PDS BLOG
Pharmacy Growth Strategies
Ignite your pharmacy business with the most innovative growth strategies and ideas that produce real results.
PDS BLOG
Ignite your pharmacy business with the most innovative growth strategies and ideas that produce real results.
Here at PDS, we take pride in highlighting some of our incredible partners. We know these companies have the potential to revolutionize pharmacies just like yours through their products and services. We’re excited to introduce Physician 360. Read on for their sponsored blog post about the importance of telemedicine and point-of-care testing.
With the recent outbreak of COVID-19 (the global coronavirus pandemic), telemedicine has seen a surge in both popularity as well as deregulation. As Americans, and the majority of the world, are all practicing social distancing in an effort to “flatten the curve,” telemedicine has been given a chance to prove it’s utility to a record number of consumers who may previously have been reluctant for any number of reasons.
Telemedicine is the use of telecommunication and information technology to provide clinical health care from a distance. Telehealth is an umbrella term that includes, but is not limited to, telephone calls, remote patient monitoring, video consults and store-and-forward imaging (capturing an image or video for review by a healthcare provider at a later date). The global telemedicine market was valued at $40.11B in 2018 and is expected to reach $148.32B by 2025. While the number of patients using telemedicine services is rising, only about 8% of the US population has ever tried it. With 92% of the market still untapped, the potential for telemedicine is immense. Below are some of the many benefits of using telemedicine:
“Point-of-care” testing, also known as remote testing, rapid diagnostics, near-patient testing, and satellite testing, is any kind of medical test that is not done within a laboratory setting. Point-of-care testing might be done at a health clinic, at home, in an ER room, in an ambulance, at an accident scene, on an airplane…or most importantly, at your pharmacy! Many point-of-care tests can give a patient results (and in some cases diagnoses) in very little time so that treatment or a consultation can be provided quickly.
Your independent pharmacy is the perfect place to offer these point-of-care tests, as patients will often visit their local pharmacy at a time when they are symptomatic and need care the most.
Pharmacists interact with patients more than any other stakeholder in the healthcare system and in many cases, you are the healthcare safety net for your community. Therefore, it is very important to provide the services and guidance that your patients need and deserve. Point of Care Testing kits are top of mind and Physician360, has a wide array of testing kits you can offer your patients. The latest news is their flu telemedicine kits now come with a complimentary COVID-19 screening to patients during their flu consultation. Patients get 2 in 1: a full evaluation for flu AND a screening for coronavirus (COVID-19) during their telemedicine/video consultation.
Physician 360 now offers a Rapid COVID-19 Test for the qualitative detection of IgG and IgM antibodies to SARS-CoV-2. A member of your pharmacy team can perform the simple finger-stick test for your customers, then walk them through connecting to a Physician 360 medical provider, who can interpret their results during their telemedicine consult.
With the COVID-19 pandemic your patients may also be experiencing other ailments such as Strep, flu, UTI and anemia all of which have available test kits that come with telemedicine consults. At a time when your patients are social distancing and can eliminate one more trip to a provider’s office, these test kits are an excellent solution.
Thank you for being on the front lines and serving your community passionately in a time of need. Now is the time to add to that excellent service with point-of-care testing and telemedicine.
About the Author
At Physician 360, we are working tirelessly to provide your pharmacy with the tools you’ll need to weather this global storm. Partnering with Physician 360 allows your pharmacy to increase access to care, reduce healthcare costs, and improve patient engagement and satisfaction. You can completely rebrand your pharmacy as an urgent care equivalent all while making your community healthier and happier. By joining efforts with Physician 360, you can provide your customers with telemedicine, point-of-care testing, and convenience all in one. If you haven’t already, join us on the front lines of this telemedicine revolution!
Here at PDS, we take pride in highlighting some of our incredible exhibitors. We know these companies have the potential to revolutionize pharmacies just like yours through their products and services. We’re excited to introduce Optavia. Read on for their sponsored blog post about creating new habits.
Why are your habits important? The answer is self-evident. We are the product of our daily choices that over time, become our habits. The accumulation of our choices and habits determine not only our health trajectory, but the trajectory of our life as well. Never were habits more important than in these turbulent times when we have been challenged to learn new ones that can be life-saving.
We can change if we want to, by learning new choices and habits. The power is in the choices we make: the fully conscious choices that serve our best interest. Importantly, we will only make new choices and create new habits if we want to. We begin by asking ourselves what we want and then making what we want a priority.
This sounds simple enough so let’s use an example of creating a new healthy habit: Taking a walk for 15 minutes a day. To create anything new it is essential to do four things and write them down! This is how you keep yourself accountable.
First: my Current Reality (CR) which in this case is no daily walks.
Second: my goal or Desired Outcome (DI) is to walk for 15 minutes a day, before work.
Third: the choices I will make, the Action Steps I will take to reach my goal.
Fourth: A timeline. The time I give myself to reach my goal and that can vary of course depending upon the goal. In this case, you may start with walking for 5 minutes. This is what my plan would look like:
Timeline: 1 week
Action Steps:
Head out the by 6:10 and walk for 15 minutes
Put sweatpants and sweatshirt in bathroom
Put walking shoes by my bed (this is a cue, a reminder)
Set alarm for 6:00 am
This is called a Structural Tension Chart (we’ll explore this more next time!). It can be very helpful to help you prioritize what it is that you want to achieve or create.
When you are clear about your current reality, what you want to create and know the action steps to take to reach your goal, you can. Whether that goal is walking more, losing weight and creating a healthier life and strengthening your immune system or creating more revenue options for your pharmacy that are independent of PBMs and ICD-10 codes, you can reach those goals by creating new habits and using structural tension to help you.
About the Author
Dr. Mark Nelson & Dominic Tarinelli are PDS Partners and share a virtual (no contact) evidence based weight loss and wellness program that creates health for your patients and revenue and profits for your #pharmacy. No PBMs, no billing, no ICD-10 codes, and no inventory. Our program and business are done completely virtually, without in-person patient contact. While at home, patients lose weight, improve their overall health and strengthen their immune system. Our program is evidence-based, and meals and program materials are delivered to your patients’ door. Learn more at pharmacywellbeing.com.
You can also check out the latest podcast featuring Dr. Mark Nelson on Optimal Health Life Transformation.
Here at PDS, we take pride in highlighting some of our incredible exhibitors. We know these companies have the potential to revolutionize pharmacies just like yours through their products and services. We’re excited to introduce Oval Group as they focus on something so important to PDS – TEAMS. Read on for their sponsored blog post about building and sustaining an effective pharmacy team.
Talent is a scarce commodity. We predict this will continue to be the new normal for pharmacies. Staff turnover is expensive, unproductive, and can deliver a devastating blow to morale. The companies who are winning the war for talent are not only recruiting people who are the best fit for their business but are working hard to develop and engage their current pharmacy team so that they will remain and grow from within.
First, some facts:
Many of the articles and studies on this topic focus on the need to develop “Knowledge Workers” – people who can keep up with technological developments and be sufficiently agile to develop new skills and talents to keep up with changing business needs. The most successful companies are facing this shortfall head-on and investing in their talent by providing opportunities for continuous training and development.
We offer a simple framework from which to start to develop your own successful talent strategy.
Our own research and experience have shown that the connection between an employee’s values and the requirements and rewards within a role is the most important predictor of employee engagement and effectiveness. A person, who can’t wait to get out of bed in the morning to get to work, will be more productive and will remain in the role longer than one without passion or purpose.
Provide your team members with an opportunity to share their wants and needs. A third party employee engagement survey, where employees can be candid, coupled with feedback and follow up from management can go a long way to improving employee morale. Employees want to feel heard and acknowledged. If you want them to take ownership at work, it’s important to help them feel that they have a say in impacting their work environment.
After conducting an employee engagement survey, there are two important steps you must take. Number one is to share the results. Then ask and respond to input on changes they believe would improve the environment. You don’t have to agree to all employee requests, especially if they don’t make economic sense. But the requests you can accommodate will tell your employees that you care about their opinions and respect their needs. Plus, learning that they can have meaningful impact on their environment will build loyalty and trust.
Defining your goals and strategies will naturally help you identify the talent profiles you will need to fulfill those goals. Also, by sharing your goals with your team, you have an opportunity to solicit input on how they can assist with achieving those goals. The ability of your team to achieve results may surprise you. Of course, if your team has values that are aligned, you will be in a much better position to create meaningful incentives that will motivate the behaviors you seek.
You may find that you’ve identified skill gaps within your team needed to achieve your goals. The good news is that skills are trainable and offering developmental opportunities for your team to build the skills required for business success will engage them and help your business.
Once you’ve established your business culture and core values, don’t compromise those values by hiring skilled talent that does not fit your culture. Skills can be learned and even behaviors can change with effort. Values (the driving forces that get us into action) change very slowly, if at all. Look for candidates who match your business values and have a shared passion around similar drivers.
We recommend developing a role benchmark that clearly spells out the ideal candidate profile, identifying those factors that will lead to success in a specific role. Then use gap assessments for applicants that tell you how close a candidate under consideration matches your ideal profile. The best way to build your new applicant pipeline is to build a strong team and culture of employee development and empowerment. Social media and word of mouth rule the day. Happy employees will post positive comments on social media sites and will talk amongst their friends.
Some of the best sources for new hires can come from your own internal staff. Since they know the jobs and the business culture best, they can recommend others who fit the criteria. Job applicants will scour social media sites looking for comments about what it is like to work in your business. If the comments are negative, the best candidates will not apply.
Given the tight labor market we face today in this country, finding good talent will inevitably get much more difficult before it improves. That means for those managing a workforce, the biggest challenge will be to keep the good talent and take action to undermine those who wish to poach your best employees.
Keeping good talent is not simply about erecting barriers (real or virtual) to prevent access. Rather it requires a strategy aimed at making your workplace so attractive that your employees are truly not interested in considering other options. Once you have articulated and shared your business Mission, Vision, and Core Values, plus built a team that is aligned with your direction, you need to foster an environment that lives your promise.
If your team is excited to come to work, charged up by their daily roles, fulfilled in their achievements, and happy in the environment you foster, there is only one thing left to do. You need to provide ongoing opportunities to learn and grow at work through continuous improvement, embracing reasonable change consistent with your plan, and seeking ways to reward and reinforce your company values.
About the Author
The Oval Group LLC (Oval), established in 2003, is a talent management solutions provider specializing in talent assessments and services that enable business owners and corporate executives to make informed strategic decisions about their unique business and the people who hold the keys to its success.
Here at PDS, we take pride in highlighting some of our incredible exhibitors. We know these companies have the potential to revolutionize pharmacies just like yours through their products and services. We’re excited to introduce American Associated Pharmacies (AAP). Read on for their sponsored blog post about building your bottom-line.
Data is everything. It can drive business growth, increase profitability, and improve your relationships with your patients, but only if you use it.
Here are just some of the key categories of data you should be interested in, and suggestions for how to get started acting on it.
It’s important to monitor all claims going through your pharmacy. A good practice would be to double check any claims outside of some key financial rules that make sense for your business, to help avoid negative outcomes. If no copay is collected on a cash claim, was it processed correctly? If the profit margin on a prescription is less than the cost, are you purchasing that drug correctly?
Be sure to monitor and resubmit claims that are reversed. It’s also to your advantage to monitor changes in Average Wholesale Prices and consider other claims to resubmit. One pharmacy generated $2,000 in additional revenue in only a week using a tool to access up-to-date AWP data.
Does your pharmacy monitor when patients are due for refills, or if patients disappear altogether? Using that data to stay in contact with these patients can mean better care for them, and more revenue for your pharmacy. Pharmacies using one tool have proven that contacting just a few dozen of these patients in a month can mean an average of $11,000 or more of increased revenue. With the added benefit of increasing adherence and Star Ratings, along with building essential loyalty with patients who feel cared for, it’s data you can’t afford to ignore.
Other Marketing and Outreach
Marketing and outreach are important ways to take the data you already have and apply it. Patient data can tell you if you have patients nearing 65 who may need help selecting a Medicare plan; it can tell you if you have brand new patients who could use some outreach to build a relationship; it can tell you if there are prescribers in your area who aren’t sending prescriptions your way, or if there are others who may make up a large share of your fills. Data can help you target your marketing efforts and spend less to do more for your pharmacy’s health and growth.
These are only some of the opportunities that can deliver great benefits from the data your pharmacy collects on a daily basis! The good news is, there are tools like AAP’s ProfitAmp that can sift through your dispensing, patient, and prescriber data and provide easy-to-use reports with immediately-actionable data.
Saying pharmacy is a busy profession is an understatement, especially considering current events. However, watching these metrics as much as possible can be a key way to optimize profitability.
About the Author
As a cooperative of over 2,000 member pharmacies with an independently owned warehouse and specialty pharmacy and qualified preferred partners, American Associated Pharmacies (AAP) is so much more than a buying group. AAP provides the tools and resources needed for members to improve their bottom lines, such as business intelligence tools, a powerful proprietary ordering system that syncs across devices, and more! Visit RxAAP.com/ProveIt to learn more.
Here at PDS, we take pride in highlighting some of our incredible partners. We know these companies have the potential to revolutionize pharmacies just like yours through their products and services. We’re excited to introduce RxSafe. Read on for their blog post about planning for success with adherence packaging in your independent pharmacy.
You’ve no doubt heard the saying, “If you fail to plan, you’re planning to fail.” Marketing adherence packaging is no different. If you begin with the end in mind, you’ll have a much better chance of success.
At RxSafe, we’ve worked with hundreds of independent pharmacy owners, including a few who have successfully added 15-30 new adherence patients each and every month. How did they do it? It starts with a plan, which incorporates best practices as well as taking into account your local market and its needs, your unique value proposition, your competition, the strengths of your team, and other factors.
“It’s definitely not Field of Dreams, like ‘If you build it, they will come’… you really have to build it and then go out and tell everybody about it,” says PDS member Matthew Massey, pharmacist and owner of Massey Drugs, with three stores in Florence and Tuscumbia, Alabama. “You have to educate your patients, you have to educate the doctors and your community that you’re doing this, and why it’s important. But I really believe you can grow this quickly, pick up new customers and take care of those customers better than they were being taken care of before. To me, it’s all about what’s in the best interest of the patient.”
Like Massey, fellow RapidPakRx owners and PDS members Bruce and Lisa Kocian have a lot of experience with compliance packaging.
“When you’re starting out, I would say to focus on communication,” says Lisa Kocian. “This is a new concept for a lot of people, and they don’t necessarily understand it, and they may have expectations that are not realistic. And so, we’ve learned to thoroughly explain the program to the patient, that we’ll have to sync their prescriptions first, and then we can get them in the RapidPakRx. People are so excited about getting their prescriptions in the packaging, they want them immediately in the packaging. And sometimes it takes a refill cycle to get everything synced up. But communication and doing a really good job of explaining what they should expect from the program, I think makes things run smoothly.”
PDS member Clayton Gilde, owner of McBain Family Pharmacy, recommends a multi-pronged marketing approach.
“We usually get about seven patients per week from the PakMyMeds Network (social media advertising), Gilde explains. “When we get a lead, we’ll usually reach out to them and ask them how they’re currently taking their medications. Sometimes the patients are taking it from another provider like PillPack, or something else, and they’re happy to switch over to someone local.
One thing we noticed was that we put in the PakMyMeds box right by the register, and by the drop-off area, it was able to spark a lot of conversations with our patients that are already using us. We also use ads in local newspapers and radio explaining the PakMyMeds program and how it can benefit patients.”
The three most important things to do when adopting automation for your synchronization program are:
About the Author
RxSafe is the leader in robotic automation that improves patient safety and boosts profitability for retail pharmacies. Our RapidPakRx™ adherence strip packager enables pharmacies to run a 30-day med cycle at the lowest possible cost. RxSafe’s BlistAssist™ medication blister card packaging assistant improves the manual preparation and verification of single or multi-med blister cards. Our RxSafe 1800™ system helps pharmacies achieve better accuracy & speed, space savings, narcotics security, and inventory management. Learn more at www.rxsafe.com.
Here at PDS, we take pride in highlighting some of our incredible exhibitors. We know these companies have the potential to revolutionize pharmacies just like yours through their products and services. We’re excited to Drug Topics. Read on for their sponsored blog post about how vaccination programs can bring additional profits to your pharmacy
The majority of pharmacies in the United States now offer vaccinations, but there is still a significant opportunity to turn a well-run vaccination program into a profitable
endeavor that benefits both patient and pharmacy.
Many adults still fail to get the recommended vaccinations each year. According to the CDC, just 37.1% of adults received the flu vaccine during the 2017-2018 flu season. This presents a significant opportunity for independent pharmacies to improve these numbers by expanding their immunization efforts, marketing their programs to the community, and relying on what makes a pharmacy a unique health care setting.
Katterman’s was one of the first to offer vaccines—starting their program back in 1996. Schaeffer said the pharmacy had been hoping to give 300 vaccines but found themselves administering 1,200. Since then, the program has continued to grow and the pharmacy now offers all available vaccines in the state and can even administer to children and infants.
“All pharmacists could be doing more immunizations than they are if they wanted to,” she said.
Expanding immunization efforts can not only improve public health, but it can also serve as an increased revenue stream for community pharmacies. Close to 100 million Americans get the flu shot each year, translating to $4 billion to $5 billion in revenue, PBA Health reported.
Immunizations outside the influenza vaccine can often bring in even larger administration fees for pharmacies. “Almost all immunizations pay an administration fee that varies from plan to plan, but you get paid for the vaccine plus an administration fee,” Schaeffer said.
Vincent Hartzell, PharmD, president of Hartzell’s Pharmacy in Catasauqua, PA, said successful immunization programs not only provide revenue for a pharmacy on their own, but they also often drive other areas of business. “Vaccines have allowed us to provide marketing and attract new customers,” he said.
The most effective marketing strategies, he said, don’t always have to be costly and can be as simple as an effective social media post, informing local physicians and area senior centers of the pharmacy’s immunization services, or using banners and signs.
Schaeffer has found one of her best marketing tools is a sandwich board placed outside the pharmacy each day that highlights different services such as its tetanus shots, travel vaccines, or the highly sought-after shingles vaccine.
Her pharmacy does a significant amount of business in travel vaccines, so she also tries to drive other store business through a separate travel aisle where customers can find everything needed for an upcoming trip; anti-diarrhea medications, rehydration packets, eye drops, all in one convenient area.
Hartzell believes it’s important that all the pharmacists in a community pharmacy be trained to give immunizations so that there is always an available staff member whenever a customer arrives at the store.
To improve the workflow, he said, non-pharmacist staff should also be a critical aspect of vaccination programs. Those workers should have ways to identify patients who may be behind on immunizations or could benefit from annual vaccines such as influenza and pneumococcal vaccines.
“Make sure that your technicians know how to do the billing, make sure your technicians know how to fill out the consent forms because that’s the stuff that you don’t need a pharmacist for,” he said.
Overall, Schaeffer and Hartzell agreed, successful vaccination programs can yield big rewards for community pharmacies and their patients.
About the Author
Drug Topics is the leading pharmacy journal for retail, health system and specialty pharmacists. Drop Topics provides news, information and trusted perspectives through peer-based forums and opinions, relative to all aspects of pharmacy practice and also offers direction on elevating your profession and career. Check it all out at drugtopics.com.
Here at PDS, we take pride in highlighting some of our incredible exhibitors. We know these companies have the potential to revolutionize pharmacies just like yours through their products and services. We’re excited to introduce American Associated Pharmacies (AAP). Read on for their sponsored blog post about building your bottom-line.
Your Brand Rx cost of goods is one of the largest factors affecting your independent pharmacy’s bottom line, but it isn’t the only one. You may have found the right buying group or wholesaler, but inefficient processes or small losses that may seem insignificant now could mean a huge difference for your profitability later.
Let’s look at some of the things you should watch for when evaluating the best independent pharmacy business solutions to build your bottom line.
Patients on a specialty drug have an average of 13 additional prescriptions.* A majority of these are maintenance prescriptions your pharmacy can fill, but only if these specialty patients continue to come to your pharmacy. They may not return if they are directed to a pharmacy other than yours for their specialty needs, and the specialty drug market is one of the fastest-growing. Specialty drugs are expected to account for 50% of the drug market as soon as this year (2020).
It’s in your best interest to be able to help patients who need these medications, and the good news is that you don’t have to spend tens of thousands of dollars to become certified as a specialty pharmacy yourself. There are programs available to help you keep your specialty patients in your pharmacy while making sure they’re provided with quality specialty care.
*According to Specialty Pharmacy Times Magazine
On average, front-end products carry a profit margin of 15% higher than on prescriptions. This average of 38% for OTCs and other front-end merchandise, much greater than the average of 22% on prescriptions, is a clear opportunity. Are you taking full advantage of that knowledge?
Rather than only stocking items your patients could find in any big-box retail store, you have the opportunity in your pharmacy to be unique. Basic supplements like vitamins are essential and can bring in a hefty amount of revenue. Don’t leave them out! But you can do more. You can carry the variety of over the counter products that big-box stores are spread too thin to offer.
There is a wealth of niche markets to branch into. From specialized health products to pet pharmaceuticals and diabetic footwear, do what only you can do as an independent pharmacy. Take your queues from your community or target market. Attract patients who might otherwise have to travel long distances to find the products they need or order blind from online sources. They’ll be glad you’re there.
Streamline Ordering Within Your Pharmacy
Save precious time by streamlining your ordering process. Having a plan and a robust ordering system will go a long way in this area. Make sure your system will keep an order queue consistent across devices to avoid redundant spending, automatically submit orders to keep you from missing deadlines and make the process as efficient as possible. Don’t waste time typing in numbers, dragging bottles to a stationary scanner, or ordering from multiple websites.
Do your research and find a solution that offers all the flexibility you need in your setup!
About the Author
As a cooperative of over 2,000 member pharmacies with an independently owned warehouse and specialty pharmacy and qualified preferred partners, American Associated Pharmacies (AAP) is so much more than a buying group. AAP provides the tools and resources needed for members to improve their bottom lines, such as business intelligence tools, a powerful proprietary ordering system that syncs across devices, and more! Visit RxAAP.com/ProveIt to learn more.
Here at PDS, we take pride in highlighting some of our incredible exhibitors. We know these companies have the potential to revolutionize pharmacies just like yours through their products and services. We’re excited to introduce American Associated Pharmacies (AAP). Read on for their sponsored blog post about flu season essentials for your patients this flu season.
It’s that time of year where we experience an increase in cold and flu activity. Patients will be turning to your pharmacy for medication and remedies that they can rely on to get them through the winter.
According to the Nutrition Business Journal, the US supplement industry has seen an increase of 5-6% each year over the last two years, with growth expected to continue at that rate or higher until at least 2022. Make the most out of this opportunity for profitability by supplying your community with OTC products that carry valuable health benefits.
Elderberry
Elderberry syrup is growing in popularity as a powerful alternative to both prevent and fight cold and flu. It has been tied to a significant reduction in the severity and duration of symptoms in studies. Patients taking Elderberry syrup reported symptoms clearing up an average of four days earlier than those taking a placebo.
The syrup has been nearly impossible to keep on pharmacy shelves in recent flu seasons, and the market is expected to continue to grow at an accelerating rate of over 7% until 2022 at the very least. Don’t miss out! Your patients will thank you for keeping this new staple in stock.
Vitamin C
Studies have shown Vitamin C can boost your immune system, and possibly even help protect against heart disease, cancer, and stroke. This safe and effective supplement is a strong preventative for flu season. It’s recommended that the average adult receive at least 75-90mg daily for peak effectiveness.
Vitamin D
Vitamin D is particularly useful in areas with harsher winter weather. When the sun is hiding behind clouds, it’s harder to soak up enough! Vitamin D is essential to the body’s immune system and bone strength, but our bodies cannot store it for extended periods of time. Supplements can help combat this and will also keep your patients happy and healthy.
Iron
Iron is another immune booster. It has shown to help keep energy levels up during short, dim days. Iron is essential to blood flow and oxygen transfer in the blood, making it a key component to heart, lung, and neurological function. Deficiencies are common even here in the US, with an estimated 8-12% of Americans not receiving enough iron in their diets. Women, young children, and patients with heart conditions are among some of the most likely to have these deficiencies and could most benefit from iron supplements.
Zinc
Zinc is known as another preventative supplement that can help to prevent the common cold if used regularly. Similar to elderberry, it strengthens the immune system and can aid in reducing the length and severity of a common cold. The average adult needs about 9.5mg a day, while women need about 7mg.
While supplements are popular and can help prevent sickness or shorten a bout already underway, encourage your patients not to pass on a flu shot.
If your patients do come down with the flu, a cold, or a fit of allergies, you can be ready. Keep plenty of flu medication, nasal spray, and cough syrup on hand, as some of these–particularly a prescription like Tamiflu–can grow scarce as the season drags on. Stock up and stay ahead of the rush as much as possible to avoid losing potential income.
From AAP’s Member-Owned Warehouse for Cold and Flu Season
Find these remedies and more at store.apirx.com.
As a cooperative of over 2,000 member pharmacies with an independently owned warehouse and specialty pharmacy, the nation’s 4th largest PSAO, and qualified preferred partners, American Associated Pharmacies (AAP) is so much more than a buying group. AAP provides the tools and resources needed for members to improve their bottom lines. Visit RxAAP.com/ProveIt to learn more.
Last month Walgreens announced the closing of 200 stores. Last April Fred’s decided to begin closing 159 stores and stated that they were getting out of pharmacy. We also heard about Shopko going out of business. These changes in the industry mean thousands of patients will be looking for a new pharmacy and YOU, the independent pharmacy, are their best option. Therefore it is time to kick your pharmacy marketing into gear.
Now that the closings are underway this presents an opportunity to attract those patients. We thought it would be helpful to remind PDS members and the independent pharmacy community at large about the first steps to reaching (and attracting) these patients.
Some of the action items below are repeats from our blog How to Leverage Big Box or Chain Store Closings back in in May of 2016 when Walmart announced their store closings.
At PDS we classify our pharmacy marketing efforts into three buckets: inside the four walls, outside the four walls and digital marketing. Within each of these groups, there are steps you can take to start attracting new patients.
Building these relationships and ensuring that your customers are happy within your own independent pharmacy business is very important. Below are three ways you can strengthen your skills towards more profitable relationships with your pharmacy’s customers.
In your communication to these new patients, it is important to convey that their health and well being are your priority. Show them that you can offer quality care, convenience and competitive pricing. If you have an efficient medication synchronization program, promote the benefits it will offer them as a patient of your pharmacy. At a time when these patients need to make a switch, we have a great opportunity to show them that an independent pharmacy, your pharmacy, is the best place for them.
For PDS members, log into PDSadvantage to find the applicable pharmacy marketing resources in the Marketing section of the Knowledge Library that will help you win these new patients. The How to Develop Marketing Campaigns program, the New Patient Process, our Marketing Mastermind calls and the Make the Most of a Closing Competing Pharmacy are all available to you with additional detail so you can accelerate your implementation.
Here at PDS, we take pride in highlighting some of our incredible solutions partners. We know these companies have the potential to revolutionize pharmacies just like yours through their products and services. We’re excited to introduce RxSafe’s blog post about adherence packaging services.
Independent pharmacy owners can no longer sit on the sidelines when it comes to evolving and growing their services to compete with companies like Amazon, CVS and Walgreens. While there are many opportunities for you to grow your business and profitability, developing an adherence packaging program should be at the top of your list.
At the 2019 PDS Super-Conference, RxSafe assembled five independent pharmacy owners, with a collective 37 years of experience in adherence packaging, and asked them to share what they have learned. These pharmacists have tried all manners of adherence modalities before arriving at what really works.
Through a series of questions and answers in this blog, they’re going to give you their hard-won advice and insight.
The following people featured at the breakfast session:
A: [Ben McNabb] I’m seeing quite a bit more advertising in our area. I think they’re still acclimating themselves to the pharmacy industry. So, I think we’re only kind of seeing the tip of the iceberg here and what Amazon’s able to do with how they’re going to market it and how they’re going to push it out. I would probably say that they haven’t pushed it extensively, so I think there’s still a window of opportunity to try to be first in your marketplace. Try to get to your providers quickly, maybe you start advertising in your local area through social media and other means of advertising, to try to be first in line when someone sees a PillPack ad on TV, or through Google ad networks, and other things.
A. [Bruce Kocian] We do have a competing company’s automation for strip packaging. Before the strip packaging, you name it, we’ve probably done it: Medicine on Time, Doc-u-Dose, OPUS, cassettes. The experience as far as the automation goes was not a good one at first. With the previous machine, we had varied time and a lot of time constraints on the pharmacists themselves. We put a hold on our adherence packaging system until the RapidPakRx came out. I will tell you that the look on my techicians’ face when we say we have a new customer that’s going to the packaging as opposed to what it was before is completely different. I would want everybody to really do your due diligence on the automation as well as the company that you’re going to be in business with when you step down this path.
A. [Ben McNabb] Our marketing plan is very significant. I know many owners that have bought a packager and it just gets put in a corner and it’s not used. The packager doesn’t do the work. You still have to sell the service. So that’s extremely important. We started out with a lot of video and social media advertising. We got picked up by local news stations. That really got us out there very well in my area. I had people that have trouble remembering, and they’ve been mistaking their medications for years. Now the patients just tell me it’s life-changing in many ways.
A. [Amjad Abukwaik] With the RapidPakRx, it just takes about 10 minutes per patient. The verification for a pharmacist is a minute or less. You don’t have to open the box, I just look at the screen where I actually see every single pouch. Usually, there’s no error, but if there is any you can see it right there on the screen.
A. [Bruce Kocian] Currently there is one technician that runs the packaging program. She has help from the other technicians. We use RxSafe so obviously, the fill technicians on the RxSafe are pulling the SKUs out of the safe that go into the RapidPakRx. But it’s a single technician. We have about 150 people in the RapidPakRx. She runs that probably Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. By Thursday, Friday she’s working on the people for the next week, not actually running the packer. I see her easily being able to do 30-plus people a day by herself on the packer. It’s that efficient.
A. [Ben McNabb] That’s what I’ve found tremendous. Even with sync, some of these patients, they just will not take the medications appropriately or there are anecdotal issues with the physician telling them only take a half or whatever these issues are. When you’re reconciling the meds every single month, once a month, you’re forcing them to take it according to how the package is listed. If they miss a dose, they potentially put it to the side, and they continue trying to remain adherent on the dates and times. Over the long run, it trains them. It’s going to keep your scores moving forward the way it needs to go.
A. [Bruce Kocian] With the RapidPakRx, it’s minimal to none because of the technology. The RapidPakRx will not drop a pill to be packed if it does not recognize it. Before it ever drops the pill to be sealed, if it doesn’t recognize the medication, it alerts you on it. So it’s very, very minimal on the repacks.
A. [Ben McNabb] We use PDS RxAnalytics, but when we determined what we were getting, we were getting approximately $180 of gross margin before rebate per patient per month. You should consider it as a subscription-based model. I think that’s how Amazon considers this. This is a subscription that they’re paying their Amazon Prime fee for. They’re getting all of this included service. Don’t forget the tax benefits of bringing in this technology. Some of these tax breaks help pay off these technologies and really reduce how many patients you need to bring on to break even on the technology.
A. [Amjad Abukwaik] I’m sure all of you do marketing. Let’s say you let staff go out of their own pharmacy and out from behind the bench to go to doctors, adult daycare, and so on. If you bring in five to seven patients a month on this system, new patients, do the math. You give an average patient eight or 10 prescriptions, and hopefully, you’re making $10 per prescription. Let’s say 10 patients per month, new patients, brand-new patients, that’s 10, probably times 10- I mean, do the math. It’s almost like four or five thousand dollars extra income coming in. That would pay for your machine.
A. [Bruce Kocian] As compared to the competing company’s machine, when you do have 200-250 canisters, if you’re going to load that machine completely, you’re talking about a significant increase in your inventory. With the RapidPakRx, you have no increase in inventory other than your increase in patient volume.
A. [Ben McNabb] I’ve been really impressed with the impact of social media. Especially, if you can get this social media presence out there as personalized as possible, you already have a well-built advantage. You can really get that message out there. Make sure you’re doing your research on effective social media advertising. Facebook typically doesn’t like the mass-produced or stock-image type of advertisement. It really wants it to come down to that local level. It wants it to come down to that relationship that exists between you and the customer, that’s a sincere relationship. So, if you can get that across, Facebook’s algorithms could really pick that up, see that it’s engaging content, and you can boost the heck out of it in your geographic area and really make a good go at it.
A. [Amjad Abukwaik] One of my stores packs all of their sync program patients on Monday and Wednesday. On the other days, they’re out seeing doctors and speaking about the sync program. They’re also talking about adherence packaging, and how that’s beneficial for their patients and their practice.
A. [Ben McNabb] Because of packaging, we’re able to service a much larger geographic area than what we have in the past. We went from a potential population reach of about 18,000 to 125,000 when you start looking at the map.
A. [Amjad Abukwaik] Partner with your PBM. You have a lot of Medicare Part D plans, you know, reps, and they knock on your door. They ask about switching patients from plan A to plan B. Find a good one that is beneficial for you. They will be your best friend and will bring you tons of patients.
A. [Bruce Kocian] Hospital readmissions is another venue. Go there if you have a hospital close to you locally. Their readmission rate greatly affects the reimbursement with Medicare now. We also have a nurse in the county that works for one of the insurance companies that refers patients to her. She’s not a home health nurse, she doesn’t work for the local home health agency, she works for one of the insurance companies. And she calls us on a regular basis with her high-med, difficult patients, to put them in our packaging system.
The above statements are simply excerpts from a larger discussion panel. To see the entire adherence breakfast session and hear even more from these independent pharmacy owners who are having success with their compliance and adherence programs, click here.
To learn more about the RapidPakRx and PakMyMeds, visit rxsafe.com/pds.
Using Adherence Packaging to Grow Your Independent Pharmacy Profits