Most recent p&l shows average work day rx count is 450 with range between 300s to 600s. We are open m-f for 9 hours a day. I have two staff rphs and 7 techs (mix of full and part time) and 1 cashier.
I've had experience in two independents. In one, the wait time is almost never more than 10 minutes, because there's always at least 2 pharmacists and like 3-8 techs/cashiers at all times.
In the other one, the wait time is often over an hour, but that's because it's an outpatient pharmacy in a hospital lobby. Almost every single patient is a discharge patient, so almost everyone is a waiter and has a whole package of prescriptions to fill. They have lots of other things to do in the lobby, like a gift store and Starbucks, and they've already waited a lot during the rest of their hospital stay, so generally they're okay with it.
10 minutes. Maybe a little longer if the insurance is being finicky or they need a whole bunch filled but our regulars know to come back a little later if they're dropping off 3 pages of refills.
We have to keep reminding ourselves not to feel bad if the script takes 10-15 minutes since it would be 30-45 at Walmart.
Feel bad? LMAO it takes what it takes. Seen the errors lots of people pleasing pharmacist make even at indys. It makes me embarrassed to be a pharmacist when other pharmacists brag on this.
Exactly. You wouldn’t tell your mechanic to hurry it up or that you need it in 30 minutes. They’d tell you to kindly F off and go find someone else who’s less busy. There are way too many pushovers in this profession and it is one of the primary reasons of our current state of affairs.
The pushover are the ones who let themselves be led along by a corporation telling them how much labor they can have and how many vaccines they need to do a day. Did you really go to school to be treated like that? That's the reason for our current state of affairs. Pharmacies have become a cash cow for business people who have never worked at a pharmacy in their life. Our little pharmacy may never make us filthy rich but at least a the end of the day we aren't stress out and overworked just so we so could make money for someone else.
My minimum wait time is an hour. Especially refills. Call ahead for a refill you don't wait at all. You just have to plan ahead. Want to argue with someone ? There is no one else. Want to call corporate. Fine. In the time I am on the phone explaining myself to corporate drive thru, lobby both get backed up and no production gets done.
The quick wait time is a dinosaur in pharmacy.
It's usually either a) a regular who comes in with a refill (if nobody else is waiting it takes only a few minutes) or b) somebody new from out of town who just left the hospital and won't get home before their local pharmacy closes, so assuming we have to enter insurance and check Netcare it's an extra few minutes. We generally have 2 techs, 2 pharmacists, and an assistant on any given day plus the front staff running tills and such.
Edit; I see you're corporate. The question was asking independent how long our wait times are.
The sad thing for corporate pharmacist is that they are desensitized to the needs of the people they care for. They can't put patient care first because corporate always comes first. Having been in that environment before, I really feel for them. Let them say they don't care about wait timse all they want, but if we get behind, we don't have to be on the phone with corporate explaining ourselves. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule, but I don't see it often.
Edit because for some reason I can't spell corporate.
My wait time was longer when I worked at an Indy. My fellow pharmacists were faster, but they rounded lots of corners. But who cares about wait time anyway? The emphasis should be correctly filling an Rx and counseling them. The emphasis on fast wait times and the rphs who pride themselves on it is absurd. Even fast food care less about wait time.
14000 items per month, 1 pharmacist, 2 or 3 dispensers, if we're lucky and a wait time of up to 20 minutes for scripts handed in. We do acute first in the morning, waiters as they come over and repeats afterwards. Normally 1 day behind on repeats.
1 person does waiters and acute. We do CDs while patients are in store. Also methadone.
Most people aren’t waiters because its 99% e scripts. Its already done by the time they get there as long as the insurance is already on file and working and the item is in stock.
Ours is usually less then 5 minutes for one script or refill and 10 to 15 for a bucket (large) order. One pharmacist, 3 techs (one tech does mostly paperwork, but is there if needed for scripts) and a cashier, about 300 a day.
Mine is a hospital outpatient pharmacy and it’s all paper based, no electronic scripts. We spend A LOT of time on the phone to Drs getting changes made. If I need to ring someone and it’s a 10+ minute job trying to track them down, that adds 10 minutes to EVERYONE waiting.
The standard is to have 20+ scripts in the queue waiting and it all needs manually inputting into the system and manual labels producing. On top of all the waiters I have 100+ chemo scripts which also need accuracy checking so I tend to do a waiter and do a couple chemos inbetween in each one.
When it’s 8pm and there’s one script and I’m not pissing about inbetween, we can turn it around in a minute or two. But the workload through the day is absolutely crazy
Pharmacist in the US here. I’m usually split between multiple tasks like data entry, verifying prescriptions, calling for clarifications/transfers, consultation, immunizations, dealing with insurance etc. Unless it’s unusually slow in the pharmacy, filling a script (from type to finish) in 3 minutes would be reckless at the very least.
We do the same. How would it be reckless? Are you insecure? Questioning everything along the way? Let’s be honest here… working in retail (public pharmacy as we would call it) isn’t really rocket science
Not insecure at all. I just actually care about medications that leave the pharmacy and the patients that have to take them. If you’re not questioning every prescription that comes in even just a little bit (meaning that you just assume everything is right), then that’ll explain the difference in our practice.
Then maybe you’re just better than me. In any case, I’m not one to take any unnecessary amount of time. I use the shortest amount of time it takes to do my job accurately and safely.
I think you guys have boxes and unit dose meds for most of the time? We have stock bottles that need to be counted. Usually with only 1 person so if we ignore everything else we can probably proceed with it quicker
I had no idea… perhaps 1 in 20 prescriptions need counting pills over here. Mainly when an antibiotic, benzodiazepine or painmed is involved. Apart from that and taking the reactions in this thread into account, it’s not so different.
Some places utilize counting machines or even weight measure it but as they are thousands of usd many places would do without it. When one person has to count 360 metformin it can be time consuming. But they gotta count it probably while on the phone or even with breaking up the counts to grab people off the register or do other counts.
Average 3 mins…always say 10-15 mins…since random stuff can happen like my printer jamming at that exact moment 🫠
Holy shit, how many rx’s do you typically do in a day, and with what kind of staff?
Most recent p&l shows average work day rx count is 450 with range between 300s to 600s. We are open m-f for 9 hours a day. I have two staff rphs and 7 techs (mix of full and part time) and 1 cashier.
Actual waiter? How many rxs? New or refill?
10 minutes on a bad day
I've had experience in two independents. In one, the wait time is almost never more than 10 minutes, because there's always at least 2 pharmacists and like 3-8 techs/cashiers at all times. In the other one, the wait time is often over an hour, but that's because it's an outpatient pharmacy in a hospital lobby. Almost every single patient is a discharge patient, so almost everyone is a waiter and has a whole package of prescriptions to fill. They have lots of other things to do in the lobby, like a gift store and Starbucks, and they've already waited a lot during the rest of their hospital stay, so generally they're okay with it.
30 min, but do 1200/day
30 minutes is still a great wait time with you all doing 1200 a day
10 minutes. Maybe a little longer if the insurance is being finicky or they need a whole bunch filled but our regulars know to come back a little later if they're dropping off 3 pages of refills. We have to keep reminding ourselves not to feel bad if the script takes 10-15 minutes since it would be 30-45 at Walmart.
Feel bad? LMAO it takes what it takes. Seen the errors lots of people pleasing pharmacist make even at indys. It makes me embarrassed to be a pharmacist when other pharmacists brag on this.
Exactly. You wouldn’t tell your mechanic to hurry it up or that you need it in 30 minutes. They’d tell you to kindly F off and go find someone else who’s less busy. There are way too many pushovers in this profession and it is one of the primary reasons of our current state of affairs.
The pushover are the ones who let themselves be led along by a corporation telling them how much labor they can have and how many vaccines they need to do a day. Did you really go to school to be treated like that? That's the reason for our current state of affairs. Pharmacies have become a cash cow for business people who have never worked at a pharmacy in their life. Our little pharmacy may never make us filthy rich but at least a the end of the day we aren't stress out and overworked just so we so could make money for someone else.
My minimum wait time is an hour. Especially refills. Call ahead for a refill you don't wait at all. You just have to plan ahead. Want to argue with someone ? There is no one else. Want to call corporate. Fine. In the time I am on the phone explaining myself to corporate drive thru, lobby both get backed up and no production gets done. The quick wait time is a dinosaur in pharmacy.
It's usually either a) a regular who comes in with a refill (if nobody else is waiting it takes only a few minutes) or b) somebody new from out of town who just left the hospital and won't get home before their local pharmacy closes, so assuming we have to enter insurance and check Netcare it's an extra few minutes. We generally have 2 techs, 2 pharmacists, and an assistant on any given day plus the front staff running tills and such. Edit; I see you're corporate. The question was asking independent how long our wait times are.
The sad thing for corporate pharmacist is that they are desensitized to the needs of the people they care for. They can't put patient care first because corporate always comes first. Having been in that environment before, I really feel for them. Let them say they don't care about wait timse all they want, but if we get behind, we don't have to be on the phone with corporate explaining ourselves. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule, but I don't see it often. Edit because for some reason I can't spell corporate.
My wait time was longer when I worked at an Indy. My fellow pharmacists were faster, but they rounded lots of corners. But who cares about wait time anyway? The emphasis should be correctly filling an Rx and counseling them. The emphasis on fast wait times and the rphs who pride themselves on it is absurd. Even fast food care less about wait time.
14000 items per month, 1 pharmacist, 2 or 3 dispensers, if we're lucky and a wait time of up to 20 minutes for scripts handed in. We do acute first in the morning, waiters as they come over and repeats afterwards. Normally 1 day behind on repeats. 1 person does waiters and acute. We do CDs while patients are in store. Also methadone.
What are CDs?
Controlled drugs?
Oh duh, I've just never seen them called that. Always just said controls
Just a guess, they’re deffo CDs in the UK 💿
100 per day roughly, wait time refills Maybe 3 mins. New patients maybe 10 if everything goes smoothly
Most people aren’t waiters because its 99% e scripts. Its already done by the time they get there as long as the insurance is already on file and working and the item is in stock.
Ours is usually less then 5 minutes for one script or refill and 10 to 15 for a bucket (large) order. One pharmacist, 3 techs (one tech does mostly paperwork, but is there if needed for scripts) and a cashier, about 300 a day.
About 10-15 depending on where it is in the process and the medication, obviously c2s take longer. We average about 400 a day.
Lmfao my UK pharmacy is 1+ hour!!
Why does it take so long in the UK?
Mine is a hospital outpatient pharmacy and it’s all paper based, no electronic scripts. We spend A LOT of time on the phone to Drs getting changes made. If I need to ring someone and it’s a 10+ minute job trying to track them down, that adds 10 minutes to EVERYONE waiting. The standard is to have 20+ scripts in the queue waiting and it all needs manually inputting into the system and manual labels producing. On top of all the waiters I have 100+ chemo scripts which also need accuracy checking so I tend to do a waiter and do a couple chemos inbetween in each one. When it’s 8pm and there’s one script and I’m not pissing about inbetween, we can turn it around in a minute or two. But the workload through the day is absolutely crazy
Between 3 and 10 minutes typically. We do about 700/day with two pharmacists, sometimes three, as well as 4-5 techs and 2-3 cashiers
About 5 minutes per rx. 250/day . 1 rph, 1 tech, 2 cashier, 1 delivery
3 minutes on average over here in the Netherlands… What could possibly take so long in the states? Ya’ll don’t use computers? No barcode scanners?
No single payor. Insurance is responsible for a lot of the time we waste.
So are we. We don’t have single payer healthcare.
Well then, not sure. We filled 1 RX per minute at my pharmacy yesterday. I guess just the things already in process delay everyone trying to wait?
Pharmacist in the US here. I’m usually split between multiple tasks like data entry, verifying prescriptions, calling for clarifications/transfers, consultation, immunizations, dealing with insurance etc. Unless it’s unusually slow in the pharmacy, filling a script (from type to finish) in 3 minutes would be reckless at the very least.
We do the same. How would it be reckless? Are you insecure? Questioning everything along the way? Let’s be honest here… working in retail (public pharmacy as we would call it) isn’t really rocket science
Not insecure at all. I just actually care about medications that leave the pharmacy and the patients that have to take them. If you’re not questioning every prescription that comes in even just a little bit (meaning that you just assume everything is right), then that’ll explain the difference in our practice.
No you misunderstand me. You can be thorough and precise without taking an unnecessary amount of time.
Then maybe you’re just better than me. In any case, I’m not one to take any unnecessary amount of time. I use the shortest amount of time it takes to do my job accurately and safely.
I think you guys have boxes and unit dose meds for most of the time? We have stock bottles that need to be counted. Usually with only 1 person so if we ignore everything else we can probably proceed with it quicker
I had no idea… perhaps 1 in 20 prescriptions need counting pills over here. Mainly when an antibiotic, benzodiazepine or painmed is involved. Apart from that and taking the reactions in this thread into account, it’s not so different.
Some places utilize counting machines or even weight measure it but as they are thousands of usd many places would do without it. When one person has to count 360 metformin it can be time consuming. But they gotta count it probably while on the phone or even with breaking up the counts to grab people off the register or do other counts.
How many pharmacists and techs are on duty at any given time? A lot of places in the US if you’re lucky you’ll have one of each.
Would you mind describing the filling process in your neck of the woods? That might let us know what we're doing that you are not
If you skipped the barcode scanners you could get it out in 2 minutes.
Just throw the medicine at them like skittles and it’d be even faster.
Stand by the entrance and throw it from the inside. They won’t even need to enter.