Oregon and California allow pharmacists to prescribe birth control

@boomerang,

Without some sort of screening exam or blood-work or even medically oriented interview, I'm not sure how medically good this idea is. For the other reasons, though, I applaud the progressive approach.

1 Reply

@boomerang,

I agree. I do think that there should be some counseling since there are side effects to birth control and there are rules that you have to follow to make the medication effective, but a pharmacist can handle that.

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@Ragman,

Women will have to fill out a questionnaire about health history and the pharmacist will probably need to take their blood pressure but that's about it.

I don't recall ever having to have blood work done in order to get birth control.

In Oregon, women will have to show that they have previously been prescribed birth control from a doctor and they have to be over 18.

California will not have those restrictions.

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@boomerang,

Oregon has the right idea, I think.

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@engineer,

I agree that competent pharmacists would have no problem advising women on the use of contraceptives and possible side-effects. It disgusts me that this is even a discussion. If there were a birth control pill for men, you'd be able to buy it from a vending machine in any men's room.

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I here similar far too often for comfort

Quote:

I work as a staff pharmacist for CVS in Ohio. I graduated pharmacy school in May 2014 and subsequently signed on for CVS. I don't mind working 13 or 14 hour days, but at this point the amount of work we have to do on top of verifying prescriptions is absolutely absurd and causes for an extremely unsafe work environment. I've worked days were I stood in the same spot for 10 hours and verified 600+ prescriptions with breaks to run to the bathroom. At my current home store we do about 500 on a Monday and 425 on other work days.
According to the NABP, safe dispensing is 10-20 prescriptions an hour...in a 13 hour day pushing 500, I'm looking at close to 40 prescriptions an hour. In North Carolina, the threshold for safe dispensing is 150 prescriptions per pharmacist per day. Ha! Meaning I generally do the work of 4-5 pharmacists at CVS in Ohio.
I'm not on here writing about how I hate my job because of the hours or because of the stress, I am sincerely concerned with the safety of the patients I serve and the harm that can be caused by my errors. Something has to be done at CVS. Constantly cutting tech hours and pushing for better numbers has ruined pharmacy. I am no longer a pharmacist. I am a manufacturer. I hate counseling patients now because that means I am going to be behind on verifying. I get annoyed with questions because that means I will be even more behind.
At CVS, our job is to pump out as many prescriptions as possible with the fewest amount of help to limit our costs. Meanwhile Larry Merlo makes millions of dollars in bonuses and gets to sit with President Obama at the State of the Union address.

https://www.reddit.com/r/pharmacy/comments/2syv4t/why_cvs_is_ruining_the_profession_of_pharmacy/

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@hawkeye10,

Quote:

Some Canadian pharmacists are saying they are under intense pressure to meet business quotas, which causes an assembly-line mentality that increases the likelihood of making mistakes.

Several pharmacists are speaking out as part of a months-long investigation by CBC News and Marketplace looking at pharmacy errors across the country.

EarIier this week, Marketplace revealed that many pharmacists may not be conducting important screening required to keep Canadians safe from dangerous drug interactions.

Some pharmacists say the pressure to meet profit targets can compromise the quality of the care and attention they’re able to dispense.

CBC agreed to protect the identity of the pharmacists who spoke out and fear industry reprisal.

“You know it comes down to metrics and bottom lines, as margins shrink,” one pharmacist told Marketplace co-host Erica Johnson.

“You keep hearing, ‘Doing more with less, doing more with less.’ And it's not sparing the health care profession at all,” he said. “It's every pharmacist’s worst nightmare.”

‘At some point you just reach your limit’

Every year, close to 38,000 pharmacists dispense more than half a billion prescriptions in Canada. There are no statistics on how often errors occur, and little mandatory reporting of mistakes.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/pharmacists-say-corporate-pressure-can-lead-to-prescription-mistakes-1.2928309

The canadian and US pharmacy operations are much the same, you can expect that the same is happening in America. Pharmacies are already a weak link in the broken US healthcare industry, loading even more work, and important work, on these people is not a good idea.

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Quote:

The Food and Drug Administration reports that drug errors kill at least one person a day and injure more than a million people a year. But, only two percent of all prescriptions are filled incorrectly. Still, that's an estimated 50 million mistakes a year

http://www.wkyc.com/story/news/investigations/2015/05/19/pharmacist-emily-pressure-prescriptions-metrics-speed-injuries-death/27588393/

Until we get this down to a .02% error rate let's not stress these people any more than we already are. 2% is extremely high in my opinion.

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@hawkeye10,

One thing they've talked about is a $25 - $35 initial consult fee for first time prescriptions. That seems like a pretty good idea. It's still cheaper and easier than going to a doctor.

Just out of curiosity I looked up what a pharmacist earns:

Quote:

The median annual salary for a pharmacist was $119,280, or $57.35 per hour, in 2013. The best-paid 10 percent made $147,350, while the lowest-paid made $89,000. The best-compensated pharmacists are employed by merchandise stores. Some of the highest-paid in the profession work in the metropolitan areas of Gadsden, Alabama; Santa Cruz, California; and Pascagoula, Mississippi.

Pharmacists have one of the highest average salaries of any of our Best Health Care Jobs, earning $116,500 in 2013. They make more, on average, than physical therapists ($82,180) and registered nurses ($68,910). While they work closely with pharmacy technicians, pharmacists rake in about $85K more than they do. Of all the top health care jobs, only dentists ($164,570) and physicians ($187,200) earn more.

When I think of all of the people who stand on their feet all day and work long shifts for minimum wage I have a hard time feeling too sad for pharmacists. I'm sure their job is stressful and that many of them are overworked but that's true of a whole lot of people.

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@boomerang,

Yes, but I do suspect that as the workload increases, so will the error rate. Adding birth control consults without adding more pharmacists could indeed increase their error rate. That wasn't something I had considered since hawkeye posted.

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@boomerang,

Quote:

When I think of all of the people who stand on their feet all day and work long shifts for minimum wage I have a hard time feeling too sad for pharmacists.

It is not about them, it is about us and the 2% error rate.

Pharmacies are in desperate need of reform, adding to the work load before that is done is not good for us.

EDIT: the way it works is one pharmacist works with a bunch of assistants, like a doctor supervises several assistants or NP....most of the people doing the work get paid far less than the Pharmacist.

Quote:

Percentile 10% 25% 50%
(Median) 75% 90%
Hourly Wage $9.97 $11.76 $14.33 $17.60 $21.10
Annual Wage (2) $20,730 $24,470 $29,810 $36,600 $43,900

http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes292052.htm

Average pay...$14/hr

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@roger,

roger wrote:

without adding more pharmacists

if it's like Canada, it's not that easy to increase the supply of pharmacists. tough to get into the schools and harder to graduate. Almost all of our new pharmacists seem to be from the Middle East and India.

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@boomerang,

boomerang wrote:

I don't recall ever having to have blood work done in order to get birth control.

I don't remember bloodwork before starting but I used to have to have bloodwork done about every six months once I'd started.

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American Pharmacies have been going through massive consolidation and cost cutting. Expecting good results from them is not logical. They are oriented towards rewarding their owners, not doing their jobs well.

Trust pharmacists and all under them at your own risk.

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@boomerang,

I think they get compensated that much because their education is very expensive and you need to be very intelligent to understand all the instructions and outs of handling drugs. It also is very important to get the dispensing of drugs correctly.

The job requires much more than just standing on their feet all day...there is high risk in the job. I would much rather pay a higher salary for such an occupation to ensure that you have some one highly qualified to dispense drugs...the alternative would be deadly.

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@Linkat,

I completely agree that they earn their money. They should be well compensated. I'm not saying pharmacists aren't worthy of their income.

But some wage slave at the chicken slaughterhouse or at the restaurant who gets busy and forgets to wash their hands can poison and/or kill people too.

I'll wager that more people die from bad sanitation than they do from messed up prescriptions.

1 Reply

@boomerang,

boomerang wrote:

I think this is great. What do you think?

In terms of the insurance, a Pharmacist must pay and the possible liability he or she will be exposed to ( when Rxing birth control products) in his/her practice of Pharmacy, it's not a great idea.

I doubt that few recent graduates of a School of Pharmacy will be able to afford $2 million or upwards coverage per year for this type of insurance and I can't help but wonder if either Walgreens or CVS will be willing to cover their Pharmacists at the $2 million-$5 million level per year.

If a retail Pharmacist fills an Rx for birth control, and an unwanted baby (normal or disabled) is born, guess who gets sued...Likewise, many Pharmacists have the legal right to give injections/vaccinations in their practice of Pharmacy and never do, because of the possibility of a medical lawsuit, if "something" goes wrong".

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@boomerang,

Your right - because of the pharmacists education and dedication to their job they are less likely to make errors. Salary is also based on supply and demand because it is much more difficult to learn, more expensive and the extra time dedicated to get such an education then the supply is much lower than someone who can simply taught in 10 minutes the correct way to wash their hands/use gloves in a restaurant that the pharmacist gets paid more.

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@Miller,

Miller - I don't blame them their job is to be an expert on medication and how to prescribe it. They are not there to determine who should get which type of medication. I personally know a few pharmacists and I agree although on the surface it sounds easier for the consumer, it makes it much more difficult for the pharmacist. I would prefer the concentrate on the area they were educated for.

The thing is many of these CVS and such pharmacies now have nurse practioners available - wouldn't it make more sense for them to see these individuals to determine their medication.

1 Reply

Oregon and California allow pharmacists to prescribe birth control

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