A while back I posted about opportunities for home based pharmaceutical reps.
This particular option may or may not be available still but there may be a growing NEED for it in rural areas where health practitioners may be able to stay in business but there may be fewer options for getting the prescriptions.
Why? The new Medicare Prescription Drug Plan is already driving small rural pharmacies out of business.
Startup Journal reports that the new Medicare Part D is ALREADY driving small rural pharmacies out of business by prompting huge increases in customer service costs (time needed to explain unexplainable plans) while slashing revenues to pharmacists up to 75%!
NORTHAMPTON COUNTY, N.C. — For 32 years, Winston Hollingsworth enjoyed life as a pharmacist in this quiet, agrarian county, and he had hoped to keep running his store in Rich Square, population 1,030, for another five. Then, the Medicare prescription-drug benefit came along.
His dispensing fees for low-income seniors sank from as much as $5.60 a prescription to as low as $1.50 and those payments often arrived weeks late. He found himself spending countless hours explaining the Medicare Part D benefit to confused customers while dealing with doctors and drug-plan managers to make sure his neighbors got the medicines they needed.
“You put up with this stuff all day long and get paid very little for it,” says Mr. Hollingsworth, 65 years old, who moved to Rich Square in 1974. “It’s just headache after headache after headache.”
Saturday was Mr. Hollingsworth’s last day behind the counter. He sold his store to Bill Futrell, one of Northampton County’s two remaining pharmacists who is expanding beyond his store in nearby Jackson.
“If I don’t do something, I won’t be able to stay open,” Mr. Futrell says.
Sandy A. Reese on July 8th, 2006 at 8:04 pm
With the baby boomers nearing Medicare age in the near future, America better come up with a better plan for pharmacys to stay in business. They only promote the chains, but the chains don’t provide the great customer service and resources that the indipendent pharmacies do.