A battle over mail-order drugs

From the Boston Globe:
Medco's Willingboro plant may be the largest pharmacy in the world. It is the size of six football fields, and it can fill more prescriptions in a day than an average corner drugstore does in a year.

Robotic arms instead of human hands pour pills into bottles and label them. Infrared scanners rather than human eyes check and recheck each bottle. The machines are 23 times more accurate than the average pharmacist, Medco says, thanks to technology so advanced that computers consult the weather forecast along the shipping routes of heat-sensitive drugs and insert a cooling gel pack if needed.

Actual pharmacists, some of whom handle only specific diseases such as diabetes or cancer, check each patient's record, flag potentially harmful drug interactions, and determine whether there may be a cheaper alternative.

Mail-service pharmacies pitched themselves to Barack Obama's team as one tool for beating back rising health costs and improving healthcare quality.

In a country that spends a larger share of its economy on healthcare than any other in dustrialized nation, and where the chronically ill account for 75 percent of all health spending, owners of mail-service pharmacies say Medicare could save billions if more people bought their regular medications from mail-service pharmacies, exploiting their scale, efficiency, and specialized expertise. ...more

Union Yes?

From the Indianapolis Star:
With their white coats and six-figure salaries, pharmacists might seem like an unlikely group of card-carrying union members.

But around the country, 15,000 pharmacists, or about 6 percent of the U.S. total, belong to the Steelworkers, Teamsters and other unions, joining ranks with blue- collar workers who smelt aluminum, build tires and drive beer trucks.
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Most of the unionized pharmacists work in big industrial markets such as Pittsburgh and Chicago, along with smaller cities, such as Tampa, Fla., and Gary, Ind. No union pharmacists work in Central Indiana, according to the Indiana Pharmacists Alliance, a statewide trade group.

But that could change.

The United Steelworkers union is keeping a close eye on a massive mail-order pharmacy springing up in Boone County. The $150 million distribution center, being built by Medco Health Systems, will cover an area the size of six football fields when it opens next year. It eventually will employ 1,300 people, including hundreds of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians who may need help negotiating contracts and addressing grievances. ...more

Prescription for shortage?

There's no sign that the pharmacist shortage will end anytime soon. Perhaps one of the highest demand locales for pharmacists in the world is Indiana, where three huge mail order pharmacies will soon open and need to hire hundreds of pharmacists.

From the Indianapolis Star:
Bre Taylor has two more years before she graduates from Butler University with a doctorate in pharmacy, but job recruiters around the country are already deluging her with pitches. Starting salaries range from $75,000 to $100,000, sweetened by signing bonuses and tuition reimbursements.

"There's all kinds of job expos, e-mails, drugstores offering us free gifts, companies offering internships," said Taylor, 22, of Vincennes, dressed in a crisp white coat as she mixed an ointment for an assignment in a Butler lab. "I can pretty much go anywhere in the country and have a job."

The reason: A national shortage of pharmacists, fueled by a surge of retirements, a flurry of hospital and drugstore expansions, an aging population and an increased number of prescriptions written. ...more