I love them. I love administering them. I loved teaching the APhA certification program to other pharmacists. I love the idea of pharmacists being visible and approachable and trusted.
I hate companies. I hate corporate pharmacy. I hate quotas. I hate not being personally reimbursed for something that I willingly opted to do the first year my state allowed it. I hate that when I used to give most or all of the shots in my stores, the other immunizers who refused got paid the same as I. I hate that pharmacists are forced to administer vaccines. Some are shooters. Some are not.
I do believe it is a positive evolution for our profession. The flaw with the Pharmacists-as-Immunizers concept lies in corporate greed.
Stay with me on this: Pharmacists see their patients much more frequently than doctors see their patients. We know what medications they take. We know what conditions they are treating. We can more readily identify who needs what immunizations. We talk to them more than their own doctors. This is truly a perfect example of why we need to be on the front lines ensuring OUR patients get not only maintenance care, but preventive care as well. It should be our job to help with this but it should be at our discretion; not forced upon us. As I have said, I love to administer vaccinations. I love to answer vaccination questions. But that is not necessarily for everyone.
Corporate greed, however stepped in and usurped this idea. With its quotas and mandatory 100% pharmacist compliance it became less about preventive care than making money. It's all about the money. No pharmacy company in this country can claim otherwise. (There's math involved, but that's another post...)
If you love to immunize and love to spend the time with your patients that we as pharmacists so loudly proclaim that we do (and need to get back to doing) then enjoy it, like I do.
Funny Idea, but you didn't get this from me...If you want to meet the quotas, simply turn away the same number of prescriptions per day as vaccinations you are required to administer. Just make sure you do it with cheap, low-profit margin prescriptions. (Start with those free and $4 meds...)
I also believe the corporate suits owe us the administration fee they are charging. See, they don't actually administer the vaccines. WE DO...
The first two years we gave shots at my pharmacy the other pharmacist at first refused, then somehow kept missing the CPR training, then some other excuse... dragging it out as long as possible. I gave all the shots and while I didn't mind doing it, just like you I did not get any extra reimbursement for doing it.
ReplyDeleteAnd the more I think about it, the more pissed I get.