in the future to own their own practice? or is doing this not a good idea at this point?
if you own a practice there shouldn't be a problem finding a job?
Thank you!
You can own all you want. I have owned 5 pharmacies the past 10 years and currently own 2. You will have to fill more scripts than you think to actually break even. Reimbursements are falling by the day. Our median profit (reimbursement minus cost of drug) on a generic medication is about $2. Competing against big box stores is not the problem. The PBM monopoly is the problem. If you own a pharmacy you will have to learn to deal with PBM games like predatory audits that focus only on high $$$ items, mandatory mail order, and negative reimbursements. Usually patients will be able to use your pharmacy for 2 fills then must use the mail order. The negative reimbursement model is used by optum and cigna where a patient would have a $15 copay for Zpack. .then on the back end the PBM takes away $12.50 from you ...leaving you with $2.50 on an item that costs $1. If the patient paid that $15 with a credit card, then you owe the credit card company 3% for conducting the transaction. If the rx was escribed...you pay 18 cents for the escribe and 8 cents to send the claim electronically to the PBM. Pharmacy went down the toilet when Walmart came up with the $4 rx and CVS was allowed to purchase Caremark. The national pharmacy organizations focus too much on MTM and "provider status" instead of fighting for fair reimbursement. A pharmacy will never be able to generate much income from MTM and there are enough providers (NP,PA,MD,DO) available to perform assessments and treatment plans that pharmacist "prescribers" are not needed. If you decide to own a pharmacy then the dispensing part of the pharmacy should be used to bring the patient in so they can buy other items in the store. Hope this helps.
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You can own all you want. I have owned 5 pharmacies the past 10 years and currently own 2. You will have to fill more scripts than you think to actually break even. Reimbursements are falling by the day. Our median profit (reimbursement minus cost of drug) on a generic medication is about $2. Competing against big box stores is not the problem. The PBM monopoly is the problem. If you own a pharmacy you will have to learn to deal with PBM games like predatory audits that focus only on high $$$ items, mandatory mail order, and negative reimbursements. Usually patients will be able to use your pharmacy for 2 fills then must use the mail order. The negative reimbursement model is used by optum and cigna where a patient would have a $15 copay for Zpack. .then on the back end the PBM takes away $12.50 from you ...leaving you with $2.50 on an item that costs $1. If the patient paid that $15 with a credit card, then you owe the credit card company 3% for conducting the transaction. If the rx was escribed...you pay 18 cents for the escribe and 8 cents to send the claim electronically to the PBM. Pharmacy went down the toilet when Walmart came up with the $4 rx and CVS was allowed to purchase Caremark. The national pharmacy organizations focus too much on MTM and "provider status" instead of fighting for fair reimbursement. A pharmacy will never be able to generate much income from MTM and there are enough providers (NP,PA,MD,DO) available to perform assessments and treatment plans that pharmacist "prescribers" are not needed. If you decide to own a pharmacy then the dispensing part of the pharmacy should be used to bring the patient in so they can buy other items in the store. Hope this helps.
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Right now all the professional Pharmacists are saying pharmacy isn't a good field
What about 10 or 15 years down the line? will job prospects get better or worse in the distant future?
Thank you!
I want to be a clinical pharmacist and specialize in oncology
there are great opportunities in clinical pharm. I hate retail lol
99% of pharmacy students hate retails. But unfortunately, that's mainly where the jobs are. If you want to be a clincal pharmacist specializing in oncology, you would have to spend extra 2 years of residency. If so, I'd rather go straight to MD and be a real doctor. Also, you need to know that there won't be many jobs for oncology specialists in our field. Only big hospitals have such positions. Even so, each hospital likely have 1 clinical pharmacist specializing in oncology. So your chance of lading such job is very minimal .
Medicine also helps 10588866898875288887 people, not just your dad. If you are truly fascinated and curious about how drugs work, you should pursue a PhD in pharmacology, not Pharm. D. These two degree are served with totally different purposes. With PharmD, you are pretty much a pill pusher if working at retail settings. Also, if you work at hospitals, you will have very limited decision making in patients drug therapy. The ultimate decision maker is the doctor... MD. You can recommend all you want.. But at the end of the day, the MD might usually ignore whatever you recommend.I don't mind spending an extra 2 years doing a residency. My passion is not to become a doctor, it is to become a pharmacist. In short, medicine has helped my father live longer. Medicine is such a powerful and fascinating topic to learn.
Yes it is hard to get a job in oncology, BUT it is possible.
If you want something bad enough, you will make it happen...no matter how long it takes or how hard it is to get it.
I don't mind spending an extra 2 years doing a residency. My passion is not to become a doctor, it is to become a pharmacist. In short, medicine has helped my father live longer. Medicine is such a powerful and fascinating topic to learn.
Yes it is hard to get a job in oncology, BUT it is possible.
If you want something bad enough, you will make it happen...no matter how long it takes or how hard it is to get it.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2014/12/04/the-best-healthcare-jobs-in-2015/
I'll just leave this here...
Not trying to be a troll...but I am very curious how people think about this. Please explain why you go to pharmacy school, pre-pharmers. Thank you.
Bingo...finally some honest answers are here. Garbage in =garbage out. Soon these unemployed PharmDs have to go back schools to do PA or DDS or others...people consider still attending pharmacy school because its their only option. What do you do when you have a horrific GPA and low exam scores?
You can't get into more difficult professional programs like medical, veterinary, dental schools so they must settle for something else.
And when admission into pharmacy school is such a joke, most people jump at the chance and have no choice but to blindly ignore the
reality of its job outlook. If I had wasted my time in college with a bad GPA then I may have done the same, luckily I took college seriously and
have much better options on the table.
Maybe I am just a blinded Pre-Pharm kid but if the job market is trash why does the Bureau of Labor Statistics say otherwise? Oh and anyone that starts a convo off by saying "Not trying to be a troll..." is doing just that.
http://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/pharmacists.htm
....then they graduate and get stuck with a crapload of loan debt and unemployed....then going back to school to avoid loan payment...the circle starts all over again.Some BS Biology majors did not have undergraduate experience nor a high GPA. They cannot get accepted to DO, MD, DDS, DMD, PhD, so they are stuck making $13 as a lab technician. They enter pharmacy school with the false hopes that they can make $100k+.
During my interview, there are still plenty of highly competitive applicant who held master degree in public health, chemistry as well as other field.With today's admission standards, students who merely "pass" prerequisites with a C average can get into pharmacy school, whereas to get into med, dental, and pharmacy prior to 2010, you have to earn mostly A's. We are health professionals with doctorates; our level of responsibility is a lot more than being a lab tech with a degree in biology. Mistakes can result in patients getting harmed and/or our licenses sanctioned.
While pharmacy isn't the worst field out there yet, it still has room to get much worse as new schools continue to open each year and mergers result in some pharmacists becoming redundant. There are other fields that pay decently, have job security as good as pharmacy if not better, do not require you to move to BFE, and do not require you to risk $200k+ loans and 4 years to end up stuck in retail, underemployed, or unemployed.
Actually these fields probably have much BETTER job security than pharmacy.That is correct. Not only are pharmacies consolidating/closing due partly due to low PBM reimbursements, but pharmacy schools are popping up left and right. With the oversupply of new grads, any available openings will be flooded with applications.
In my opinion, finance, business, engineering, and computer programming are safer routes as of now because they do not require you to take out $200k+ student loans yet still have similar job security and take-home pay.
Sadly they must be buying the lies the pharmacy schools are selling.During my interview, there are still plenty of highly competitive applicant who held master degree in public health, chemistry as well as other field.
A lot of students say passion is all you need. When I hear that, I want to facepalm myself! Passion doesn't create jobs.