pharmacy technician

pharmacist

pharmacy manager

certified pharmacy technician

sales associate

Genoa Healthcare

I loved coming to work and talking with the patients every day. As a CMC, your job is to manage patient medications with the pharmacy by ensuring med lists are up to date, requesting refills, submitting PA’s, tracking patient’s compliance, and occasionally communicating to the provider on patient’s behalf. You occasionally help out at the pharmacy as well but mostly representing the pharmacy while working from a behavioral heath facility. You are also responsible for marketing to new patients and convincing them to use Genoa as their pharmacy. The goal as a CMC is to work yourself out of a job. Once you sign up enough patients to justify the clinic receiving an in-house pharmacy, you have the choice of being a pharmacy tech at that new pharmacy or you may be able to move to a new site if you want to stay a CMC. There is opportunity to advance as a trainer or a CMC supervisor. I have heard that they treat the supervisors and trainers very well. What I didn’t like was weekly meetings and excessive daily emails. The meetings were usually a brainstorming session to crowdsource marketing ideas. I didn’t feel like they were a good use of my time. I could’ve spent that time enlisting new patients instead of discussing enlisting new patients.  But I was told the meetings were required. Genoa is a subsidiary of much larger conglomerate of healthcare companies so you are bombarded with emails that usually don’t even pertain to your role. Receiving quote of the day and bible verse of the day type emails from multiple ceos, book recommendations, company policy changes for a company you don’t even work for, refrigerator temperature reports for pharmacies you’ve never stepped foot in, etc. When you start working there, it’s like inheriting an email address from someone who just gave out their email address to anyone they possibly could. I loved seeing my regular patients when they came into the clinic and also talking to new people and getting them signed up. I’m a people person so the job just came naturally to me. I surpassed all of my goals on a regular basis and even though I hadn’t been there very long, my metrics were up there with CMCs that had been in the position for years. Which is why I didn’t like how management would always have improvement plans for you during meetings with your supervisor. It’s frustrating when you are excelling as an employee  and your manager is always asking you how you plan to improve. Why would I change what I’m doing if I’m already surpassing every goal? It makes you feel like management is getting bonuses for your hard work with how hard they push. 

Genoa Healthcare reads like a golden opportunity on paper. The schedule is pretty good (M-F, usually 8-5 depending on your location), and getting paid holidays as a pharmacy tech is pretty enticing.

What they don't tell you is that their "competitive" pay is at least $1-2 per hour less than other chain retail pharmacies, and they'll fight you tooth-and-nail during the excruciating hiring process to get you as cheaply as they possibly can. Additionally, management and the company as a whole are extremely fond of making promises that they have no interest in keeping, and siccing consultants on any site that expresses any measure of dissatisfaction.

Additionally, the company is now moving toward a central-fill model that threatens to cut tech hours at retail sites. This was an action adopted without any input from technicians or most pharmacists, and in light of the current massive economic downturn it's a particularly callous and cold move. But, given that the company is owned by UHG, what else can one expect?

The insurance benefits are a joke, unless you plan to dedicate a very significant chunk of your already artificially low paycheck to get the best available option. Even then, expect high copays and headaches for any specialty medications or procedures.

They don't value anyone that works hard to make new programs work when they have zero direct from management except to make more money, get more scripts, and figure it out on your own. 

And don't use their tuition program. They don't go over any of the small print by saying you have to stay with the company for more than a year. And if you don't, you are left with the bill. Yay. More student debt. 

There is a lot of favoritism in the company. If you were from retail pharmacy, you are treated like garbage. I came from hospital pharmacy and I never felt so useless and stupid as a pharmacy tech when the pharmacist constantly belittles you in front of your boss and their boss. Employees are aloud to yell at you on the phone and in front of their coworkers, but because you are an outsider and stepped on one of their toes once, you are insignificant. 

The favoritism also comes when you are not a top preformer. You spend all day trying to find new ways to meet with clients, work on all your new plans, and only to find your plans are partially working. Then you talk with your boss about these plans and what you did, well you are not good enough. No appreciation for any work. Your better off being a robot than human to work for them. 

Sites are partnered with local clinics and usually located inside the clinic, follows clinic hours so generally 8:00a to 5:00p. Most sites have 1-hour lunch and monthly meetings/lunches. Company is a branch of Optum within UnitedHealth Group; has the usual corporate failings like profit over employee (less than standard raises/rates, slow process upgrades, etc). Far better than retail work; more customer-suited and ability to treat patients/consumers better and fairer. Most clinics are mental health facilities so it includes medical injections, plenty of mental health medications, and direct communication with facilities. Common workload is usually around or less than 200 scripts per day. Computer system is essentially proprietary and difficult to learn, but powerful and accessible after experience.

I worked at Genoa for almost 10 years in several different roles. It’s a great company to start your career with, as there are many opportunities to grow and you can learn a lot along the way.

However, over time management changes created a work environment that felt more stressful and less supportive. With the company’s growth came heavier workloads and fewer resources, and it often felt like pharmacists and technicians were expected to handle the work of many people in a single pharmacy. While the experience helped me build valuable skills, the trade-off was lower pay compared to the amount of responsibility and pressure placed on employees.

Genoa can be a good place to gain experience and grow, but I think the company could improve by providing more support, fairer compensation, and realistic expectations for staff.

Good PTO
"Normal" Mon-Fri schedule holidays off
Patients, social workers, nurses, and care takers and most people who I interacted with during my two years were all great 

Sadly the people I worked with were very negative which was awful because Genoa is a mental health pharmacy
The pharmacists I worked with were burnt out from retail and would become triggered randomly and would start screaming at techs or patients. One pharmacist in particular would constantly talk badly about everyone 
Pharmacists and lead tech not direct enough/no training 
Understaffed for over a year 
Bad leadership 
Pay was not good for the stress and amount of work 

If you're going to work for this company I would highly suggest shadowing for at least a week to see what the volume of work is at the site and how the people work together. These are very small groups of people in a tight space. 

What is the best part of working at the company?
Great hours, regular lunch period, generous vacation offered.   

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Sometimes stressful when working a small store with limited tech hours.   We had only one tech who was also responsible for deliveries.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Work culture is good.   There are varied and interesting online resources for payroll, expenses, and e-learning.   Great for self-motivated individuals.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Work 8-5; lunch from 12-1 pm.   We worked many rx orders into pre-scheduled dispill buɓble packing.   Generally as a pharmacist I would fill most other orders.   I worked the register during afternoon delivery periods when the tech was out.

The pharmacy is definitely a breath of fresh air compared to other big chain pharmacies. However, after now that it is owned by UnitedHealth Group, the corporate greed is starting to slowly sink its teeth in and push numbers, script counts, budget. The main focus has changed from helping the clients with more personable healthcare and more on how much profit we bring in. It still has its moments of feeling rewarding and sense of fulfilment. There is such a high turnover with upper management (regional leaders and above) and a lot of the original good people have left. It's still better than CVS and Walgrens though!

If you want to feel valued, dont work here. You can work every day, never call in, always on time, handle every situation professionally and guess what? They'll still give you a 12 cents raise while the district manager gets a huge raise. Dont try to ask for more money cause they'll basically laugh in your face. If they pay you more money that means it's less money for their pockets. No training. They tell you this and that about the system then it's all up to you! Sink or swim! If you ever want to know what sweat shop workers feel like, work here! Hard work, little pay. Don't be dedicated to this place, they don't care about you

What is the best part of working at the company?
The schedule and having major holidays off 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Your hired to do one job, asked to made to do multiple other jobs that take away from your actual job but when you can’t complete your actual job you get in trouble even though your given no time to do it 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Lots of favoritism, if you have someone who has seniority there you can forget it no matter your experience you won’t be good enough to them

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Pharmacy technician 2 salaries reported	$25.25 per hour
Pharmacist 5 salaries reported	$61.80 per hour
Pharmacy manager 2 salaries reported	$137,500 per year
Certified pharmacy technician 4 salaries reported	$20.75 per hour
Sales associate 1 salary reported	$14.04 per hour

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