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I’m not the angry one this time!

·2323 words·11 mins

So I thought that my fellow angry-cohort the Drug Nazi and I were the only bitter ones on the internet.
I am proven wrong yet again. Check out this comment I recieved. My comments are injected in:
I’m a pharmacist and I’d like to say I despise pharmacists (other than myself of course).
Ahh.. a man after my own heart. Gotta love those double standards.
You could see all this crap coming back in 1991. Pharmacists willingly handed control of their profession over to the scum of the earth when they started accepting payments directly from insurance companies rather than cash from the customer.
It happened to everyone. The doctors were the most neutered out of all of us. Unfortunally people have been trained not to pay for their Rx’s. With the average cost of Rx being over 150 bucks for a single-source item, nor you or I could affort to pay that month after month. Whoever pays the bills gets to call the shots, get used to it.
It’s the old “frog in the water” syndrome. I knew they would slowly tighten the screws over the years …… I knew that would be their modis operandi.
You’d be a fool to think otherwise.
I wanted to nip this shit in the bud. I used to talk to my fellow pharmacists by going to association meetings and when I was making an Rx transfer. Nobody wanted to listen when I tried to warn them of what was to come. I recommended forming a guild. I recommended a sick-out. When the public couldn’t get their prescriptions filled, they would want to know why and the public debate would have come out.
Pharmacist arent the type of people who would let their long term customers go without their Digoxin or any other life-saving medication to “prove a point”. Thats a big part of the problem. A lot of us /cant/ willfully allow our patients to possibly die or be in grave/serious harm because we want to “stick it to the man”. A buttload of us gave out medications during the whole part D abortion clusterfuck full knowing that we might not get paid just so Mrs Smith wouldnt have to make a trip to the ER. Actually refusing to fill an Rx and putting your patients in harm to prove a point sorta shows us what sorta pharmacist you are.
But noooooo .. ! The females who worked for the chains basically told me that as long as they were getting a check they didn’t give a damn about the profession. The independents were willing to shut down for a week because they might lose a few dollars. Well guess what? Back then, it would have costs pharmacists a couple of weeks pay to have stopped this thing …… now its costing them hundreds of millions in reduced profits.
Uh, no it wouldnt. Heres what would of happened: The Independants would of shut down for a week, lost a weeks worth of profits, while everyone and their brother went to Walgreens and Rite-Aid to get their Rx’s filled. The Independants would look like shitheads to the public, and absolutely nothing would of changed. Everyone would have moved over to the chains, and the indy’s would sit there with their dicks in their hands wondering why all of their patients left.
Pharmacists are selfish cowardly little weasels who show no comaraderie and will stab their fellow pharmacists in the back for a buck.
Way to paint all of us with a broad brush. Some of us arent cowardly little weasles, and some of us have actually done computer work on the side for an independant /free/ just because he was in a pinch during the medicare part-D. Maybe the pharmacists in your neck of the woods are a bunch of backstabbing chain pukes who just want to collect a fatty paycheck to live their lives of hookers and blow, but us over yonder arent.
They do not act like professionals, so they are not treated like professionals.
Anyone who witholds life-saving medication to prove a financial point is not a professional.
When I first went into pharmacy, I couldn’t believe when people would come in and say so-and so at so-and-so pharmacy told me he would fill my prescription for a dollar less than you (or maybe two dollars) and expect me to meet the price. What kind of so called professionals play this kind of game and sell their souls for a few bucks. They disgust me.
Then you tell them to go and get it at that low price. Those arent the customers you want anyways.
Can you imagine dentists or doctors acting like this ……. hell no, they’re not going to willingly demean themselves.
I know plenty of doctors and dentists who take a financial loss on services rendered because the patient really needs the work done. The patient make payments when he/she can afford it, and everyone is happy. Its called a professional responsiblity.
Or how about going to Target and telling the manager that you can buy this item for a dollar less at Kmart? You know what he’d say!
Those arent the kind of patients you or I want. I want loyal patients. Let those idiots go get fucked over by mail-order to save themselves a buck or two. You can get even when they want to buy a week supply from you because it got lost in the mail.
By not standing up to the insurance companies 15 years ago, they sabotaged their future and show themselves to the insurance companies to be cowards. The insurance companies are simply bullies like you knew in school. They will keep pushing you harder until you push back.
So how much collatoral damage needs to occur before we’ve “pushed back”. How many elderly need to be withheld medication to further your little personal jihad against insurance companies. There are ways to get even, I just cant talk about them here. 🙂
Pharmacists have played the whore and now they are reaping the consequences. They have sown the wind and now they are reaping the whirl-wind.
Blah blah blah, blah blah blah, blah blah blah. We’ve peed on an electric fence, shit in our beds, pissed in our cereal, pooped in our punchbowl, peed into the wind, blah blah blah.
Now, as an aside, I can only say that anybody who voted for George Bush is getting what they deserve. The Republican party serves the interests of the mega-rich. We now live in a corporocracy …… not a democracy. The Medicare D program was designed with insurance company and pharmaceutical company imput (well, duh, could that be because they are two of the richest industries in the country ?). It was designed by them to maximize their profits at the expense of everyone else. I didn’t notice the Bush administration inviting any working class or professional folk like pharmacists to be involved (but then they don’t have enough money to buy votes and special consideration).
Ah, now we see the meat of this whole bitter rant. You just want to bitch and moan about the president and the republican party just like everyone else does. Hate to tell ya, but i’ve seen people actually *gasp* been helped by Medicare Part D. Thats right, people who have to buy shit like Aricept, Namenda, Zyprexa, etc out of pocket before, but now get some sort of break. Sure it blew for us, but if you dont think the government could fuck up a free lunch, then you really need to get your head out of your ass and get with the program.
The very fact that the program was not allowed to negotiate drug prices when every other country in the world and the VA at home does, shows you whose interests this plan serves. Pharmacists will lick anybody ass and balls for $4.00 (they used to do it for 15 or 20 but the reinbursement rates have rightfully so been cut).
Have you ever worked for a VA? Have you seen their formularies? Like 2 ACE-I, 2 statins, etc. The VA gets such good prices because their formulary is complete and utter ass. This would be great if the entire world could be on zocor and lipitor, but you know the drug companies would cry foul for being outed out. We dont want the government to regulate prices because that’ll just lead a doorway for them to regulate other prices, including your salary. Remember the government could fuck up a free lunch? You want them to regulate prices? Try shit-canning the 10000000 lawsuits over stupid drug related shit first and see how much money is saved.
I can hear the insurance companies now …… “these assholes will put up with any kind of shit and anything you throw at them”. Pharmacists should open their counseling rooms to giving blowjobs ……. they could make more money that way than taking it in the ass from unknown strangers called 3rd parties.
Seeing some of the girls I went to school with, I wouldnt mind getting a consultation.
I think you should put your money where your mouth is. Only charge cash for your Rx’s. No insurance companies what so ever. You can really “stick it to the man” or however you want to say. Then when you’re out of business (even though I think you’re some chain puke who just collects a check) you can get that good feeling as you’re standing in line for your unemployment that you really did something for the profession, you elimated one dumbass pharmacist from dispensing prescriptions.

Comments #

Comment by Art Vandelay on 2006-09-08 14:53:04 -0700 #

Nice to have you back, you God Damn Republican you….:)

Comment by CeeKay on 2006-09-09 18:59:44 -0700 #

Amen!!
I have lost Big cash because I don’t have the heart to not give people their medicine. This “chain puke” needs to know his patients and watch them through all the years and problems and then try to tell them to go away! I’m the one who got a sweet rural contract with #1 PBM, when they found out I told another poor pharmacist they made me go back to awp-16. I was the one who revolted, cancelled the contract, felt so guilty that people had to drive that I resigned awp-16 before winter set in.
I am having a hard time with all of this mainly because of the conflict within me between the owner of a for-profit business and the caring pharmacist with 15 grandmas.
I do agree that pharmacists gave away the farm but it wasn’t in ’91. It was when Paid first started in 1980. Back then they didn’t believe that insurance companies were evil. Actually they probably weren’t but over time they have gotten way too greedy and now we’re fucked.
I wish it would all go away. It’s getting to the point that I hate to go to work. My new saying is “They don’t pay me enough to care!” but it’s still hard to tell Dorothy that her insurance man of a husband is part of the whole problem and that I’m not happy because of senior citizens who are now the enemy.
Sorry rambling, What to do? How to fix? How to survive? How to make it through the day?

Comment by Stephanie on 2006-09-17 12:43:01 -0700 #

HAHA! I feel so good now. I got to do one of these! I showed this guys stupid comment and interjected it on angry pharmacist style. I love you for giving me ideas such as this.

Comment by C Kane on 2006-09-20 15:18:03 -0700 #

I love reading your posts….it never stops amazing me how we all deal with the same problems and have the same patients, even though we are in different parts of the country. I just found out a week ago that my boss just sold his files to a chain retailer…1 week notice and oh by the way you have a job with this said retailer…..I don’t think so…I took great pride in working at my job as an independant pharmacist…providing great service in a non-factory like environment. It saddens me that he had to go and do this since the alternative was for him to work more hours and have less vacation time….60 years in business, 2 generations, and this is what it came down to. Gone in a week….I shutter at the thought of working for a chain…..

Comment by ell on 2008-10-10 18:31:40 -0700 #

Wow!!! I am almost speechless.
“…The females who worked for the chains basically told me that as long as they were getting a check they didn’t give a damn about the profession…”
Not only does this dude not belong in the medical/pharma profession…not only is he totally insane, he’s–obviously got a prob with females, eh? Ball-less? Uh, yeah, methinks so…
ell

Comment by JustthePOA on 2014-06-27 05:57:27 -0700 #

His comment: Pharmacists are selfish cowardly little weasels who show no comaraderie and will stab their fellow pharmacists in the back for a buck.
Your comment: Way to paint all of us with a broad brush. Some of us arent cowardly little weasles, and some of us have actually done computer work on the side for an independant /free/ just because he was in a pinch during the medicare part-D. Maybe the pharmacists in your neck of the woods are a bunch of backstabbing chain pukes who just want to collect a fatty paycheck to live their lives of hookers and blow, but us over yonder arent.

Kind of like you with the painpill/soma patients – Way to paint all of us with a broad brush – Now, while I agree with the majority of what you say – there is still that percentage that I don’t agree with it. You, TAP, don’t like being labelled anymore than the rest of us. Js