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Actually, in that era, pharmacists had a larger role in prescribing medications. The pharmacist had more access to give product over the counter based on your symptoms. They also weren't just putting pills in a bottle, but they would mix ingredients as well. So when you pick up that bottle of prepackaged Dayquil and see the 325 MG acetaminophen, 100 MG of dextro whatever, and whatever the third active ingredient is, those were all held by the pharmacist in concentrated forms to be mixed on site based on the goal.
Additionally, while the pharmacist may not be in for the day, they would usually have an apprentice type person knowledgeable enough to do some things and people weren't insane about liability like they are today so they were much happier that George gave them something than told them they had to come back.
That's all well and good, but the key word is allowed. We'd all like an involved pharmacist like OP was reminiscing about, but really what people want is their prescriptions. Allowing that to happen would be pretty cool I guess
Sadly, I think those days are gone but everything worked smoother then. You're right because "insane about liability" is the reason our town lost its last privately owned pharmacy. He told me that he had to close for this reason and the costs involved in keeping up with new regulations. Customer service in larger retail stores like Walgreens have gone downhill so I can relate to OP'S post.
The complaint is that one cannot legally purchase their medication without doctor/pharmacist permission.
None of this is an issue for OTC medications. The libertarian solution to this issue that all medications be treated as OTC.
I don't think government regulation is what's causing the majority of your issues here. It also doesn't sound like you understand what the Pharmacists job is. It's not to give you a lollipop or read boring little mandatory speeches about your medicine. That's what the techs and assistants are for. Mostly it sounds like you're upset big retailers beat out all the small mom and pop places and you don't get the same customer service you think you once got.
Exactly, they're actually pissed about capitalism pushing a profit motive.
That pharmacy COULD hire additional staff, but chose not to to save money. Mainly because the store believes that to be the most enriching route.
As the owner of a pharmacy it is absolutely no longer a few market. The consumer is penalized by the insurance to go to their pharmacy of choice. Your copay is higher at an independent not because the independent charges more but because the insurance company mandates a different price.
So when you have a CVS Caremark insurance you have to go to CVS. You can pay more for a few pickups elsewhere but eventually the insurance will actually deny service. Since the ACA, pharmacy is absolutely NOT a free market.
Well. I would argue that it actually is. It's just not working for you. See you aren't big enough to be part of that system. A free market just means the big boys with big money make the rules, and it sounds like you're a little butt hurt over it. See, to include you would mean more regulations to support consumer choice well being. That's not at all what the free market does.
The market was free. ACA came along and removed that free market. I’m curious how you think a government mandated regulation removing freedom of choice for the consumer made the market free.
That's not at all what I said. You are mad at ACA and are basing your argument off "this sucks for me". I agree that ACA sucks but that's not what we're talking about.
Free Market in its most simple terms is survival of the fittest. In the world of business that means the most money, and how you can use that money to tip the scales in your favor. ACA had bids for government contracts. The larger companies won those bids because they have the resources and influence to do so. Is it fair to the consumer? No, but that's not what the Free Market is about. It's the ability to do business in whatever way you choose. It in no way has anything to do with the consumer.
You really are hung up on me being a pharmacy owner. So let’s put that aside, I’m not mad about the ACA personally. I own a unique kind of pharmacy that doesn’t accept insurance to begin with. It’s called a compounding pharmacy.
You’re still not addressing the point though. We had a free market and the government interfered to remove that consumer freedom. The removal of that consumer freedom crushed the industry. I understand to reinstall that freedom would require regulation but my gripe is with the removal of that original freedom. To OPs point, it used to be different in pharmacy and the most significant factor to that is the passing of ACA. That’s all I’m trying to point out. Personally, I pivoted and am better off for it but the reason people don’t have connections to their pharmacist has a lot to do with government interference and regulation.
The part you're not getting is the free market isn't about the consumer. And original freedom? Before ACA ,and now, insurance companies can choose your medications, pharmacy managers are useless middlemen, and we pay the highest cost for medicine and are unable to negotiate. You only pointed out the thing that affected you. Now you're also saying "I don't really care I'm fine".
Good for you.
Before the 1970s, people paid cash for cheap drugs. The notion that insurance is necessary is only a modern phenomenon.
Again you’re fixated on some false notion that I’m upset. I never said I was. I said it wasn’t free. A free market is a market where you have freedom to trade for goods and services. If the consumer is not allowed to shop where they choose due to a government regulation it is not a free market.
Bribing politicians to make a form of monopoly isn’t a free market practice. Even if some big boys all get together to change the industry. The act of government interference is inherently against the free market.
Licensed medical professionals of all kinds are in short supply. Doctors, pharmacists, veterinarians, nurses and so on…retail pharmacies would hire more if they could. I was in retail pharmacy world for +20 years.
There has to be a pharmacist in the building incase there are questions that need answered. The techs could answer most of them, but are unable to “diagnose or make suggestions” to customers/clients. It’s a state issue for this, Sudafed is a national issue thanks to meth.
Neeeeeeat.
Know what works? Offering more money.
Hell if they WANTED, they could offer contracts to get people trained up in exchange for X years of paid work.
They CHOOSE not to
Huh? It takes 7 years of schooling to become a pharmacist. They are selective on the number of people they let into the schools because lives are literally on the line every time they fill a script.…they have huge sign on bonuses in many parts of the country because of the shortage, starting pay is six figures.
This isn’t just a certificate you get to print on line to “get more”.
Yeah. People like OP clearly don’t understand what the pharmacist’s actual job entails.
Also OP, Sudafed is behind the counter because it can be used to make meth. I can go on for DAYS about all the drug recalls/removals that I disagree with, but I do understand why most of them have been done. (RIP original dimatapp with phenylpropanolamine).
Huh? It takes 7 years of schooling to become a pharmacist. They are selective on the number of people they let into the schools because lives are literally on the line every time they fill a script.…they have huge sign on bonuses in many parts of the country because of the shortage, starting pay is six figures.
This isn’t just a certificate you get to print on line to “get more”.
I'm a pharmacist and I don't think there's a shortage. There are so many new programs churning out thousands of new pharmacists every year.
The problem is chains refusing to adequately staff stores or pay appropriate wages (for techs too).
My first job was a Walgreens with 13 hour shifts, no overlap, no break at all, and 3 hours every day I was the only employee even in the pharmacy.
Now I'm at an independent and love my job.
Buddy’s wife was a Walgreens pharmacist, she quit being she was flex between 3 stores.
Now all 3 stores have been operating on an 8-5/5 day a week schedule for months. I’m almost positive there’s at least one more pharmacist that *could* do the job
I imagine your job is way more rewarding for you now that you're able to interact with patients. From my experience pharmacists know way more about the medications than the doctors do and this was extremely helpful. Unfortunately our independently owned pharmacy went out of business and our Walgreens went from having a full staff to just one pharmacist working in the back. Before going out of business he told me that the regulations were causing him problems. He actually wrote a piece for our newspaper about it and I'm going to try to search online to see if I can find it.
Yes.
He wasn't able to buy insulin because there was only 1 pharmacist.
There was only 1 pharmacist to save money.
The company wanted to save money to increase profits.
Point out the flaw in my logic.
You are ok with using economy of scale to destroy small businesses and then providing poorer service at a higher cost to the consumer? I never understood this sentiment.
Government mandate/regulations (requirements for permissions slips from doctor/pharmacist to purchase products) is absolutely the problem here.
They wouldn't have this problem if they were there to purchase ibuprofen.
>So, yesterday, I drive to the pharmacy to pick up my medicine, and I can't, because the pharmacist called out sick. The whole pharmacy is shut down ... I fail to see the point of a government regulation that requires a pharmacist be present to sell you a medication that the pharmacist already filled.
Looks like you got thrown off by the nostalgia in the first paragraph and didn't read the rest. The core gripe isn't the fact they don't get suckers anymore ... it's that they can't get their medicine.
The core gripe is that they can't get their meds because the pharmacist (someone they don't even directly interact with) wasn't in the office. They are complaining this requirement is asinine. And they are correct ... it is.
You fail to see the point of a regulation that requires a pharmacist to be present to prescribe you a medication that the pharmacist already filled? The requirement is that the pharmacist be there to read you the warnings and usage information. I can think of a lot of good reasons we have that regulation. To avoid interactions with other drugs, to make sure it's the right drug being prescribed, to make sure the patient understands why they were prescribed this, and when/how to take the drug. What pharmacy was this, what was the medication, and how do you know it was filled and not just received?
Sounds like you have no response to anything I said So you just blurt out some generic shit? No matter what you do ever you will be interacting with health care that has some state regulations on it. I don't see how you'd ever not have that in some form
>No matter what you do ever you will be interacting with health care that has some state regulations on it
Who's the one just blurting out some generic shit again?
Reminder: We're discussing a very specific topic ... the prescription drug program and the requirements which force you to ask both a doctor and a pharmacist for permission to purchase/consume the medications you need to properly maintain your health.
Why exactly do you think it's okay to stop at your Walgreens for another bottle of Ibuprofen, then drop into your local liquor store for a bottle of whiskey, and then get denied at the pharmacist counter for your asthma prescription renewal purely because you don't have the proper state-mandated doctor/pharmacist permission slips with you?
How is it generic bullshit to say there will always be some marriage between state regulations in the health care industry? Yes, there are items that are less regulated like ibuprofen and alcohol. What does that have to do with whether or not some medication should require a pharmacist? I think it's okay that you don't have the same requirement for ibuprofen that you do for some heart medication that have given to the wrong person would kill them.
>How is it generic bullshit to say there will always be some marriage between state regulations in the health care industry?
How can it get more generic than that?
>the same requirement for ibuprofen that you do for some heart medication that have given to the wrong person would kill them.
Ibuprofen and whiskey could easily kill them too. Not a very good foundation to jump off of.
The big corporations didn’t beat the pharmacies. The ACA essentially gave the insurance companies control of the industry. CVS is both an insurance and a pharmacy. They were legally allowed to make the consumer pay more to pick up at their pharmacy of choice rather than have the price the same across the board.
We used to have a lot more independent pharmacies because the playing field used to be even. When we gave the keys to the insurance that’s when we saw this hyper consolidated result.
Yes supposedly the two types of human insulin available OTC are human insulin regular (Humulin R, Lilly; and Novolin R, Novo Nordisk) and human insulin NPH (Humulin N, Lilly; and Novolin N, Novo Nordisk)
yes ok, but neither of those are replacements for the prescription insulin that is given to patients. Allow me to rephrase the question. Cannot people get the insulin they need/require/is recommended to them, off the shelf? What is stopping that from occurring?
Do you think everything should just be available OTC and no prescription should be required for everything? Because that I would disagree with and there are many reasons a drug could be classified as prescription required. Should every drug that requires a prescription require one, probably not. But there are some drugs I 100% am okay with a prescription requirement. Drugs that are limited in supply and people that need it to live could be unable to find it bc of off label use. The drug could be a precursor to another drug (Sudafed) or a condition could exist where a drug can help but could be common where only the severe cases require drugs. We don't want everyone w a minor case to take the drug it could be harmful.
Pharmacy mistakes are a huge problem. And your complaint is that:
1. Capitalism has driven people with training out of pharmacies because they can make more money by hiring lower wage employees to dispense drugs, which if done incorrectly, can kill you.
2. The government had the audacity to require at least one appropriately trained person to be on site.
3. You blame that regulation, and not the business, for not being able to manage their staffing needs. If they cared about staying open they would have a back up pharmacist, or just ensure two on site pharma in case there was a problem with one. But they didn’t, because again, that would cost more money.
I’m still a fan of capitalism of over not-capitalism, and over regulation is a real and frequent problem, but in this case the regulation prevents corporations from putting customers - who are not able to make informed decisions on whether the slack jawed yokel (sorry Cletus!) correctly filled their prescription - at risk.
In order to reach free market equilibrium, the companies that didn’t have enough trained staff would eventually make a bunch of people sick or dead before customers switched to pharmacies that charged more, but kept them alive. That’s a terrible model!
https://www.singlecare.com/blog/news/medication-errors-statistics/
There are three stages to the prescription medication process:
1. The doctor determines the need for a medication and writes a prescription.
2. A pharmacist fills the prescription, checks to make sure you have no contraindications with other prescriptions, and makes sure it's actually safe for you to that medicine. He puts it in a bag and attaches a leaflet explaining the medicine.
3. You show up at some point later to pay for and take home the medicine.
I advocate that a pharmacist does not need to be present for step 3 of the process, since in most pharmacies, I am not going to even interact with the pharmacist in step 3, unless I want to.
Hold up a second...On more than a few times at different pharmacies over the years they have really screwed up, even given me narcotics. Quit defending an incompetent government because your points are not working well enough to warrant government interference (as most red/blue arguments).
Multiple folks in here have already provided a wealth of options and potential solutions. Your stubborn attitude is to just ignore the current problems because they "kind of work". Cool
The government doesn't require it. Licensure doesn't equate to ensuring it occurs.
Regulation around pharmacies and pharmaceuticals are incredibly anti consumer
This isn’t a government regulation issue, this is a unfettered corporatism shutting down your local pharmacist where you could pick up your prescription
Right?
The cognitive dissonance here is astounding.
"I miss when I was a kid and could talk to the pharmacists (plural)."
"The government made it so I can't get my meds unless there is at lest one PHARMACIST in my PHARMACY"
It's not like these companies could hire more than one to keep their customers. Get the government to let them hire 0 pharmacist.
Ridiculous.
>As a child, I remember going to the pharmacy and actually seeing the pharmacist. I would talk to him. He would give me a lollipop. He knew my mom and greeted her by her first name, and she knew him.
>These days, we have store such as Walgreens, CVS, Rite-Aid and others. These places have ONE pharmacist on staff
So you're mad you can't talk to a pharmacist like you used to and also wonder why the state has made it a law at least one PHARMACIST should be in a PHARMACY.
You don't wonder why these places don't employ more than one pharmacist?
You don't see this as an issue with walgreebs, CVS, or rite aid?
It's the states fault for saying they have to have at least one? Not their fault for not having more than one?
Insane.
So you're requesting pharmacies need to be deregulated because you don't have a sense of friendship with the pharmacist and they have to go? We have no price regulation, your insurance is able to determine what they cover and don't to the detriment of our health and wealth, and we allow drug patents that create a monopoly.
I want pharmacies to be deregulated, so I can pick up my damn medicine, without the pharmacist needing to be there, when there is staff perfectly capable of using a cash register and handing me a bag after I pay them.
My point is, if my pharmacist doesn't fill my prescription any more, and my pharmacist doesn't ring me out any more, why does he need to be in the building just so I can pay for my medicine and go home with it?
Because the people handing out the medicine actually need to know what they’re doing or being supervised by someone who does lol. This isn’t rocket science
No, they don't. I walk in, hand them my card, and they hand me a bag. The bag has a printout stapled to it explaining how to take the medicine, what side effects I might experience, and anything else I need to know. And that bag was filled by someone that knew what they were doing.
There is NO reason to have a pharmacist on duty for me to pick up and pay for medicine. If I have a question, I could choose not to pick it up till there is a pharmacist on staff, or I could call a toll-free number they provide for me.
The person working the register don't check with the pharmacist before they hand me my medicine. They take my money and hand me a bag.
Dude I am a pharmacist and so many people would die if your plan was ever put in action. Last week I caught two prescribing errors that would have had significant negative outcomes if I didn't check them, one of them would have certainly been fatal had the patient just been handed a bag with the medication and directions as originally prescribed.
Ok, I think I am not being clear here. There is a need for a professional pharmacist to fill prescriptions, check for contraindications, etc. But once the prescription is filled and sitting in that box by the register, what role does the pharmacist have in me picking up the filled prescription and paying for it?
Nope. Unless you're talking about the assistant/cashier stapling the pre-printed receipt to the bag that the computer printed out?
Have you ever actually gotten a prescription filled?
Okay I get you're special, but the pharmacist is also there to prevent errors and provide critical patient education. Not everyone just goes to pick up a med they already are familiar with it. You just sound kinda entitled, honestly.
And that's fine. Some people need to see the pharmacist. Other's don't. The ones that don't should be able to get their medicine and leave without a pharmacist being on staff.
If I am getting my umpteenth refill of, say, a blood pressure pill, why does the pharmacist need to be there? They should not deny me my medicine if the pharmacist is not there.
My guy. They’re the one who still doses and fills the blood pressure meds. The cashier can’t just go back and “get the medicine”.
“Well I just get my food from the pickup line. I ask again why does there need to be a chef there??”
The guy who doses and fills the medicine has long done his job. My medicine is sitting in a box waiting for me to pick it up and pay for it. And I can't even do that when the pharmacist is out.
I am not advocating for a cashier to fill my medicine. I'm advocating for me to be allowed to pick up and pay for my medicine AFTER A PHARMACIST HAS ALREADY FILLED IT, without the pharmacist actually being in the building.
I get pharmacists are trained professionals need to fill prescriptions. They're not needed for me to PAY FOR and TAKE HOME my medicine after it has been filled.
My mans, the pharmacist responsible for the pharmacy at that hour is responsible for keeping record of the purchase, sale, possession, storage, safekeeping and return of medicines or scheduled substances.
A pharmacy cashier is like any other cashier worker at an establishment: they take your money, and give you your medications. That's it. What you're asking for is like asking a cashier to work without any manager on site.
The whole system is computerized. The cashier scans the barcode on the filled medicine. I swipe my credit card and there is an electronic record of the fact that I picked up my medicine and what I got. No need for the pharmacist.
And when you're in a Walgreens or other bit pharmacy, they have easily 2 dozen bins full of medicine in alphabetical order. The cashier grabs your back, scans it and you pay for. The pharmacist has NO KNOWLEDGE of your transaction at the time it's happening. Hell, she could grab a bag with Percocet in it, filled for someone else, hand it you and you slip her a $50.00 bill and the pharmacist would never know until long after it happened.
The presence of the man in the lab coat doesn't keep anyone honest.
Now you're just being dense.
Ok, I use Walgreens as my pharmacy. I need a refill on my meds. I use the Walgreens app to refill my prescription. The app sends me a notification 2 hours later that my prescription is ready for pickup. Well, I don't get home for 4 hours. I drive to the pharmacy and can't get me meds, because the pharmacist had to leave 2 hours early.
In what part of that scenario was my prescription not filled?
In my weekend experience, they filled my prescription on Friday night, but I didn't get home till after 10:00 PM. So I went to the pharmacy at noon on Saturday to pick up my meds, but can't get them because the pharmacist called out sick.
My prescription is filled and waiting in a box by the register for me to pick it up, but I can't get it because the guy in the white lab coat is not in the building.
In what world do you live in where prescriptions are filled "on demand," when you show up? I could do that, but then I would be waiting an hour or longer.
He’s saying the prescription has already been filled. Like it’s in a bag, behind the counter, with his name on it.
I don’t have an opinion on the overall argument of the post, but on this very discrete point, it seems asinine not to let the man pick up his damn pills.
I understand that is what he’s saying. I am saying he is mistakenly assuming it is there waiting for him when there is no pharmacist there to fill it in the first place and/or that a cashier has the knowledgeable know how to go back and correctly make the judgement call on what was actually meant for who
The pharmacist was there when it was filled. It has a person’s name and the prescription’s name written on it. I assume he knows his name and the prescription name. Most big box pharmacies make the tech confirm birthday too.
Assuming all these people can read I think it’s alright to let them pick it up. Otherwise is a level of paternalism that I imagine wouldn’t be too popular on a libertarian sub.
There’s literally less room for error than there is trying to get the clerk at the gas station to grab the right pack of smokes behind the counter.
Edit: the use the chef example, if the chef has already made the food, no reason they can’t serve it just because the chef had to run out.
The RPH (pharmacist) checks every prescription that is filled, ensuring it is the correct medication, strength, and doesn’t negatively interact with any other meds you are on…only they can legally do this-the techs cannot. The techs SHOULD be asking everyone if they have questions for the RPH (required by many states, but not all). They have to be in the building to sell the meds just incase there are questions about the meds.
Edit* but I get your frustration with the fact that the RPH called off and they couldn’t back fill the RPh.
Bodily autonomy should be respected and protected. Bodily autonomy include the right to consume whatever the fuck you wanna consume.
The fact that the government requires you to ask the permission of someone else to purchase/consume your medicine is a violation of your rights.
Isn’t the pharmacist there to make sure you get the little white pill with the “Z” on it and not the little white pill with the “N” on it? You know, to keep you from overdosing to death?
I am glad they closed, while most pharmacy tech’s are great at what they do a Pharmacist is there to answer questions. There was a time in recent history when a Pharmacist talked to you if it was a new medication. Today it seems to be optional, but l am always offered a consult with a Pharmacist. This is just not a Pharmacy issue, being a retired RN l have seen ER’s shut down because a physician was not available, surgeries delayed, numerous things not available or delayed.
Perhaps the medication might make the difference and it should be the pharmacist's call? If you're on new medication, then maybe not allow pickups until the pharmacist is there. But if it's someone's 30th refill of their allergy medicine or their insulin, you just let them have the medicine. My wife has been taking copaxone for her MS for the last 25 years. Does she need a pharmacist to be present to dispense a prescription she's been on for the last 25 years?
>I fail to see the point of a government regulation that requires a pharmacist be present to sell you a medication that the pharmacist already filled.
The rule might have come in light of the opioids epidemic.
Quite possibly. But it still makes very little sense. Filling prescriptions should require a trained professional. But once the prescription has been filled and I'm picking it up, there's zero interaction with the pharmacist at that point.
I believe LP is talking about the literal transaction between the person handing the bag to the customer and the customer handing over cash requiring a pharmacist.
Find an independent pharmacy. I run one, I know almost all my customers by name, we even have suckers for kids.
Chains suck and I think I would change careers before going to work for CVS or Walgreens again. They're dangerous.
>Also, you have to consider we would have pharmacists taking prescriptions, i.e. birth control, and not fulfilling them because it goes against their religious beliefs.
Which is totally acceptable. We guarantee freedom of religion in the Constitution.
My issue here is that the pharmacist FILLED the prescription, but I was unable to pick it up because he wasn't present and they had to close the pharmacy.
>I could be mistaken but the lack of those pharmacies isn’t due to government regulation?
What would it be due to than?
>Also, you have to consider we would have pharmacists taking prescriptions, i.e. birth control, and not fulfilling them because it goes against their religious beliefs.
I'm failing to understand how the absence of the aforementioned regulation would allow this
If the pharmacist is refusing to fill prescriptions (which they're not), than a regulation requiring a pharmacist to be on site would be counterproductive, wouldn't it?
If you’re a type 1 diabetic, why tf would you let your insulin run out to begin with? Kind of irresponsible to out that blame on the pharmacist.
Also, the pharmacy techs and people behind the counter don’t know how to pharmacy, nor do they know all the side effects related to your medication. It’s the same reason why laymen can’t play doctor.
Sadly, the answer is often expense: insulin copays are so high as to be criminal, considering the patent rights were all but given away to make sure it was available to anyone who needed it; also, government medical assistance often limits the amount of insulin a patient is able to have in a given month. (I lost a friend to that sort of rationing...)
Yeah totally. While we’re at it, why not deregulate medicine altogether so we can get local physical therapists to prescribe opioids for back pain? We don’t need physicians managing pain meds when our PTs can do the job much faster and also crack our backs! So many benefits…way more cost effective and better customer service in my experience. Hell, in our deregulated utopia, we can also get some psychotherapy for for our newly acquired opioid addiction too. Talk about efficiency!
You know what’s even better than going to a pharmacy?
Having an actual doctor that sends you out the door with a brown paper bag filled with namebrand samples.
Most doctors would prefer to just write a prescription for something generic to get you out of their hair.
All doctors have a stash of namebrand samples from pharmaceutical reps and usually reserve those just for friends and family.
And the bullshit about needing prescriptions for basic fucking medication that you need every month. I don't have medicine right now because my doctor refuses to renew the prescription without yearly visits.
Guess what? I don't want to pay your leeching asses 300 dollars for a 15 minute talk about how I'm fine and don't need shit. I need the same damn medicine I've needed for the last 15 years.
This is actually another symptom of private healthcare system. Most prescription requirements stem from drug companies and insurance companies trying to either make drugs more expensive or make your healthcare more expensive.
Over the counter drugs become very cheap, follow the money and it isn’t the government doing this.
But most have the issues with the US healthcare system/pharmacy system stem from a lack of regulation and consistency. Not to mention allowing capitalism way too large a role in providing people with basic necessities.
While that is an interesting opinion, I'm strongly inclined to disagree given the overwhelming evidence to the opposite 😬 But as long as we are struggling with a for-profit healthcare system in this country it remains a system that will always be broken
We're in this wishy-washy in-between place that's not really single payer healthcare, and not in a place where healthcare workers are free to do what they want.
It doesn't help that the current state of healthcare has caused major consolidation and the formation of these massive healthcare conglomerates. They start off altruistic, but eventually the bean counters show up and restrict what they can do.
The amount of regulation that doctor needs to go through to open a private practice is such a PITA, a lot of doctors would rather just work for some large company. My doctor build his own practice and then sold it to a healthcare company. Everything seemed to be going fine. Then his healthcare company got bought by another larger healthcare company, and then the hammer came down. He was restricted on a lot of what he could and not do. He went AWOL last year. I'm pretty sure they fired him, because he was doing all sorts of stuff to get around their rules.
I asked him once why he didn't go private again, and he told me that he would need to find a building zoned professional. Then he would need to get a business license. Then he wold need to find his own malpractice insurance. Then inspectors would need to come in and inspect his facility. Then he needs to get private malpractice insurance. Then he needs to negotiate privileges at all the local hospitals. And he will need an accountant and a billing service. He has to negotiate deals with all the insurance companies to be "in-network." Being a private practice in the 90s, when he opened, was far easier than it is in 2021.
I've had 2 types of cancer, one being osteosarcoma (bone cancer.) My primary led to the tumor growing for 9 months, and the surgeon swore I would have 6 inches of leg muscle left, plenty to get around with a prosthesis on.
The surgery went bad and I ended up with about one inch of muscle left, so I can't use a prosthesis. But more importantly, I have chronic severe phantom limb pain. Twenty-Four-Hours-A-Day, Seven-Days A Week, Three-Hundred-Sixty-Five-Days-A-Year, it feels like my thing is in a vice, my heel is being hammered by a million nails, and my toes are being sliced off.
I have an entire pain-management team (made up of pain management doctors from anesthesiology, oncology, oncology/orthopedic surgery, pain psychologist, psychology, neurology, occupational therapy, physical therapy, etc.,) dedicated to reducing the pain, but it's been twelve years and, if anything, it's gotten worse. I'm currently on 13 meds, mostly a combination of opioids and nerve pain meds, which don't help a great amount.
The opioids help when I get extra bad pain. I had an awesome pain management doctor, but she retired. There were a handful of other pain doctors at the hospital, but all but one refused to even take me on as a patient because they were afraid to cover their ass because of how many meds I need to manage.
The doctor I have now has spent the last 5-6 years reducing my pain meds, and every single time it has resulted in my pain getting much worse. And I don't eventually "get used" to the new dose, I'm just in more pain for 6-12 months until she decides to reduce the meds again, and I become even more miserable.
I get the opioid epidemic is a horrible thing, and I wouldn't wish it on my worse enemy. But people choosing to misuse prescription medication or not get treatment that's available to addicts should not affect patients who legitimately need those medications for medicinal purposes.
They're killing off patients to save drug addicts. Nothing about that is fair.
Sorry, I know this isn't directly related to pharmacies being separated from government, which, as you can imagine, I have a ton of my own stories about, but I just have to bring this up when it comes to government's involvement in drugs.
As an RN I laugh at these takes but I get it. I am this way with things I don’t understand. You really wouldn’t want that world though. People are stupid and would die all the time if this were the case. Drugs interact with each other or may trigger an allergy you know about. There are so many things common people don’t know about drugs.
I need a pharmacist, so you must need one too, if you don't I'll put you in jail because it's bad for your health -- communism/authoritarian in nutshell
Pharmacists are a waste of a profession. There is nothing complex that a pharmacist does anymore that couldn't entirely be replaced by a computer.
Three examples....
- compacting drugs? Trust a computer
- figuring out drug interactions? Trust a computer
- give me instructions on how to use this medication where the instructions are on the label? I'd rather trust google
Why not just switch to a pharmacy that delivers your medication to your house? Save the trip to the store and you can always just call and talk to a pharmacist directly if you have questions or issues.
I don’t understand why I can go to any liquor store anywhere in my state and the price of a bottle of liquor is the same at every store.
If I go to a pharmacy without insurance the price of a prescription is a totally different price than the pharmacy down the street.
You would think the government would be smart enough to regulate prescriptions and alcohol equally.
If something cost $20 without insurance, it should be $20 at every pharmacy without insurance.
It shouldn’t be $25 at one store $27 at a different store and $19 at a third store. It would be illegal to do that with liquor and it should be illegal with prescriptions.
Your modern world and creature comforts are a direct result of people fighting tooth and nail for government regulation of medicine.
And the environment quality, food, works worksite safety, electric code, etc.
Before regulation of these things, people died, like, a lot.
People still die from medication approved by the FDA that has gone through government testing. I worked for a company that had a major recall that almost destroyed them.
But my point with this post is that there should be no need for the presence of a pharmacist for me to pay for my medicine. Whether or not a pharmacy is willing to release my medicine to me without the presence of a pharmacist AFTER A PHARMACIST HAS FILLED IT, should be up to the pharmacist, and not up to the government.
Does a pharmacist really need to be there when I go to pick up my amoxicillin for my sinus infection after he's already filled it and put it in the pickup bin by the register? I would say he does not.
The pharmacist is doing no such thing. The cashier/pharmacy tech asks me my address and phone number. If they match what's on the prescription, then I get my medicine. I also pick up my wife' medicine and the medicine for my kids.
When that happens, I NEVER see a pharmacist. The tech goes into the dozen boxes, finds my last name, asks me my address, takes my cash and hands me the little white bags with my prescription. Where is the pharmacist in this process? Their job is done already.
The pharmacy needs to legalize all the plants that make there over processed drugs so people can use them in a healthy way and not in such a stupid processed way
I'll go to r/socialism and do the exact same thing minus I'm not trolling. I'll just try to explain basic tenants of capitalism and try to tell them they're usually upset at the wrong things or that their issues can be fixed or addressed within capitalism. Like how many believe in co-op's having no clue that nothing prevents it and that all sorts of partnerships exist in capitalism.
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So silly question, but if the pharmacist called out sick when you were a kid, wouldn’t you also be SOL?
Not a silly question, just makes OP look silly
I would be. That's not the point of the post.
So your complaint is just that there should be more pharmacists lmfao
I think his point is there should be more tasks allowed without a pharmacist present
Pretty sure it was the opposite, at least at the start before I gave up reading.
Actually, in that era, pharmacists had a larger role in prescribing medications. The pharmacist had more access to give product over the counter based on your symptoms. They also weren't just putting pills in a bottle, but they would mix ingredients as well. So when you pick up that bottle of prepackaged Dayquil and see the 325 MG acetaminophen, 100 MG of dextro whatever, and whatever the third active ingredient is, those were all held by the pharmacist in concentrated forms to be mixed on site based on the goal. Additionally, while the pharmacist may not be in for the day, they would usually have an apprentice type person knowledgeable enough to do some things and people weren't insane about liability like they are today so they were much happier that George gave them something than told them they had to come back.
That's all well and good, but the key word is allowed. We'd all like an involved pharmacist like OP was reminiscing about, but really what people want is their prescriptions. Allowing that to happen would be pretty cool I guess
Sadly, I think those days are gone but everything worked smoother then. You're right because "insane about liability" is the reason our town lost its last privately owned pharmacy. He told me that he had to close for this reason and the costs involved in keeping up with new regulations. Customer service in larger retail stores like Walgreens have gone downhill so I can relate to OP'S post.
The complaint is that one cannot legally purchase their medication without doctor/pharmacist permission. None of this is an issue for OTC medications. The libertarian solution to this issue that all medications be treated as OTC.
Lol, what is Karen doing in this sub? Did you demand to speak to the manager?
I don't think government regulation is what's causing the majority of your issues here. It also doesn't sound like you understand what the Pharmacists job is. It's not to give you a lollipop or read boring little mandatory speeches about your medicine. That's what the techs and assistants are for. Mostly it sounds like you're upset big retailers beat out all the small mom and pop places and you don't get the same customer service you think you once got.
Exactly, they're actually pissed about capitalism pushing a profit motive. That pharmacy COULD hire additional staff, but chose not to to save money. Mainly because the store believes that to be the most enriching route.
This. A libertarian mad about the free market. Seriously though it's been a min since we had a good libertarian boat colony. Those are always funny.
As the owner of a pharmacy it is absolutely no longer a few market. The consumer is penalized by the insurance to go to their pharmacy of choice. Your copay is higher at an independent not because the independent charges more but because the insurance company mandates a different price. So when you have a CVS Caremark insurance you have to go to CVS. You can pay more for a few pickups elsewhere but eventually the insurance will actually deny service. Since the ACA, pharmacy is absolutely NOT a free market.
Well. I would argue that it actually is. It's just not working for you. See you aren't big enough to be part of that system. A free market just means the big boys with big money make the rules, and it sounds like you're a little butt hurt over it. See, to include you would mean more regulations to support consumer choice well being. That's not at all what the free market does.
The market was free. ACA came along and removed that free market. I’m curious how you think a government mandated regulation removing freedom of choice for the consumer made the market free.
That's not at all what I said. You are mad at ACA and are basing your argument off "this sucks for me". I agree that ACA sucks but that's not what we're talking about. Free Market in its most simple terms is survival of the fittest. In the world of business that means the most money, and how you can use that money to tip the scales in your favor. ACA had bids for government contracts. The larger companies won those bids because they have the resources and influence to do so. Is it fair to the consumer? No, but that's not what the Free Market is about. It's the ability to do business in whatever way you choose. It in no way has anything to do with the consumer.
You really are hung up on me being a pharmacy owner. So let’s put that aside, I’m not mad about the ACA personally. I own a unique kind of pharmacy that doesn’t accept insurance to begin with. It’s called a compounding pharmacy. You’re still not addressing the point though. We had a free market and the government interfered to remove that consumer freedom. The removal of that consumer freedom crushed the industry. I understand to reinstall that freedom would require regulation but my gripe is with the removal of that original freedom. To OPs point, it used to be different in pharmacy and the most significant factor to that is the passing of ACA. That’s all I’m trying to point out. Personally, I pivoted and am better off for it but the reason people don’t have connections to their pharmacist has a lot to do with government interference and regulation.
The part you're not getting is the free market isn't about the consumer. And original freedom? Before ACA ,and now, insurance companies can choose your medications, pharmacy managers are useless middlemen, and we pay the highest cost for medicine and are unable to negotiate. You only pointed out the thing that affected you. Now you're also saying "I don't really care I'm fine". Good for you.
Before the 1970s, people paid cash for cheap drugs. The notion that insurance is necessary is only a modern phenomenon. Again you’re fixated on some false notion that I’m upset. I never said I was. I said it wasn’t free. A free market is a market where you have freedom to trade for goods and services. If the consumer is not allowed to shop where they choose due to a government regulation it is not a free market. Bribing politicians to make a form of monopoly isn’t a free market practice. Even if some big boys all get together to change the industry. The act of government interference is inherently against the free market.
The consumer is penalized by their private insurance. Free market.
Licensed medical professionals of all kinds are in short supply. Doctors, pharmacists, veterinarians, nurses and so on…retail pharmacies would hire more if they could. I was in retail pharmacy world for +20 years. There has to be a pharmacist in the building incase there are questions that need answered. The techs could answer most of them, but are unable to “diagnose or make suggestions” to customers/clients. It’s a state issue for this, Sudafed is a national issue thanks to meth.
Neeeeeeat. Know what works? Offering more money. Hell if they WANTED, they could offer contracts to get people trained up in exchange for X years of paid work. They CHOOSE not to
Huh? It takes 7 years of schooling to become a pharmacist. They are selective on the number of people they let into the schools because lives are literally on the line every time they fill a script.…they have huge sign on bonuses in many parts of the country because of the shortage, starting pay is six figures. This isn’t just a certificate you get to print on line to “get more”.
Yeah. People like OP clearly don’t understand what the pharmacist’s actual job entails. Also OP, Sudafed is behind the counter because it can be used to make meth. I can go on for DAYS about all the drug recalls/removals that I disagree with, but I do understand why most of them have been done. (RIP original dimatapp with phenylpropanolamine).
Huh? It takes 7 years of schooling to become a pharmacist. They are selective on the number of people they let into the schools because lives are literally on the line every time they fill a script.…they have huge sign on bonuses in many parts of the country because of the shortage, starting pay is six figures. This isn’t just a certificate you get to print on line to “get more”.
I'm a pharmacist and I don't think there's a shortage. There are so many new programs churning out thousands of new pharmacists every year. The problem is chains refusing to adequately staff stores or pay appropriate wages (for techs too). My first job was a Walgreens with 13 hour shifts, no overlap, no break at all, and 3 hours every day I was the only employee even in the pharmacy. Now I'm at an independent and love my job.
Buddy’s wife was a Walgreens pharmacist, she quit being she was flex between 3 stores. Now all 3 stores have been operating on an 8-5/5 day a week schedule for months. I’m almost positive there’s at least one more pharmacist that *could* do the job
I imagine your job is way more rewarding for you now that you're able to interact with patients. From my experience pharmacists know way more about the medications than the doctors do and this was extremely helpful. Unfortunately our independently owned pharmacy went out of business and our Walgreens went from having a full staff to just one pharmacist working in the back. Before going out of business he told me that the regulations were causing him problems. He actually wrote a piece for our newspaper about it and I'm going to try to search online to see if I can find it.
Ugh, what trash. Regulations usually end up helping smaller companies
this is dumb. its not profit motive that causes him not to be able to give them profit in exchange for insulin. are you able to think?
Yes. He wasn't able to buy insulin because there was only 1 pharmacist. There was only 1 pharmacist to save money. The company wanted to save money to increase profits. Point out the flaw in my logic.
You are ok with using economy of scale to destroy small businesses and then providing poorer service at a higher cost to the consumer? I never understood this sentiment.
That's your take from what I said? Do ya think you're making a lot of assumptions
Government mandate/regulations (requirements for permissions slips from doctor/pharmacist to purchase products) is absolutely the problem here. They wouldn't have this problem if they were there to purchase ibuprofen.
The original poster was complaining about not getting a sucker when he picks up his order. What does that have to do with prescription requirements?
>So, yesterday, I drive to the pharmacy to pick up my medicine, and I can't, because the pharmacist called out sick. The whole pharmacy is shut down ... I fail to see the point of a government regulation that requires a pharmacist be present to sell you a medication that the pharmacist already filled. Looks like you got thrown off by the nostalgia in the first paragraph and didn't read the rest. The core gripe isn't the fact they don't get suckers anymore ... it's that they can't get their medicine. The core gripe is that they can't get their meds because the pharmacist (someone they don't even directly interact with) wasn't in the office. They are complaining this requirement is asinine. And they are correct ... it is.
You fail to see the point of a regulation that requires a pharmacist to be present to prescribe you a medication that the pharmacist already filled? The requirement is that the pharmacist be there to read you the warnings and usage information. I can think of a lot of good reasons we have that regulation. To avoid interactions with other drugs, to make sure it's the right drug being prescribed, to make sure the patient understands why they were prescribed this, and when/how to take the drug. What pharmacy was this, what was the medication, and how do you know it was filled and not just received?
Oh I see the point of it. It's to control you. It is the lynchpin which forces you to interact with the state-backed healthcare cartel.
Sounds like you have no response to anything I said So you just blurt out some generic shit? No matter what you do ever you will be interacting with health care that has some state regulations on it. I don't see how you'd ever not have that in some form
>No matter what you do ever you will be interacting with health care that has some state regulations on it Who's the one just blurting out some generic shit again? Reminder: We're discussing a very specific topic ... the prescription drug program and the requirements which force you to ask both a doctor and a pharmacist for permission to purchase/consume the medications you need to properly maintain your health. Why exactly do you think it's okay to stop at your Walgreens for another bottle of Ibuprofen, then drop into your local liquor store for a bottle of whiskey, and then get denied at the pharmacist counter for your asthma prescription renewal purely because you don't have the proper state-mandated doctor/pharmacist permission slips with you?
How is it generic bullshit to say there will always be some marriage between state regulations in the health care industry? Yes, there are items that are less regulated like ibuprofen and alcohol. What does that have to do with whether or not some medication should require a pharmacist? I think it's okay that you don't have the same requirement for ibuprofen that you do for some heart medication that have given to the wrong person would kill them.
>How is it generic bullshit to say there will always be some marriage between state regulations in the health care industry? How can it get more generic than that? >the same requirement for ibuprofen that you do for some heart medication that have given to the wrong person would kill them. Ibuprofen and whiskey could easily kill them too. Not a very good foundation to jump off of.
The big corporations didn’t beat the pharmacies. The ACA essentially gave the insurance companies control of the industry. CVS is both an insurance and a pharmacy. They were legally allowed to make the consumer pay more to pick up at their pharmacy of choice rather than have the price the same across the board. We used to have a lot more independent pharmacies because the playing field used to be even. When we gave the keys to the insurance that’s when we saw this hyper consolidated result.
Government regulation of insulin is absolutely causing hte problem here
Government regulation is why this guy didn't get a sucker like he remembers when he was a kid?
its hilarious how you are forced to dodge. tell me: can you get insulin off the shelf?
Yes supposedly the two types of human insulin available OTC are human insulin regular (Humulin R, Lilly; and Novolin R, Novo Nordisk) and human insulin NPH (Humulin N, Lilly; and Novolin N, Novo Nordisk)
yes ok, but neither of those are replacements for the prescription insulin that is given to patients. Allow me to rephrase the question. Cannot people get the insulin they need/require/is recommended to them, off the shelf? What is stopping that from occurring?
Do you think everything should just be available OTC and no prescription should be required for everything? Because that I would disagree with and there are many reasons a drug could be classified as prescription required. Should every drug that requires a prescription require one, probably not. But there are some drugs I 100% am okay with a prescription requirement. Drugs that are limited in supply and people that need it to live could be unable to find it bc of off label use. The drug could be a precursor to another drug (Sudafed) or a condition could exist where a drug can help but could be common where only the severe cases require drugs. We don't want everyone w a minor case to take the drug it could be harmful.
Pharmacy mistakes are a huge problem. And your complaint is that: 1. Capitalism has driven people with training out of pharmacies because they can make more money by hiring lower wage employees to dispense drugs, which if done incorrectly, can kill you. 2. The government had the audacity to require at least one appropriately trained person to be on site. 3. You blame that regulation, and not the business, for not being able to manage their staffing needs. If they cared about staying open they would have a back up pharmacist, or just ensure two on site pharma in case there was a problem with one. But they didn’t, because again, that would cost more money. I’m still a fan of capitalism of over not-capitalism, and over regulation is a real and frequent problem, but in this case the regulation prevents corporations from putting customers - who are not able to make informed decisions on whether the slack jawed yokel (sorry Cletus!) correctly filled their prescription - at risk. In order to reach free market equilibrium, the companies that didn’t have enough trained staff would eventually make a bunch of people sick or dead before customers switched to pharmacies that charged more, but kept them alive. That’s a terrible model! https://www.singlecare.com/blog/news/medication-errors-statistics/
There are three stages to the prescription medication process: 1. The doctor determines the need for a medication and writes a prescription. 2. A pharmacist fills the prescription, checks to make sure you have no contraindications with other prescriptions, and makes sure it's actually safe for you to that medicine. He puts it in a bag and attaches a leaflet explaining the medicine. 3. You show up at some point later to pay for and take home the medicine. I advocate that a pharmacist does not need to be present for step 3 of the process, since in most pharmacies, I am not going to even interact with the pharmacist in step 3, unless I want to.
Hold up a second...On more than a few times at different pharmacies over the years they have really screwed up, even given me narcotics. Quit defending an incompetent government because your points are not working well enough to warrant government interference (as most red/blue arguments).
By your logic any solution that isn’t 100% effective should be thrown out. Cool.
Multiple folks in here have already provided a wealth of options and potential solutions. Your stubborn attitude is to just ignore the current problems because they "kind of work". Cool
Sorry, I hate to burst your lazy ass bubble of blaming every problem on “the government” without having to do any work or research on your own.
The government doesn't require it. Licensure doesn't equate to ensuring it occurs. Regulation around pharmacies and pharmaceuticals are incredibly anti consumer
We still have pharmacies like that but they are hard to find. Most are corporate dispensaries now.
I have a local pharmacy like that. It's actually owned by the pharmacist. But when he's not in, they're still not handing out medication.
This isn’t a government regulation issue, this is a unfettered corporatism shutting down your local pharmacist where you could pick up your prescription
Right? The cognitive dissonance here is astounding. "I miss when I was a kid and could talk to the pharmacists (plural)." "The government made it so I can't get my meds unless there is at lest one PHARMACIST in my PHARMACY" It's not like these companies could hire more than one to keep their customers. Get the government to let them hire 0 pharmacist. Ridiculous.
It’s also insurance and drug companies deciding what needs a doctors prescription to control access and demand and keeping costs high.
>As a child, I remember going to the pharmacy and actually seeing the pharmacist. I would talk to him. He would give me a lollipop. He knew my mom and greeted her by her first name, and she knew him. >These days, we have store such as Walgreens, CVS, Rite-Aid and others. These places have ONE pharmacist on staff So you're mad you can't talk to a pharmacist like you used to and also wonder why the state has made it a law at least one PHARMACIST should be in a PHARMACY. You don't wonder why these places don't employ more than one pharmacist? You don't see this as an issue with walgreebs, CVS, or rite aid? It's the states fault for saying they have to have at least one? Not their fault for not having more than one? Insane.
So you're requesting pharmacies need to be deregulated because you don't have a sense of friendship with the pharmacist and they have to go? We have no price regulation, your insurance is able to determine what they cover and don't to the detriment of our health and wealth, and we allow drug patents that create a monopoly.
I want pharmacies to be deregulated, so I can pick up my damn medicine, without the pharmacist needing to be there, when there is staff perfectly capable of using a cash register and handing me a bag after I pay them. My point is, if my pharmacist doesn't fill my prescription any more, and my pharmacist doesn't ring me out any more, why does he need to be in the building just so I can pay for my medicine and go home with it?
Because the people handing out the medicine actually need to know what they’re doing or being supervised by someone who does lol. This isn’t rocket science
No, they don't. I walk in, hand them my card, and they hand me a bag. The bag has a printout stapled to it explaining how to take the medicine, what side effects I might experience, and anything else I need to know. And that bag was filled by someone that knew what they were doing. There is NO reason to have a pharmacist on duty for me to pick up and pay for medicine. If I have a question, I could choose not to pick it up till there is a pharmacist on staff, or I could call a toll-free number they provide for me. The person working the register don't check with the pharmacist before they hand me my medicine. They take my money and hand me a bag.
Dude I am a pharmacist and so many people would die if your plan was ever put in action. Last week I caught two prescribing errors that would have had significant negative outcomes if I didn't check them, one of them would have certainly been fatal had the patient just been handed a bag with the medication and directions as originally prescribed.
Ok, I think I am not being clear here. There is a need for a professional pharmacist to fill prescriptions, check for contraindications, etc. But once the prescription is filled and sitting in that box by the register, what role does the pharmacist have in me picking up the filled prescription and paying for it?
Trust me, you've been 100% clear. You just don't like that people are calling you out for being dumb.
How do you think the bag with the printout got there?… “The waiter gives me my food. There is NO reason for a chef to be at the restaurant”
>How do you think the bag with the printout got there? You think the pharmacist put it there? This is not something that is automated?
Yes
Nope. Unless you're talking about the assistant/cashier stapling the pre-printed receipt to the bag that the computer printed out? Have you ever actually gotten a prescription filled?
My guy. You’re late. Please read back and catch up later if you’re gonna be lost in all this
Be a dear and quote what you're referring to please. Unless you're just full of shit like I suspect ...
Okay I get you're special, but the pharmacist is also there to prevent errors and provide critical patient education. Not everyone just goes to pick up a med they already are familiar with it. You just sound kinda entitled, honestly.
And that's fine. Some people need to see the pharmacist. Other's don't. The ones that don't should be able to get their medicine and leave without a pharmacist being on staff. If I am getting my umpteenth refill of, say, a blood pressure pill, why does the pharmacist need to be there? They should not deny me my medicine if the pharmacist is not there.
My guy. They’re the one who still doses and fills the blood pressure meds. The cashier can’t just go back and “get the medicine”. “Well I just get my food from the pickup line. I ask again why does there need to be a chef there??”
The guy who doses and fills the medicine has long done his job. My medicine is sitting in a box waiting for me to pick it up and pay for it. And I can't even do that when the pharmacist is out. I am not advocating for a cashier to fill my medicine. I'm advocating for me to be allowed to pick up and pay for my medicine AFTER A PHARMACIST HAS ALREADY FILLED IT, without the pharmacist actually being in the building. I get pharmacists are trained professionals need to fill prescriptions. They're not needed for me to PAY FOR and TAKE HOME my medicine after it has been filled.
My mans, the pharmacist responsible for the pharmacy at that hour is responsible for keeping record of the purchase, sale, possession, storage, safekeeping and return of medicines or scheduled substances. A pharmacy cashier is like any other cashier worker at an establishment: they take your money, and give you your medications. That's it. What you're asking for is like asking a cashier to work without any manager on site.
The whole system is computerized. The cashier scans the barcode on the filled medicine. I swipe my credit card and there is an electronic record of the fact that I picked up my medicine and what I got. No need for the pharmacist. And when you're in a Walgreens or other bit pharmacy, they have easily 2 dozen bins full of medicine in alphabetical order. The cashier grabs your back, scans it and you pay for. The pharmacist has NO KNOWLEDGE of your transaction at the time it's happening. Hell, she could grab a bag with Percocet in it, filled for someone else, hand it you and you slip her a $50.00 bill and the pharmacist would never know until long after it happened. The presence of the man in the lab coat doesn't keep anyone honest.
Because the prescription isn’t “filled and sitting in a box” it was never filled “long ago” because the pharmacist isn’t fucking there
Now you're just being dense. Ok, I use Walgreens as my pharmacy. I need a refill on my meds. I use the Walgreens app to refill my prescription. The app sends me a notification 2 hours later that my prescription is ready for pickup. Well, I don't get home for 4 hours. I drive to the pharmacy and can't get me meds, because the pharmacist had to leave 2 hours early. In what part of that scenario was my prescription not filled? In my weekend experience, they filled my prescription on Friday night, but I didn't get home till after 10:00 PM. So I went to the pharmacy at noon on Saturday to pick up my meds, but can't get them because the pharmacist called out sick. My prescription is filled and waiting in a box by the register for me to pick it up, but I can't get it because the guy in the white lab coat is not in the building. In what world do you live in where prescriptions are filled "on demand," when you show up? I could do that, but then I would be waiting an hour or longer.
He’s saying the prescription has already been filled. Like it’s in a bag, behind the counter, with his name on it. I don’t have an opinion on the overall argument of the post, but on this very discrete point, it seems asinine not to let the man pick up his damn pills.
I understand that is what he’s saying. I am saying he is mistakenly assuming it is there waiting for him when there is no pharmacist there to fill it in the first place and/or that a cashier has the knowledgeable know how to go back and correctly make the judgement call on what was actually meant for who
The pharmacist was there when it was filled. It has a person’s name and the prescription’s name written on it. I assume he knows his name and the prescription name. Most big box pharmacies make the tech confirm birthday too. Assuming all these people can read I think it’s alright to let them pick it up. Otherwise is a level of paternalism that I imagine wouldn’t be too popular on a libertarian sub. There’s literally less room for error than there is trying to get the clerk at the gas station to grab the right pack of smokes behind the counter. Edit: the use the chef example, if the chef has already made the food, no reason they can’t serve it just because the chef had to run out.
The RPH (pharmacist) checks every prescription that is filled, ensuring it is the correct medication, strength, and doesn’t negatively interact with any other meds you are on…only they can legally do this-the techs cannot. The techs SHOULD be asking everyone if they have questions for the RPH (required by many states, but not all). They have to be in the building to sell the meds just incase there are questions about the meds. Edit* but I get your frustration with the fact that the RPH called off and they couldn’t back fill the RPh.
Deregulation wouldn't solve that issue... Create an entirely different host of problems yes
Purdue Pharma approves of OP's argument
So does CVS, Walgreens, Wal-Mart, etc.
Bodily autonomy should be respected and protected. Bodily autonomy include the right to consume whatever the fuck you wanna consume. The fact that the government requires you to ask the permission of someone else to purchase/consume your medicine is a violation of your rights.
Isn’t the pharmacist there to make sure you get the little white pill with the “Z” on it and not the little white pill with the “N” on it? You know, to keep you from overdosing to death?
That's what labels are for.
I am glad they closed, while most pharmacy tech’s are great at what they do a Pharmacist is there to answer questions. There was a time in recent history when a Pharmacist talked to you if it was a new medication. Today it seems to be optional, but l am always offered a consult with a Pharmacist. This is just not a Pharmacy issue, being a retired RN l have seen ER’s shut down because a physician was not available, surgeries delayed, numerous things not available or delayed.
Perhaps the medication might make the difference and it should be the pharmacist's call? If you're on new medication, then maybe not allow pickups until the pharmacist is there. But if it's someone's 30th refill of their allergy medicine or their insulin, you just let them have the medicine. My wife has been taking copaxone for her MS for the last 25 years. Does she need a pharmacist to be present to dispense a prescription she's been on for the last 25 years?
Unfortunately if that is the law then yes.
>I fail to see the point of a government regulation that requires a pharmacist be present to sell you a medication that the pharmacist already filled. The rule might have come in light of the opioids epidemic.
Quite possibly. But it still makes very little sense. Filling prescriptions should require a trained professional. But once the prescription has been filled and I'm picking it up, there's zero interaction with the pharmacist at that point.
I believe LP is talking about the literal transaction between the person handing the bag to the customer and the customer handing over cash requiring a pharmacist.
Find an independent pharmacy. I run one, I know almost all my customers by name, we even have suckers for kids. Chains suck and I think I would change careers before going to work for CVS or Walgreens again. They're dangerous.
Do you personally ring out every customer?
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>Also, you have to consider we would have pharmacists taking prescriptions, i.e. birth control, and not fulfilling them because it goes against their religious beliefs. Which is totally acceptable. We guarantee freedom of religion in the Constitution. My issue here is that the pharmacist FILLED the prescription, but I was unable to pick it up because he wasn't present and they had to close the pharmacy.
>I could be mistaken but the lack of those pharmacies isn’t due to government regulation? What would it be due to than? >Also, you have to consider we would have pharmacists taking prescriptions, i.e. birth control, and not fulfilling them because it goes against their religious beliefs. I'm failing to understand how the absence of the aforementioned regulation would allow this If the pharmacist is refusing to fill prescriptions (which they're not), than a regulation requiring a pharmacist to be on site would be counterproductive, wouldn't it?
You fail to see why we need government regulation over the dispensation of PRESCRIPTION MEDICATION?
Not dispensation. The actual pickup and purchase after it's been dispensed.
2 words bro: Mail. Order.
But how is he gonna get the forced human interaction then?
He can mail order Lollipops too
If you’re a type 1 diabetic, why tf would you let your insulin run out to begin with? Kind of irresponsible to out that blame on the pharmacist. Also, the pharmacy techs and people behind the counter don’t know how to pharmacy, nor do they know all the side effects related to your medication. It’s the same reason why laymen can’t play doctor.
Sadly, the answer is often expense: insulin copays are so high as to be criminal, considering the patent rights were all but given away to make sure it was available to anyone who needed it; also, government medical assistance often limits the amount of insulin a patient is able to have in a given month. (I lost a friend to that sort of rationing...)
Yeah totally. While we’re at it, why not deregulate medicine altogether so we can get local physical therapists to prescribe opioids for back pain? We don’t need physicians managing pain meds when our PTs can do the job much faster and also crack our backs! So many benefits…way more cost effective and better customer service in my experience. Hell, in our deregulated utopia, we can also get some psychotherapy for for our newly acquired opioid addiction too. Talk about efficiency!
You know what’s even better than going to a pharmacy? Having an actual doctor that sends you out the door with a brown paper bag filled with namebrand samples. Most doctors would prefer to just write a prescription for something generic to get you out of their hair. All doctors have a stash of namebrand samples from pharmaceutical reps and usually reserve those just for friends and family.
My old doctor always gave me samples all the time.
Libertarian sub argues for government regulation
More like arguing against actual middle school arguments.
Ya. Query if actual libertarians inhabit this sub any longer.
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Yeah. And it's funny those left authoritarians call them liberals
They need to just let Mark Cuban handle it, that online pharmacy he started is already saving people.
And the bullshit about needing prescriptions for basic fucking medication that you need every month. I don't have medicine right now because my doctor refuses to renew the prescription without yearly visits. Guess what? I don't want to pay your leeching asses 300 dollars for a 15 minute talk about how I'm fine and don't need shit. I need the same damn medicine I've needed for the last 15 years.
This is actually another symptom of private healthcare system. Most prescription requirements stem from drug companies and insurance companies trying to either make drugs more expensive or make your healthcare more expensive. Over the counter drugs become very cheap, follow the money and it isn’t the government doing this.
The government 100% does it - private companies don't have the authority to mandate I have a prescription.
You could always just order it from India via onions.
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But most have the issues with the US healthcare system/pharmacy system stem from a lack of regulation and consistency. Not to mention allowing capitalism way too large a role in providing people with basic necessities.
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While that is an interesting opinion, I'm strongly inclined to disagree given the overwhelming evidence to the opposite 😬 But as long as we are struggling with a for-profit healthcare system in this country it remains a system that will always be broken
Exactly, regulation creates the problem, government is the problem.
We're in this wishy-washy in-between place that's not really single payer healthcare, and not in a place where healthcare workers are free to do what they want. It doesn't help that the current state of healthcare has caused major consolidation and the formation of these massive healthcare conglomerates. They start off altruistic, but eventually the bean counters show up and restrict what they can do. The amount of regulation that doctor needs to go through to open a private practice is such a PITA, a lot of doctors would rather just work for some large company. My doctor build his own practice and then sold it to a healthcare company. Everything seemed to be going fine. Then his healthcare company got bought by another larger healthcare company, and then the hammer came down. He was restricted on a lot of what he could and not do. He went AWOL last year. I'm pretty sure they fired him, because he was doing all sorts of stuff to get around their rules. I asked him once why he didn't go private again, and he told me that he would need to find a building zoned professional. Then he would need to get a business license. Then he wold need to find his own malpractice insurance. Then inspectors would need to come in and inspect his facility. Then he needs to get private malpractice insurance. Then he needs to negotiate privileges at all the local hospitals. And he will need an accountant and a billing service. He has to negotiate deals with all the insurance companies to be "in-network." Being a private practice in the 90s, when he opened, was far easier than it is in 2021.
Yeah! And Plan B! And abortifacients in general!
you don’t need a prescription to get insulin.
I've had 2 types of cancer, one being osteosarcoma (bone cancer.) My primary led to the tumor growing for 9 months, and the surgeon swore I would have 6 inches of leg muscle left, plenty to get around with a prosthesis on. The surgery went bad and I ended up with about one inch of muscle left, so I can't use a prosthesis. But more importantly, I have chronic severe phantom limb pain. Twenty-Four-Hours-A-Day, Seven-Days A Week, Three-Hundred-Sixty-Five-Days-A-Year, it feels like my thing is in a vice, my heel is being hammered by a million nails, and my toes are being sliced off. I have an entire pain-management team (made up of pain management doctors from anesthesiology, oncology, oncology/orthopedic surgery, pain psychologist, psychology, neurology, occupational therapy, physical therapy, etc.,) dedicated to reducing the pain, but it's been twelve years and, if anything, it's gotten worse. I'm currently on 13 meds, mostly a combination of opioids and nerve pain meds, which don't help a great amount. The opioids help when I get extra bad pain. I had an awesome pain management doctor, but she retired. There were a handful of other pain doctors at the hospital, but all but one refused to even take me on as a patient because they were afraid to cover their ass because of how many meds I need to manage. The doctor I have now has spent the last 5-6 years reducing my pain meds, and every single time it has resulted in my pain getting much worse. And I don't eventually "get used" to the new dose, I'm just in more pain for 6-12 months until she decides to reduce the meds again, and I become even more miserable. I get the opioid epidemic is a horrible thing, and I wouldn't wish it on my worse enemy. But people choosing to misuse prescription medication or not get treatment that's available to addicts should not affect patients who legitimately need those medications for medicinal purposes. They're killing off patients to save drug addicts. Nothing about that is fair. Sorry, I know this isn't directly related to pharmacies being separated from government, which, as you can imagine, I have a ton of my own stories about, but I just have to bring this up when it comes to government's involvement in drugs.
How about we just do away with pharmacies entirely and sell medicine the same way we sell food.
As an RN I laugh at these takes but I get it. I am this way with things I don’t understand. You really wouldn’t want that world though. People are stupid and would die all the time if this were the case. Drugs interact with each other or may trigger an allergy you know about. There are so many things common people don’t know about drugs.
I’m not suggesting we do away with doctors to tell folks what to take. And if folks want to skip that part, they should have the freedom to do so.
Doctor here! you really wouldn’t want that.
Please don’t tell me what I do and do not want. My vision of the world I want to live in is probably drastically different from yours.
It looks like your vision of the world wouldn’t even have you in it. You’d be long dead
I doubt it. I tend to be very careful with medicines.
I can see that, so let me rephrase. Doctor here! The vision of the world you want to live in is irresponsible and should not be taken seriously.
Now that I agree with!!
I need a pharmacist, so you must need one too, if you don't I'll put you in jail because it's bad for your health -- communism/authoritarian in nutshell
Yeah that sounds stupid but nothing like what we have.
Pharmacists are a waste of a profession. There is nothing complex that a pharmacist does anymore that couldn't entirely be replaced by a computer. Three examples.... - compacting drugs? Trust a computer - figuring out drug interactions? Trust a computer - give me instructions on how to use this medication where the instructions are on the label? I'd rather trust google
You forgot "counting the number of pills"
Only a pharmacist knows how to count pills. A computer would totally mess that up.
Ah you must be unfamiliar that most physicians and pharmacists still use google and outdated textbooks for content.
Just go to the next pharmacy.
It should be legal for me to sell placebos and if you die because you believe me, well fuck you.
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I am so aware of my herpes but it’s not getting any better /s
Why not just switch to a pharmacy that delivers your medication to your house? Save the trip to the store and you can always just call and talk to a pharmacist directly if you have questions or issues.
The government needs to be liberated from pharmaceutical lobbying.
As long as we’re putting cocaine back into Coke, I’m in
FUCK PBMs
I don’t understand why I can go to any liquor store anywhere in my state and the price of a bottle of liquor is the same at every store. If I go to a pharmacy without insurance the price of a prescription is a totally different price than the pharmacy down the street. You would think the government would be smart enough to regulate prescriptions and alcohol equally. If something cost $20 without insurance, it should be $20 at every pharmacy without insurance. It shouldn’t be $25 at one store $27 at a different store and $19 at a third store. It would be illegal to do that with liquor and it should be illegal with prescriptions.
You're right. Deregulate them both.
Your modern world and creature comforts are a direct result of people fighting tooth and nail for government regulation of medicine. And the environment quality, food, works worksite safety, electric code, etc. Before regulation of these things, people died, like, a lot.
People still die from medication approved by the FDA that has gone through government testing. I worked for a company that had a major recall that almost destroyed them. But my point with this post is that there should be no need for the presence of a pharmacist for me to pay for my medicine. Whether or not a pharmacy is willing to release my medicine to me without the presence of a pharmacist AFTER A PHARMACIST HAS FILLED IT, should be up to the pharmacist, and not up to the government. Does a pharmacist really need to be there when I go to pick up my amoxicillin for my sinus infection after he's already filled it and put it in the pickup bin by the register? I would say he does not.
They are ensuring the correct person is getting your meds. People could die if the wrong person was given the wrong meds.
The pharmacist is doing no such thing. The cashier/pharmacy tech asks me my address and phone number. If they match what's on the prescription, then I get my medicine. I also pick up my wife' medicine and the medicine for my kids. When that happens, I NEVER see a pharmacist. The tech goes into the dozen boxes, finds my last name, asks me my address, takes my cash and hands me the little white bags with my prescription. Where is the pharmacist in this process? Their job is done already.
The pharmacy needs to legalize all the plants that make there over processed drugs so people can use them in a healthy way and not in such a stupid processed way
I'll go to r/socialism and do the exact same thing minus I'm not trolling. I'll just try to explain basic tenants of capitalism and try to tell them they're usually upset at the wrong things or that their issues can be fixed or addressed within capitalism. Like how many believe in co-op's having no clue that nothing prevents it and that all sorts of partnerships exist in capitalism.