I love the phone in the background, makes it very accurate. To make it even more accurate, you could get interrupted and need to switch tasks every 3 seconds and then get interrupted by THAT task and need to switch to yet another task…
People just don’t understand. They think retail pharmacies are McDonald’s. In their mind, they’re just wondering how it can take so long just to get a single small fry. There’s so much more behind the scenes. And then they yell at you because they think you’re not doing anything when in reality, you’re trying to type out 250 prescriptions in QT (CVS), you’ve got one person doing QP (if you’re lucky and they’re not at drive thru). It’s gotten to the point where patients literally almost yelling at me doesn’t phase me because it happens so often. Being a pharmacy technician is NOT like working fast food like people seem to think. “It’s just putting pills into a bottle and slapping a label on it!” Um…no it’s not. It’s also dealing with you when you’re pissed at me for something completely out of my control as well as fifty other things I have to do, all at once.
I still have PTSD ... getting sick and having to go into cvs 3 times this week and the doctors and hearing all the noise it was sending me into overload ... I need to remember my headset next time.
You pretty much said everything😂😂😂 but also, when sometimes we dont have a drug in stock and the patient wants us to call to see which one of the other pharmacy (chain) has it in stock and doesnt want to move from the outwindow until we found out🙃🙃🙃
All while they can clearly see the line of cars in back of them. I have a notepad next to me at drive thru so I can do personal notes and I tell the patients that I’ll write down their name and birthday and phone number and call as soon as I have a minute
Can't forget making time to scan and put away the truck! Or having to call patients to let them know we have to order for their prescription or to explain to them their insurance requires a PA. My favorite time sinks are lonely old people that are really just calling to talk. It's sad but I can't spend 10 minutes per patient on the phone!
retail pharmacy be different man. Not to mention those customers who be waiting for 45 mins in the drive through because someone doesn’t want to move from lane 1, and they got a whole attitude for you when it’s their turn when it’s no one’s fault but the other customer.
Got it right Doctor. Also nevermind drugs from different manufacturers having different NDC that the scales don't read, being out of stock, putting up the drug delivery that comes in everyday, computers crashing...
It’s the exact same thing at CVS dude. Also idk about Walgreens but our computers are so slow it feels like Windows 3.1 even though I know it’s some form of Linux/Unix.
@@ryangauger6240it’s horrible at wags. it’s on windows 10 but the program itself looks like it’s from windows 98 or so. so slow and convoluted and doesn’t interact with any of the new systems at ALL
Dr Shaw, you missed so many tasks that are not on the flomometer. Tasks such as deletes, warehouse totes that needs to be put up, out of stock and partials, call list, TPRs and many more.
Lol I made this video to put on tik tok so it can only be so long which is why I said at the end for others to comment because it would be a 30 min video and the general public wouldn't know those specific tasks
@@rxcomedyLOL Hey! I would actually love to know the specific tasks and other stuff you guys have to deal with. If you have the time, I would love to connect and learn more as a junior in college.
You forgot you have to call a list of patients and somehow force a certain % of them to answer the phone, then force a certain % of them to sign up for things they've told you thousands of times they don't want, 90 day fills, autofill, scriptsync and try to make them refill meds they don't want, request refills for meds they're no longer on and if you can't force enough people to do these things you'll face disciplinary action.
They call that the "phlomometer". So in situations where the pharmacy is that backed up, you would still have the store manager, DM or some stupid dumb** come in and mention to the staff about metrics on how some of the scripts are past the promise time. Instead of looking at those numbers and considering adding a 3rd pharmacist, they just pretend the day is great and even ask "Do you guys need anything?" before they leave. Also in most pharmacies, the pharmacist to technician ratio is completely messed up. The entire process is very dynamic because at any one time, there could be multiple technicians trying to help fill and pull meds to bring down the filling. The boards of pharmacies don't even try to pass sensible laws that require more than just 1 pharmacist when there is just too much work so drug companies just add more tech hours instead of adding another pharmacist. People have no idea how insane it is for all those scripts to go through just 1 pharmacist regardless if there are 5 or 6 technicians working. It ALL goes through the 1 pharmacist. Pharmacist breaks...what breaks! You can't sit down for more than a few seconds before someone calls your name for a consult, a vaccination, verification, product review, prescription transfer, patient question, MD call, etc. It truly is madness and I realistically believe the profession will implode seeing as pharmacy schools costs are ridiculous while the pay rate is stagnant & the workload is atrocious.
Very true! Sometimes I have 4 different people calling for me at the same time to help with various things in the pharmacy. Meanwhile the phone is ringing, I have 2 transfers I need to do and 2 vaccinations waiting.
That's how it is here in MI. I miss working in VA. We were very strict about the tech to pharmacist ratio. 4 to 1. That's it. Doesn't mean it still couldn't get crazy. ....I guess MI tries to make up for it by letting techs do things only pharmacists can do elsewhere (without a pay bump)
@@megan2178 I remember them changing it so Pharmacists could be more of doctors and the technicians are now the pharmacists verifying and stuff ... I am like ... and so the front end people come back and are the cashiers ... whadahayl is this.
932 in F4 is already giving me heart palpitations and today is my day off! Thank God this weekend is at my chill home store…I think I would stroke out if I got sent to that location depicted. Any time my F4 gets into triple digits I’m on survival mode. (And that’s when you hear someone putting in a walk in vaccine without checking with you, and then there’s a ridiculous CAP for someone and the person picking up for them doesn’t know shit, and then there’s people at the consult window with the most ambiguous of rashes wanting you to tell them what to do for it and “see the doctor because it’s on your face” isn’t an answer they accept. Well now I’m anxious until my next shift. Great!
You should make another video about why the line is long!!!! Part two featuring: where is the toilet paper, why isn’t this one on sale, how to fix your computers/printers, how to help pts with their coupons that bring their copayment down, MTMs, IMMUNIZATIONS left and right, conference calls, inventory, returning meds to stock, record keeping, drive through Covid tests- drive through period. Taking a look at rashes and your DM coming for a visit and asking dumb questions were very spot on lol
Literally every single time a covid test was in try drive thru when we did them at CVS, every time, the car in back of them would complain about how long it took. My answer? “I’m sorry ma’am but the drive thru is for convenience, not speed. Next time instead of waiting fifteen minutes behind the car in front of you, I suggest coming inside if it’s taking too long.” There’s literally plenty of room. People just being lazy.
Don't forget there is green on the screen means there are waiters in all those queues and you have voicemails and message queue...which my new techs still don't know how to do😢
Wow. I work at Walmart and we don’t have queues that high. My pharmacy manager would have a stroke if he saw that. I wish people would understand why it takes so long to fill a prescription and that it doesn’t entail “slapping a label on it” or “throwing pills in a bottle”. And god forbid those people who have no clue as to what they need refilled and end up saying I WANT EVERYTHING FILLED! And when we don’t have a product in stock, most of the time we have the patient call around because we don’t have time to call other pharmacies, but in some cases our pharmacists will call them. And don’t get me started on people in the drive through who are picking up for themselves and their 20,000 children and insist on running every discount card through to see which is lower or if there’s an issue with their insurance or the prescriptions are too soon and we have to call the other pharmacy to reverse it so that we can fill them or bill the insurance properly… ugh… and I’ve dealt with this shit for 15 years as a tech!
Don't you love the people that walk in and get mad when their prescription isn't ready and they yell at you, "Well my doctor just called it in an hour ago. Why isn't it ready?" Uhhhh when there are hundreds of Rxs in the queue, and no one has specifically called or mentioned that a certain one is urgent, how can I possibly have it done already? Just give me your date of birth and sit down lol.
Oh, Dr Shaw, you are SO on target with this video, I could feel my BP rising as I watched it. I think it was hearing the " 5 pharmacy calls" that's doing it ! 🤔😂It's been- GASP-9 years since I walked away from a 36 year career at Walgreens , and I well remember all the stresses outlined here. We never, EVER had enough tech help, and trying to F4, REV, counsel, assist the techs, type, answer the phones, etc AND give vaccinations ( almost all were walk-in back then ) was just SO stressful. And on top of this, we had to F4 scripts from other stores, not just our own!!! I'm already so busy I can't take 2 minutes to go pee, AND I have to F4 for someone else?? YUP, you do, or else get reprimanded!! 😬😤🤯😣
Amen brother. I just delete all the WCB and CMD, I don’t have time for that. I was thinking of going to cvs, but the “5 pharmacy calls” is just as triggering as all 6 lines of my phone ringing for 12 hours. It’s all the same.
All Stores Please Lower the price of all Military and Local for all Brands of Each Pharmacy Products and Accessories and Production Cost Now That's too much $$ The Whole World Now 🙏🙏🙏
I used to work a CVS for a bit less then 2 years. Every time I go to pick up my meds I cringe when I hear X pharmacy calls or the drive through. Oh and another thing the stupid rebills!!!! Why is my coopay so high, here use this discount card, wait its even more then my insurance you didnt tell me that! Why is taking so long just give me my medicine. The horror, horror, damn I need a drink now. Still get flash backs nearly 10 years after leaving.
CVS retail, 14 years in here....... correct... and it's only getting worse. CVS just started timing phone call answering .... even hold time. Worst development in years just happened- pharmacist has to go to register for DUR all day long interrupting the pharmacist every 30 seconds.
While that flowmometer (work queue chart) might be an exaggeration, it's not far off what ours looked like at my former Walgreens the days after Hurricane Harvey. At least the district supervisor had the foresight to send the extra pharmacists/techs from the closed locations to ours. I'll never forget those madhouse days. 900 to 1200 scripts on a daily basis and open 9 to 6.
This is why you’re my hero 😂😅 so true. Although my day today wasn’t too bad. But I’m exhausted. And getting too old for this. It’s not for the faint of heart.
I hope this gives people a little bit of insight of the hard work that goes into being a technician/pharmacist. Overworked and understaffed, it's like being set up for failure yet we still show up for our patients who also treat us horribly like why is it that way?
Not goodrx 😂😂 I do not miss those days at all! Then if the card doesn’t work, you have to explain to them why and to send them to another pharmacy that you have to look up for them because they don’t know if they have a cvs or Walgreens in they area 🙄
@@cicirunnergood rx is more expensive anyway depending on the dosage strength and the days supply. That’s another reason patients get mad when their prescriptions are high. I tell them that all the time but they don’t understand 😅
In addition to all the things mentioned about the work that has to get done, the sheer volume of people coming through the pharmacy to pick stuff up is a contributing factor. At my store it is a given that whoever is assigned to drive thru will be doing literally nothing but drive thru as long as they are at that station, because the stream of people is constant, and there is no way to get people through faster, especially when the decades old computers struggle to run the sales software. So, whatever line you're seeing in drive thru? That's likely just trying to pour an ocean through a funnel. Similar things happen with the lines at the front, with a limited number of registers and a half dozen people all showing up within a minute of each other, there are going to be lines, and none of that is taking into account the other issues that might lead to needing multiple interactions because of miscommunications between patient and prescribers or the pharmacy, on top of scripts being behind on filling.
Those lines would be a lot shorter if the chains staffed the pharmacy as well as McDonalds does. I quit Walgreens on a Friday night, by email, because I was left alone, no tech, no help from the front store. Drive through was open, phone was ringing, people waiting.
Customers think all that has to be done is slap a label on the vial and boom, we're done. Then there's the customers who only like a certain manufacturer or parents saying their kids only like the purple vitamins. ugg lol
This video is real. I don't have time to call the doctor very often especially if it takes a while to get someone on the phone only to have to leave a message with the receptionist. I'll get a call back in 2 days and the person calling me back is just "returning a call" and doesn't know what my message was about. When I question a dose change or interaction, I usually put notes in the computer so at the counseling window I ask the patient about it. Usually they will say, "Oh I stopped that other medication" or something along those lines and then the issue or question gets resolved that way. My store does 3,000 flu shots per year. That does not include all the COVID shots we always do. In 2021 and 2022, in an unprecedented move due to high demand for vaccines (COVID and flu especially), my company gave us a part time nurse to help with vaccinations. It was amazing and really helped manage workflow. Every year we set record vaccination numbers for our store and this year they are expecting us to beat last year and we were just told that we will not get a nurse at all this year. How does that make any sense?
Technically we do have enough people, corporate just refuses to let them all work at the same time so we can be adequately staffed and able to do our jobs safely and accurately.
Some pharmacies won't even take hand written rxs, They have to be typed electronically. or the pharmacist won't accept them. Maybe in medical school, they should teach medical students legible handwriting.
Pharmacies should just be self serve. I mean, if we have a prescription, why not 😅😅😅 seriously tho, I could not do that job, and im extra nice to folkswho do it. 😊
Ah ... Walgreens, yes, I enjoyed Data Entry, F1 was my happy place ... the rest T_T ... also that phone ... give or take your level of experience you had to answer the phone between 15 seconds or 2 rings. Edit: Explain the VM of the drunk after hours doctor calling in a metronidazole ... and then also the person pretending to be a doctor to get their codeine rx refilled also Message Queue = MQ about where all of the rxs that are stuck in prior authorization hell and rts and insurance says thats too many drops per day for ear or eye med or the rare time that the computer actually catchs a wrong medicine or the verification system doing a double check about trazodone vs tramadol ... also just random msc on items to order them or find that "specific color pill with this shape that i can only take and i need 8 times a day because i am allergic to everything else"
@@ryangauger6240 Not sure, never worked at CVS, but at Walgreens, the MSG is different from voicemails ... unless the pharmacist receives rx from voicemail but has trouble with it puts msc on it and thats separate ... but i do know that the call system for CVS will say 5 calls waiting or something like that.
