Yolanda Grimes on LinkedIn: Walgreens CEO Email & Net Worth 2023 | Rosalind Brewer Salary (2024)

Walgreens has about the worst customer service in the universe. Long lines to pick up prescriptions, where I recently talked to someone who had waited 90 minutes (and was still waiting) to get a vaccination for which he had an appointment (90 minutes earlier). Interminable waits on the telephone to talk to the nonexistent, burned out staff. Shelves that are mostly not stocked with merchandise. No wonder Walgreens' financial performance is poor. Where is Amazon when you need them? The retail pharmacy business is ripe for disruption as customer service is awful. And to make matters worse, my health benefits administrator is Blue Shield of California, which is about as incompetent as Walgreens if not more so. Between the two, if and when I can actually get a prescription filled, it is a miracle.Walgreens is short of employees, who take job actions, because Walgreens decided in its wisdom to underpay, understaff (which is related to not paying enough) and have bad working conditions. No wonder pharmacists are walking out and/or quitting in droves. Walgreens & for that matter Blue Shield of California need new leadership that have some modicum of customer service orientation. #customerservice #Walgreens #benefits #benefitsadministration #wages #labor

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Terrified you’re going to be the next Johnson & Johnson? You’re not the only one. If you don’t want to repeat the (alleged) mistakes of J&J, you need to know what they (allegedly) did wrong. Employees at J&J alleged the company breached its fiduciary duty by failing to exercise prudence in selecting their Pharmacy Benefit Manager and agreeing to undesirable contract terms, among other things. Don’t know if your PBM is charging you reasonable costs or enforcing reasonable contract terms? Engage a partner to help you. This partner could be your benefits broker or a third party that specializes in PBM oversight. If you partner with the team at BLUE RAVEN, we will conduct a search for PBM partners that fit your needs and include your current PBM. After we find your best fit partner, we will use actuarial oversight and software to ensure they’re staying true to their word when it comes to contract language, adherence to Medispan, and guarantees. With our software tools, broker partners and employers can check on performance whenever they like. With information at your fingertips, you won’t get caught with your pants down like my favorite maker of lactose free ice cream. Hint: it’s J&J. Now, you don’t have to partner with me, but you better have a strategy in place to ensure you aren’t breaching your fiduciary duty. You’ve got this!

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How are you taking control of your benefit program? Stop loss captives, pharmacy spend and leveraging data are a few topics we will be covering.Come join us for upcoming seminar in Kenosha.Click link for more information.

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Cari Deslatte RHU,REBC at Intrepid says Terri Geeding, Cigna Healthcare deserves a round of applause! 👏🏻 👏🏻👏🏻We asked current and former Client Service Academy participants to think about everyone they work with -- Sales & Service -- and tell us who makes their life easier in this chaotic world.We're celebrating them throughout Q4. 🎉"Terri is there to assist us with any questions, concerns, or problems that our clients run into.She not only resolves the issue, but she also thinks ahead to what additional steps we need to take to ensure the issues don't continue.She is consistent, timely in her responses, a great communicator, and one of the main reasons we are comfortable selling Cigna to our clients.We know we have a strong partnership with Terri to fix anything that might be a thorn in a client's side."One of our industry's worst habits is wasting time complaining about our partners during Q4.It's not productive and we overlook that many people are doing their best every day to deliver on the promises made to a broker's customer.Valerie Stremsterfer Smith and her team know how important it is to stay positive and provided several enthusiastic nominations. 🎉As part of our #letsgetreal series, we've showcased what high-performing partners do to stand out in the broker channel.1️⃣ Follow GenuineShift to scroll through this series2️⃣ Thank someone today for making your life a bit easier#employeebenefits #benefits #insurancebrokers #clientserviceacademy #womenininsurance

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I for one thought that these retail giants would be wildly successful but how wrong I was! I forgot the basic tenants to succeed in healthcare delivery is know thy market including your customer. Patient care can’t be managed by retail managers that don’t understand the tenets of patient care. There is a big difference between filling scripts and selling Tylenol and treating and diagnosing a patient. As the article states the operating margins in primary care are single digit and without ancillary services it’s a non starter. VBC may come and go like capitation and case rate management in the 90’s. Managing risk and costs around a few thousand members also won’t cut it. Not sure patient populations under 100,000 lives is sufficient. I heard the other day it will take many millions of lives for it to be viable and sustainable. We shall see soon enough, thus far it’s only losses and liquidation to the early stage efforts.

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Shrinkflation has been the status quo in health insurance since the ACA.How does an employer deal with rising costs? Like a sleeve of Oreos a common strategy is "pack less in the wrapper" - raise deductibles/copays/out of pocket max/employee contributionsAfter years of this vicious cycle the cost is already so high to receive so little that many are effectively uninsured, one major health expense away from decimating all savings.Employers are discovering proven models for high-value purchasing that resets their healthcare trend. Building health plans around low-cost high-value care, empowering employees to be informed and prudent purchasers of healthcare.This kind of high-value purchasing model is within reach for just about any employer with over 100 employees.

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Follow the money. If you think that your HMO, EPO, PPO, or HDHP plan is a path to lower healthcare costs, you may be waiting a while. The secret? For decades, health insurance carriers have pitched plan acronyms for employees to buy in. It worked. The problem is that plan acronyms are click bait and don't address the fundamantal drivers of healthcare cost. Stop being sold and try something different. https://lnkd.in/ef3WMumY

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Fortunately I don’t make my living drawing - *note drawing is not to scale! 😂I spent time with some new folks at MMA yesterday giving a PBM 101 talk which forced me to boil down this overly complicated (and expensive) industry to what it all means for self-funded health plans. 1: Do not let your benefits consultant that handles all your other coverages also negotiate your PBM contract! Instead, make sure you have a PBM expert (as in, this is all they do) run RFPs and negotiate contracts. This could be a resource inside the brokerage firm you’re working with or external. Personally, I’ve been in this business for almost 20 years and I wouldn’t think of negotiating a PBM contract on my own. There are gotcha’s everywhere and unless you do this all day, every day, I guarantee something will be missed and you’re paying more than you should be. 2: Don’t sign a multi year PBM contract! If you do, it’s almost certain you’ll pay 20%+ more than you should be in year three.3: In light of the J&J lawsuit by their current/former employees for breach of fiduciary duty there’s more scrutiny fiduciaries than ever. You must ensure you have a documented process to fulfill your fiduciary duty which includes managing Rx costs appropriately. You are likely in breach of this duty if:1: Your benefits broker also negotiates your PBM contract2: You’re in the tail end of a three year deal3: You don’t have a process in place4: You only “shopped” within your brokers pharmacy coalition5: You don’t know how much your broker is earning in commission from the PBM. If this compensation hasn’t been disclosed you’ll likely be surprised how much they’re earning on it. #makehealthcarebetter

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It has been a rough year for retail pharmacy chains CVS Health and Walgreens, with their stocks falling sharply while much of the market rallied.And that weakness is continuing today on fears that Amazon is getting ready to eat even more of their lunch. That’s because Blue Shield of California decided to drop the company’s pharmacy benefit management services. Instead,they’re partneringwith Mark Cuban’s Cost Plus Drug Company and Amazon Pharmacy, potentially delivering major savings for its roughly 5 million members. While California is a significant market for CVS,the broader implication that health insurers could begin to look beyond traditional pharmacy benefit management systems sent investors running for the pills.Get it? Instead of running for the hills? Anyway…Losing pharmacy market share adds to the list of troubles these companies have faced recently. On the demand side, they’ve got inflation-pressured consumers spending less on discretionary purchases in their stores. On the supply side, they’ve got increased competition from “newer age” digital pharmacies and rising costs in their health insurance segment. And on the regulatory side, they’ve got the overhang of opioid-related lawsuits and anti-trust pressures.Add it all up, and you’ve got significant downside pressure on these businesses and their stocks. $CVSshares fell 8% to nearly three-year lows, and$WBAdipped 4% to 13-year lows. Both are down over 30% over the last year, with investors struggling to find a catalyst for a turnaround anytime soon. #stocks #economy #stockmarket #financial #health #healthcare #news #performance #Amazon #CVS #drugs #insurer

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There's been a lot of buzz about the BCBS of CA "PBM shakeup." Although I don't always agree with Mr. Fein, I share his sentiment around the announcement. I fear the middle market will try to execute the same playbook before waiting to see if it actually delivers results and more clunky overlays and forcing of vendors to work together will be ultimately cumbersome for #patients. There are better solutions in the market TODAY, that don't require carving everything up (and then still using CVS Specialty 🙄 ...)As with EVERYTHING you see or hear in the #pharmacy ecosystem, ask the hard questions and require results based metrics (i.e. not "savings").https://lnkd.in/gcnMzDtM

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