Pharmacist shortages and heavy workloads problem drugstores heading into their busy season

A dose of endurance could turn out to be useful on the pharmacy counter this fall.

Drug and staffing shortages haven’t gone away. Stores are beginning their busiest time of 12 months as clients search for assist with colds and the flu. And this fall, pharmacists are coping with a brand new vaccine and the beginning of insurance coverage protection for COVID-19 photographs.

Some drugstores have addressed their challenges by including staff at busy hours. But specialists say many pharmacies, significantly the large chains, nonetheless don’t have sufficient employees behind the counter.

Chris Adkins stated he left his job as a pharmacist with a significant drugstore chain a pair years in the past due to the stress. Aside from filling and checking prescriptions, Adkins routinely answered the telephone, ran the register and stocked pharmacy cabinets.

“I just didn’t have time for the patients,” he stated. “I am OK working hard and working long hours, but I just felt like I was not doing a good job as a pharmacist.”

In latest years, drugstores have struggled to fill open pharmacist and pharmacy technician positions, at the same time as many have raised pay and dangled signing bonuses.

Larger drugstore chains typically function shops with just one pharmacist on obligation per shift, stated Richard Dang, an assistant professor of medical pharmacy on the University of Southern California. That form of skinny staffing could make it laborious to recruit staff.

“I think that many pharmacists in the profession are hesitant to work for a company where they don’t feel supported,” stated Dang, a former president of the California Pharmacists Association.

Customers have observed.

John Staed, of Pelham, Alabama, stated a CVS pharmacist gave him the flawed prescription a couple of decade in the past: the capsules had been a distinct shade than common. He worries the possibilities for one more mistake might improve as pharmacists tackle extra work.

“These pharmacists always look stressed,” he stated.

A CVS spokeswoman stated the corporate is concentrated on addressing considerations raised by its pharmacists and has taken a number of actions, together with “providing additional pharmacy resources” in markets that want assist. She declined to say what number of pharmacists or technicians the corporate has employed.

Former Walgreens CEO Rosalind Brewer stated in late June that the corporate had added greater than 1,000 pharmacists within the second quarter, however was working right into a scarcity of job candidates. Walgreens is including processing facilities across the nation to ease a number of the prescription workload for its shops.

Brewer, who left in late August, additionally stated the corporate was limiting hours at 1,100 pharmacies, or about 12% of its U.S. places. That was down from 1,600 earlier this 12 months, however an organization govt has stated it doesn’t count on to return all pharmacies to regular working hours by 12 months’s finish.

Labor strife and staffing shortages in well being care will not be remoted to drugstores, because the latest Kaiser Permanente strike reveals.

But drugstores have some further challenges within the fall. Many clients come to them for vaccines for COVID-19, flu and pneumonia. Plus, federal officers have accepted a brand new shot for folks ages 60 and older for a virus known as RSV.

All advised, CVS touts in a pharmacy counter brochure that the corporate can provide greater than 15 vaccines to clients.

Ongoing drug shortages even have stored pharmacy employees on the telephone extra.

Jonathan Marquess stated one in every of his drugstores fielded 100 questions in the future final fall concerning the antibiotic amoxicillin and the eye deficit-hyperactivity dysfunction therapy Adderall, two medicine briefly provide.

Marquess runs a number of unbiased pharmacies in Georgia and serves on the National Community Pharmacists Association board. He has performed a couple of issues to assist his shops adapt to the additional workload, he stated, together with coaching all staff to reply primary questions on vaccines.

Marquess additionally provides further employees when he is aware of they are going to have an inflow of shoppers, like when a close-by firm sends its staff over for vaccines.

“We learned from our experiences,” he stated. “Training your entire staff is very, very important.”

Pharmacists say clients aren’t powerless and might help issues run easily.

People ought to deliver all their insurance coverage playing cards to vaccine appointments, particularly since insurance coverage protection is new for the COVID-19 photographs, Marquess stated.

Dang stated clients ought to keep away from exhibiting up proper after pharmacies reopen from a lunch break or simply earlier than they shut, instances when pharmacists and technicians are particularly busy.

Making appointments for vaccines offers pharmacy employees a greater sense for his or her workload. Calling a number of days upfront for a prescription refill additionally helps, stated Jen Cocohoba, a pharmacy professor at University of California San Francisco.