Hate Mail Wednesday

Well, this is awkward. We were all pumped up and ready to go for Hate Mail Wednesday but we didn't receive any hate mail over the past week! We did receive many supportive emails and tips and we appreciate each and every one of them. Keep the information flowing guys. As always, if you have the inside scoop on anything within the Walgreens Medicare Part B Support Center for diabetic supplies, send us an e-mail at exwalgreens@yahoo.com. Also, we received plenty of responses to our search of people with film experience or equipment. We have found some great people who will work well for this project and should be fine with what we have for now, but if you have another way you could lend your support or creativity don't hesitate to let us know.

Documentary

Hey folks, we hope everyone had a great weekend. We've had some really positive feedback flowing in lately and we greatly appreciate it. You know, when we first started this project we really weren't sure where it would take us. Would we quickly get bored of it? Would anyone even notice? Were we even qualified to take on such a task? But thanks to all of the kind words of encouragement by our supporters we just keep trucking along and I really feel this is the beginning of something very powerful and inspiring, and inspiration sure seems hard to find these days. But as one Somalian refugee once said, when God gives you lemons, make lemonade. It's in these trying moments where we really witness the true core of the human spirit in all its beauty; we rise above and triumph despite all that stands before us.

We received an interesting suggestion by a friend (we'll call her "Kim") of the Walgreens Medicare Part B Center Watch who suggested we make a documentary on Walgreens similar to film maker Michael Moore's "Downsize This!", where Moore goes after corporations engaging in unethical behavior. Kim, I have to say that is a wonderful idea and we've been thinking about it all weekend. We envision a series of interviews with employees, ex-employees and maybe even customers. Perhaps even some elected representatives as well.

The only problem is we really don't have too much film-making experience or film equipment, so we're asking that if any of you out there do have film making experience or could help us out with any aspect of producing a documentary, please let us know. Have you produced a film before? Worked on a set? Send us an e-mail at exwalgreens@yahoo.com. Also we want to hear what everyone else thinks and if they have any other ideas or something to contribute. Is it a good idea? Bad idea? Let us know.

Whistleblower Protection

When one finds themselves in the difficult position of working for a company that is partaking in either unethical or illegal activity, eventually they'll have to make a choice of either going along and pretending everything is fine, or doing the right thing and speaking out against it. With the economy being the way it is right now, job security takes top priority among workers and many aren't exactly jumping at the chance to rock the boat and put their employment in jeopardy if they do find themselves in this position. Fortunately the government has safeguards in place which protect workers who speak out against wrongdoings at their place of employment. These safeguards protect everything from speaking out about product safety issues to alerting the authorities of HIPAA violations. Click here to view a partial list of these statutes and protections.

Sometimes it even pays to be a whistleblower. We mentioned a settlement the other day from back in 2008 where Walgreens was caught dispensing the wrong form of medication because one had a much higher profit margin than the other (ex: dispensing fluoxetine tablets when the prescription was written for capsules). Walgreens ended up shelling out $35 million after a probe by the justice department. The investigation was sparked by whistleblower pharmacist Bernard Lisitza who filed the initial suit. The good news? As part of the settlement, whistleblower Bernard Lisitza received $5 million from Walgreens. Not bad at all.


When Bernard Lisitza first became aware of the policy to "upsell" to the form of medication that paid the most, he very likely felt torn and it was no doubt a tough decision to make to do the right thing. Pharmacists typically make a good $100,000+ a year and it's not easy for someone in that position to risk his income and career to take a stand for what's right. But that's the moral of the story here: there's actually very little risk at all because of the protection whistleblowers have. In fact in his case and many other cases, he was rewarded quite generously for his guts to take a stand and say "I'm not going to sit by and let this happen anymore".


If you find yourself sitting there in a similar dilemma, if you're having to make that conscious decision, always remember that you'll always get further in life by doing the right thing and being honest. It will all work out in the end and your community will thank you. Go with your gut instinct and don't ever feel like someone has you by the throat just because they sign your checks. Because as we've seen in Benard Lisitza's case, sometimes there's a much larger check right around the corner.

Walgreens sued for selling patient data to data mining companies

From kevinmd.com:

Walgreens is being sued by customers who are not happy that their prescription information – even though it has been de-identified – is being sold by Walgreens to data-mining companies.

The plaintiff group of customers is suing to share in the profits realized by Walgreens from trading in the de-identified data.

And healthcareitnews.com:

The suit cites Walgreen's 2010 annual filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which lists "purchased prescription files" as intangible assets worth $749 million.

Yet another example of the type of "ethical business practices" you can expect from Walgreens. One would think you could trust a pharmacy to protect your data and only hold on to it for the purposes of serving you as a customer / patient, not profiting off it by selling it to data mining companies. Oh hell, who are we kidding... this is Walgreens we're talking about.

Walgreens Medicare Part B Center: From the rumorville

We've just received a tip from a friend of Walgreens Medicare Part B Center Watch via e-mail. It hasn't been confirmed yet but we're told that Walgreens management is working with Fraley & Company, L.L.C. in trying to stop information from being published on this site. Fraley & Company is an accounting and business consulting firm located in Cincinnati run by Don Brauning. At this time we're not quite sure if this is related to speculation that they're getting government incentive money for training new hires or if it's more of a public relations effort. Either way it makes things more fun around here. Anyone with more information can send us an e-mail at exwalgreens@yahoo.com. Stay tuned...

Walgreens Medicare Part B Support Center: Hate Mail Wednesday

Due to some of the irate comments and e-mails we've gotten over the past couple days, we thought it would be fun to start a weekly segment called Hate Mail Wednesday. It appears that we've ruffled a few feathers out there and a couple people seem upset that we dared to publish information about Walgreens. Though we do value these outbursts for their comedic potential, I think a few of you have gotten the wrong idea about what we're about here. Have you ever had to read a book in school and then wrote a book report based on what you've read? That's pretty much what this is. We had some interesting experiences at Walgreens and learned some interesting things. It would be a shame to just forget everything without using it as a learning experience for everyone involved. And we thought it would be interesting for others to share as well so we can get a plethora of information from different perspectives. Who knows, maybe we'll end up writing a book together that you'll be reading to your grandchildren. The possibilities are endless. Now, I can understand if not everyone shares our enthusiasm but the hate is simply uncalled for. Take a deep breath and step away from the computer for a few minutes if you have to. If you're going to write us hate mail though, please keep in mind to make it creative and entertaining. This will increase your chances of it appearing on Hate Mail Wednesday.

Now on to the hate mail, this one comes from Walgreens employee Donyel Warden:

They did this to slow down sales ? The SALES center .. Slowing down sales.. Hmmm Nope u both are pathetic and wrong I've read some of your other bs post and again u are wrong grasping at straws.. Not even good straws, more like straws that were used in a cheap drink at a sleaze bar chewed on by a drunk w/his good tooth n thrown away ite useless but worse than that u r spewing outlies about a co. That u have a personal issue with. Inspector dipshit detective dunbass u should prob find something better to do with your time better than making up lies against a co. Ur mad at bc u simply just couldn't cut it put on your big boy pants and get over it

Donyel you owe us a new spellcheck because ours just exploded after pasting that! All kidding aside, you gotta respect an employee who goes out of her way to defend her company like that. You can tell she is very loyal to the company and is trying to do the right thing by defending it. So your heart's in the right place Ms. Warden. We are going to have to knock off a few points for calling us "dunbasses" though. But all in all it's a great start which is why we chose it for our first Hate Mail Wednesday.

A couple points here to address a few things you mentioned. The Sales Center...slowing down sales. Yes, that was our thought as well. WTF? Sales managers slowing down sales on purpose? No way. Unfortunately that is the truth as witnessed by everyone there, and the ridiculousness of it is why we thought it was worth mentioning. We wish we were kidding but I really think it's a symptom of a very small division within a gigantic corporation. If the Walgreens support center for diabetic supplies was a small business and all it did was sales, like how Liberty probably was when it first started, you can guarantee that things like that wouldn't happen, because everyone in small sales companies is focused on sales and the bottom line. With this small division within the huge company that Walgreens is, it no doubt ends up a bit off the radar of corporate executives who aren't even in the same building but are in another state.

Blast from the past: Walgreens forced to pay $35 million for improper dispensing practices

In 2008, from Forbes.com:

Walgreens Co. said Wednesday it will pay $35 million to the federal government, 42 states and Puerto Rico to resolve investigations related to Medicaid reimbursements for three drugs the company dispensed at its pharmacies.

The Justice Department said that from 2001 through 2005 the pharmacy chain improperly switched patients to different versions of the prescriptions drugs Ranitidine, Fluoxetine and Eldepryl in order to increase its reimbursement from Medicaid.

Tisk tisk tisk. It makes you wonder what they're up to now that we'll be hearing about in a few years. Got any information about any current wrongdoings at Walgreens, either at the retail stores, the Medicare Part B Support Center, or at the corporate level? Send us an e-mail at exwalgreens@yahoo.com. Nothing's too big or small to report on.

Walgreens Medicare Part B Center: Billing the Govt for things customers don't need

With the Walgreens mail order program for diabetic supplies, their main source of revenue is the federal government through Medicare. And for many of the customers, they're paying nothing out of pocket because they have both Medicare and a supplemental insurance. This creates an interesting dynamic where customers don't really complain if they're getting supplies they don't need because they're not personally having to pay for it either way. If you were sent a bunch of stuff in the mail for free, you probably wouldn't go out of your way to dispute it or send it back.

A little background: Medicare will pay for a new glucose meter every 5 years, new test strips, lancets, and control solution every 90 days, a new battery every year, and a new lancing device (the thing that pricks your finger) every 6 months.

Walgreens has all of its reps pushing their Walgreens TRUE Result meter, a private label meter manufactured by Nipro Medical (who also makes Liberty's meter, which in fact is the same exact meter) which they offer complimentary at no cost to medicare or the customer. Offering free meters has become somewhat of an industry standard these days; it makes it much easier to entice customers to switch over and they make a big chunk of change back on the test strips, which must be compatible to the meter. It's very similar to Hewlett-Packard selling printers at a loss but then recouping big margins through ink cartridge sales.

Most customers who sign up with the Walgreens home delivery service do switch over to the TRUE Result meter since it's pushed and offered for free. It's a kit that includes a carrying case, control solution, 10 test strips, lancets, and a lancing device. Most kits by other manufacturers come with these same items as well, whether it's the One Touch Ultra, Ascensia Breeze, or Accu-chek Compact Plus. The problem is, Walgreens has its reps adding lancing devices on orders even though they're already included in the kit they're receiving, whether it's the TRUE Result kit or any other kit. So let's say a customer gets a TRUE Result meter. They'll end up with two lancing devices: the one included in the kit, and the added-on Reliamed lancing device that the government was charged for. Does anyone need to be sent two lancing devices? Of course not. Is the Reliamed lancing device better than the one included in the kit? No, in fact we've tried them both and prefer the one included in the kit. Also, the Reliamed lancets which Walgreens is pushing are compatible with the device within the kit. There's absolutely no reason to add another lancing device on the order, other than to bill the federal government for more items.

This isn't just a problem with Walgreens either. I've heard from many customers of Liberty who say that they are sent a lot more supplies than they need, and there are some other companies out there sending meters and supplies without the patient's consent. People rarely complain about receiving free stuff, so the public is rarely alerted to the fact of this going on. The problem is, it's not actually free - the American people are all footing the bill.

Walgreens Medicare Part B Center: Purposefully slowing down sales

I witnessed some ridiculous things during my time at the Walgreens Support Center. One of them was that of management purposefully slowing down sales because of a backlog in the order audit department. For the support center, Walgreens uses software by Interactive Intelligence called Interaction Client which is hooked up to an auto-dialer that makes all the calls for the reps. With the autodialer, the sales reps make no manual calls and they have no say-so in who gets called. They simply sit and wait for the next call to come to them. Reps receive a new call about a minute after dispositioning the last call, on average. The autodialer has a useful purpose of screening out most garbage calls, such as no answer, disconnected lines, and voicemails. Such calls are never sent to the reps; the reps only receive the calls when the line is picked up by someone on the other line. This makes for a more productive work day for the sales rep, as he goes from one customer to the next, and not having to waste time with busy, disconnected lines or lines with no answer.

For a couple days at a time, this autodialer was turned off by management. Was there a malfunction in the software? No. With the autodialer turned off, the sales rep receives the customer profile and then manually dials. Which in other contexts wouldn't be a problem except in this case it resulted in reps spending all day long getting nothing but no answers, voicemails, and disconnected lines - all the garbage calls that the autodialer had been in effect screening out. Sales went down dramatically. Whereas before you'd see a bunch of tallies on the board from the day's sales, now there were only a few sales total from around 20 reps. You can't make sales to disconnected lines or when there's no answer. So why was the autodialer turned off? Specifically to stop sales. It turns out that the sales department was making too many sales and the order audit department couldn't keep up. Which made me wonder again, why are we hiring another 40 this week, and next week, when evidently we're already selling too much? If we're selling too much now how could we ever keep up with sales in later weeks?

During this time, reps were told not to worry. The decrease in sales won't count against them towards their "conversion percentage" - a ratio that shows sales productivity per calls made. But however you slice it, it did practically stop everyone's sales for a few days, and even if the conversion rate was unchanged, less sales certainly does effect commission checks that employees rely on. This is secondary though to how dumb of a business move it was. At any real sales company, to see sales drop to practically zero would have had any sales manager sweating, but here everyone walked around calmly with no concern at all that no one was selling anything. It was the result they intended.

Walgreens Medicare Support Center: Scripts for the reps to follow

At the Walgreens Medicare Part B Support Center, everything is tightly controlled and reps are given calling scripts to use while calling customers. To manage calls, they use a program called Interaction Client, developed by Interactive Intelligence. Interaction Client works hand in hand with Interaction Scripter to manage calls, scripting, and to process information. Below is an example of what Interaction Client looks like:

 
Below is the script reps are to go by when making calls:


Hello this is ________ from Walgreens. I'm calling today to let you know there's a way that Walgreens can help you take advantage of your medicare part B benefits.

Before I continue, I must let you know that this call may be recorded for quality and training purposes.

This benefit is for medicare customers who are testing their blood sugar.
Mr. ________, does your doctor have you testing your blood sugar for diabetes?

[ yes ] [no ]

We want to let you know that Walgreens provides the option of going to your local walgreens for your testing supplies or walgreens can provide you a 90 day supply of
test strips, lancets, lancing device, and control solution delivered right to your door for free.

Do you have traditional medicare including part B? (red, white, and blue card)

[ yes ] [no ]

How are you currently receiving your test strips and lancets?

[Walgreens] [mail service] [other]

Do you have another insurance you take to the doctors office to cover your copay (supplemental or secondary insurance)

[ yes ] [no ]


What is the name of that plan? [                     ]


Ok Great, based on what you've told me, we will bill medicare for 80% of the cost of supplies and bill your supplemental 20%, resulting in no out of pocket cost to you.

I can now verify your eligibility for the service, I just need your Medicare ID # on your medicare card, I will be happy to wait if you need a moment to locate it.

Medicare ID #: [                         ]

-------------------------------

If the sales reps reach a voicemail, they are to leave this message:


Hello, this is the Walgreens support center, we are reaching out to our valued customers letting them know that there is a way that Walgreens can help you take advantage of your medicare part B benefits which includes letting Walgreens come to you with home delivery of medical testing supplies.

If you're interested in hearing more about how walgreens can help you with your benefits, you can give us a call at 888-380-8030.

Thank you for being a loyal Walgreens customer, we look forward to speaking with you.

Walgreens Medicare Part B Center Hiring Practices

Walgreens doesn't hire its employees for the Medicare Part B Center directly, they use several staffing companies: Staffmark, Aerotek, and Select Staffing. The staffing companies don't just funnel them to Walgreens and walk away, they continue to be an integral part of handling the employee's "assignment". Paychecks to these employees don't come from Walgreens but are taken care of by the staffing companies, and Walgreens also has these staffing companies take care of the firing of employees as well.

Every couple weeks, Walgreens hires roughly 40 people and puts them through a training class. On one of my first days there, I found out that there were only 50 reps in the call center. It makes one wonder, how can a company hire 40 new people every couple weeks and only end up with 50 reps? I know turnover is typically high in a call center environment, but not this bad.

One thing I found interesting was that in the initial employment ad and also in what reps are initially told, the training is said to last 4 or 5 weeks. I will attach below a copy of their employment ads for the call center positions. It turns out that the training class lasts only 1 week and then the reps begin selling on the phone. The government offers different types of incentives and tax credits to businesses for training they provide to new employees. Hiring 40 people every couple weeks only to lose most of them after a month seems like a huge waste of money and time. Are they receiving some sort of kickback in return for "training" that makes it all worth it? Question: when they file to receive these training incentives, do they tell the government that they trained employees for 1 week? or 4 or 5 weeks? If the incentive amount corresponds with the amount of time training, this could artificially quadruple the amount they're receiving from the government.

The position pays $11/hour. The staffing companies obviously take some sort of cut too from their services of providing employees, but that might just be taken from the commission bonuses and not the hourly. Employees are told that a 15% fee is taken out of bonuses for the staffing companies. If staffing companies are only paid a percentage of commission and not hourly, this would make good sense as it would encourage staffing companies to work hard to find highly talented candidates who can bring in the big commission checks. But back to that $11/hour. Walgreens hires 40 new people every couple weeks and has them sitting in a training class for a week. None of the employees are producing at this time, they're all just sitting in a class. $11 x 40 hours a week x 40 employees is $17,600. How can it make sense to shell out $17,600 every couple weeks for training of employees when 85% of them will be gone within a few months?

From a class of 20 people (classes are divided into 2, around 20 per class), only around 3 employees are remaining at the end of 3 months. What happened to the rest of the group, did they all get burned out? Well throughout the course of a few months, Walgreens fires them. They don't fire them all on one day, they spread it out so for a good amount of time it goes unnoticed. And none of the employees are told that their coworkers were fired. It's made to look like they just had a scheduling conflict or moved on. Even some of the managers and "coaches" are kept in the dark.

Below is the employment ad Staffmark put on Careerbuilder.com for the position:

Job Description

Walgreens Medicare Part B Call Center in West Chester, Ohio, which is part of Walgreens Co., a well established company in the Pharmacy Industry focusing on health and wellness solutions, consumer goods and convenient services, is currently seeking money motivated experienced Inside Sales / Call Center Representatives to work in a fast paced outbound sales call center environment.

Walgreens is among one of the leaders in the food and drug industry, and is ranked in the Fortune's Global 500 list for largest companies in the world.

Job Description:
 

• Making outbound calls to sell diabetes testing supplies to current and potential customers.
• Shift is 12:30pm – 9:00pm Mon thru Fri (Training is 4 weeks from 9:00am – 5:30pm)
• Pay is $11/hr plus eligibility for an unlimited sales incentive bonus potential!
• With incentives, potential weekly gross earnings can range from $440-$800 (+).
• This is a contract-to-hire opportunity (we are looking for dependable long term employees with a strong work ethic)
• Must be able to pass a drug test / criminal background check

Job Requirements

 Candidates Must Have:

• High School Diploma or GED certificate
• Proof of previous Sales Achievements and a strong dependable attendance record
• Ability to be persistent with strong persuasion skills
• Excellent listening, communication, and probing skills
• Minimum 1-2 years outbound call center experience is required (ex: collections, telemarketing, inside sales, up selling)
• Good computer skills (data entry, navigating multiple screens, etc.)
• Self-motivated and organized with great follow-up, willingness to work very hard and get the job done
• Be professional and have a great personality that works well with people over the phone

Only Medicare customers qualify for home delivery of diabetic supplies at Walgreens

Two things are required to be eligible for the mail order home delivery service at Walgreens: 1) that the customer be testing their blood sugar on a daily basis (actually this rule is bent to include those testing just 3 times a week), and 2) the customer must have Medicare as their primary coverage. This second qualifier is curious, why would Walgreens only let Medicare customers take advantage of their home delivery service? If a customer is willing to pay all in cash, if a customer just has private insurance, if a customer has an advantage plan, or if a customer just has medicare as their secondary insurance because they're still working none of these customers are "eligible" for the home delivery service. Why not?

I took a look at Liberty Medical's FAQ and found that they do accept customers that don't have medicare as their primary insurance:

"Can I use your online form to enroll even if Medicare is not my primary insurance plan?

Yes

Is Medicare the only insurance plan Liberty accepts?

No. In addition to Medicare, Liberty accepts insurance plans. We also accept Medicaid in most states, as well as a variety of prescription drug cards."

Does Medicare, government run insurance for those over 65, pay out more per box of test strips than other insurance coverage? Is the government being taken advantage of here due to their lack of ability to keep their finger on the pulse of market conditions? Or is it simply a matter of it being easier to process medicare claims in comparison to private insurance companies where coverage may vary? Whichever the case may be, from a customer's perspective Liberty Medical is much more flexible and open to working with different coverages. Liberty also has hardship programs for those with low income and may cover the 20% copay remaining whereas Walgreens has no such program. I spoke to many Liberty customers who only had Medicare with no supplemental insurance but told me they paid nothing out of pocket. Whereas with Walgreens, they'd be paying the 20% copay. One thing Walgreens severely lacks is a benefit over the competition, their main draw is that they have a trusted name. A comparison of benefits will show no real advantage and in many cases they fall behind Liberty.

What is The Walgreens Medicare Part B Support Center?

Hello everyone, this is our first post. We worked at the Walgreens support center for diabetic testing supplies a couple months ago and thought it would be kind of fun to make a blog about it and see if we can have some other employees and ex-employees coming to share things as well. Walgreens has some...interesting ways of doing things that make us go "hmmmm" so we'd like to hear from others to see if we can make sense of it all.

So what is the Walgreens medicare Part B Support Center? Ok, you've all seen those commercials with Wilford Brimley telling those with diabetes (pronounced "diabeetus") to test their blood sugar and check it often, right? Well that commercial is selling Liberty Medical's home delivery service for diabetic testing supplies. They've been in business for years now signing up people who see a convenience in having their test strips mailed out to them as opposed to them having to go to the store to get it. In the meantime, Walgreens, who sells diabetic testing supplies in their stores, has seen sales lost to mail order companies like Liberty because a good chunk of customers prefer to have it delivered.

So now Walgreens is in the mail order game and has a call center in West Chester (9025 Centre Point Dr in the Contech building) to get the word out and get people switching back from Liberty and other mail order companies to Walgreens. One funny thing is that Walgreens gets its prospecting list from its 8,000 local pharmacies so the majority of people they're calling are already getting their testing supplies from Walgreens. It appears that this has caused a bit of intracompany tension being that one division is stealing sales away from its core retail side. Store managers and pharmacists are wondering why people claiming to be Walgreens are calling all their customers and in effect encouraging them away from the store. Of course, the "official policy" of the support center is to not push the service to those who are currently getting their supplies from the local Walgreens stores, but that rule must be broken by any serious rep that wants to keep their job. Again, they're prospecting from their own customer database so 90% of them are already getting supplies from Walgreens.

More entries to come, stay tuned...