Earlier this month, Jennifer Kappes scheduled her COVID-19 booster at the Walgreens at Meridian and 16th Street. When the geriatric care manager arrived for her appointment, she found the store open, but the pharmacy closed.
A sign said the pharmacy had not been open for the past two days, but it should be open at 9 a.m. that day. With 9 a.m. long since past, Kappes gave up and left, eventually going to a Carmel pharmacy for her booster.
“I was in shock,” said the Butler-Tarkington resident. “You hear about restaurants and stores and everything else being short-staffed, but it really kind of woke me up when I saw there was a closed pharmacy.”
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Around the country, pharmacy customers are finding themselves waiting longer for medications to be filled or pharmacy staff unavailable when they go for their flu or booster shots. Just as labor shortages are plaguing other industries, pharmacies are struggling to keep up with demand.
Pharmacists and pharmacy technicians all over the country are being asked to do more than ever before. They now perform COVID-19 tests and administer COVID-19 vaccines on top of everything else they’re expected to do.
“We’re expected to get as many prescriptions done in a day as possible while also doing vaccines and also doing tests,” said Veronica Vernon, president elect for the Indiana Pharmacists Association and assistant professor of pharmacy practice at Butler University.
All the demands increase the workload for pharmacists and lead to the same burnout seen in other areas of healthcare such as nursing. The more people that leave the greater the workload for those left behind and the higher the stress.
Staffing issues plague pharmacies
Large chain pharmacy officials acknowledge that they’re feeling the pinch.
Some local stores are adjusting their hours. When that happens, customers are directed to the nearest Walgreens, said Fraser Engerman, the company’s senior director, external relations. The store has also created a new position, pharmacy operations manager, to oversee pharmacy technicians and non-clinical tasks, freeing up pharmacists to focus more on patients.
“Walgreens continuously reviews staffing levels, as we have throughout the pandemic,” Engerman said in an email. “In communities where staffing shortages have impacted our stores, we have adjusted continuity plans with the goal of creating minimal disruption to our customers and patients.”
CVS recently went on a hiring spree, filling 25,000 nationally jobs of which 475 were in Indiana, said Charlie Rice-Minoso, spokesman, in an email. Some of these hires were to file existing open positions.
Since the company started its national hiring initiative in September, CVS has hired 20,000 pharmacists, technicians and front store staffers. Another 20,000 candidates have received job offers or started the onboarding process with CVS, he said.
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“We recognize the tight retail labor market which may result in some staffing issues,” Rice-Minoso said, adding that because CVS has hundreds of locations across the state it can ensure that it has appropriate resources at each pharmacy.
Companies have also increased salaries in an attempt to recruit and maintain employees. Both CVS and Walgreens have increased their minimum wage to $15.
Walgreens is offering new pharmacy technicians a $1,250 sign-on bonus through the end of October, Engerman said. In September full-time pharmacists received a $1,250 bonus. Pharmacy technicians who are certified to administer vaccines will receive a $1,000 bonus through a six-month retention period.
Large chains have tried to pivot by hiring additional employees and paying them more, but there’s only so much they can do, said Mike Johnston, CEO and founder of the National Pharmacy Technicians Association.
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“There’s not the supply available to meet the demand right now,” he said. “The situation we’re in right now, there’s not enough money you can throw at this problem.”
With no quick fixes out there, many people are finding shuttered pharmacies and longer waits for services.
The Powers family have experienced both at the Walgreens in their Glendale neighborhood. A few weeks ago, Amanda Powers dropped off a prescription for an antibiotic for her husband at 9:30 a.m.
Typically prescriptions take about an hour. This time the family waited all day before the prescription was filled.
True annoyance came over the weekend when Powers made appointments online for flu shots for herself and her five-year-old daughter. When they got to the store, the pharmacy was closed. They wound up making an appointment at the community clinic a few hours out and returning later in the day for their shots.
“It was pretty inconvenient,” said Powers, who has a newborn at home, making it difficult for her to get away from the house. “There was not a sign or anything.”
Why the problem may be worse in Indiana
The problem may be even more acute in Indiana than in some other states.
Pharmacies that have newly hired pharmacy technicians in training can face delays when it comes to processing the new hires’ state background checks and training licenses, Vernon said. One pharmacist told her the holdup had exceeded eight weeks. Frustrated workers may give up.
The state also requires that pharmacy technicians go through a certification process that involves training and sitting for an exam, all good requirements, Vernon said, but ones that may make it more difficult for people to enter the field.
In addition, Indiana is home to a number of large specialty pharmacies, such as Accredo and Amazon, which deliver medications to doctors’ offices and patients’ homes.
These companies compete with the community pharmacies for staff. As community pharmacy has become more stressful with long hours and weekend and evening shifts, some in the profession may opt for these jobs instead, Vernon said.
“We’re seeing that pharmacists are wanting to go into a different area. They’re looking for something that’s slower paced,” she said. “Having the ability to have a personal life is important, because we’re all very exhausted.”
What the future holds
The shortage also extends to the newest members of the pharmacy profession, students. Students at Butler University’s College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences spend a significant part of their education doing rotations in the community.
As one of the Butler professors tasked with helping to arrange those rotations, Meghan Bodenberg has seen how much the pharmacy profession is in flux as she contacts would-be mentors to take on students.
“This is something that is usually a challenge for us, but it has definitely been more of a challenge this year than any others,” said Bodenberg, director of advanced experiential education and preceptor development. “Everyone is having to try to do more with less and there definitely are some holes in positions needing to be filled.”
Butler has tweaked its curriculum in an attempt to ease some of the strain and plans to train all its first-year students on how to deliver immunizations, Bodenberg said. Before, students could learn how to deliver immunizations as part of an elective but not every student opted to take it. Now they all will learn this skill.
While pharmacy technicians do not need to undergo as extensive training, it’s also not realistic to think that one can rapidly ramp up the number of people entering the profession, Johnston said.
“It certainly is something that is being looked at now…. Opening up the funnel – it definitely takes time,” Johnston said. “I think we all just have to keep in mind we’re all doing our best here and to provide a little bit of compassion and understanding.”
Contact IndyStar reporter Shari Rudavsky at shari.rudavsky@indystar.com. Follow her on Facebook and on Twitter: @srudavsky.
Contact IndyStar reporter Alexandria Burris at aburris@gannett.com or call 317-617-2690. Follow her on Twitter: @allyburris.
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