I’ve noticed several CVS and Walgreens locations closing around the city recently. Not sure if it’s part of a broader trend.
Rite Aid declared bankruptcy and has closed a bunch of stores so it’s less of a surprise, but there’s one near me that is literally 1/2 empty shelves. I assume they keep it open for the pharmacy, but the rest of the store is pointless, you could go there for Tylenol and they wouldn’t have it. It’s crazy.
I read r/pharmacy for some reason and the state of retail pharmacy is absolutely insane from the pov of the working pharmacists. Chronically understaffed and over worked. Mistakes likely to happen and all the while corporate is pushing them to give more injections, which they hate.
The online pharmacies are killing them, which is great.
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Stuff you get off Reddit always seems 3x as terrible as it is. Stuff that triggers people is what gets up votes
This is true. I work for a large grocery retailer and a part of our annual bonus incentive is tied to achieving a large vaccination goal in our pharmacies.
Also, I’ve been there 18 years and labor budgets have never been tighter than they are right now even though productivity and sales grow YOY. I figure there’s got to be a breaking point somewhere down the line but that’s probably sweet summer child stuff.
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Whereupon we pontificate about poor fast food choices
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I used to work with people at drug companies who monitored clinical trials. They were the most overworked office workers I’ve ever been around, all while the drug companies are raking in record profits. It’s ridiculous.
In general sure, but retail pharmacy is an awful place to be right now.
Strong disagree here. There’s huge value to having a local pharmacist that knows you for more complex patients, and the online pharmacists aren’t reviewing prescriptions like you really want either.
Everyone in my family loves Chick-Fil-A sauce, but I prefer Polynesian. CFA sauce is good, though.
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I’m going to do a rant about NYC drugstores. I work in the thick of midtown, and the drugstore around the corner from my office closed down a few months ago. The next closest drugstore was across the street from Rockefeller Center, and that closed down because developers tore down the building to make condos. So now I’ve got to walk across Times Square if I want to get normal drugstore stuff near work.
Not only that, but Grand Central has become a drugstore wasteland. There used to be a very nice Rite Aid in the station. That closed recently, probably because of the bankruptcy, and I think it has been replaced by a Lululemon. There was also a Duane Reade across the street that closed recently. So now you have to walk all the way to 3rd avenue if you need to go to a drugstore near the station. Granted, that’s only a block and a half away from the main entrance, but I don’t see why it’s so hard to keep a drugstore open in what has to be one of the highest foot traffic locations in the entire country.
Anyone know what sort of breakdown of drug store profits come from the actual prescriptions? Thought CVS/Walgreens type places make more their money selling booze and over priced groceries to the folks picking up blood pressure medicine.
And the smaller private places are making their profit margins off toeing legal lines selling compounded stuff?
I could be completely wrong but just seems hard to believe there much money in filling meds when generics are less than 10 bucks and for the branded I’m sure the insurers try to minimize pharmacy costs
I think you are right, it just speaks to the need for the health care model to support the delivery of services from those who add value to those who need help. I interpret that the problem local phamcists are having is that their historical business model compensates them for moving product, not for rendering good advice. There are analogies in the financial services sector where advisors would add actual value by talking to clients and customizing a plan for them, but they actually get paid to sell financial products and it’s a total crapshoot as to whether you happen to get any actual useful advice from them in the process.
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Unless I’m completely misunderstanding retail pharmacy any second a pharmacist spends talking to a patient would probably be considered uncompensated effort by the bean counters so I’m sure CVS/etc encourage as little of that to be done as possible while still maintaining a facade of caring about patient care.
Local places probably better because they may be trying to make a name for self by offering good service but some small pharmacies end up just being cannabis product salesmen
Obviously I’m sure majority of pharmacists care about the people they serving as medical professionals but talking more about the motivations of the folks above them
Nah it’s more that pharmacists are incredibly helpful and intelligent. There’s few groups of people in the hospital I have more respect for and who have saved my ass from doing something dumb that could hurt someone.
Pharmacies suck ass, pharmacists are on my good side.
I think this is 100% consistent with what I said.
This is a non-issue. The only time a pharmacist is going to engage in excessive chit-chat is when it’s slow. Patients only need the post-sale “consult” for new meds, which the pharmacist usually prefaces with “Do you have any questions?”, to which most people presumably say “No,” and are on their way.
I think it’s pretty much the opposite of this.
There are multiple google hits that say stuff like this:
Does it break down what percent of the profit they make up though? Obviously the sale number is going to be super high but curious for somewhere like CVS even if Rx were 99% of a store sales I bet it would be a much lower percent of the profit. Kind of like a gas station or something. Independent ones I’m sure would be different because they selling more profitable stuff like compounded GLP meds
ETA looks article focuses on independent pharmacies so alludes to why they I suspect make better profit margins than large mega ones that don’t want the risk I imagine.
“ When pharmacies put all their eggs in the prepackaged prescription basket, they limit their profit potential.
Smart pharmacy owners have learned that specialty prescriptions, including [pet meds] and compounding, contain a treasure trove of profit.”