Pharmacists furious with Chemist Warehouse dodgy Medscheck practices

http://www.pharmacynews.com.au/news/latest-news/chemist-warehouse-s-medscheck-push-sees-store-do-3

http://www.pharmacynews.com.au/news/latest-news/pharmacists-furious-with-cwh-medscheck-push

Chemist Warehouse (CWH) is at it again! News recently broke out about how one CWH store claimed 319 Medscheck in 2 weeks. And bragged about it. Head office pushing their stores or actually their underpaid pharmacists to do low-quality Medschecks. Easy $20,000 in their pocket.

This news made a lot of pharmacists in the industry furious. Furious because CWH is clearly doing a dodgy and getting away with it. One Medscheck should take about 20-30min to do. If you do the math, the pharmacy would have to be open more than 24 hours and employed a lot of pharmacists to do this.

I recently met someone who works at CWH and that's what they told me too. They had KPI they had to meet - they must do 10 Medscheck PER DAY. Wow, that's probably what I do in a month! Don't understand why Medicare still paid CWH without even auditting them. Its so suspicious but its like noone's doing anything!

Honestly, I think the the pharmacy industry is screwed and here's why:

• Medscheck has no benefit to us pharmacists. It only benefits the pharmacy owners. It just means more work and pressure for the average pharmacist. Not like they get paid anymore. Same wage. 
• CWH paying their pharmacists only $24 per hour. Casual rate, long hours, night and weekend shifts. Cityrail ticket person at the train station gets paid $60,000 per year salary with paid annual leave, sick leave and other benefits. 
• Pharmacists don't even get a proper lunch break. On call means we eat while we work. And some stupid law stating they must close the store if there is no pharmacist on the premise. 
• Employers talking about generics all the time. Lying to patients that we don't keep the brand anymore, made in Australia when its made in India, better quality not necessarily, less expensive when we charge them the same price as the original. Must have 80% generic conversion or your job is on the line. 
• Employers talking about Medscheck. Doing 5min Medscheck, and them getting the patient to sign. They don't even know what they are signing for.
• Discount chemists charging so little for medications. Amoxil Syrup is $6.50 at CWH. That's cheaper than the concessional price. Dispensing FEE zilch! Patients thinking other pharmacies are ripping them off as CWH charging so low. 
• Customers expecting everything in pharmacy is free. Free blood pressure checks, Free blood glucose checks, free weighing scales, free medical advice, free Webster packs........ We don't get paid by Medicare for each consultation we do. 
• Abused by customers who don't want to pay a surcharge for original brands coz other pharmacies are not charging me. Either they are lying or they really do that we don't know for sure. Patients think the pharmacies set PBS prices. Its Medicare but they don't believe us. 
• Very weak governing body The Guild. Hasn't done much. Their negotiations are crap. They don't know how to negotiate. Lets Medicare and government step all over us. Just not powerful enough. Look at the nurses union. They walk out on their job, protest and government gives them a payrise. What about us? The Guild puts out a stupid petition, gets everyone to sign it and gives it to the government who chucks it in the bin. No change. Problem is still there. Just forget about it and move on.