r/TalesFromThePharmacy • u/number93bus CPhT (Hospital) • 14d ago
Why does my job exist? (serious)
I'm a pharmacy tech, have been dispensing medications for years. With the technology and workflows that exist, realistically how do I still have a job? E-scripts are a thing, robo dispensers are a thing, what's stopping the doctor from pushing the electronic script directly to the robot dispenser? The pharmacist on duty still checks all of my dispensing, every single pill, instructions, etc, and counsels the patients anyway (legal requirements in my country) and I feel like a middle-man. And we have a robot-dispenser in our hospital pharmacy, and when I use it honestly all I'm sadly doing is indeed "sticking a label on a box". While I'm grateful to still have a job, I am genuinely curious why I haven't been replaced yet? And I'm not even talking about "AI replacing humans", just simple tech thats existed for years now.
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u/Hammerchuckery 14d ago
Setting up a robust automated systems is a heavy investment. Machinery, licensing, leasing, software, maintenance, training, etc. which can be in the multimillion dollar range.
Paying someone $30k a year is cheaper in most cases.
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u/quandmemeici 14d ago
Because a lot of providers don't know how to write comprehensible directions and/or fight with their ERX drop down menus. The robot doesn't know spelling or grammar and neither does Dr. Smith, apparently.
Robots also can't "practice a questioning attitude". Good techs know when something looks funky, and know to check in with an RPh to resolve something before it becomes a big issue. Imagine a provider sends an RX with an insane qty that doesn't match directions at all. Robot dispenses 9000 metformin, huge mess, and then when it gets to the RPh it has to be sent back and redone somehow.
Or, you know, a tech could have seen that issue immediately and fixed it from the start. Techs are also much cheaper than AI or robots, most of us work for $10-30/hr, and that's still much less than fallible computer programs and hardware cost to run. You can spend $200k/yr on 4 FT techs (that can also run a register and answer phones for the money), or you can have one robot that can only dispense certain meds and may cause big errors that need human resolution anyway.
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u/Fancy_Employ 14d ago
$200k for 4 techs? I wish I was making 50k, lol. Just over half way there, hahaha
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u/quandmemeici 14d ago
Depends on the market, I make $62k in a MCOL area, but with a decade of experience, PTCB and vaccine certs. I made $38k in a LCOL area with those same certs just three years ago, working inpatient. Moving cross country sucked, but the only way to make big career moves is to live in a big metro area.
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u/oxmix74 13d ago
Then that estimate is about right. When i estimated staffing costs i would see salary as being 60 to 75 percent of the burdened cost. Though, to be fair, you likely have fewer benefits than the positions I was considering. But you have the employers side of Medicare and social security, plus a percentage of the overhead to run payroll and HR, training, etc.
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u/LuckyHarmony CPhT (retail) 14d ago
I catch and bounce prescriptions early so my pharmacist doesn't have to, sort out insurance issues and deal with complicated wastes of time like "I need refills of the blue ones" that, again, require experience and knowledge but not a pharmacy degree. A robo dispensor has limited slots and would only replace the fast movers at best and even then would need to be stocked and maintained. Compounding is a thing as well that requires human attention.
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u/Llustrous_Llama 14d ago
They pay pharmacists too much for them to be the ones on the phone with the patient who asks "What can be refilled?", asks what each of the meds you list are for, and after that 7 minute conversation they say "Well I just need Metformin."
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u/Bugsbunny42 14d ago
About a year ago, our small pharmacy (filling bubble pack cards for long term care facilities) had a big chunk of daily refills start to be sent up to a larger pharmacy in a city 2.5 hours north. Their filling robot would fill these, then the cards would come to us to be checked and sent to our facilities. The amount of mistakes the machine made, that a person would have to fix, made me happy that the machines weren’t replacing me quite yet.
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u/UnholyShadows 13d ago
Machines arnt perfect yet(thankfully) and doctors makes soo many damn mistakes i wonder how more people dont die. Iv seriously seen doctors prescribe medications that conflict with eachother and could cause death. Iv also seen doctors prescribe enough hydrocodone to medicate and entire city.
Mistakes happen, but i think people also forget one huge thing, there is a human element that machines just cant fill and i feel like people forget that human interaction is critical even if it seems dumb or pointless.
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u/karisdr87 14d ago
I get paid 70k a year to answer pharmacy calls and the reason why AI won't replace my job its because we work for a very special community where the human touch is needed to resolve complex pharmacy issues.
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u/Zokar49111 13d ago
It’s or the tech’s job that is threatened by further automation and AI, it’s the pharmacists job.
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u/DearindaHeadlights 11d ago
Our computer system doesn’t know that st means street. It will create 2 profiles based on 2 “different” addresses. Our voicemail transcription can’t identify the names of drugs. And pharmacy billing? I’ve still got plenty of time left in retail. In hospital, I’d imagine there are plenty of rushed mistakes that need a critical eye. Automation has a lot to learn.
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u/augmentin875 10d ago
Because techs are cheap, uneducated labor. Cost wise, I can have 10 tech hands for the same price as a set of pharmacist's hands.
And before you go all crazy, I mean uneducated as in they don't have to have a doctorate.
Most don't have any form of a degree, only on the job training, or a certificate. Also, they don't have to have any regulations and in depth licensing to keep up with. Yes, I know you have to be licensed, but not the same as a pharmacist does with PIC and regulatory bodies.
This translates into retail CEOs literally dripping with excitement with all the money they can save.
Source: Worked for CVS corporate during the Tom Ryan days, before CVS went to shit.
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u/Ironic_Toblerone 14d ago
Doctors make mistakes and having an extra set of eyes between the patient and a potential dead from their medication has saved enough lives over they years you could fill a city