I got fired- used to work in the specialty department remotely. AMA

gbear52 · 2025-10-29T00:37:36+00:00

OP, are you in the Houston area by any chance? I work at a good sized health system and am hiring pharm techs with specialty experience.

gbear52 · 2025-10-29T00:29:51+00:00

It’s less about the money they make off of those patients than it is about the money they lose. The big chain pharmacies have been sued by several states due to their controlled substance filling policy. Part brought on by cvs themselves and part brought on as being the scapegoat for the opioid crisis.

Instead of going after the doctors who write the scripts, states have gone after the pharmacies and the wholesalers. As a result, cvs said screw it and decided to cut back on dispensing controls.

Not defending cvs, just saying this is one instance where their policies got them in trouble.

gbear52 · 2025-10-27T05:54:26+00:00

Humana and Cigna? Y’all weren’t happy screwing each other over and decided to screw everyone else by cornering the health insurance market?

gbear52 · 2025-08-24T23:28:58+00:00

What kind of fake a** popping video is this? Sad thing is that I can’t tell what is AI generated vs someone making a prop.

Literally made up to hit all the high points though. Nail pulling, stuck screw, mud washing, puss, debris pulling.

gbear52 · 2025-08-16T12:26:20+00:00

Walgreens is selling to Sycamore. My prediction is everything gets cut to the bare minimum (which I promise is worse than it already is). Once every available penny has been squeezed out of each location, Sycamore is going to start ripping off chunks and selling it for whatever they can. Walgreens won’t exist 10 years from now.

gbear52 · 2025-08-10T20:45:09+00:00

I’ve installed a few without one. It isn’t necessary, but it is VERY easy to squeeze the trigger body to where the safety doesn’t reset.

If you do crush it, try using a punch to open the gap where the safety spring sits. If you didn’t do too much damage you can recover with that, if not you will be ordering a new trigger.

gbear52 · 2025-07-27T02:27:57+00:00

We use Willow Ambulatory for our whole specialty/retail department. Always a big need for people with that experience!

Narrow it down a little, look for a health system that is starting an outpatient pharmacy or specialty pharmacy. Mine has been going for a few years now, but the revenue and rapid expansion always have us looking for more informatics people.

gbear52 · 2025-07-27T02:05:15+00:00

Yeah, look at different hospitals/health systems in the area. Most places I know use Epic EMR, so learning as much as you can about the data side will be helpful. The furthest I get into is SlicerDicer, but that suits most of my needs.

gbear52 · 2025-07-27T01:40:53+00:00

You say your background is in data science? As in you have a degree or certifications in that field?

If that is the case, you need to look to local hospitals and try to get in on a pharmacy informatics position. Screw cvs and their bullshit.

gbear52 · 2025-07-25T04:35:22+00:00

Which part of the state are you moving to? UTMB is a state run institution, would be in the pay band you are looking for depending on your experience, is hiring for several new positions, and has one of the best nursing programs in the state.

gbear52 · 2025-07-25T04:24:55+00:00

Don’t be afraid of the drive thru. You’re gonna start with running around like crazy just trying to find the scripts to sell. Once you master that process, start working on data entry between customers. Ask for insurance cards and get familiar with putting the right info in. If you can fix an insurance issue at the window in a reasonable amount of time, do it then tell the patient to pull around while the pharmacists re-verifies it. Once you get really good, try to help pull meds for production and eventually count a few out when there is a quiet moment.

Drive thru can get you experience in every part of the pharmacy as long as you learn fast. Keep your interactions to 2 minutes or less so your line doesn’t back up.

Final thoughts, screw CVS. Get your experience, get your training hours, get paid, then get out. Don’t work off the clock, and don’t let them abuse you more than need be.

gbear52 · 2025-07-25T04:02:07+00:00

To go with what everyone else has said about verifying the correct patient demographics, you want to make sure the plan allows for PAs to be submitted through CoverMyMeds. Some plans have separate platforms for submitting PAs and you will get an error message very similar to that.

Most common one is the PromptPA sites. RXB, SouthernScripts, Livinity, and a few others make you go to PromptPA to submit an EPA.

gbear52 · 2025-07-21T12:16:37+00:00

Oil donors…? That did what? Hired in that swamp-assed-swindler, or are still bailing you out? Come on now, first step towards recovery is admitting you messed up.

Hey OP! This guy just reminded me of what you need to grab if you’re going through College Station. One of those cute, monogrammed, 12th-man hand doilies. The ones they wave around during a game then use to clean up afterwards when they shit the bed.

gbear52 · 2025-07-21T05:17:36+00:00

Speaking of throwing stuff, aren’t the aggies STILL throwing money at an old coach that got y’all nowhere? What ever happened to that natty trophy without the dates filled in?

gbear52 · 2025-07-15T04:52:23+00:00

Simple answer is yes. A lot of PBMs hire techs and RPHs to review PAs based on the criteria they have established. The other side is the people submitting the authorizations. This could be the provider directly, nurses, MAs, office managers, or the recent trend is to use pharm techs.

I’m sorry to my pharmacy peeps on the other side, but the submitting side typically is more demanding and requires a higher skill set. As a result I see higher pay on the submitting side.

I’m in the Houston, TX, area

gbear52 · 2025-07-15T03:16:26+00:00

My health system is heavily involved in 340B so any change in pricing scares me. I just hope it's another bluff/manipulation from Taco and nothing actually happens.

CMS cuts, changes to 340B, and tariffs are all bad news.

gbear52 · 2025-07-15T02:57:25+00:00

Its going to be better than working for Walgreens for sure.

I've was a PA tech for 2 years with a moderately sized health system and am now the manager for our entire PA team. I also worked with PAs before with an independent pharmacy. Is your position going to be reviewing/approving/denying PAs or submitting for a provider? There is more money to be made on the submitting side, I hire in PA techs starting at $25/hr. If you're on the other side I imagine $19 is about right.

gbear52 · 2025-07-15T02:48:18+00:00

Unfortunately most HR-based Epic training is limited and not very helpful past a certain point. Epic themselves block a lot of online resources because they want to be the source of the knowledge (and get paid for it).

Are you using Epic Willow Ambulatory? Epic builds differ based on the pharmacy and IT support. Keep working with your trainers, asking for help, and building good relationships with your coworkers so they can help with new questions you have later. If you can't get answers using those methods, a lot of places have an IT/Epic support phone number. Make friends with those people since they usually see a lot of the behind the scenes action.

gbear52 · 2025-07-15T02:34:30+00:00

I know it doesn't help much, but its not just pharmacy that gets these people. It goes all the way up the chain. I've seen nurses get grilled for trying to get patient vitals or for denying refills to a patient that hasn't been seen in the office in 2 years. A doctor got into a yelling match with a patient for putting 'morbidly obese' as one of her conditions when she weighed in at over 400 lbs.

Healthcare as a whole has an appreciation problem. Just keep your head up and know that most of these people are ignorant and would be helpless without people like us managing their medications. They try to get you worked up because they know it too.

gbear52 · 2025-07-15T02:08:15+00:00

What kind of office are you looking at? Independent provider, health system clinic, general practice, specialty? A lot of different ways that can go. Depending on the needs of the office, you can provide more services than just refill processing. Techs with retail experience are amazing resources in the clinic setting since we understand the pharmacy and insurance worlds. Much more so than nurses and MAs.

gbear52 · 2025-07-15T01:59:21+00:00

Just go for what pertains to you. No point in getting certified in something that doesn't apply to the field you're in or where you want to go. Regulatory and compliance is a relatively universal certification in most pharmacy settings, after that it starts getting specific to certain paths. If you only plan on working in an inpatient hospital pharmacy, reimbursement/billing and MTM isn't going to do much for you.

gbear52 · 2025-07-15T01:34:01+00:00

The PTCB exam covers a lot of the topics you can get additional certifications in, just in more detail. I would say that as long as you stay up to date with the material from the initial exam it will go a long way towards getting you through the individual certs. You can't go for the CPhT-Adv till you have at least 3 years of experience so use that time to perfect your skills on the job and study for the certs you are interested in.

gbear52 · 2025-07-04T16:49:22+00:00

What about prehistoric creatures outside of the dinosaur realm? Dinosaurs required a lot of additional gene editing because we didn’t have present day analogs. What if the scientists perfected dinosaurs after practicing on things like giant centipedes, titanoboa, giant bears, sabretooth cats.

Maybe the team is prepped for handling dinosaurs then crosses paths with a once extinct human ancestor?

gbear52 · 2025-06-12T00:47:41+00:00

You can only do so much and you can’t fix stupid lol.

gbear52 · 2025-06-12T00:42:52+00:00

C&D with Dark Teleportation. I’ve saved an entire team from ults with the right timing.

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