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The most relevant and current collection of blogs dedicated to helping the independent pharmacy owner.
Pharmacy Training: Why Teaching Your Team to Sell Will Never Work
One of the biggest challenges for a pharmacy business is that no one likes to sell. It seems to be part of our psyche that if you are selling anything, it equates to a used car salesman selling a lemon dressed up as a Cadillac.
In other words, selling is perceived as trying to get people to do something that is not in their best interest. No wonder we resist it! And the problem is we are so busy avoiding selling that we are often not providing our customers with all the value we have to offer.
If you want to increase your sales, don’t train your pharmacy to sell; teach them to solve problems and offer solutions.
Problem Solvers and People Pleasers
In many cases, patients don’t even know how to think about what you have to offer, much less know how to choose it.
For example, a patient who has just been diagnosed with diabetes likely has a “deer in the headlights” look. They think they are coming in to pick up a prescription (or several). They don’t even know how to think about dealing with diabetes themselves, much less that you can be a resource and guide them through measuring and tracking insulin levels, adjusting meds and important supplements and resources. What to start with, what to do next, and how to make lifestyle changes that will determine their quality of life? When they are standing in front of the pharmacy counter holding their prescriptions in their hand, they don’t have a clue what is involved or how to make a decision.
Thisis where training your pharmacy team to identify problems and offer solution is essential. Once you have fully identified their needs, the next step is to educate them on what you can do for them. If your customers don’t understand the value you have to offer – they are going to make a decision based on perceived price – and you are going to be squeezed!
By identifying your customers’ needs based on what they are buying, you (and your team) can then recommend other products, programs or services that will support them. It is always the customer’s choice whether or not to buy what you are recommending. You actually take away that choice if you don’t let them know what you have to offer.
Your Pharmacy’s Profit Ignitor
Training this skillset can be hard work, but it is possible. To make your life easier, we developed the Pharmacy Profit Ignitor workshop where you can send your team to understand the vast opportunity of increasing front-end sales by offering solutions via nutrient depletion supplements.
This pharmacy training is where they will learn how to ignite front-end sales based on products already in your store or by bringing in new lines. They’ll leave with an action plan and return ready to increase your bottom line by $18,000 or more in the front end and much more on the back end of your store. And, learn strategies that can be used over and over to increase sales that compliment sync and data-mining initiatives.
To learn more about how to get beyond selling and build your superstar team, download our free eBook: Pharmacy Training – A Practical Guide to Creating a Superstar Team.
In this eBook, you’ll learn about…
- Employee engagement and the impact it can have on your business
- Identifying key characteristics to build a superstar team
- Disengaged employees, the key indicators, and the negative impact on your business performance, profit and the connection between the two
- Leveraging professional training programs
- Training courses, workshops, and webinars exclusively available to the pharmacy industry
4 Pharmacy Training Courses the Best Teams Will Attend this Summer/Fall 2017
Through a unique blend of business coaching and training, Pharmacy Development Services has a track record of producing some of the most groundbreaking and results-driven pharmacy teams in the industry. In fact, the average new member sees a 12.1 return in their PDS investment by implementing just one or two of our profit-focused programs.
In an industry where many pharmacy owners are discouraged by shrinking margins, increased competition and legislation, PDS Members are excited for the future. They’re investing in their businesses, and especially their teams, to gear up for significant growth.
In fact, PDS Members…
- Practicing Bedside Delivery report earning an extra $85,000 in annual profits.
- Synchronizing just 100 patients are increasing their annual fills by 2,000, which is an average annual profit of $20,000 (PDS Members average 350 SyncRx patients
- Performing 10 Annual Wellness Visits per day for two days a week for 50 weeks a year is adding $175,000 in revenue annually.
- Selling high-end supplements average $18,000 in front-end profit annually.
But they’re not just implementing a task list given to them by their PDS Business Coach and Performance Specialist. From pharmacy leadershipfront-end salesfinancial literacy, they are also investing in trainings for themselves and their employees.
Do those results sound irresistible to you? We thought so. The good news is that we have a handful of trainings on the schedule that you can attend! We asked PDS’ VP of Training and Development, Kelley Babcock, to tell us her top training picks for the Summer and Fall 2017.
Kelley Babcock’s Top 4 Pharmacy Training Courses for Summer/Fall 2017
My recommendations truly depend on your goals as an owner for 2017. You want to make your training decisions based off of your store’s vision and objectives. Trainings and workshops are powerful tools to aligning your team with the culture you desire and synergistic in achieving your store’s overarching goals.
Clinical Services Profit IgnitorIf one of your key focuses within the business is to generate increased profit, I would highly recommend the Clinical Services Profit Ignitor training that’s happening on October 27 – 28, 2017. Our trainers will show you how to integrate your clinical pharmacists into physicians offices so you can generate additional revenue from the visits alone, plus offer upsolutions and drive new business to the pharmacy. You’ll receive all the tools and resources need to set up shop in the offices immediately.
Advanced Leadership and Leadership 3.0
Two trainings where owners see immediate impact are Leadership 3.0 (August 17-19, 2017) and Advanced Leadership
(August 25-26, 2017). We’ve seen hundreds of owners benefit from our leadership trainings by not only attending themselves, but especially with their mid-to-higher level team members.
Advanced Leadership focuses on self-awareness skills that will transform the way managers lead their teams, how to implement change effectively and maintain sustainability for positive, long-lasting results. Leadership 3.0 is the next level to Advanced Leadership and focuses on inner trust, followed by trust with your team and customers. Studies have show a correlation between low trust and a high cost to business and your bottom line. Leadership 3.0 is where you will learn to make business decisions with confidence!
With their newly-trained senior staff, owners can begin to feel confident about handing off tasks that usurp their time and can then focus on other areas of business growth, without their focus being scattered across many different programs.
SyncRx+ Intensive and Synchronization Bootcamp
If your team hasn’t started a medication synchronization program yet, or isn’t seeing the results you hear other pharmacy owners discuss at trade shows, the PDS SyncRx+ IntensiveSynchronization Bootcamp is your catalyst to quick implementation and getting 300+ patients enrolled.
During the two-day SyncRx+ Intensive (September 15-16, 2017), you will receive the training, policies, procedures, and templates to implement a robust and successful synchronization program in your pharmacy. We will cover the best practices in performing the SyncRx+ process and MTM opportunities. You are given everything you need to get this program up and running in your pharmacy.
With each training of SyncRx+ Intensive, course facilitator, Jason Turner, PharmD, has identified what pharmacists and technicians need the most to implement a synchronization program successfully. Incorporating slides, activities, and videos into the training are all key elements, but the lynchpin to achieving the greatest level of success is watching the process live in a pharmacy. At the SyncRx Bootcamp, Jason invites attends to step into his pharmacy to see the Synchronization process and his two-workflow system in action with the goal of each pharmacy learning how to process 50-60% of their prescriptions through synchronization.
Register Your Team for Pharmacy Trainings Anything is possible with a properly-trained team. Even with the best business plan and intentions, a pharmacy cannot be run by one individual – it takes a team. And wouldn’t you rather have a strong and truly engaged superstar team firing on all cylinders versus stagnant results?
Review all of the PDS Training programs and register at www.PharmacyOwners.com/Training.
Or, if you’re still not convinced in the impact pharmacy trainings can have on your pharmacy’s bottom line, download our new eBook: Pharmacy Training – A Practical Guide to Creating a Superstar Team
In this FREE eBook, you’ll learn about…
- Employee engagement and the impact it can have on your business
- Identifying key characteristics to build a superstar team
- Disengaged employees, the key indicators, and the negative impact on your business performance, profit and the connection between the two
- Leveraging professional training programs
- Training courses, workshops, and webinars exclusively available to the pharmacy industry
Sync or Sink: An Insider’s Guide to Successful Synchronization
Lack of patient adherence is a struggle for many pharmacies that rely on dispensing medication to improve their customers’ health and keep the lifeline of scripts flowing. But there are ways to flip the tables on the conventional dispensing model and build a reliable return.
If you attended PDS 2017, you may remember a presentation from PDS Member, Jason Turner, about the substantial benefits of implementing a synchronization program for both patient and pharmacy. The program he presented will significantly impact adherence to deliver better care and help with the CMS Star Ratings system.
Jason recognized a need for enhancements when he noticed that with his existing SyncRx program, he saw significant improvement in adherence quality measures but only saw limited improvement in ACE/ARB and high-risk medication quality measures, which are core components currently in the Star Rating System.
He responded by creating an add-on to the SyncRx program that enables a quarterly Comprehensive Medication Review (CMR) for each SyncRx patient. This identifies intervention opportunities and creates better patient outcomes all while developing the clinical abilities of the pharmacy team.
Today, he is the leader and developer of PDS’ SyncRx+ Program and activist in patient care and outcomes. His MTM-focused enhancement to SyncRx into a full-blown, turnkey SyncRx+ program is available to any pharmacy who is interested in implementing this successful service.
Sync or Sink
If you’re interested in learning more about the program that’s so important, it is one of our few open enrollment training courses, you’ve come to the right place! Now you can watch an Insider’s Guide on-demand session that gives you the run-down on the program and benefits. It is facilitated by Jason Turner and Dr. Nicolette Mathey, PDS’ resident Clinical Services Director.
Watch the On-Demand Webinar by clicking here or below.
Watch Now for Successful Synchronization
Refinance Debt: Easy Cash Flow for Your Pharmacy
Here at PDS, we have many incredible solutions partners that have the ability to revolutionize pharmacies through their products and services. We’re so excited to share with you one of them — First Financial Bank. Read on for their guest blog post below about refinancing your pharmacy debt. Enjoy!
Cash flow is critical to any small business, and the world of independent pharmacy is no exception. In today’s environment, a rising number of business owners are acquiring debt with
unreasonable repayment terms. In this case, refinancing may be a viable option for business owners. When looking at a potential refinance, you need to evaluate your existingdebt and analyze the repayment requirements to see if this option contributes to improving your business’ overall financial health.
There are many different types of debt in addition to traditional bank loans and lines of credit. Those include owner financing, Small Business Administration (SBA) or conventional loans, wholesale debt, business credit cards, and merchant cash advances that require daily payments. An independent pharmacy owner may have one or any combination of these debts. Refinancing can potentially reduce loan payments, extend the term of the debt, consolidate multiple loans into one lower payment, and improve working capital. Additionally, paying off creditors enhances the business reputation of the pharmacy, reduces the possibility of litigation, and helps re-establish solid relationships between the pharmacy and key suppliers.
If you are considering refinancing; you will want to ask yourself several questions before deciding to refinance.
- What is your current interest rate?
- Does your loan have a balloon payment coming due?
- Are there prepayment penalties on the current debt?
- Do you have stacked debt (multiple loans: bank loans, credit cards, etc.)?
- Do you have a good credit score?
- Does the pharmacy have prepared financial statements?
- Will the pharmacy’s cash flow support the refinanced loan?
- What is the cost of refinancing?
- Do you have the patience to deal with the paperwork involved?
- Will this improve your cash flow?
- Is the Small Business Administration (SBA) a viable option?
Interest rates are at historically low levels, even with the recent increases. If the business owner has stacked debt or higher interest rate loans in place, a reduction in your interest rate could significantly improve cash flow.
A credit score is also something to consider in the refinance process. A score of 680 or higher is usually preferred by lenders. The pharmacy also needs to have credible financial statements that show that the refinanced debt can be supported by the pharmacy’s current cash flow after removing the old loan payments.
Owners should also examine the cost of the refinancing. Loan fees, appraisals, title work, and other costs associated with refinancing range from 3% to 6% of the loan amount. However, these fees can be included in the loan and paid over the term of the note. Typically there is no equity injection, also known as a down payment, required for refinancing debt.
The SBA is a viable option for refinancing business debt for independent and community pharmacies. Because of the complexity of the SBA loan, choosing a lender with a dedicated SBA division and expertise in the pharmacy segment is highly preferred.
Refinancing your current debt to improve cash flow may be a useful option for independent pharmacy owners to free up cash flow. If you think this could be an option for you, find a knowledgeable lender that specializes in Independent Pharmacy Financing to answer all of your questions.
Most Pharmacies Ignore These 5 Niches… Don’t Be One of Them
When it comes to offering your patients the latest options in their health, wellness, and medical care, size matters. Chain pharmacies are logical places patients expect to be introduced to the latest in their personal health options because they are equipped with their expanded footprints, buying power, and national brand recognition. Though, much like mighty ships require expansive space to maneuver, so do national chain pharmacies.
Independent pharmacy owners are at a unique advantage in their ability to adapt and maneuver when they need according to where the market leads. These owners who recognize their opportunity to create for niche offerings and leverage them, elevate their pharmacies above national recognized brands.
Not sure which niches first deserve your attention? We’ve pulled together five of the juiciest underserved niches in pharmacy today, now it’s your turn to learn about and pick that low-hanging fruit.
- NICHE: Pharmacy Genomics
Pharmacogenomics, also known aspersonalized medicine, is exploding within the pharmacy industry. The ability to tailor drug therapies to a patient’s specific metabolic and DNA blue print is a hot-button innovation. Pharmacy owners are staying ahead of the curve by investing in both themselves and their staff through current research and training. Be the first pharmacy in your community to offer personalized medicine. - NICHE: Travel Vaccines
Between packing, securing their passports, making arrangements at work, hiring pet sitters, and financial planning, most travelers put getting up-to-date on their travel vaccines on the very end of their to-do lists — if they remember them at all. This is your opportunity to promote pharmacy services that provide the most common (and even uncommon) vaccines travelers need before their big cruise, backpacking trip through Europe, or visit to their family. You’ll not only earn their business by offering them this service, but make their lives easier. They’ll appreciate not having to make an appointment with their general physician. - NICHE: Fertility
More and more women are taking charge and control of their fertility, more specifically those who have recently been diagnosed with infertility. As these women face the emotional, physical, and mental struggle of receiving, facing, accepting, and treating their diagnosis, create a safe place in your pharmacy they can utilize as a resource. Providing the medications, supplies, and support they need as they navigate their fertility journey will make your pharmacy more than just a convenient stop on their way home – you’ll create a relationship that will last through their journey and into their pregnancies. - NICHE: Hospital Discharges
Whether your patients are leaving the hospital with a brand new member of their family, or going home to recover from major surgery – the last thing on their mind is having to stop at their community pharmacy to pick up their new medications. Establish new relationships with patients, right when they need you the most by offering Bedside Delivery. They won’t soon forget the exceptional service they received and who provided it to them. - NICHE: Wellness Testing
Health and wellness is no longer a trend, but a lifestyle many people are committing to. With incentives from their insurance, physicians, and even employers, your patients are health conscious and it means that you should be, too. Providing testing gives your patients access to services they could previously only obtain through their physician. Save them the additional cost of a doctor’s office copay and give them the freedom to take charge of their health.
Now you can watch the on-demand webinar 5 Niches Chain Pharmacies are Neglecting, where Dr. Lisa Faast will go deeper in why you need to implement these niches and the benefits they’ll bring to your pharmacy and community. Click below to watch.
Here’s How to Become a Bedside Delivery Expert
Bedside delivery is a profitable service you can implement that will connect your independent pharmacy with new and existing patients in an effort to provide the best care possible.
Are you ready to take your Bedside Delivery program to the next level? Here are the 5 steps for successful Bedside Delivery implementation that will help get you started.
1. Research Your Hospital
Before jumping headlong into a Bedside Delivery project, you have to do your homework! As yourself questions like:
- How many beds are your local hospital?
- What specialties does it service?
- Does it have an outpatient pharmacy or does it already provide any Bedside Delivery (spoiler alert: even if they do, there is still an opportunity for you!)?
- How far away is the hospital from your pharmacy?
- What are current penalties for readmissions and where are they hurting?
2. Request a Discovery Meeting
Once you know more about your hospital and its pain points, you can set up a meeting to present to the administration about the benefits of developing a strategic relationship. They will want to see a detailed plan for your pilot phase, implementation, staff training, clearance, expansion, follow-up, and the entire workflow. You must be confident on what your pharmacy can provide and how you can help the hospital reach its readmission goals.
3. Follow-up and Persistence is Key
If your hospital is anything like the norm, you’ll have to practice your patience, be persistent, and follow-up at regular intervals to push the project forward. Most hospitals have many layers to maneuver before getting the green light, so persistence should be your main skill here. Do not become discouraged! Typical Bedside Delivery initiatives take anywhere between 1 to 2 years to get fully rolling hospital-wide, but when you’re seeing 15-20 new patients a day from an average 300 bed hospital, you’ll be glad you took Step 3 to heart.
4. Sign the Contract, Jump the Hoops
Once you wow the hospital with your presentation and persistence, you can reveal your Bedside Delivery contract. Agree on a contract detailing the services you provide and the support and access the hospital will provide. Then you can finally set your start date! Next, will come the various screenings, clearances, BAA and vendor details, and HR requirements you’ll need to execute before the hospital gives you a badge and lets you step your foot in their door to peek in the charts. Again, be persistent.
5. Begin the Pilot
It’s go time!! You’ve laid your foundation, you’ve trained your team, you’ve met with the nursing staff on the pilot unit, you’re ready! Your persistence is not done yet. Doctors and hospitals will need to be exposed to your services on a daily basis. They will become increasingly more comfortable as they realize you’re doing all the heavy lifting. Patients will appreciate you helping them transition home and your follow-up. Do a great job, and you’ll retain them, their families as well as hospital employees and their families.
Bedside Delivery is an enormous opportunity whether you have a 10 bed, 100 bed, 300 bed, or 1,000+ bed facility. You just have to know how to get started!
PDS has created a Bedside Delivery workshop that will make you the expert and teach every aspect of selling and delivering a Bedside Delivery Service in your local hospital. The next course is May 19-20, 2017, so register today! From researching profitable hospital units, to navigating how to penetrate the hospital administration — this course will ultimately let the attendee become the subject matter expert on transitions of care.
Want more information? Watch this short video from our course facilitator, Dr. Nicolette Mathey on why you shoud consider a Bedside Delivery program.
Watch Dr. Nicolette Mathey Below:
Need even more information? Download our free Bedside Delivery Guide. The next training starts soon! Visit the Bedside Delivery training page to register for the next session today!
Your Pharmacy Financial Data is Speaking to You. Are You Listening?
Know the Red Flags, or Sink.
Pearson’s Law: Everything measured improves, and everything measured and reported on improves exponentially.
When is the last time you measured your pharmacy’s financial progress? We’re willing to bet that most reading this don’t take a deep dive into what makes their pharmacy thrive — and what is bogging the business down.
Understanding your financial statements is a necessary game business owners must play if they intend to win. Far from a boring topic, speaking your pharmacy’s financial language will become fun once you can interpret what your statements are trying to say to you. Once you tap in, it will start telling you if you are on the right track, what initiatives or tactics are viable, and what ventures you should drop immediately.
Waiting until symptoms manifest shouldn’t be the time to look into your data. You must be able to identify what’s happening in your business long before things go south. Below are some red flags you should look out for that signal a vital need to look into your statements immediately.
Red Flags to Look Out For:
- Your pharmacy cash balance is low.
- Your payables are growing, but your cash is not.
- You have little or no understanding of what your true accounts receivable balance is.
- Your payroll is not the ideal of 11-13% of revenue.
Learn to Speak Your Business’ Financial Language
Cashflow and understanding financial records are your keys to discovering what your business is saying to you. Pharmacy Development Services offers two ways to take control of your financial data.
- Cash Flow 101 Workshop: This training course teaches you to understand the language of your statements and how to check the pulse of your financials so you can determine the next course of action you need to take as a business to keep that arrow moving up. In this workshop, pharmacy owners step into the lion’s den to learn how to read, understand and interpret financial statements along with other pharmacy data to help you make better management decisions and seize opportunities. Get an insider’s look at what the Cash Flow 101 course is all about by watching this video of one of the workshops below. Find more details and catch the next session here.
- PDS Bookkeeping Services: Level up your pharmacy by taking control of your finances. We take your messy pharmacy financial records, clean them up, make them easy to read and enable data-driven decisions. We’ll also standardize your chart of accounts, convert your old QuickBooks and fully reconcile all of your bank and credit card accounts — plus more! Find out more about our comprehensive pharmacy package and inquire about the service here.
Get an insider’s look at Cash Flow 101 from an attendee’s eyes below:
Don’t wait until those red flags sink your ship. Understanding your financials can mean the difference between thriving and closing your doors for good.
For more information on Pharmacy Development Services Pharmacy Training Courses, click here.
Free Webinar: Hitting a Profitability Home Run – Automating Your Pharmacy’s Inventory Management
Anyone who manages an independent pharmacy knows how intractable the challenge of inventory management can be, whether perpetual or not. Cycle counting, managing C-II logs, order point adjustments, and tracking expired stock are among the labor intensive processes that can drastically impact the profitability of your business. How can a pharmacy with competing demands on technician and pharmacist labor keep perpetual inventory without a significant time investment?
You can hit a “profitability home run” by maintaining accurate perpetual inventory that can reduce the overall inventory carry, minimize stock-outs, and enhance the overall standard of patient care. The problem is one of automation—how can a pharmacy with competing demands on technician and pharmacist labor keep perpetual inventory without a significant time investment? How does a pharmacy balance profit vs. cashflow?
The current model for keeping perpetual inventory should be well-known to anyone who manages daily operations in an independent pharmacy:
Manual Perpetual Inventory Management Cycle
The end result of these processes is, hopefully, accurate perpetual inventory. But the major drawback is the amount of time investment required to have someone cycle count, manage par levels and reordering, check in totes against a manifest, and physically place bottles on shelves. And if someone calls in sick, or it’s a busy Monday and there’s no time, or a technician forgets to cycle count, it can quickly become extremely difficult to keep up with the management cycle. The result is often the “garbage in, garbage out” problem, which is the tendency of manual inventory systems to drift over time, leading to inaccurate data, which in turn causes stock-outs, incorrect order quantities, and ultimately poorer customer service this crushes cashflow and suppresses profit.
Automating the cycle eliminates the problems inherent in the manual process, and is now finally achievable with the introduction of the RxSafe 1800.
Automated Perpetual Inventory Management Cycle
With the RxSafe System, manual processes are replaced by automation, and stock bottles are actually stored in native packaging. This video explains the basic functionality of the system in more detail. Essentially, the RxSafe system is completely unique to the marketplace and shifts the focus of pharmacy automation from vial filling to inventory management, control, and efficiency. The time you save will allow you to pay closer attention to money-making opportunities, adherence programs, pharmacy services, and patient consulting, to name a few.
Add Datarithm to your RxSafe and realize the complete automated perpetual benefit from the cloud! Datarithm’s innovated features include: automated demand forecasting, order point updates, inventory returns and transfer recommendations, along with advance analytics in easy to understand reports. Datarithm’s customizable inventory solution adapts as your business changes ensuring you have what is needed, in the proper amounts, secured in your RxSafe!
Check out our FREE webinar with RxSafe to learn more about what automation can do for your pharmacy’s inventory. Being able to get a handle on this vital side of the pharmacy business will pay dividends down the road.
5 Reasons Why Annual Wellness Visits Are Pharmacy Business’ Secret Weapon
The Annual Wellness Visit (AWV) is a trending pharmacy business tactic, with more and more owners adding the service to their repertoire. It’s an annual check up intended to update and review patient history, assess a patient’s vitals, screen them for risks and establish a list of their health care providers and medicines.
The AWV can be provided by any healthcare professional, including pharmacists, with physician approval, and is covered by Medicare B – which is great news for patients! Additionally, it is the perfect opportunity for independent pharmacies to offer value-added, relationship-building services to doctors.
According to a study conducted by the University of North Carolina Eshelman School of Pharmacy, in about 40% of a pharmacist’s available working time, AWV could cover $120,000 of their annual salary, making it a particularly lucrative endeavor for increasing profitability. However, surprisingly, only 11% of patients are taking advantage of the opportunity for an AWV – mostly because they haven’t been asked – making this a hugely untapped market for pharmacy businesses.
Pharmacists who invest the time and resources in setting up the clinic in a doctor’s office and proactively reaching out to existing and new patients to get them scheduled for an AWV have huge potential for increased earnings.
The numerous advantages of AWV include…
- A better understanding of patient needs
- An opportunity to update files
- Increased profits by offering ancillary services, such as diabetic shoes and pharmacogenomic testing
- And, an important check-in with your patient, guaranteed to happen at least once a year!
It’s clear Annual Wellness Visits are a pharmacy business’s secret weapon!
5 Reasons Why Annual Wellness Visits Are Pharmacy Business’ Secret Weapon
1) Gain greater involvement in patient care
An Annual Wellness Visit is an opportunity to check in with your patients. It’s a great way to keep your patient files streamlined and up-to-date, which makes offering the best standard of care to your patients that much easier.
Having this guaranteed face-time with your patients also allows your team to share new programs and opportunities with your patients efficiently, as well as ensure your patients are following proper protocol when it comes to their medications.
2) Sync your patients
AWVs are also a fantastic time to focus on getting patients who haven’t taken advantage of medication synchronization. Your team can easily make the sync set up part of the visit and even look at offering applicable patients adherence services if that’s something your pharmacy offers.
3) Implement profit chart recommendations
During the AWV, you and your patient will both be focused on the conversation about their health care needs. This is an ideal time to implement strategic switches that your team may have identified through data mining and regular use of the PDS Profit Chart.
In some cases, you may be able to recommend a switch, such as a pain cream that yields superior results for your patient’s care and is also incredibility profitable to your business.
4) Complimentary products and add-ons
Due to the general nature of the Annual Wellness Visit, you’ll receive a comprehensive picture of your patient’s up-to-date health care needs, and your patient will likely be more receptive to a conversation about supplementary products.
With this style of visit, most patients are not in a rush and will be open to talking further about their needs and potentially beneficial products from their trusted healthcare provider.For example, the AWV is a great time to speak to diabetic care patients about diabetic strips and pain creams.
5) Nurture relationships with physician partners (and grow your client base)!
Working with a local physician to offer AWV in partnership is a great way to develop and build strong doctor-pharmacist relationships.
This can be extremely valuable when it comes to requesting medication switches with physicians, as well as a valuable way to grow your business through new patient opportunities.
Additionally, working in partnership with a physician (or a few physicians for AWV services) is a good gateway into developing other mutually beneficial clinics in partnership. For example, rolling out pain clinics, diabetic clinics and flu clinics with physician partners is a great way to nurture your business and optimize your opportunities for growth.
Launching Your Annual Wellness Program
If you’re ready to offer Annual Wellness Visits in your community, chat with one of our Business Growth Advisors. They can discuss how PDS Members fast-track their success with our Clinical Services Profit Ignitor workshops and a team of Business Coaches and Performance Specialists. For more money-making and patient-focused strategies, download our eBook – The Pharmacy Business Blueprint for Massive ROI – now!
Every Pharmacy Business Needs to Spend One Hour Every Day Doing This
For most independent pharmacy business owners, it often feels as if small changes in daily activities could rarely contribute to a substantial increase in a store’s profits.
Your team spends countless hours every day filling scripts, restocking shelves, staying up-to-date on inventory orders, offering your patients premium care, and if you’re really on top of your game, syncing patients
It doesn’t feel as if you have a spare moment, let alone a spare hour to put toward a new project…
But what if we told you that spending those 60 minutes, every day, on data mining could drastically improve your pharmacy business?
Greg, a Utah-based PDS member and independent pharmacy owner, increased his gross margin by 5% with data mining in just a few short months. The result? His team was able to add almost $400,000 to their annual profit through data mining. Read more stories like his here!
Data mining is not only a great way to increase your profits, but it will ensure your patients are receiving the best possible medications for their needs.
What exactly is mining your database?
Data mining is really a way of thinking and looking at your business. You have a wealth of information at your finger tips and most likely it goes unused everyday. A part of data mining is the process of habitually running daily reports on your existing patient database to identify profit-driven opportunities within your pharmacy business. For example, a simple, doctor-approved switch from one low-profit drug to one in the same drug class, but with a higher margin, can increase your profits every month that patient is on the prescription, and often lead to fewer side effects.
Step 1: Running Reports DailyChances are, you know what your volume is on a daily, weekly and monthly basis, but you’re focusing on the wrong metric! Pharmacy owners need to concentrate on their gross profit per prescription.
Utilizing the PDS Profit Chart to identify exact drug class switches being accepted, and working with Profit Gurus to identify opportunities specific to their pharmacy, PDS members are creating systems that allow their teams to find more of that type of business.
It’s about working smarter, not harder, and focusing your efforts to earn more from your existing patients. However, you’ll also start to Identify Trends – step 2.PDS MEMBERS: To have your database analyzed by one of our Profit Gurus and access a list of ready-to-make switches, please email your Performance Specialist!
Step 2: Identifying Trends
With your daily report figures, you can begin to break down commonalities in your customer database, which is a key step in optimizing your profitability.
For example, you may identify a number of patients that suffer from the same ailment who are registered with the same insurance provider. Half the patients may have been prescribed medication A, while the other half have been prescribed medication B. If medication B pays out significantly higher and is known to produce better results, it’s worth attempting to switch the first group over to medication B from medication A.
Typically, a database can be mined for opportunities either by looking at disease-based or prescription-based pathways. It’s best to check both pathways regularly, and once you’ve identified a strong opportunity to improve patient care and profitability, you want to move on to step 3 – Replicating Your Success.
Step 3: Replicating Your Success
With a profitability opportunity identified, the most efficient way to benefit from the discovery is by identifying all candidates within your database that meet the same criteria.
For example, rather than identifying one patient, Mary Smith, who should be switched from medication A to medication B – look for all of the patients that meet the same criteria as Mary and work on reaching out to all of those patients for maximum profitability.
Getting Results With Data Mining
After running your reports to identify opportunities and analyzing trends, you will be ready to work toward increasing profitability with strategic medication switches.
Your team will be in an excellent position to reach out to patients with recommendations for better medications, supplementary products, programs and services that will both improve patient care and increase revenue.
Data mining is arguably the most impactful change you can make to your pharmacy business profitability and the change can easily be executed in an hour a day. If you’d like to learn more ideas for increasing your profits, download our eBook: Pharmacy Business Blueprint for Massive ROI where we outline three proven tactics that help owners get out of the profitability rat race while providing world-class healthcare to patients.