Signs offering COVID-19 vaccinations are seen outside of a CVS pharmacy in Washington, DC.
Mandel Ngan | AFP | Getty Images
Many pharmacy employees at a number of the largest U.S. drugstore chains say they’re reaching a breaking point.
On top of verifying, filling and allotting prescriptions, pharmacists and support staff are answerable for administering vaccines, fixing insurance issues, transferring prescriptions to other pharmacies and tending to dozens of patients in stores and over the phone, amongst other tasks. Those employees have said they’re concerned that firms like Walgreens and CVS are placing unreasonable demands on them, without providing enough staffing or resources to soundly execute tasks.
Frustrated by what they describe as increasing workloads, understaffing and cuts to their hours, pharmacy staff from Walgreens locations across the country and CVS stores within the Kansas City area have walked off the job in recent weeks — and a few employees are planning to walk out again from Oct. 30 to Nov. 1.
CNBC spoke to employees from each Walgreens and CVS, including a pharmacist, two pharmacy technicians and a store manager, about what their typical workday looks like. The staff, all of whom requested anonymity for fear of retaliation, described ending their shifts exhausted after spending hours juggling dozens of tasks across the pharmacy without enough extra hands to support them.
The 2 firms were the biggest pharmacies within the U.S. based on prescription drug market share in 2022. Each CVS and Walgreens operate around 9,000 retail store locations across the U.S.
CVS has greater than 30,000 pharmacists and 70,000 pharmacy technicians, while rival Walgreens has greater than 86,000 health-care service providers, including pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and other health-related professionals. CVS pharmacists make $61.44 an hour on average, while Walgreens pharmacists make $53.85 per hour on average, in keeping with employment website Indeed.
A spokesperson for Walgreens said the corporate recognizes the “incredible work our pharmacists and technicians do day by day” and has taken several steps in its pharmacies “to be sure that our teams can focus on providing optimal patient care.”
The corporate’s ongoing efforts are focused on how it will probably recruit, retain and reward pharmacy staff, the spokesperson said. They added that Walgreens has improved technology and centralized many operations to assist maintain appropriate workloads in pharmacies.
A spokesperson for CVS said the corporate is facing “unprecedented demand and a clinical workforce shortage within the health care industry and [is] making targeted investments in our retail pharmacy business in direct response to feedback from our pharmacy teams.”
Those investments include enabling teams to schedule additional support as needed, enhancing pharmacist and technician recruitment and hiring and strengthening pharmacy technician training, in keeping with the spokesperson. They said those changes will begin in November and roll out throughout next yr.
Here’s what a typical day looks like for some staff from the 2 chains, in keeping with the accounts related to CNBC.
Walgreens pharmacist
A Walgreens pharmacist said their shifts range anywhere from six to 12 hours on three to 5 days of the week. The pharmacist said they typically arrive for work at 8 a.m., an hour before the shift.
The pharmacist typically begins the shift by completing several paperwork tasks, which take about five to 10 minutes.
Then, the pharmacist checks which medications are out of stock. The pharmacist said that task is primarily the responsibility of pharmacy technicians, but it surely often falls to them because their colleagues are stretched thin with other duties.
The pharmacist also takes about 20 to half-hour to examine which medications weren’t delivered to the pharmacy by drug distributors, and calls patients to tell them about once they can expect their prescriptions to be ready.
The pharmacist then spends 10 to quarter-hour canceling vaccination appointments for shots the pharmacy doesn’t have in stock, which involves calling patients and redirecting them to other store locations with vaccines available. The pharmacist said Walgreens is allowing people to schedule appointments for any vaccine online, even when a store location doesn’t have it in stock.
The Walgreens spokesperson acknowledged that some pharmacy locations needed to reschedule appointments when vaccines first became available this fall as a result of delays in supply, and added that the chain has apologized for any inconvenience caused to consumers. Nevertheless, the spokesperson said that every one locations had the obligatory supply “inside just a few days.”
By 9:15 a.m., vaccine appointments begin and proceed until 6:45 p.m., in keeping with the pharmacist. Their store normally takes one appointment every quarter-hour, and a few patients get as much as 4 vaccines at a time.
The pharmacist and a pharmacy technician then juggle administering shots with several other tasks. Giving jabs has change into even tougher in recent months as a result of the arrival of latest vaccines against Covid and respiratory syncytial virus.
Among the many other duties is addressing the prickly problems related to insurance coverage for prescriptions, the pharmacist said. Their store receives 100 to 160 insurance issues of their system every day, so the pharmacist dedicates up to 3 30-minute to one-hour chunks of their shift to addressing them.
Each pharmacists and technicians also must are likely to customers in-store and over the phone. The pharmacist said they get eight to 10 phone calls per hour on average, which might take as much as 10 to quarter-hour each.
An indication advertises COVID-19 (coronavirus) vaccine shots at a Walgreens Pharmacy in Somerville, Massachusetts, August 14, 2023.
Brian Snyder | Reuters
All of those tasks — together with other minor responsibilities — are additional to the pharmacist’s most important job of verifying and allotting prescriptions.
The technician typically handles the primary a part of that task, which involves processing recent prescription orders from doctors.
The pharmacist said they’ve to examine that every one prescription information entered into the system matches what the doctor ordered for a patient. Their store typically receives 300 prescriptions a day, so the pharmacist said they review around 25 an hour. A technician or the pharmacist then fills those prescriptions, and the pharmacist does a final review to be certain that the medications within the bottles are correct.
The pharmacist said they are sometimes interrupted when performing tasks, given the urgency of other issues. The disruptions can create a backlog of labor.
The pharmacist noted that the pharmacy closes for his or her scheduled lunch break from 1:30 p.m. to 2 p.m., which they often work through. By lunch, they often have to handle recent insurance issues or atone for other work they couldn’t get to while working directly with patients.
Pharmacy technicians from CVS, Walgreens
Pharmacy technicians are medical professionals who work alongside pharmacists to assist and support patients.
One CVS pharmacy technician said they typically come to their store location at 7:50 a.m., 10 minutes before their eight-hour shift starts. The technician said they typically work with one to 2 other technicians and one pharmacist during their shift, which they imagine isn’t enough to handle the workload.
The technician said they begin off their day by processing recent prescription orders from doctors — a task that they constantly do throughout the day. The technician said they must match each prescription to the patient profile within the CVS system and enter all the right information before sending it to a pharmacist for review.
The technician also takes care of one other a part of the method, which involves filling the prescriptions and printing labels before the pharmacist reviews it for a final time. They said their store location’s prescription volume is 600 to 1,000 per day.
The technician said that as soon as their store location opens, they and their co-workers must handle dozens of patient phone calls, and customers waiting to get their prescriptions or other essentials through the drive-thru.
Along with filling prescriptions and tending to patients, the technician said they alternate performing several other tasks throughout the day. The duties include administering vaccines and returning medications that weren’t picked up by patients to pharmacy shelves.
A CVS pharmacy stands in a Brooklyn neighborhood on February 08, 2023 in Latest York City.
Spencer Platt | Getty Images
A technician from Walgreens has similar duties, but their shift is often from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. That technician said they feel anxiety at any time when they begin their shift because there is usually an influx of patients coming to the shop who are only getting off of labor: “You are just about walking right into chaos.”
Patients often find yourself waiting for help as a result of what the Walgreens technician called understaffing at their location. They added that frustrated patients sometimes yell or snap at pharmacy staff, which could be “extremely overwhelming.”
The Walgreens technician said they typically stay longer after their shift to assist complete mandatory closing duties, reminiscent of taking out the rubbish and disposing of sensitive patient information. After arriving home, they said they “completely crash” as a result of exhaustion.
Some employees who don’t technically have responsibilities within the pharmacy may find yourself helping stressed-out pharmacists and technicians.
A CVS store manager said that on three to 4 days of the week they work on the front of the shop from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. after which help out at their location’s pharmacy until 9 p.m. The manager still has a pharmacy technician license, which allows them to perform tasks like administering vaccines.
The shop manager said they’re a salaried worker, in order that they are “essentially working within the pharmacy without spending a dime” to provide their staff extra support.
“In some shape or form, myself or my staff are being pushed into a facet of the business that we didn’t join for,” the shop manager said. “We’re being pushed back there because we haven’t got the resources.”