Omnicare (new thread)

Specialties Geriatric

Published

There was an older thread on this, but I thought i would start a new one to get new perspectives.

There for a while it seemed like we had great weekend/ evening service. Last month or so the changes that some warned have gone into action.

No re orders or new orders are filled after 4pm on the weekends. If you want them or really need them you have to order them STAT. Stat should be 3 hrs....this is a joke.

I call, speak to the pharmacist ask for a STAT, fax the order. What more do I have to do?

We are getting sicker people and more admits on the weekends. I end up calling 1-1.5 hrs after the initial order to see if it was processed etc and 90% of the times they weren't. BTW, our pharmacy is 45 minutes away.

The delivery drivers tell me there is only one person for the entire route when a few months ago there would be 2-3 (we would still have long waits then too)

Sooooo frustrated by this all. We are a huge corp LTC so we are stuck with Omnicare.

Omnicare in our state provides excellent service, except on rare occasions. Haven't noticed any cuts to their service. I'm so jealous of everyone talking about e-kits, we aren't allowed to have them!! It's been my mission lately to see we do get them, finally got a law passed allowing them, pharmacy board working out details now!! Can't wait!!!!

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Yeah I wouldn't say our e-kit is the equivalent of an in-house pharmacy by any means, but, be that as it may, it's always done its job as far as I've worked at my facility. We actually have three: and E-kit, a Combo Kit (this one has tons of abx) and an IV Kit... thank god for those. They've saved us on several occasions when sick admissions come in without so much as a doctor calling us back to verify orders...

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And you're right, Michelle, sicker and sicker patients. Sometimes I swear I should be able to state that I have med-surg experience. Our patient load is becoming pretty intense...

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Specializes in LTC,Hospice/palliative care,acute care.

We got a huge pyxis through Omnicare-it's very well stocked,I can't think of one med I have needed in the past two years that was not available.Other then that I think all of the negatives I posted in the previous thread have continued sand some aspects have gotten worse.Due to new medicare and insurance regs we can only get 14 day supplies of name brand meds (some meds are still under aptent and generic is not available.Because of this Omnicare took all of their LTC clients in this area off of cycle fill so we are back to ordering on demand and it's a pain in the orifice.The respresentative told us there is some kind of glitch that often prevents us from refilling electronically so we have to make lots of phone calls.We don't have any place to store the back- up bingo cards (some units just don't have room in their med carts ) and people are missing meds. If I admin the last pill on a card I am a pretty crappy nurse if I don't jot myself a note and make sure the next card is available or order it but it seems that many of our staff just can't be bothered.That's not Omnicare's fault.I just wish they had gone to twice a month delivery to accomodate this 14 day supply rule but I guess that would have really impacted their profit margin.

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