Rumor On The Street 01/05/2015 – Updated

Rumor on the street 01/05/2015 -updated

Under comments:

RSD Lady
January 16th, 2015 at 11:54

Well, one recurring theme is that management does not know anything about the pharmacy business and there are the scorched earth people there (boot on the ground management consultants) and two other major factors….over capacity of stores when you add up the Walgreens, CVS, Rite Aids, WalMart, ect.. Add growth of mail order pharmacies and you have a recipe for bad for business deep to the bone reorganizations.

I just have to speak up because this is related to my chosen career before I became disabled due to RSD. I’m a CPA and former controller in several different industries. I used to BE in those meetings where the restructuring plan was presented. Those consultants charge a lot of money for their grand plan and just because they may understand the retail industry they really don’t understand pharmacy plus retail. No one would come in the store if they didn’t have an Rx to fill. Think about the difference. WalMart can survive without their in store pharmacy. Walgreens can’t survive because retail goes poof without the pharmacy.

Your top management by your own admission does not know Pharmacy 101. Of course they must deliver more and more profit to the share holders or the Board of Directors will replace current top management with a team that will.

The consultants will be long gone when this brilliant plan starts to blow up. Walgreens is an iconic American brand. So was Sears. So was Woolworth.

I’m not bitter like many pain patients toward pharmacists at Walgreens. I was made to suffer withdrawals and more pain than I can verbalize by pharmacists at all the big names because they would not fill my pain medication. I placed more blame on the DEA than anything.

I’m blessed because I get the meds I need from a real old fashioned independent pharmacy who listened to me. Cared enough to take me as their patient. Treated me as a human being in pain. Pharmacy 101 folks.

When I got RSD five years ago I was healthy as a horse. Now I have diabetes and other health problems that come along with RSD. I have a boatload of very profitable RXs each month.

My question is why didn’t one pharmacist at CVS or Walgreens choose to do what my current pharmacy did for me? After all, the pharmacists keep making the point that the buck stops with them and its their choice to fill or not fill my pain medication. When I stood before them humbled by pain and sometimes pain and withdrawals because I was able to get meds somewhere during the pharmacy crawl of the prior month.

My paper work with my dx of RSD and damaged nerves in my hand and tears running down my face. My favorite is the Walgreens across the street from me. The pharmacist did not have the balls to refuse me outright and just tell me she did not want to fill my RX. Instead she said her store did not carry that medication any more. Neighbors talk. My next door neighbor got his filled across the street at Walgreens for the exact same medication. I guess he looked sick? And nothing about my appearance says drug addict expect may be 46 years was too young to have RSD in their minds. I don’t know. (RSD is not age dependent.)

There is growth in the pharmacy industry. In independent pharmacies that care for people and care about people in severe pain.

Having to read snarky comments from pharmacists posting on here about addicts being mad because they can’t get their fix and on and on ad nauseam I must say I will not have as much empathy for pharmacists from Walgreens and CVS who end up with out a job as they did for me when I begged them to help me. Before I found my current pharmacy I was so close on may occasions to giving myself a massive insulin dose and never waking up because the pain was so bad. But I have a minor child that needs me and I just couldn’t do it. I kept fighting.

Don’t get it twisted. Neurological pain is very hard to treat and opiates just take the pain down enough to be able to hang on for better treatments in the future or a cure.

Pharmacy 101. Maybe the next person that comes to a Walgreens or CVS pharmacist hurting they will be treated better and have their RX filled. I hope its not too late to do a course correction for you. Given the advanced stage of the Walgreens restructuring plan it may be too late for them. Maybe CVS can take note.