In this installment I have decided to look at another side of the joys of retail pharmacy--dealing with the great unwashed masses. Although this is not meant to be a complete list of observations or complaints I bet everyone reads this and says "yeah, no kidding."
Dear customer,
-If you approach me with an overly friendly approach and make a point of calling me by name like I'm your best friend I'm going to be immediately suspicious of that narcotic prescription that you're handing me. In spite of what you think, you are not putting me at ease, you are putting me on the defensive.
-When you come to the drive-thru window on your cell phone, apologize to me, NOT to the person to whom you are talking. You're being rude to me, not to them. You pulled up to MY drive-thru while in the middle of your conversation. And by the way, I quit smoking a long time ago. I'd prefer that you not share your cigarette with me while I'm waiting on your lazy ass. And if you're coming to the drive-thru to pick up your blood pressure meds or your cholesterol meds, or you weigh more than 250 pounds do yourself a favor and walk into the store. A little exercise goes a long way.
-If you take your medication every day and have done so for a long time, why in the world do you wait until you take the last pill to try to refill it? With no refills left? On a Friday? Before a long weekend? Did it surprise you that you were actually going to need your diabetes medicine before you left for your weekend away to visit the in-laws?
-If your insurance doesn't want to pay for your prescription, for whatever reason, please don't call your doctor and tell them that we refused to fill your prescription, or that we wouldn't sell it to you. That's not what we said. If you want to pay out of your own pocket feel free. If you don't want to pay $150 for that newest, latest, greatest brand name only medication then maybe you should ask your doctor why he/she prescribed that one in the first place. Bet it has nothing to do with that "consultant" gig they were offered by the big pharmaceutical company that manufactures it.
-And speaking of insurance, let me explain how this works. You get a new insurance plan. You bring your new card into the pharmacy. We put the information into our computer. We bill your insurance. Everyone goes home happy. Let's be clear about this-your insurance information doesn't magically transmit from your insurance company's computers into ours, we have to actually type it in. And no, we can't access Walgreen's or Rite Aid and look it up there. They get a little sensitive about proprietary info being accessible by their competitors.
-Why do you bring in a prescription dated 3 months ago and tell me you need it as soon as possible? Is 3 months as soon as possible? If it's not for you, why should it be for me? I'm sure sometime in the last 90 days you knew you were coming into the store, why didn't you bring in your colonoscopy prep script in to fill instead of waiting until the morning before your procedure? I'll just tell the mother of the sick 2 year old that the antibiotic that they need is going to be a few more minutes because I was just filling the script that you've had hanging on the front of your refrigerator so long the paper's starting to yellow.
-If you've handed me a prescription that you need to be filled, and I'm concentrating on reading the doctor's handwriting, making sure I've selected the right patient out of our database, making sure I selected the right medication and strength, making sure I can read and properly type the directions, choosing the correct prescriber and making sure your insurance information goes through (maybe while also fielding a phone call) please don't be offended if I don't do it all with a big smile on my face. Sometimes it's not at the top of my mind to smile you to death like I'm trying to sell you a used car. If a smile is more important to you than competence when it comes to your medication perhaps you should re-evaluate your priorities.
-When you bring me a prescription that you're dropping off for someone else and I ask you for the date of birth don't ask, "Mine or theirs?" I hate to break this to you but even if you're the nicest person in the world I really don't give a shit when your birthday is unless the script is for YOU. I'm not asking so I know when to mail you a fucking birthday card. Use your brain!
-If you need a prescription refilled please have at least a slight clue as to what the medication is. If you have the script number that's excellent; if you have the name of the medication that will also work well; if you don't know either of those things at least have a clue as to what it's treating (blood pressure, cholesterol, male pattern baldness, whatever) and I can probably figure it out. Don't say to me, "It's a little white pill, I take it once a day." Do you have any idea how many "little white pills" we carry? Why is knowing what your medication is more important to me than it is to you? Have a clue as to what medication you take and why you take it. It might just save your life.
-When you come to the register to pick up your prescription and you have 12 things from the front store to pay for it's OK to start writing out your check while I'm ringing your merchandise. Nothing pisses off all the customers in line behind you more than when you wait for the total before you actually pull your checkbook out of your pocket or purse and start the tedious job of writing out a check. On a related note none of us want to stand there while you search through your change purse or pocket for the exact change, like you think you're doing me a favor. Trust me, I can count your change back to you way faster than you can dig into the inside pockets of your pocketbook and slowly dig out the exact change ONE PENNY AT A TIME!! That will also not win you any new friends.
I'm sure as soon as I post this I'll come up with a bunch more but I figured this was a pretty good list. If you think of any that I left out don't hesitate to post your own contribution to the list.
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Employee Engagement, and other myths
Q: What's the difference between Bigfoot, The Loch Ness Monster and CVS's commitment to its employees' job satisfaction?
A: There's actually a chance that the first two exist.
I bring this up because it's that time of the year again, time for the CVS Employment Engagement Survey. You know, it's that list of about 20 questions that all employees are encouraged to anonymously answer so that CVS can take in what their employees have to say about the company and alter their policies and procedures accordingly.
OK, OK, I almost got through that entire description without actually laughing out loud. There are only three things that are wrong with the description of the Survey; 1) employees aren't so much encouraged as they are required to participate (more on that later); 2) it's only somewhat anonymous, and; 3) after 3 years of taking this ludicrous survey not one thing has improved.
I'll start with the last thing first, but first a little background on the EES. Let's start with the basic presentation of the EES to the employees. Store and field management is quick and persistent to drive home the point that the EES should only reflect how the employee feels about his or her store. You're not supposed to think about the district, the region, the area or the company as a whole. I remember the district manager actually sending an email to the store manager when they were trying to schedule a store meeting so they could discuss the results of the EES a few years ago. This nitwit actually wrote that if any of the employees started talking about issues outside of the store the store manager was to steer the conversation back to store level. Translation: the residents of the Ivory Tower don't give a fuck what you think about the job they do. I've said many times that I don't have any significant problems with store management, my frustration lies with the upper levels and their decision making and policies.
After all the money, time and energy the BIG changes are an occasional pizza party and "free soft drink and snack day." Evidently this is the big idea that they hit upon to help improve morale. At one time they were going to let us wear jeans one day a month, but then the regional manager saw it in one store and decided it didn't look professional so it got squashed after only a couple months. I guess only dress slacks are really worthy to be worn with those high end polo shirts, eh? Meanwhile there's absolutely no means for people at store level to communicate directly with those above. You have to "go through channels" and if your district manager is anything like mine then you're better off talking to a mop. So once again the frustrations with things like the warehouse, the store support center (a misnomer if ever there was one), IT issues, policy and procedure, etc. are ignored.
Then there's the issue of anonymity. While it may (or may not) be true that it's considered an anonymous survey the store management still knows if everyone in the store has completed it. They receive a report that tells how many employees haven't yet completed the survey, then they go around asking people if they've completed it because (wait for it...) the store managers get shit from the district manager if they have employees who don't complete the survey. This leads to the third point, that it's not REALLY voluntary.
Because the store managers are held responsible for their staff's participation they will absolutely harass any employee who is honest and admits that they haven't taken the survey. In my store we actually had the store manager tell an employee that she couldn't leave for the day until she took the survey! When I heard that my reaction was ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? You want to know how the employees feel about their jobs so you're going to hold them against their will until they participate. It's kind of like the poster I once saw that said, "THE BEATINGS WILL CONTINUE UNTIL MORALE IMPROVES." I know the employee really can't be held after their shift is over but in this job market some folks may be hesitant to cross the manager, even when the manager is so blatantly wrong. I just hope the manager isn't surprised when their survey results show a high level of job dissatisfaction.
Bottom line is that once again it is CVS doing something because it gives the perception that they actually give a shit and that they are "proactive". Must be something that Wall Street likes, since the only thing the Ivory Tower team really cares about is the bottom line. If pretending that you actually view your employees as human beings helps drive up the stock price I guess they must consider it money well spent.
A: There's actually a chance that the first two exist.
I bring this up because it's that time of the year again, time for the CVS Employment Engagement Survey. You know, it's that list of about 20 questions that all employees are encouraged to anonymously answer so that CVS can take in what their employees have to say about the company and alter their policies and procedures accordingly.
OK, OK, I almost got through that entire description without actually laughing out loud. There are only three things that are wrong with the description of the Survey; 1) employees aren't so much encouraged as they are required to participate (more on that later); 2) it's only somewhat anonymous, and; 3) after 3 years of taking this ludicrous survey not one thing has improved.
I'll start with the last thing first, but first a little background on the EES. Let's start with the basic presentation of the EES to the employees. Store and field management is quick and persistent to drive home the point that the EES should only reflect how the employee feels about his or her store. You're not supposed to think about the district, the region, the area or the company as a whole. I remember the district manager actually sending an email to the store manager when they were trying to schedule a store meeting so they could discuss the results of the EES a few years ago. This nitwit actually wrote that if any of the employees started talking about issues outside of the store the store manager was to steer the conversation back to store level. Translation: the residents of the Ivory Tower don't give a fuck what you think about the job they do. I've said many times that I don't have any significant problems with store management, my frustration lies with the upper levels and their decision making and policies.
After all the money, time and energy the BIG changes are an occasional pizza party and "free soft drink and snack day." Evidently this is the big idea that they hit upon to help improve morale. At one time they were going to let us wear jeans one day a month, but then the regional manager saw it in one store and decided it didn't look professional so it got squashed after only a couple months. I guess only dress slacks are really worthy to be worn with those high end polo shirts, eh? Meanwhile there's absolutely no means for people at store level to communicate directly with those above. You have to "go through channels" and if your district manager is anything like mine then you're better off talking to a mop. So once again the frustrations with things like the warehouse, the store support center (a misnomer if ever there was one), IT issues, policy and procedure, etc. are ignored.
Then there's the issue of anonymity. While it may (or may not) be true that it's considered an anonymous survey the store management still knows if everyone in the store has completed it. They receive a report that tells how many employees haven't yet completed the survey, then they go around asking people if they've completed it because (wait for it...) the store managers get shit from the district manager if they have employees who don't complete the survey. This leads to the third point, that it's not REALLY voluntary.
Because the store managers are held responsible for their staff's participation they will absolutely harass any employee who is honest and admits that they haven't taken the survey. In my store we actually had the store manager tell an employee that she couldn't leave for the day until she took the survey! When I heard that my reaction was ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? You want to know how the employees feel about their jobs so you're going to hold them against their will until they participate. It's kind of like the poster I once saw that said, "THE BEATINGS WILL CONTINUE UNTIL MORALE IMPROVES." I know the employee really can't be held after their shift is over but in this job market some folks may be hesitant to cross the manager, even when the manager is so blatantly wrong. I just hope the manager isn't surprised when their survey results show a high level of job dissatisfaction.
Bottom line is that once again it is CVS doing something because it gives the perception that they actually give a shit and that they are "proactive". Must be something that Wall Street likes, since the only thing the Ivory Tower team really cares about is the bottom line. If pretending that you actually view your employees as human beings helps drive up the stock price I guess they must consider it money well spent.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
My new video-let me know what you think!
So in the time tested tradition of McPharmacy videos on YouTube I have created my own short film. Give it a watch and let me know what you think!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1r0M_sZaC-M&feature=player_detailpage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1r0M_sZaC-M&feature=player_detailpage
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Triple S-- Sh!t, Sh!t and even more Sh!t
So for those of you who may not be familiar with Triple S let me give you the 411. The 3 S's stand for stock, shop and service. What it's about is that little survey that shows up sometimes on the bottom of your sales receipt where you get to call in to a toll-free number and answer some questions, most of which are a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest. The incentive to call is the chance to win $1000. Funny, 8 years or so ago it was $10,000, then a few years later it went down to $2500, now it's down to $1000. By the way, does anyone know anyone who has ever won the money?
What employees have to deal with is the dirty little (not so) secret that if someone gives a 4 CVS counts it as a ZERO! What is the point in that? I don't know about you, but I'm not someone who throws around perfect scores, even when I'm very satisfied with service. So that means that I would doom a hard-working, well run store to a ZERO if I didn't know the rules.The funny thing is that even though the claim from corporate is that they want to know what our customers really think of us field management spends an unbelievable amount of time and energy trying to get the stores to manipulate the scores to be higher. This is in large part due to the inherent unfairness of the survey scores, but it's pretty obvious that corporate doesn't care about fair.
Just check out this extract from an article that ran in the publication Drug Store News, coming from CVS executive vice president of strategic planning and business development Deborah Ellinger: And there is no such thing as getting a perfect score. Nothing would irritate Ellinger--who describes herself as the "What If" person at CVS--more. "I am always dissatisfied when we get 'good' ratings," she said. "You might not be setting the bar high enough We should be continually looking at ourselves in the mirror and make sure that we don't get satisfied just because customers tell us we are doing fine."
Now, knowing that a store's "success" (read: bonuses for managers and pharmacists) is largely based on the results of these totally subjective ratings is there any doubt that it's corporate management's goal to make the bonuses unattainable, thereby saving them millions by not actually having to pay up on bonuses? The previous quotes from a corporate mucky-muck pretty much proves that it's the classic carrot on a stick being dangled in front of the horse. And it's no longer limited to Triple S. Now they have a whole bunch of other stats called "Key Performance Measures" or KPM for short. It's just another way for management to screw the management teams both in front store and pharmacy. Pretty much all the KPMs have to do with getting customers to buy into CVS's programs, all of which are aimed at increasing sales and profits under the guise of "patient care."
Part of what CVS uses to recruit management team and pharmacists is the promise of bonuses based on the store's performance. What they don't tell them is that even if they do everything right at store level their chance of bonusing is dependent on the results of a subjective questionnaire that is weighted against the stores. The previous quote shows that even if you do well at store level corporate is conspiring to make sure that the goals stay unattainable. Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy if you're an employee. If that's the way they treat their store managers what chance do the rank-and-file employees stand?
What employees have to deal with is the dirty little (not so) secret that if someone gives a 4 CVS counts it as a ZERO! What is the point in that? I don't know about you, but I'm not someone who throws around perfect scores, even when I'm very satisfied with service. So that means that I would doom a hard-working, well run store to a ZERO if I didn't know the rules.The funny thing is that even though the claim from corporate is that they want to know what our customers really think of us field management spends an unbelievable amount of time and energy trying to get the stores to manipulate the scores to be higher. This is in large part due to the inherent unfairness of the survey scores, but it's pretty obvious that corporate doesn't care about fair.
Just check out this extract from an article that ran in the publication Drug Store News, coming from CVS executive vice president of strategic planning and business development Deborah Ellinger: And there is no such thing as getting a perfect score. Nothing would irritate Ellinger--who describes herself as the "What If" person at CVS--more. "I am always dissatisfied when we get 'good' ratings," she said. "You might not be setting the bar high enough We should be continually looking at ourselves in the mirror and make sure that we don't get satisfied just because customers tell us we are doing fine."
Now, knowing that a store's "success" (read: bonuses for managers and pharmacists) is largely based on the results of these totally subjective ratings is there any doubt that it's corporate management's goal to make the bonuses unattainable, thereby saving them millions by not actually having to pay up on bonuses? The previous quotes from a corporate mucky-muck pretty much proves that it's the classic carrot on a stick being dangled in front of the horse. And it's no longer limited to Triple S. Now they have a whole bunch of other stats called "Key Performance Measures" or KPM for short. It's just another way for management to screw the management teams both in front store and pharmacy. Pretty much all the KPMs have to do with getting customers to buy into CVS's programs, all of which are aimed at increasing sales and profits under the guise of "patient care."
Part of what CVS uses to recruit management team and pharmacists is the promise of bonuses based on the store's performance. What they don't tell them is that even if they do everything right at store level their chance of bonusing is dependent on the results of a subjective questionnaire that is weighted against the stores. The previous quote shows that even if you do well at store level corporate is conspiring to make sure that the goals stay unattainable. Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy if you're an employee. If that's the way they treat their store managers what chance do the rank-and-file employees stand?
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Don't piss on my head and tell me it's raining!
Anyone who works for a CVS retail location has been listening for the last couple years about how the economy is having such a negative impact and that's why you're not able to actually staff your stores sufficiently. It also explains those insulting pay raises that have dribbled out of corporate's overstuffed mouths. That being said let's take a look at the real numbers. Since I come from the pharmacy end I will concentrate on those numbers rather than front store, although front store was still ahead for the year.
Every quarter of 2010 showed sales growth in the retail pharmacy; Q1 3.6%, Q2 4.2%, Q3 4.1% and Q4 3.1%, all numbers representing increases over the previous year's quarterly results. Those are overall sales numbers, which include new stores that didn't exist the year before. The REAL tale is in same-store sales, or a direct comparison of existing stores and how they grew or declined compared to last year.
Every quarter AGAIN showed growth in same-store sales; Q1 3.7%, Q2 2.9%, Q3 3.0% and Q4 2.0%. And the real topper is that they claim that sales were hurt by new generics on the market! So imagine what the numbers would have been. Of course what they don't mention is that while generics cost less and therefore drive down gross sales numbers the mark-up on generics is many times GREATER than brand-name, meaning profit margin goes up exponentially on generics. So every time your district managers tell you that sales are down you know they are completely full of shit. Your efforts are increasing sales while you are doing it with fewer hours. What they don't talk about is the 800 pound gorilla in the room-CAREMARK!
CVS is losing their shirts on Caremark's PBM, or pharmacy business management. You know, the Caremark prescription service where you can't talk to anyone on American soil because it's all handled by call centers in Sri Lanka or some other God-forsaken place. The company is trying to get blood out of the stores to cover for the fact that they fucked up by buying Caremark and continue to lose on the deal. If you Google the overall numbers it looks like the company is really having a hard time with the economy, but a little break down of the numbers shows that it's Caremark that is the rock around the neck of the company. The stores are doing well. In fact Retail Pharmacy Quarterly, a trade publication, says that CVS's retail operations had a better year in 2010 than their two main competitors Walgreen's and Rite Aid when compared to 2009.
Next time you have to call Caremark because of a problem with insurance you should tell the Indian on the other end (who probably goes by the name of Billy or Sally or Steve or Peggy while you can practically hear the sitar music playing in the background and smell the curry through the phone line) that they owe you a great big thank you because the stores are carrying the PBM segment on their collective backs.
To my fellow retail pharmacy grunts I say enjoy your 2% raises, bitches.
Every quarter of 2010 showed sales growth in the retail pharmacy; Q1 3.6%, Q2 4.2%, Q3 4.1% and Q4 3.1%, all numbers representing increases over the previous year's quarterly results. Those are overall sales numbers, which include new stores that didn't exist the year before. The REAL tale is in same-store sales, or a direct comparison of existing stores and how they grew or declined compared to last year.
Every quarter AGAIN showed growth in same-store sales; Q1 3.7%, Q2 2.9%, Q3 3.0% and Q4 2.0%. And the real topper is that they claim that sales were hurt by new generics on the market! So imagine what the numbers would have been. Of course what they don't mention is that while generics cost less and therefore drive down gross sales numbers the mark-up on generics is many times GREATER than brand-name, meaning profit margin goes up exponentially on generics. So every time your district managers tell you that sales are down you know they are completely full of shit. Your efforts are increasing sales while you are doing it with fewer hours. What they don't talk about is the 800 pound gorilla in the room-CAREMARK!
CVS is losing their shirts on Caremark's PBM, or pharmacy business management. You know, the Caremark prescription service where you can't talk to anyone on American soil because it's all handled by call centers in Sri Lanka or some other God-forsaken place. The company is trying to get blood out of the stores to cover for the fact that they fucked up by buying Caremark and continue to lose on the deal. If you Google the overall numbers it looks like the company is really having a hard time with the economy, but a little break down of the numbers shows that it's Caremark that is the rock around the neck of the company. The stores are doing well. In fact Retail Pharmacy Quarterly, a trade publication, says that CVS's retail operations had a better year in 2010 than their two main competitors Walgreen's and Rite Aid when compared to 2009.
Next time you have to call Caremark because of a problem with insurance you should tell the Indian on the other end (who probably goes by the name of Billy or Sally or Steve or Peggy while you can practically hear the sitar music playing in the background and smell the curry through the phone line) that they owe you a great big thank you because the stores are carrying the PBM segment on their collective backs.
To my fellow retail pharmacy grunts I say enjoy your 2% raises, bitches.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Let's get it started!
Welcome to the debut post of my new blog. My hope is to establish a forum where people who are frustrated with CVS's business style and negative impact on health care can commiserate with others. Whether you are a current or past employee or a frustrated customer I hope to use this forum to expose some of CVS's more frustrating programs and policies. The company likes to wave the flag of "patient care" but every program rollout, every corporate policy and every piece of the business plan is geared toward profits, not patient care. From the obvious things like staffing levels to the supposedly patient-oriented programs like Cost Savings Initiative, Readyfill, Adherence Calls and the like it all focuses on one thing---money. This is inevitable when you have health care policy being set by accountants, not health care professionals. I understand that it's a business and that its obligation is to the stockholders, but since the company refuses to be honest about its motivation I hope to provide a forum to those of us who provide patient care in spite of, not because of, CVS's approach to health care.
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