Businesshala News Exclusive | CVS Ousts Executives After Internal Probe, Vows to Overhaul How It Handles Sexual-Harassment Complaints

https://businesshala.com/businesshala-news-exclusive-cvs-ousts-executives-after-internal-probe-vows-to-overhaul-how-it-handles-sexual-harassment-complaints/

CEO Karen Lynch tells staff she will change process after investigation into employee complaints against a regional manager

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My understanding is that Walgreens allows their pharmacists to “black ball” a pt in their pharmacy system and it applies to all some odd 9000 stores and that the only person that can take the black ball off is the person that put it on.  Of course, as I normally do, I recommended that this pt find a independent pharmacy …shared this link  https://ncpa.org/pharmacy-locator   — where she would be dealing with the pharmacist/owner and they tend to be a whole lot less judgemental and staff turn over is very little… so they know the pt and the pt knows the staff.  It is unfortunately that all these so called PharmD “medication experts” don’t know/understand that acute pain is different than chronic pain and that a chronic pain pt already taking a opiate will not need additional opiates to deal with the acute pain…  Most chronic pain pts… the opiates that they are on… don’t properly manage their existing pain on most days.

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https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/investigations/national-investigations/harmful-deadly-pharmacy-errors-persist-during-pandemic-ca-complaints-allege/2890636/

Data obtained by the Investigative Unit shows at least 557 complaints of pharmacy medication errors harming California patients during the pandemic. Industry insiders say the real number may be far higher because pharmacies are generally not required to report mistakes to regulators.

Former Rite Aid pharmacy technician Priscila Sotelo says she quit her job in Union City during the pandemic because she was burned out and felt the increased workload put patients in danger.

“One time our pharmacist gave the wrong narcotic,” she told the Investigative Unit. “The line [of customers] was like 10 to 15 people at a time … everyone was panicking.”

Rite Aid told NBC Bay Area – like other big chain pharmacies – the company tracks medication errors internally and does not have information supporting Sotelo’s claim. Regulators are limited in their abilities to monitor medication errors though because pharmacies are generally not required to report the mistakes to state or federal regulatory agencies.

However, in response to national concerns about pharmacy workforce issues during the pandemic, the California State Board of Pharmacy released data in January saying it initiated 367 investigations after receiving complaints “indicating patient harm” for fiscal year 2020/21. It received 190 in the first six months of this fiscal year.

The Board said the reported medication errors varied in severity and included “serious patient harm and death.”

During that January board meeting, state regulators also discussed a workforce survey it approved last year. More than four thousand California pharmacists participated in the survey, which showed:  

• 91% of California chain pharmacists reported not having enough staffing to ensure adequate patient care, compared to 37% of independent pharmacists.
• 11% of California chain pharmacists reported medication errors are not documented appropriately, compared to 4% of independent pharmacists.

“Oh, [mistakes were] regular. It was on a daily basis,” said Clint Hopkins, who now runs his own independent pharmacy in Sacramento but worked in various chains as a pharmacist for eight years. He says he saw frequent mistakes caused by pharmacy workers trying to fulfill profit-driving prescription quotas set by big chain companies, like CVS, Walgreens and Rite Aid.

According to the state’s workforce survey, 90% of chain pharmacy workers said their worksite has a work queue monitoring waiting time for prescriptions, compared to 33% of independent pharmacy workers.

“When I first started working at Walgreens, they had … the little dials on the screen and you could see when you were on the phone too long or too many calls where coming in. It would turn red. It would turn yellow … You had to keep those green, right? The numbers had to be low or everyone was [panicking],” Hopkins said.

One small portion of a Walgreens monitor shared on this Facebook page shows a backlog of more than 2000 prescriptions still waiting pharmacist verification.

The Investigative Unit spoke with pharmacists who believe such a big backlog significantly increases the chances of medication errors at that undisclosed store. NBC Bay Area showed Walgreens the image which has been widely shared on social media but the company had no comment.

Legislation that went into effect last January – Senate Bill No. 362 – now prohibits companies from establishing potentially dangerous quotas for pharmacy workers in California. It’s a practice that requires employees to fill a certain number of prescriptions over a specific period of time. The California Pharmacists Association, a backer of the bill, says the law’s success relies on companies implementing the rules themselves; and one of the only ways regulators will know about possible violations will be if employees report them.

“I don’t think that it’s going to happen,” Dr. Hopkins said. “They’re afraid of the repercussions of reporting their company.”

Despite multiple requests, no one from the California State Board of Pharmacy or CVS, Walgreens and Rite Aid agreed to be interviewed about workload and mistake claims. Rite Aid told the Investigative Unit off-camera its labor model is based on work volume, which is why it tracks prescriptions.

Walgreens and CVS sent statements saying their metrics are not individual-based, rather a way for the companies to ensure appropriate levels of staffing at each pharmacy.

In November, Rite Aid made a company-wide decision to close most of its pharmacies one hour earlier Monday-Friday to allow workers to catch up on work, but that was temporary. 

How to Report Complaints to State Regulators

Although Senate Bill 362 was implemented in January, the California State Board of Pharmacy is still in the process of creating a SenateBill 362-specific complaint process for pharmacists and technicians.

In the meantime, both patients and pharmacy workers are encouraged to report medication errors and Senate Bill 362 violations by clicking this link or following these steps:

• Go to the Board of Pharmacy website
• Click Consumers
• Click Consumer Protection and Enforcement
• Click File a Complaint

This complaint form is for anyone to use, according to the California Pharmacists Association.

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I apologize that this blog ended up being much longer than I had intended, but things evolved

My blog is now in its TENTH YEAR… I have seen advocates come and advocates go… I have seen untold number of people putting up petitions to help the community… untold number that have called, emailed, faxed, sent letters to their Fed and state representatives.  Some advocate groups believe that state laws that would protect prescribers and pts is the way to go.  While I am not an attorney, I have asked – how can a STATE LAW prevent a FEDERAL AGENCY (DEA) from coming into a state to prevent them from enforcing a FED LAW ?  I have yet to have anyone even attempt to provide me a answer… even a educated guess as to why it could work.

I have only worked as an employee about 6-7 post college, the rest I was self employed and when you are self employed, especially when you businesses deal with Medicare, Medicaid & insurance and all the bureaucracies that businesses have to deal with.  So I have been watching/dealing with various bureaucracies for over 4 decades.  I have never seen when some rules/law/regulations is opened to be revised … things tend to get WORSE…

My opinion of the CDC opiate dosing guidelines 2022,  this will be no different.  Those entities that looked at the 40 odd pages of the 2016 guidelines and found their favorite sentence, paragraph or page and claimed that they were observing the guidelines while ignoring all the carve outs for how those chronic pain pts would be entitled to appropriate pain management.

everyone in the community needs to fully understand that they are not alone, but likewise… no one person alone nor can any “small group” alone can change the path that the community is on.

The community is up against a army of Goliaths – most with either a badge or a law degree – and we have seen that they interpreted the 2016 guidelines in a way that allowed them to falsely accuse all too many practitioners of violating the CSA and fabricate a case against them and send them to jail for 20 yrs and confiscate all their assets and leave his/her family penniless and throw hundreds of chronic pain pts into cold turkey withdrawal.

There are already some rumors floating around that some prescribers are already implementing a 50 MME/day limit and the revised guidelines are still just in the comment period and there are also some rumors about many of the same people/entities involved in the 2016 guidelines are once again on board to finalize the 2022 guidelines.

Given this recent article that validated what many of us already suspected … that the MME system has no clinical studies behind it…  If the MME system is included in this new guideline, should we question and legally challenge the “expertise” and competency of those who finalize the 2022 guideline ?

The community needs to decide if they are going to remain in their segregate little “tribes”  and struggle to be recognized more than any other tribe or they can come together and put their $$$ together and hire a law firm to challenge that the MME system has no valid medical use.  Then law firms will probably start lining up to take on healthcare corporation who are harming chronic pain pts by using the MME system to limit or restrict the amount of pain management – including opiates – that a pt is “entitled to” …

https://www.acsh.org/news/2022/03/01/true-story-morphine-milligram-equivalents-mme-16154

The above link by  Chuck Dinerstein, MD, MBA traced back the “origins” of the “MME SYSTEM” …  It would seems that according to Dr Dinerstein’s  “genealogy research on the MME system “…  it is basically a “bastard”… there is no clinical studies (parents) of this “child” what everyone is using today is just a mishmash of opinions/observations of a untold number of so called medical professionals.

Any comments made by patients to the CDC proposed guidelines will most likely be DISMISSED as biased or anecdotal observation(s)…  in the “scientific community” … otherwise – WORTHLESS.

We know that it has been reported that the 2016 guidelines used many studies that were rated “3” or “4” – with “4” being CRAP… so it would appear now that the CDC used one set of criteria that had NO VALID STUDIES BEHIND IT. Who believe that most/many/all of those on the first committee did not know or should have known that there no validity behind the  “MME SYSTEM” ?

This was a comment today on my blog  today on one my recent blogs :  https://www.pharmaciststeve.com/statistically-chronic-pain-pts-dont-exist/

Ohhh i know the senators baldwin and johnson of wisconsin know we exist.About 3-4 years ago now,,i specifically ask senator baldwins to put a box on all death certificates ,”death due to forced physical pain from medical condition,”I was informed i was speaking to ,”Sarah,senator baldwins intern,but her communication from baldwin was,and i quote,,,”prove it,”Prove that person died from forced physical pain,,To her point,,I am sure they have and will continue to deny our right to have our deaths recorded honestly.They do not want it recorded how many they have willfully killed,from a treatable condtion.Now with our Vets hospital,ie,”Tomah V.A. being the poster boy for fake opiate addiction,,they will never let the truth be shown here or in America,,that they have killed,medically tortured,tortured to literal death 10,000s,,,,Soo we have to go outside of the U.S. to prove this and end this genocide,however,,w/Russia going nuts, i think our cause will be put on a back burner for now???

Is this an admission that they have the community running in circles like a dog chasing it’s tail ?    They have “their” FACTS, “their” TRUTHS,  “their” AGENDA and anything submitted that does not align with those … will be ignored, discounted or somehow buried.

We know that pts who have their meds cut/eliminated most/many/all will end up with hypertension, and even if doc gives the pt all four categories of anti hypertensive meds… little/nothing happens… because apparently the process that the pharma’s meds work on – is different that the processes under/untreated pain uses to raise BP.  The American Heart Assoc has for decades – maybe a century – has stated that uncontrolled BP is the “silent killer”…  it will also damage the eyes, the kidneys, if a stroke or heart attack doesn’t get the pt first… but those are all “natural causes” of death.   It is pretty much a sure bet, that anyone with under/untreated pain will end up with Addison’s disease… only the time  line from when their meds are cut and the time they are diagnosed.

I expect that the proposed 2022 guidelines will be accepted and published without a word changed, and with the figure of 50 MME’s in the text…the DEA, VA and all others in healthcare who will take liberties with the guidelines – as they did the last guidelines to find their favorite sentence, paragraph, page and instead of having 40 odds pages from the 2016 guidelines, they have 211 pages to wade thru.  If history repeats itself, all of the exceptions to allow pain pts to be properly treated in those guidelines will be ignored. After all, all those entities who ignored those treatment exceptions in the 2016 guidelines will have to do the same processes with the new guidelines – or admit that  they were wrong before and they will have to admit that they were previously wrong and put all their budgets and number of employees at risk of being reduced…  which in a bureaucracy is heresy.

If you are gathering info from pts to send to the AMA… the AMA is basically a “toothless paper tiger”, maybe a small double digits percentage of MD’s belong to the AMA…  The only reason that the AMA is financially viable is because they own the writes to the ICD medical billing system and everyone who does medical billing has to pay them a annual royalty to use them.  The state Medical licensing boards having licensed MD on the board, who have a DEA license are fully aware that the DEA can fabricate a case against just about any doctor and bankrupt them and throw them in jail for 20 yrs… they are not going to disagree with a medical license they want to yank.

IMO, it is time for the community to quit the infighting and put their dollars together and challenged the validity of the MME SYSTEM…  just think how many rules/laws/regulations/ policies & procedures that reference that as their basis. All the docs sitting in jail because the DEA claimed that they prescribed opiates without valid medical necessity – that could be appealed…

If the 2022 guidelines are used to create new daily MME limits… like was done with the 2016 guidelines…  In the first page of the proposed guidelines.. they stated something to the fact that they were using the same “high standards” they used in creating the 2016…  We know that is a lie…  and that reminds me of  Einstein’s definition of “insanity”…  If history repeats itself – the community within 2 yrs of the guidelines being accepted/published…. the community could end up meeting its WATERLOO !!!

Here is probably something most people making comments on the CDC proposed 2022 guidelines, didn’t see – because it was a “link” on the page where one has to put comments

According to the last line, on the first page where people are to submit comments,   the CDC could care less about how their new guidelines are going – or have – to impact individuals without “WELL SUPPORTED COMMENTS”   – to me that suggests CLINICAL STUDIES

Summary

• Read and understand the regulatory document you are commenting on
• Feel free to reach out to the agency with questions
• Be concise but support your claims
• Base your justification on sound reasoning, scientific evidence, and/or how you will be impacted
• Address trade-offs and opposing views in your comment
• There is no minimum or maximum length for an effective comment
• The comment process is not a vote – one well supported comment is often more influential than a thousand form letters

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https://www.fox.com/the-resident/  

The show tonight (03/08/2022)  Season 5 Episode 15  “in for a penny”

Parts of this show is very interesting… there is a couple of small parts about the actions/functions of the State Medical Licensing board in dealing with a complaint on a surgeon and a pt complaint about failed back surgery.

Having been a licensed Pharmacist for 51 yrs, I am fairly familiar with how state healthcare licensing board function and I was sitting at my desk and I have a 43″ LCD TV in front of me on my desk with this show on..  working on another new post for the blog … and luckily I have a TIVO system – which I often have to go to a hit “replay the last 15 second”… because I will hear something and while the TV audio is playing in the background in my head and my brain – “kicks me” .. with  WHAT THE HELL DID THEY SAY ?

Upon replaying the segment of the show about a BIG BOARD ROOM TABLE with a dozen or so Medical Licensing Board members sitting around and they are in the process of ending  their meeting and the “new member” of the board… tried to call the board’s attention to a pt’s complaint of a failed back surgery – what was described as a medical mistake that the collective board apparently decided to take no actions on the pt’s complaints… justifying that no surgery is perfect, etc…etc…etc… and willing to totally dismiss the complaint.  Even though this particular surgeon had several pt complaints against this surgeon with the Medical Licensing Board and apparently all had been individually dismissed without action and the board did not look back at the pt complaint history against this surgeon with the board.

I suspect tomorrow that a lot of  board members of a large number of state Medical Licensing Board Members will be on the phone with each other, exchanging emails, having a “zoom meeting” discussing – WTH – this was put on PRIME TIME TV ?

There is two different segments in the program – first one is in the first half of the show and the second in the last half of the show, both are important to watch to get the idea of the full concept.

There was also a sub-plot in the show about hospital systems that were preforming unnecessary procedures on Medicare/Medicaid pts solely to generate more revenue for the hospital system, I am sure that similar cases can be made against chain pharmacies – think “twisting arms” of chronic pain pts to purchase Narcan when they get their opiate Rxs filled.  Especially those pts who have been on opiates for years – never a OD issue – and lives alone and from a practical standpoint, who is going to administer the Narcan in the rare incident that the pt would accidentally OD  ?

This show should be taken to heart by pts to understand that our healthcare system and the healthcare licensing boards are not friends of pts, nor really not advocates for pts.

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Pandemic Misinformation is Epidemic Misinformation

https://www.daily-remedy.com/pandemic-misinformation-is-epidemic-misinformation/

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Currently in a dispute with my district manager (who is a licensed pharmacist) at a chain because they called me in the middle of my shift and told me I wasn’t filling scripts fast enough. I responded by stating that I was doing my best, that I felt this was inappropriate behavior from one licensed pharmacist with managerial authority over another, hung up the phone, blocked their phone number, and continued my shift. Thoughts?

Click here to find a independent pharmacy by zip code

to me – as a licensed pharmacists – that anytime that I see something like this from a chain pharmacist – and I know that it happens more times that it gets divulged anywhere – but – such incidents are seeing the light of day, than ever before.  Every time that I see similar statements from pharmacists, this video comes to mind

I have been around long enough that I saw the movie BEN HUR – when it was FIRST RUN.

I wish I could share all the comments from other pharmacists on this web posting… out of the 17 comments ONLY ONE thought that the pharmacist was I don’t think it was justified for you to hang up on them.  Keep in mind that the DM called the pharmacist on their PERSONAL CELL PHONE.  I have heard of pharmacists – under such situations – have locked the pharmacy down and walked out. How many of you have found the chain pharmacy, that you typically patronize, to have the Rx dept closed – at hours it is suppose to be open ?

But the next graduation class of some 14,000+ freshly minted PharmD’s in the next couple of months… many with six figure student loans that will have loan payments starting in 6-9 months and with all the pharmacists that have walked off recently – some of the chains are dangling up to a $50,000 sign on bonus for signing a three year work contract – what they don’t know – that has been shared by other Pharmacists that have signed those work contracts have stated…  if the pharmacist leaves even one day BEFORE THE CONTRACT IS FULFILLED – the entire sign on bonus will have to be REPAID IN FULL. 

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I wonder if HUNTER BIDEN was a PAID CONSULTANT as to what was needed to be put into these “ADDICT CARE PACKAGES “?

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Freedom Med CEO Kevin Jenkins: We Are Creating Freedom Med To ‘Break Away From Tyrannical Medical System,’ ‘Build A New World Where Healthcare And Human Life Are Valued’

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/03/freedom-med-ceo-kevin-jenkins-creating-freedom-med-break-away-tyrannical-medical-system-build-new-world-healthcare-human-life-valued/

The vast majority of COVID-19 related deaths occur in hospitals. But they’re not dying from the disease.

Numerous doctors warn that hospitals across the United States have been adhering to dangerous CDC protocols throughout the pandemic that coerce health practitioners to essentially murder COVID 19-infected patients.

In addition to insisting patients get dangerous experimental Covid 19 vaccinations, doctors are reportedly providing hospitalized COVID 19 patients Remdesivir, a drug that causes renal failure and pulmonary edema and then putting them on mechanical ventilators, a procedure that typically results in death.

Now, Americans who no longer trust the medical establishment have a new option.

Freedom Med launched this week, a telemedicine company that is “uniting medical professionals to protect your constitutional medical rights and enable you to take back your health” (signing up through this link and the links below benefits Gateway Pundit).

“Freedom Med is a new health care company that is going to be focused on changing the health in the country,” Freedom Med CEO Kevin Jenkins told the Gateway Pundit in an exclusive interview. “Freedom Med is going to give us the opportunity to select some of the greatest doctors on this planet and give opportunities to people all over the country to be able to get the proper care. They will not be turned away. It will be singularly focused on changing the culture of health in this country.

“I know something about medical racism, about medical apartheid and it’s a sad day in this country when these companies when our government is financing them to commit homicide on American citizens,” he said. “This is not the first time we have gone through this in this country. If you go back and research the 1800s we were going through the same thing, compulsory vaccines. This is why we are creating FreedomMed, so we can break away from this medical tyranny, so we can build a new world where healthcare and human life will be valued. This is about bringing more value, more transparency to the doctor, patient relationship.

While doctors across the country break their Hippocratic oath, denying life-saving treatment to critically ill patients, the team of medical experts with Freedom Med are “going to break that cycle, building trust, building transparency, building a relationship with your patient, getting the patient to understand that we value life,” Jenkins explained.

We value their health. It’s important that people start to understand that we can break away with this tyrannical system, that we can build something new. We can create solutions. We can create opportunities for people to build a better healthy life. Right now in America, we are some of the sickest people in the world.

We are going to be bringing transparency. We are going to be bringing amazing doctors to the table that cover all of the disciplines and medicines that we think are important to build a healthy community. Freedom Med is where it’s going to happen. You’ve got to follow us because If you join us at FreedomMed.org, you are going to see where we are going with this — top-notch doctors, top-notch healthcare, people that are coming up with solutions, people that value human life, people that value children. It’s time for us to break away from this system.

Expert immunologist Dr. Vladmire Zelenko announced on Friday that he has partnered with Freedom Med to institute “a brand new concept in health care.”

Zelenko, an early advocate for the use of hydroxychloroquine and a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, is calling on medical practitioners who have been penalized, suspended or criminalized and risked loosing their careers during the pandemic for providing effective treatments to patients despite hospital protocols to join the team at Freedom Med:

“We are recruiting doctors for a telemedicine national service. The doctors we want to recruit are those that believe that each human being is made in the image of God and that their lives have sanctity and that the needs of the patient must always come first. The last two years have shown us the exact opposite. The majority of the medical profession has sacrificed their patients to their own fears, bureaucracy, lack of innovation, lack of thought. Basically, most doctors follow directions and are just following orders and did what they knew was wrong. They let patients go home with no treatment and develop consequences and complications and lung damage and blood clots.

As we know now in retrospect, we could have prevented 85 percent of hospitalizations and deaths if we treated people in the right time frame. Those doctors that did try to do that were fired — mid-level providers, physician assistants, nurse practitioners,  clerical staff — anyone who dare advocate for keeping people alive was penalized, sanctioned, brought before medical boards —  those are the doctors I want. Those are the people, mid-level providers, nursing staff, medical assistants, clerical staff, secretaries — those are the people I want, who care for myself, my family, my patients. That’s what Freedom Med is about. There is a tremendous amount of talent out there due to the outright abuse by the medical profession of these wonderful people. The good thing is now we know who the doctors are. We know who the decent human beings are. We are going to revolutionize the standard of care.

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I was listening to Rep Pelosi & Senator Warren being asked questions today by reporters in regards to 650 million barrels of Russ crude oil that the USA purchases every day and both were asked “should we stop buying crude oil from Russia ?”  and both made similar statements – our economy will be just fine without the Russian crude oil.  That answer, totally out of context, seems rather benign.

Of course Pelosi’s net worth is estimated at 120 million and Warren’s net worth estimated at a measly 12 million. The crude oil that we purchase from Russia amounts to high single digits of the oil that the USA uses every day.  So all those families that can afford to pay $5-$6-$7/gal for fuel and be able to cut their oil consumption by upwards of 10% –  will be just fine.  Which I am sure that includes Pelosi & Warren.

It has been recently reported that 62.5% of USA families are living PAYCHECK TO PAYCHECK… even some families making $100,000/yr and the average household income is in the 60K-70K range.

We have all heard “horror stories” about how the CDC tracks “some death numbers”… every year they publish deaths from the FLU… but they only ESTIMATE those deaths. There has been reports that the CDC when dealing with OD’s, that they count “as a death” each substance that shows up in toxicology – and it is claimed that the typical OD toxicology report will show 4 to 7 different substances…. so can ONE OD … be counted as up to 7 different OD deaths ?

Why did I title this post as  – Statistically chronic pain pts DON’T EXIST ! – ..  If a pt has their pain meds reduced or eliminated … and ends up with blood pressure in the “stroke territory” and the pt dies from a stroke or heart attack – their death certificate will state stroke/heart attack… NOT … consequences of under/untreated pain.

Unless, the pt’s toxicology shows some opiates in it.. even a minor amount – and then most likely the death will be classified as “opiate related death” or “opiate use disorder death”

Even if the pt chooses their “final option” to end their tortuously level of pain…  if their death is a “mechanically cause suicide ” … their death is just a self-inflicted suicide or if they used their meds as their final option…  death will be determined to be a “opiate OD”.

I am sure that everyone has heard someone make the statement ” pain never killed anyone” and apparently the CDC death numbers just backup that misconception.

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