How many pharmacists are there in the us 2011

Provided that no person whose name has under the provisions of this Act been removed from the register of any State shall be entitled to have his name entered in the register except with the approval of the State Council recorded at a meeting.

Any persons, whose application for registration is rejected by the Registrar, may within three months from the date of such rejection appeal to the State Council, and the decision of the State Council thereon shall be final. Upon entry in the register of a name under section, the Registrar shall issue a certificate of registration in the prescribed form. Renewal fees:- 1 The State Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, direct that for the retention of a name on the register after the 31st day of December of the year following the year in which the name is first entered on the register , there shall be paid annually to the State Council such renewal fee as may be prescribed , and where such direction has been made, such renewal fee shall be due to be paid before the first day of April of the year to which it relates.

Provided that a name so removed may be restored to the register on such conditions as may be prescribed. Entry of additional qualifications:- A registered pharmacist shall on payment of the prescribed fee be entitled to have entered in the register any further degrees or diplomas in pharmacy on pharmaceutical chemistry which he may obtain. Removal from register:- 1 Subject to the provisions of this section, the Executive Committee may order that the name of a registered pharmacist shall be removed from the register, where it is satisfied, after giving him a reasonable opportunity of being heard and after such further inquiry, if any, as it may think fit to make,-.

Provided that no such order shall be made under clause iii unless the Executive Committee is satisfied-. Restoration to register:- The State Council may at any time for reasons appearing to it sufficient order that upon payment of the prescribed fee the name of a person removed from the register shall be restored thereto:.

Provided that where an appeal against such removal has been rejected by the State Government, an order under this section shall not take effect until it has been confirmed by the State Government.

Bar of other jurisdiction:- No order refusing to enter a name on the register or removing a name from the register shall be called in question in any Court. Issue of duplicate certificate of registration Where it is shown to the satisfaction of the Registrar that a certificate of registration has been lost or destroyed, the Registrar may, on payment of the prescribed fee, issue a duplicate certificate in the prescribed form.

Printing of register and evidentiary value of entries therein:- 1 As soon as may be after the 1st day of April subsequent to the commencement of the Pharmacy Amendment Act, 24 of , the Registrar shall cause to be printed copies of the register as it stood on the said date.

There were also notable differences across population demographics. For example, counties in the highest non-English speaking population quintile had significantly fewer pharmacies than those in the lowest quintile 1. The share of pharmacies offering home-delivery of prescription medications was less in counties with the highest population of adults with an ambulatory disability compared to those counties with the least In addition, there was no strong association between the proportion of pharmacies offering home delivery and quintiles for percent of the population 65 years or older.

Quintiles range are reported from lowest to highest percent Quintiles 1 to 5 of county population demographics. For example, 0 to 2. Pharmacy characteristics also varied substantially across counties.

This variation was particularly pronounced for multilingual staffing and least pronounced for e-prescribing coefficient of variation 1.

S3 Fig. We linked detailed information from the National Council for Prescription Drug Programs with publically available demographic data to examine the availability and characteristics of pharmacies in the United States. The total number of pharmacies increased by 6. The availability of pharmacies per-capita, however, did not change during this period, but varied substantially across local areas.

While retail chains persistently account for the largest share of the pharmacy market, independent pharmacies continued to constitute approximately a third of all stores in the U. With the exception of e-prescribing, there was no marked change in pharmacy characteristics, including accommodations that may promote access to prescription medications for vulnerable Americans, such as home delivery and multilingual staffing. To our knowledge, this is the first study to characterize the availability of pharmacies at the national and local level.

This information is important to a variety of stakeholders in both the public and private sector, including local, state and federal public health and policy officials and pharmacy retailers, interested in better understanding the role of pharmacies in improving access and adherence to prescription medications.

Although policy efforts—such as Medicare Part D—have focused on ensuring the affordability of prescription medications [ 18 ], non-adherence, which varies across localities [ 5 , 6 ], persists as important public health problem in the U. Despite the growing number of pharmacies in the U.

This extends findings on geographic variation in access to care [ 20 — 22 ], to pharmacies. In , there was more than a 3-fold difference in the number of pharmacies per-capita between counties in the highest and those in the lowest quintile, with no clear difference by MUA status.

Specifically, there were fewer pharmacies located in the Southwest and Pacific West regions of the country, including counties in Texas, California, New Mexico and Arizona; many of these areas also have a disproportionately higher rate of medication non-adherence among Medicare-Part D beneficiaries[ 5 ]. These findings suggest some localities are disproportionately more likely to encounter barriers in the availability of pharmacies when attempting to fill and adhere to their prescription medications.

Although the distribution of pharmacies by type has not changed over time, it varies across local areas. While retail chains dominate the pharmacy market, and fewer than one-fifth of prescriptions are dispensed at independent pharmacies [ 23 ], independent pharmacies persistently accounted for more than one-third of all community pharmacies in the U.

In fact, in numerous areas in the country, particularly in the Southwest and Plain states, independents dominate market share and are frequently the only pharmacy serving the local population.

Ensuring pharmacies are available and accessible in these populations should be a public health priority considering independents are the most at-risk for pharmacy closures [ 24 ]. According to our analyses of pharmacy characteristics, the provision of accommodations that may improve access to prescription medications has not changed and the vast majority of pharmacies do not offer them. For example, only one-fourth of pharmacies offered home delivery, despite a growing population of homebound elderly [ 25 ], as well as some evidence that home delivery improves medication adherence [ 9 ].

The availability of hour pharmacies is also of interest; since only one in twenty pharmacies we examined are opened for hours, yet longer hours of operation may be associated with lower hospital re-admissions [ 26 ]. Despite federal legislation that mandates non-discriminatory access to accommodations and language services [ 27 ], our findings also suggest that many pharmacies lack multilingual staffing which may impede access and adherence to prescription medications for a growing population of immigrant Americans who may not be proficient in English [ 28 ].

This is surprising considering most pharmacies are enabled for, and seventy percent of clinics have adopted, e-prescribing [ 29 ]. We also found that pharmacy characteristics, specifically the provision of accommodations associated with access to prescription medications, varied across counties and may not align with the needs of the local population.

For example, multilingual pharmacies were only slightly more prevalent in predominately non-English speaking counties. In addition, less than one-third of pharmacies located in counties with a disproportionately higher older adult or ambulatory disability population offered home-delivery services.

These findings suggest Americans that do not speak English and the homebound elderly may encounter accommodation, including language, barriers as they attempt to fill their prescription medications or engage with community pharmacies.

Efforts to improve access to pharmacies, and, in turn, prescription medications, should consider policies and programs that support the measuring and monitoring of pharmacy accessibility. In partnership with pharmacy retailers, federal and state policy officials and local health departments can then prioritize resources and funding decisions to target the development of pharmacies in these pharmacy shortage areas. Pharmacy retailers, including chains and independents, may also consider monitoring population demographics to inform decisions on pharmacy operations to better ensure pharmacies offer accommodations that specifically target the needs of the local population.

For example, the provision of home-delivery services would be a priority for pharmacies located in areas that have a disproportionately higher homebound elderly population. Such efforts can strengthen the capacity of pharmacies to promote access to prescription medications locally, particularly in vulnerable populations, and also support a more efficient and equitable distribution of pharmacy accommodations. Our analyses have several limitations. First, our information regarding the characteristics of pharmacies is based on self-report.

However, we randomly selected a subset of pharmacies and were able to independently validate that 98 were operational. Our national findings on the prevalence of home-delivery services among independent pharmacies and the percent of pharmacies that accept e-prescriptions were similar to prior reports [ 29 , 31 ].

In addition, our information is comparable to our prior analyses of pharmacy licensure in one large Midwestern city [ 7 ]. Second, while we were able to assess important pharmacy characteristics that may impact access to prescription medications, these characteristics nevertheless provide an incomplete picture of how easily consumers can use these pharmacies.

We also do not capture information on interpreter services, which may be offered at pharmacies that lack multilingual staff. Third, there may be considerable variation in the availability of pharmacies within counties [ 7 ]. Fourth, the target population served by pharmacies we have defined as government or clinic-based, in contrast to retail pharmacies, may not include the entire local population.

Finally, while we characterized how pharmacy characteristics varied based on several county characteristics, we did not incorporate information that directly measures the need for pharmacies to be located in a specific geography e. Although the number of pharmacies has slightly increased over the last nine years in the United States, with both retail chains and independent pharmacies consistently leading the pharmacy market, availability of pharmacies varies substantially across local areas.

Many pharmacies do no offer accommodations that facilitate access to prescription medications, and pharmacists, and, in turn, promote medication adherence. Future programs and policies should address the availability of pharmacies and ensure pharmacy characteristics, including accommodations such as multilingual staffing and home delivery, align with local population needs. Browse Subject Areas? Click through the PLOS taxonomy to find articles in your field.

Abstract Importance Despite their increasingly important role in health care delivery, little is known about the availability, and characteristics, of community pharmacies in the United States. Objectives 1 To examine trends in the availability of community pharmacies and pharmacy characteristics hour, drive-up, home delivery, e-prescribing, and multilingual staffing associated with access to prescription medications in the U. Results The number of community pharmacies increased by 6. Conclusions Despite modest growth of pharmacies in the U.

Introduction In , 4 billion prescriptions or Methods Data sources We used several data sources for this study. Outcome variables We examined two primary outcomes on an annual basis.

Other variables We used NCPDP dispenser class codes, such as whether the store was an independent pharmacy or not, and information on any parent organization, such as CVS Health, to classify pharmacies into six mutually exclusive categories: 1 chains, including large retail pharmacies such as Walgreens or Rite Aid; 2 independent up to three stores under the same parent organization , including franchised pharmacies such as Medicine Shoppe; 3 mass retailers, such as Costco or Target; 4 food stores, such as Giant or Jewel; 5 government, defined as a pharmacy under the jurisdiction of federal, state, county or city government including the Indian Health Service and the Veterans Administration; and 6 clinic-based retail or government pharmacy located on-site at a clinic, emergency room or outpatient medical center such as Kaiser Permanente.

Analysis First, we used descriptive statistics to examine the distribution of our primary outcomes overall and by pharmacy type aggregated at the national and at county-level. Download: PPT. Fig 1. Trends in the availability of community pharmacies by pharmacy type in the US, — Industries with the highest published employment and wages for Pharmacists are provided. For a list of all industries with employment in Pharmacists, see the Create Customized Tables function. States and areas with the highest published employment, location quotients, and wages for Pharmacists are provided.

For a list of all areas with employment in Pharmacists, see the Create Customized Tables function. Menu Search button Search:. Occupational Employment and Wages, May Pharmacists Dispense drugs prescribed by physicians and other health practitioners and provide information to patients about medications and their use.

Industries with the highest levels of employment in Pharmacists: Industry Employment 1 Percent of industry employment Hourly mean wage Annual mean wage 2 Health and Personal Care Stores ,