Hospital to Specialty Infusion

[EyeTeeFarmer]

Has anyone moved from the former to the latter? I'm hoping to hear some pros and cons. The specialty is owned by a large red three letter corporation with many chains.

The question for why would someone leave the former include incompatibility with management, disagreements on decision making process, etc.

Thanks!

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[Litha]

I personally would not make that move. Why give up a hospital job for the evil hell that is CVS-owned infusion? I interviewed for them a few years ago, and it's not what it's cracked up to be. High volume with limited staff, late admits, lost meds by the courier, and worst of all: being on-call. Plus, and this was 2018, they offered me LESS per hour than I was making in LTC, and the liability is way higher with sterile compounding.

Some interesting points - Pharmacists were not allowed adjust TPNs without calling the docs. Something about it being a "prescription" dispensed to the home, rather an inpatient protocol-agreement type deal that is standard with TPNs everywhere else. Their software sucks. Patient get discharged from the hospitals at all hours of the night/weekend and will need their home infusion TPN/antibiotics/fluids immediately. And how do they get delivered? By UPS, who constantly loses things or doesn't maintain proper temperatures! Plus you have to deal with insurance again. It's a very broken system.

 

[deleted562805]

I personally would not make that move. Why give up a hospital job for the evil hell that is CVS-owned infusion? I interviewed for them a few years ago, and it's not what it's cracked up to be. High volume with limited staff, late admits, lost meds by the courier, and worst of all: being on-call. Plus, and this was 2018, they offered me LESS per hour than I was making in LTC, and the liability is way higher with sterile compounding.

Some interesting points - Pharmacists were not allowed adjust TPNs without calling the docs. Something about it being a "prescription" dispensed to the home, rather an inpatient protocol-agreement type deal that is standard with TPNs everywhere else. Their software sucks. Patient get discharged from the hospitals at all hours of the night/weekend and will need their home infusion TPN/antibiotics/fluids immediately. And how do they get delivered? By UPS, who constantly loses things or doesn't maintain proper temperatures! Plus you have to deal with insurance again. It's a very broken system.

Positive side is it is better than floating at. 24 hr CVS store.
But I agree. Why would you trade hospital for CVS owned infusion?

 

[ValeRx]

I'm never leaving hospital. Ever.

 

[PromisedNeverland]

Never leave hospital, i'm assuming it's inpatient

 

[deleted820760]

Those of you who say hospital is so great have probably never worked at a toxic one. Management can make a huge difference in your stress level, and how much you like your job.

OP, I would not recommend leaving hospital for the three letter company. Many pharmacists at my hospital left to work in outpatient infusion. They had similar reasons as you-Horrible management. They all said leaving for infusion pharmacist job was the best decision they made. But it wasn’t the three letter company. They now have better hours and less stress.

 

[EyeTeeFarmer]

Thanks for all of the responses. I previously had an offer for red three-lettered home infusion and declined, mainly due to the on-call requirements of once per week + one weekend per month with terrible beeper pay. Some of the lack of independence and other insight from @Litha helped too. To their credit, the communication process was spot on and everyone was incredibly professional with a pretty competitive hourly rate that ramped with overtime. I was going to pair this with a hospital PRN to keep clinical skills intact and foot in the door versatility.

I've accepted a different hospital based chemo position instead.