I have always had a love of peanut butter and crackers… when I make my own peanut butter and crackers there is no doubt that there is ample peanut butter between the crackers… yet when I buy some commercially made product.. you have to pull the crackers apart to make sure that there is some peanut butter between the crackers… apparently the cost of the crackers is much less than the peanut butter.
By this point you are probably thinking.. where in the hell is Steve going with this… having worked for 45 yrs in a pharmacy – 42 as a licensed Pharmacists.. I have seen/experienced a lot. The start of my career predates BNDD/DEA, PBM’s, computers, Patient records/profiles.
A busy day was doing 100 and if you were lucky… you had a CLERK that rang the register and if you got real busy… you could drag her into writing receipts or counting tablets.
In the interim years… on one side we have numerous advancements in technology and on the other side we have states that have increased the tech/RPH ratio.. some states.. like Oregon.. just went to unlimited utilization of technicians.
Are we the “peanut butter” between these two “crackers”
Just how little “peanut butter” needs to be between the two crackers.. to still be considered “peanut butter and crackers”
Is our medication distribution system just going to be “crackers”?
I don’t think there is a Pharmacist out there that thinks eRxs is anywhere near the panacea or utopia that was envisioned. We have all seen first hand how corporate pharmacy puts profits above anything else… they continue to accept lower and lower reimbursements from the PBM’s and just figure that they will get the Rx dept staff to figure out how to be more productive… as long as they can keep profitability & pt harm/deaths within certain limits or ratios… As we all know.. it is all about the metrics or numbers.
Filed under: General Problems
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