Pharmacist shortages and heavy workloads challenge drugstores heading into their busy season
Customers may need a dose of patience at U.S. pharmacy counters as those businesses start their busiest season
A dose of patience may come in handy at the pharmacy counter this fall.
Drug and staffing shortages haven’t gone away. Stores are starting their busiest time of year as customers look for help with colds and the flu. And this fall, pharmacists are dealing with a new vaccine and the start of insurance coverage for COVID-19 shots.
Some drugstores have addressed their challenges by adding employees at busy hours. But experts say many pharmacies, particularly the big chains, still don’t have enough workers behind the counter.
Chris Adkins said he left his job as a pharmacist with a major drugstore chain a couple years ago because of the stress. Aside from filling and checking prescriptions, Adkins routinely answered the phone, ran the register and stocked pharmacy shelves.
“I just didn’t have time for the patients,” he said. “I am OK working hard and working long hours, but I just felt like I was not doing a good job as a pharmacist.”
In recent years, drugstores have struggled to fill open pharmacist and pharmacy technician positions, even as many have raised pay and dangled signing bonuses.
Larger drugstore chains often operate stores with only one pharmacist on duty per shift, said Richard Dang, an assistant professor of clinical pharmacy at the University of Southern California. That kind of thin staffing can make it hard to recruit employees.
“I think that many pharmacists in the profession are hesitant to work for a company where they don’t feel supported,” said Dang, a former president of the California Pharmacists Association.
Customers have noticed.
John Staed, of Pelham, Alabama, said a CVS pharmacist gave
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