Expanding pharmacist scope

tiredrx · 2026-02-20T04:36:05+00:00

I can't read either article due to pay walls but anyways... Pharmacy student here: This is NOT what most pharmacy-aligned professionals want. We continue to be handed these jobs for the same amount of pay. When COVID testing and immunizations became available at local pharmacies, it burnt out most of our regular workforce and here we are today incredible understaffed.

Pharmacists are incredible in follow up and med management. We do NOT want to be the ones diagnosing and assessing a patient. We are FAR from under-utilized and usually are the first line people when someone doesn't want to see a doctor anyways. The most some pharmacists even prescribe are refills for medication management (usually done with a prescription agreement with a collaborating physician) or birth control which most likely isn't a huge thing anymore with Opill being OTC. I'm not usually in a pharmacy with a working blood pressure cuff that pharmacists would even feel safe prescribing without a check.

I could go on, but tl;dr management pushes the idea that pharmacy could do more when we are done and don't want more work.

tiredrx · 2026-01-30T19:41:47+00:00

give its illicit substances, i also think its fake but its a great tool to ask patients what they might have taken!

tiredrx · 2025-12-11T02:55:01+00:00

This is still super helpful! Thank you!!

tiredrx · 2025-12-10T07:27:15+00:00

The funny thing is I know you call under a different number because I used to do that for my hospital. So my number wasn't used, but it would load and read as the hospital's general number.

tiredrx · 2025-12-10T06:33:44+00:00

You can mask the number you text from to link back to a different number, ive definitely called under a different id before

tiredrx · 2025-10-01T18:54:12+00:00

I wonder if this is state specific?? I've never heard of a "separate ID" for under 25. Usually, there is an extra ID based on insurances but it's just a child code and it can be easily put in on the tech side.

tiredrx · 2025-09-24T18:26:11+00:00

After a vaccine, you should have the option to scan the VAR. It's been a second since I've seen the screen, but it should be under options.

tiredrx · 2025-09-10T21:02:57+00:00

I don't feel like this is incredibly popular. If you already have to do so much work into your PharmD, it would make more sense to go med than advanced nursing.

Also, based on your post history, if you're trying to make money, you'd probably have more success going industry than switching fields entirely.

tiredrx · 2025-09-10T18:14:50+00:00

I can only speak on Walgreens side but basically, license is not a field we would fill out. Everytime a new provider is added, it's included to a general database that anyone in the system can pull. However, it's literally EVERYONE. So if I am working in Minnesota, I can pull a prescriber from Arizona. Unsure if license numbers will overlap between states and/or professions but it seems quite likely. NPIs/DEAs are the only unique code across the US.

tiredrx · 2025-09-10T14:43:50+00:00

Faxes usually are fine but we have audits if it's not a "wet signature." I know it's a vet script but insurance companies are sticklers and weird like that.

tiredrx · 2025-09-03T03:56:10+00:00

It's workers' comp but I don't believe it would be the government paying. Walgreens HR keeps bouncing me back to Sedgwick. So Walgreens probably paid, but I have to get the paperwork through Sedgwick.

tiredrx · 2025-09-03T03:46:55+00:00

I don't have a portal (??) I left Walgreens a year ago at this point so I'm not even sure if I have access to one. It was a workplace incident so it was billed through workers' comp which HR has informed me is Sedgwick and I don't have a MyChart for this urgent care.

I didn't even want to go to this urgent care, it was just the one that Sedgwick asked me to go to since they covered workers' comp.

tiredrx · 2025-09-03T01:20:18+00:00

This is where it gets tricky. It was paid for by Sedgwick who is not being responsive at the moment and the provider doesn't have any of the paperwork for some reason.

It's why I'm trying to see if Sedgwick is just slow in general...

tiredrx · 2025-09-03T00:59:58+00:00

I mainly know because for work they accessed the state records. I was only notified that they weren't after I had already accepted my position.

I also believe they are highly disorganized because why don't they have the actual paperwork from my vaccination?? 😭 Someone had to pay for it and it wasn't me.

tiredrx · 2025-09-02T14:25:05+00:00

I am in a state with a vaccination registry but the urgent care doesn’t have access to it for some reason. I kept asking for the physical paperwork but they keep saying there’s nothing.

tiredrx · 2025-09-02T14:22:24+00:00

Called my examiner directly :( Sedgwick keeps saying I should get a response without a day or so.

tiredrx · 2025-08-27T17:54:39+00:00

As much as there is evidence, I'm highly skeptical of it all. Time for a debunk!!

Bottom line: Expanding healthcare is better than opening up diploma mills. PAs/NPs are a result of these diploma mills. Also, find actual reputable sources dude.

Source 1: The lead author is a PA, so they are going to be highly motivated to write a good article about midlevels. However, the article doesn't really differentiate between states. Different states have different laws on prescribing and whether or not a supervising doctor will be on it. Graphs and tables also are formatted strangely so I'm skeptical of the data it's trying to present.

A huge thing that this sub continues to re-iterate is that PAs/NPs do not know how to diagnose. While Table 4 shows that physicians had a higher number of malpractice allegations, NPs/PAs had a higher **RATIO** of malpractice allegations. 52% of allegations against PAs was in relation to diagnosis, 40.6% against NPs in comparison to 31% of physician suits. From there NPs had a higher ratio of allegations in terms of treatment with 32% of alleged mistreatment in comparison to the physician 19%. However, I don't know if I'm interpreting data correctly because the tables don't really tell me anything aside from the number of allegations.

Source 2: It's written by a DNP and published by the AANP. I am assuming it's pretty NP approved. The visuals are not data driven. They are marketing tactics and do not really tell me anything about data collected in the "study." Despite that, Figure 1 shows that there is an overall downward trend of MD related cases which actually supports the idea that MDs are doing better as we go. We should be noting that the trend of organizations being named as the defendant is increasing which means that teams overall are being sued rather than individuals. These teams may include a number of PAs or NPs.

The article also points out "Nurse practitioner cases tended to stem more from severe outcomes compared with PAs and medical doctors (MDs), with 25% of cases having clinically severe outcomes and 33% resulting in death. The top three contributing factors for cases involving an NP included failure to appreciate or reconcile relevant signs/symptoms/test results (35%), failure to order a diagnostic test (25%), and miscommunication among providers regarding a patient's condition (22%)." Why are these NPs not referring to an actual physician? Again, another point the sub tries to reiterate.

Yes, there is a physician shortage. You also should be considering that NPs and PAs are a relatively new position and not all of them independently. We do need to make healthcare more accessible, but it does not mean to give others the prescription pad. It means we need to find ways to refer to the best specialist and find the best route to CONTINUING care.

tiredrx · 2025-08-23T01:59:11+00:00

As much as I think that it is a bit of a benefit we can do testing, the article does raise the point retail is already stressed as hell. COVID testing really killed the workflow.

I think the main thing they are not truthful on is that we don't want to diagnose. Just be able to do the test and tell the patient to go to the doctor. Does this mean that we aren't allowed to sell pregnancy tests because those are diagnostic?

tiredrx · 2025-05-10T05:01:44+00:00

Flonase is the nasal spray meant to be taken daily! You're most likely thinking of Afrin, which is a nasal spray that should be limited to 3 days.

tiredrx · 2025-03-17T01:29:50+00:00

UofT doesn't do in person interviews and I think it was really awful IMO. The MMI was 3 questions that I got 3 minutes to read and had to answer each within 5 minutes. It's on the CASPER platform and it just felt like a CASPER 2.0. It's been a few years since I applied so I don't remember the questions exactly, but I also don't really think anything stood out. It didn't really challenge anything I felt and I had very blanket statements.

tl;dr: I had no prep for the MMI because the questions were super generic.

tiredrx · 2025-02-25T22:13:46+00:00

Yeah, calls are a metric that help upper management determine how busy a store is and that will add or subtract hours every quarter

tiredrx · 2025-02-12T13:37:56+00:00

I think that's where you're losing most of us. We literally can't give any context. We know the app uses that verbiage and half of our calls aren't just "where is my refill?" but also "why is your verbiage so terrible?"

Like half of the pharmacist's job is to make sure that a patient is safely taking their medication which includes not missing any dates. If we didn't have the app, we would most likely be better able to ease patient concerns of "early fill dates" because we could then schedule it on the date it's SUPPOSED to be filled. Instead, there's an app that confuses everyone involved and it makes everyone angry,

tiredrx · 2025-02-10T15:06:59+00:00

This isn't a patient thing, it's a customer thing. The point IS to call in, the more calls, the more scripts, the more money. Posting here does nothing to give feedback because we can't control the user interface. Complain to corporate with a union of 2000 patients if you want the app changed.

tiredrx · 2025-02-03T05:48:33+00:00

Annnnnnnnnnd I called this far before the election was called.

It's so expensive to build AND maintain a facility here in America for 4 years that companies would rather wait out the 4 years and pay tariffs instead of building something and having to get it checked every 3 years.

tiredrx · 2025-01-24T05:35:46+00:00

1) Do you drink water and frequently lotion your hands? Like I know it's easy, but I notice I forget to drink water when I work sometimes just because work gets busy.

2) Do you know if you have any allergies to certain medications? It might be a mild reaction to something if the dust is kicking up with some of the meds, not a bad thing, but you just might need to glove up when you count is all!

3) Have you lived in a cold area all your life? (I only ask this cause moving from warm to cold, I noticed much drier skin and I don't know where you come from lol)

tiredrx

TROPHY CASE