So I'm just about done Pharmacy school, but for the time being I currently work in 2 pharmacy's. When I graduate, I pray to god that I can continue to work in one of them and never ever again have to work in the other.
Job 1- Hospital pharmacy
Pretty sweet gig. Great pay, lot's of ecentric co-workers, lots of drama that I just sit back and enjoy. Basically, The doctor puts in an order and you as a pharmacist look it over, make sure the dose is right, instructions are right and that it plays nice with their other meds and you verify it. And boom, done. The nurse then gives it. Not too bad and overall just a cool job
Job 2- Retail pharmacy, basically a CVS or Rite Aid
Fucking kill me now. Now... a lot of people look back there and are all like "oh, $125,000 bucks to count pills and ring people up, hot damn, what a sweet set up"
NOOOOOOO, god no. Fuck me I hate it so much. Imagine a job where almost
every single problem that occurs is not only not your fault, but you can't fix it.
1. People expect a zero dollar co-pay and god forbid
their insurance changes the co-pay and it goes up. You get screamed at. The person choices an insurance, that insurance that that person chose increased the co-pay and you are the person that get's screamed at.
2. Insurance won't pay for a med until the doctor gives a "prior auth" saying that the patient
absolutely needs the med. just an extra hoop to jump through from cheap ass insurance. 9/10 times, the doctor forgets to do it and then takes their dear sweet ass time to do it once you let them know. This boils down to
you getting screamed at because the person can't get the med that day and somehow that's your fault
3. Xanex a couple days early. Lovely Benzo addicts goubling the pills like their candy, then they go to refill it and the insurance won't pay for it until its
supposed to be re-filled. So somehow this is your fault and you get screamed at.
4. "I'm going down the shore". I live in Philly so
everybody just looooves to go down the shore. Which means that every friday night of the summer, you get people trying to refill a prescription one or two days too soon and the insurance won't pay for it. So somehow this is your fault and you get screamed at.
5. No refills and I'm all out. On the bottles we put this crazy thing that tells you how many refills you have left. regardless, people will come into your pharmacy friday night 10 mins before close and will be totally out of refills and totally out of pills. Waited till the last minute, as the worst possible time, to try and get this thing that keeps you alive. So somehow this is your fault and you get screamed at.
6. I don't know what my meds are. People are on like 15 meds. Don't have a clue what they are, what they are for, or even how to take them/use them.
7. Doctor shitty handwriting
I see shit like this WAY too often
A great deal of people die each year from this bullshit. On one hand you have this hot mess in your hand that you really need to call the doctor to clarify. On the other hand, you have some inpatient asshole screaming at you at the counter to just fill it. So you try and call and can't get hold of the doctor and its a problem that can linger for days. I hate it.
8. Oxy and percocet people- This is the real deal breaker for me. Drug abusers and dealers trying to play me for adderall, percocet, vicodin and oxy's. FUCK all of you people. Not one day has ever gone by since I started working where someone hasn't tried to manipulate me into giving them C-II drugs. Yes there are people that really need these drugs, but these assholes have me having to practically do a whole backround check and distrust every single person that has a script for them.
9. Everything always breaks or is slow and I'm all by myself. In the hospital, if something breaks, then you call maintenance or IT and they come fix it in like 15mins. In retail, if your register goes down (and it has) oh my god you are so fucked. You now have to walk everyone over to customer service because of HIPPA patient privacy laws.
10. Flu shot quotas. Yeah, that's right, your district manager sets a number of flu shots you have to give, otherwise they can fire you. cool
11. You get to do nothing healthcare related. You bill insurance all day like a bitch. You go to school for 6 years and its basically med school lite, and you pretty much count pills, bill insurance and get screamed at. You never get to use the knowledge you gained in school.
Basically, I will do everything in my power to get into hospital pharmacy as a pharmacist, because if I have to work at a CVS...
TLDR- Fuck retail pharmacy, yay hospital pharmacy