The retail pharmacist experience has never been good and it's not getting any better. You need someone to tell you that as much as you need someone to tell you the sun rises in the east or bears shit in the woods. The staffing is getting shorter, the corporate mandates dumber, the bounty on your head if you're over 40 higher, and the professional standards you pretend to uphold lower. Despite all the visionary feel good talk of pharmacy "leaders" over the last 20 years, all they have managed to accomplish is replacing "count, pour, lick and stick" with "count, pour, lick, stick, and stick," that second stick being as many arms as possible. Flu season is fast approaching my friends, and woe to the pharmacist who does not meet his immunization quota. We all seem to agree it's hopeless.
Except it's not. I am going to shortly offer you, right here, right now, a way out of your sorry-ass situation. I am not kidding you. Read on.
I wrote back in April about the Clinic Pharmacy in Happy Camp, California. How it's owner has built an honest to God clinical retail practice and makes money doing it. I am not kidding you. All the count, pour, lick and stick stuff is done by a technician. All of it. The pharmacist spends his time talking to patients, researching questions, charting outcomes and whatever else he wants. The closest he gets to your type of drudgery is when he compiles a CII order. He has pulled off what has previously been solely the fantasy of the APhA world. And he has done it while the APhA decides to give an award for professionalism to Walgreens for whatever reason.
"Great for him" you're thinking if you even believe me. "But what's that got to do with me?......woe is me.......woe woe woe......."
Because you have a chance to end your friggin woe right now buddy. Clinic Pharmacy is for sale. That means you can buy it and tell your DM to take his shortstaffing and quota enforcing and shove it up his ass. You have a chance to actually be a professional. To interact with patients and actually make decisions and influence outcomes.
And if I know most of you, you're busy right now thinking of a million reasons why you can't.
"It'll cost too much" you'll whine. Nope. Its asking price is $230,000 If you bought a house you can buy this place. Form an S-corp with your partner you're looking at 115,000 each. Eligible to be financed through the Small Business Administration.
"But I won't make as much." Others of you will cry. Well with that attitude you won't. Remember as a business OWNER you are free to do whatever you'd like to drive sales and revenues. Not to mention that if you are willing to sell your soul for what the chains are paying, you absolutely deserve what you're getting. I don't want to hear another peep out of you, ever, no matter how bad it gets.
"But I don't want to live out in the middle of nowhere" OK, that one I'll cut you some slack on, as that's what ultimately drove my decision not to buy this place. But there's no reason not to at least go look and see what ideas you can take for your own, independent practice, like Pharmacy Jesus did. I'm sure the owner wouldn't mind talking to you at all. He's seriously a nice guy.
So there you are whiners. You now have a concrete plan of action out of the bullshit you are drowning in. Take it, or at least investigate it, or forever lose your right to bitch about the profession ever again.
Drop me a line, right now, and I'll give you all the contact info you need to get started.
4 comments:
Great blogs and great book! Just got it yesterday and I cannot put it down. The whole concept is genius. There is definately a love/hate relationship with all pharmacy employees and their career choice.
I think it's slightly unfair to say that anyone who doesn't seek an opportunity to be a pharmacy business owner can no longer complain about working conditions.
You kept grinding out your days at Rite Aid until you got fired. Had you not gotten fired, you would probably still be there... complaining about how shitty Rite Aid is.
Your hand was forced. You looked at your options and decided that you'd like to try your hand in business.
Some people may not want to own a business. Owning a business is a lot of work, and a lot of that work is foreign to a pharmacist. Some pharmacists could thrive in a business setting. Others would hate it no less than what they're doing now.
Some people like the basic idea of retail pharmacy. They like what they feel their job should be (a lot less stress, more staffing, more clinically oriented, etc.), but they don't feel like taking on the responsibilities of being a business owner is for them. I think those people have every right to complain about the corporate-run work environment of the big chain retail pharmacies.
Moreover, say your store does great. Say you build up a sizable loyal costumer base, and you start making some real money. You and I both know what will happen next. Walgreens or CVS will come knocking at your door with a HUGE check saying that they really like what you did with your business, but take this shit-ton of money, and they'll take it from here.
You might not sell out. Do you think most others would do the same?
It's really really hard to be a regular person fighting billion-dollar corporations. I'm not saying that we shouldn't try. Hell, if your store does well, I'd love to come work for you. It sounds like it would be a great work environment. However, there are a lot of pharmacists and not that many ideal retail settings.
I think it would be better to encourage other pharmacists to take a look at trying to bring back independent pharmacies, but those who don't want to be burdened with the difficulties of owning a business should continue to fight for change within the big chains.
I applaud what you did, and I truly hope you succeed. I just know that I'm not a business person. I don't have any instincts for it. I didn't even like being a pharmacy manager. I'm one hell of an employee though. I wish more people would do what you did, so that I could work at a place like that some day. I don't think that means I can't complain when my corporate masters start coming up with stupid ideas.
Just my 2 cents.
What about pharmacy co-ops? Groups of people invest and work certain roles. If you don't wanna be on the business end then your investment is smaller. More people putting up the money is easier than all the load being on 1 or 2 people. You can make something work. If you really want to. Goddamn defeatism just lets the big boys have their way. It's called soft power. Those who want change don't even bother to fight because they feel it will never work. That's fine, and you can still complain, but no change will transpire.
Meh. I'm young, in my 20s. I'll just switch careers. Pharmacy has tanked.
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