Rite Aid

storewanderer
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Rite Aid

Post by storewanderer »

Noticing all of the Rite Aid locations I go to have severely cut store hours.

Some are open as little as 10-6 every day, supposedly due to staffing.

Another one is open 8-9 M-F and 9-6 on weekends (used to be 8-10 every day).
Another one is open 9-7 every day (used to be 8-10 every day).

Rite Aid was one of the few stores that did not cut back on hours during the COVID situation last year. They kept stores open until 10 PM even as Walgreens cut hours back and CVS varied a lot by store. It is interesting to see them do this now.
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Re: Rite Aid

Post by bryceleinan »

This explains what happened in Medford, OR a few weeks ago… heard more of the same from a Rite-Aid pharmacist I follow on Twitter. Pharmacy staff are leaving like rats off a shrinking ship.

https://www.kdrv.com/templates/AMP?contentID=575356511
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Re: Rite Aid

Post by storewanderer »

bryceleinan wrote: November 1st, 2021, 9:45 pm This explains what happened in Medford, OR a few weeks ago… heard more of the same from a Rite-Aid pharmacist I follow on Twitter. Pharmacy staff are leaving like rats off a shrinking ship.

https://www.kdrv.com/templates/AMP?contentID=575356511
Some of this has been happening with various pharmacies, not just Rite Aid.

I do not hear much negative from those working for Rite Aid at the present time... I hear a lot more negative from those at other chain drugstore pharmacies.
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Re: Rite Aid

Post by Alpha8472 »

Walgreens and CVS are the 2 chains that dangerously understaff. You often have 1 pharmacist working alone to check all the medications. Mistakes happen all the time. Wrong drug, wrong strength, random wrong pills in the wrong bottle, etc.

CVS is a chain where they allow the pharmacist to leave the pharmacy and take a 30 minute lunch. They leave the pharmacy technicians or a cashier to run the pharmacy alone. This is pretty dangerous.

Some chains believe in more staffing to prevent errors and lawsuits. Walmart is a chain that staffs much better and never allows technicians to work alone. The pharmacist must supervise them constantly and cannot leave the pharmacy alone to take a lunch.

Some chains do not have enough backup pharmacists. If a Rite Aid pharmacist calls out sick in a distant area, there may be no replacement available. With Walmart, they would pay pharmacists to travel hours to a distant pharmacy to cover for a sick pharmacist and also pay for a hotel if necessary.

The problem now is that with so many vaccinations being done and overworked pharmacists, there are a lot of needle sticks. My pharmacist friend got stuck with a needle and is out for 2 weeks for HIV prevention treatment. The drugs are brutal with side effects. With young kids getting the COVID vaccine soon, pharmacists will get poked more often now. A teenager with autism had to be held down by a parent and the teen still was thrashing around. My coworker almost got a needle stick last week.

A 2 week wait to fill a prescription is unacceptable. Walmart and CVS usually can get a medication filled by the next day if it requires a drug to be special ordered. If you miss the cut off time for delivery orders, it would be at most 2 -3 days. There are no drug deliveries on Saturdays or Sundays. There is no way it should take 2 weeks. Unless Walgreens has some kind of antiquated drug ordering system.
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Re: Rite Aid

Post by veteran+ »

I have found CVS to b the absolute worst of the worst.

Severly understaffed and very long lines and wait periods (and dirty stores).

I have so far not experienced that with Walgreens or Rite Aid.

Pavilions closes their pharmacy for lunch.
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Re: Rite Aid

Post by BillyGr »

Alpha8472 wrote: November 2nd, 2021, 4:16 am CVS is a chain where they allow the pharmacist to leave the pharmacy and take a 30 minute lunch. They leave the pharmacy technicians or a cashier to run the pharmacy alone. This is pretty dangerous.

The problem now is that with so many vaccinations being done and overworked pharmacists, there are a lot of needle sticks. My pharmacist friend got stuck with a needle and is out for 2 weeks for HIV prevention treatment. The drugs are brutal with side effects. With young kids getting the COVID vaccine soon, pharmacists will get poked more often now. A teenager with autism had to be held down by a parent and the teen still was thrashing around. My coworker almost got a needle stick last week.
Seems (for the CVS situation) it would depend on what they do. If a cashier or tech is just there so that customers can pick up already filled items or get something that has to be kept behind the counter but is not prescription, that doesn't seem to be an issue (since neither of those requires any special training).

Also odd that they would do some type of prevention treatment unless they know there was something to prevent. That shouldn't be much (if any) issue for those in the younger age groups.
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Re: Rite Aid

Post by Alpha8472 »

There are a lot of IV drug users that patronize that pharmacy. The homeless population is quite large in the area.
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Re: Rite Aid

Post by buckguy »

Modern HIV drugs have few, easily treated side effects and they usually occur in the first few days. If the pharmacist is out for 2 weeks (which is the treatment course) for post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) it's probably a work rule that pharmacists negotiated with the company and it may have more to do with their mostly theoretical continuing risk to self/others if their exposed to blood until the course of treatment is over. PEP is done as a precaution because antibody tests won't detect HIV right away and RNA tests are more expensive and can't be done as a rapid test, so turnaround takes days.

As for staffing, CVS seems really variable--I live near at least 6 stores---the 2 high volume 24 hour locations always seem well staffed even fairly late at night. The lower volume 24 hour store seems understaffed and at least some of the self-checkouts are always down. The high volume, non-24 store also seems well staffed. The smaller stores seem to have skeleton staffing and probably exist to keep out competition. I see the same staffing variability when I go to CVS in Ohio, where the Rite Aids are always under staffed and the Walgreens seem to vary a great deal. The most notable thing about the pharmacists is the turnover--the large 24 hour store closest to me always seems to have a different pharmacist and it doesn't seem to be a day of the week thing.

CVS has been closing stores in the DC area. A couple recent closures were sudden which probably means they could not renegotiate a favorable lease, but they still are opening new stores and replacing old ones.
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Re: Rite Aid

Post by ClownLoach »

With all of these chain pharmacies, I believe the critical rule of retail is what dictates the performance: location, location, location.

CVS is consistently dirty and understaffed at nearly every location I have been to in the Orange County area. But then I found a location on Main Street in Orange that is across the street from two hospitals, St. Joseph and Children's Hospital of Orange County. I got my COVID vaccines there because it was the only location with availability of appointments early on and I found out why. The store, which is a smaller format CVS maybe only 15K Sq ft, might have more staff than their entire district combined. It does so much business that they have multiple pharmacists 24 hours a day with at least 6 assistants. They had half the store set as the line queue for COVID vaccines and 4 stations each with a technician or pharmacist administering the vaccine. I wouldn't describe it as sparking clean, but it was reasonable considering the customer traffic. 4 checkout lanes staffed and a good size line. There is no Rite Aid or Walgreens full size store nearby despite the two major hospitals across the street. That one CVS must drive enough profit to keep the lights on at at least a couple dozen marginal stores elsewhere.

I think this same cycle exists around these chains - the lower volume stores run in the red or maybe are just expected to break even - while the higher volume boxes pull the sled.

What is sad is that in the past this would not happen, because the Store Manager of that lower volume community store would also have the autonomy to order for the store, sign local vendors, and adjust the merchandising to meet the needs of the community. But CVS and Walgreens want to run crummy cookie cutter stores and aren't interested in the lowly manager telling them how to run the business. They are accepting of the status quo. Plus now that each major drugstore also owns an insurer the stores aren't even the main profit center for the company but instead are a means to force the customer in the doors. If you have a Caremark prescription plan for example that is CVS and usually you are limited in how many fills you can get at a non CVS location before you are either going to pay significantly more or be denied coverage. So basically the customer is a hostage unless they have top tier insurance that allows them to fill elsewhere. Hence no reason to adequately staff the store, clean the store, etc. They could run a toilet store every day and they are guaranteed business.

Maybe Amazon should stop playing around in the grocery store business, which they clearly have proven they can't figure out, and go attack the drugstore business. There is definitely room for improvement in that industry. Imagine if the manager could order pretty much anything Amazon carries to supplement the assortment for the local community and stock it on the shelves. It wouldn't be like the SavOn stores of the past where the SM literally had the company checkbook and would be paying random vendors every day. If they started with a solid pharmacy operation that customers could trust, maybe add some Amazon technology to ensure safety like some kind of video monitoring that could look at every pill and detect errors before an accident occurs, then build a quality store around it - so both the front end and the pharmacy counter could stand on their own as profitable businesses - they would have something.
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Re: Rite Aid

Post by jamcool »

Amazon doesn’t want to deal with city licenses and permits and the local criminal class clearing out the stores, like in California
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