Omnicare Pharmacy-discuss

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Specializes in LTC,Hospice/palliative care,acute care.
:down: In my experience we have a big problem getting meds delivered in a timely fashion.You all know that if we don't have a med available (even if it is something as simple as a multivit) the DOH wants us to document and make every reasonable effort to obtain the med. We have to inform the doc if a med is missed,fill out a pharmacy occurrence report yada yada yada....And we are prohibited from "borrowing" a med from another resident. What happens to us frequently is we'll fax labels well before the cut off time for same day delivery but then 2 days later get a written notice that the fax was illegible...HELLO? 2 days later? You are now probably out of some meds.Shouldn't someone be picking up the phone each and every time a fax is received that transmitted poorly and notify the sender? Then there are the times we get a notice stating "our records show this order was d/c'd on this date " and we look in the chart and no order was written on or around the date they cite. ow does that happen? Or-we don't receive a med that we have called them several times for-then we end up with NINE BOXES of the med....Then other times we can not get a refill because "our records show this med was ordered too soon" How does THAT happen? I remeber working in a facilty years ago in which pharmacy staff came in on a monthly basis and switched out the med carts-we were not responsible for routinely ordering refills.That system worked out well-I don't remeber ever having these problems.Omnicare is almost self serve-we have to peel and stick re-order labels on a sheet to fax...On top of our mega med pass....whoopee...
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Oye...where to begin. We have the exact same problems. At first I though it was nursing not doing our jobs, but it seems like each and every time you order or reorder a med, you need to make at least 2 calls to make sure you get it. We've fine tuned our reordering and ordering process where we are doing our part of ordering the meds correctly. I'm not sure what the problem is for them? Short staffing, budget cuts? Apparently this is a company wide problem, since I don't think the OP and I are in the same areas?

Forget about anything stat or ordered on the weekend too. The delivery drivers all seem to be from another company too and are just as puzzled as we are...

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Specializes in LTC.

Yep, I hated them, too! At the facility I used to work at, they switched to Omnicare and we had so much trouble getting anything. One of the things that bugged me was that they wanted us to call and tell them any order we received after 5pm. Um, hello? I'm faxing you a copy!

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You fax after 4pm and you won't get it till the next day. Grrr.

It is only the last year or so that they have gotten so bad. Too bad we are a corporate chain..we will never be able to change.

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Specializes in Geriatrics.

So, I take it that the wonderful (not) Omnicare isnt just in WI? Is it a nation chain? They are horrible...

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I did some relief work for Omnicare when I lived in Iowa (I won't say which city). It was fine for a few days at a time, but no way could I have worked there all the time.

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Sooooo, what is the deal with them?

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Specializes in LTC, ER, ICU, Psych, Med-surg...etc....

There have been I can't tell you how many deficiencies written for meds not available. Omnicare has gotten too big. It has taken over many local pharmacy providers and now their service suffers.

The problem is that the facility receives the deficiency for the pharmacy screw-up.....

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Specializes in ICU, PICC Nurse, Nursing Supervisor.

omnicare is our house pharm and what gripes me is that they say they don't do refills on the weekends...i am a weekend nurse and if the meds are not there for whatever reason (and this is a problem) then i wont have them at all sat or sun...this includes pain medications...which really puts me in a foul mood....

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Specializes in Case mgmt., rehab, (CRRN), LTC & psych.
So, I take it that the wonderful (not) Omnicare isnt just in WI? Is it a nation chain? They are horrible...
Omnicare has been the off-site house pharmacy for most of the nursing homes where I've been employed. By the way, I am in Texas.
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Specializes in LTC,Hospice/palliative care,acute care.

The chain is in 47 or 48 states.I've seen stories on CNN about them and medicare fraud.We are a county run facility and we had to go with the lowest bidder.The DON is hoping to get rid of them when the current contract is up but with the state the economy is in we doubt she'll be successful. Just recently they changed the labels.I'm good with that-they have high lighted the pertinent info,the name of the med is larger.However when the first boxes came through they had put the labels on in-correctly.Instead of starting to apply them from the top and going around the side they started applying them from the side first which meant when you looked down into the drawer at the top of the box you saw nothing that told you anything about the box of meds.Talk about stooopid! The names of the med,the resident and the RX number were all on the side of the box and the boxes open on the top..Guess what our DON said when I took a box to the office? "Good-this will make some of your co-workers actually read the label" Talk about insulting....Anyway-coincidentally our pharmacy consultant came in later that day-I showed him the problem and it was fixed by the next day.

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Specializes in acute care and geriatric.

My suggestion with all these problems- document them to your DON, keep copies.

Make sure the Thursday nurse checks that all the meds are available for the weekend .

Can you order spare?

Can you borrow from another pt or unit if you need?

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