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 RxSafe. Read on for their blog post about pouch vs. blister in a COVID world.
This year has been full of changes and challenges for both patients and pharmacists. Coronavirus has increasingly led to many patients preferring “no-contact” or “touchless” services.
Independent pharmacists can reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission by limiting contact between staff and patients. Listen to Kyle Lomax and Traci Bayer, RxSafe customers, explain how they are meeting this new “contactless” demand.
Will “Touchless” be the Norm?
When the pandemic first started, many people thought it would only last a few weeks. Since then, the rapid and sustained spread of the virus has increased patients’ desire for limited contact, especially with healthcare professionals.
It is clear that this pandemic will have a lasting impact on the way patients interact with pharmacists. Patients are likely to use pharmacies that offer pouch packaging and “no-contact” delivery services.
“Our delivery has almost quadrupled,” says Lomax. “I think that our commitment to this wide radius of delivery has really made us stand out in our role, especially in our rural communities.”
Even after the widespread distribution of the COVID vaccine — which will take the better part of a year — patients may be more likely to limit their contact in order to avoid any type of virus or illness.
Why is Pouch Packaging Safer?
Traditional vial filling involves many touch points that increase the risk of transmission. Even after the prescription leaves the pharmacy, there are many more touch points that occur with consumption. William Holmes, CEO of RxSafe, details how quickly the number of touchpoints can grow with traditional vials.
“Let’s presume now a family member might be assisting someone with opening and closing their vials, that’s 30 times a month that vial gets opened and closed and sometimes pills get poured out into a hand and then the bulk poured back,” explains Holmes. “With each touch, you’re increasing the risk of disease transmission.”
On average, there are 317,000 touch points per 1,000 patients using the manual card fill system. Using an automated pill packager reduces the touchpoints to approximately 1,140 touch points.
Pouch packaging automation, such as the RapidPakRx, can drastically reduce touch points. When consuming their medications, patients just have to tear open one pouch. Also, pouch packaging allows for a 31-day script to be filled, decreasing contact between patients and pharmacy staff.
“Even during COVID, we’ve had very few people go without their medications,” says Bayer, “because their prescriptions are ready almost a week before they’re due.”
Need additional information?
Learn more about how you can create efficient operations in the midst of COVID with the PDS COVID Optimization Program. You can also get a sneak peek of the latest PDS member town hall to hear more about how independent pharmacies are adapting their operations to best serve their patients through COVID.
About
Are you interested in learning more about how the RapidPakRx can help your pharmacy provide “touchless” service? Visit the RapidPakRx product page for more information.
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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 work with Drug Topics. Read on for their sponsored blog post about the business landscape after COVID within pharmacies and 5 objectives for focusing on growth again, written by Ollin Sykes, CPA, CITP and Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP.
5 Objectives for Boosting Rx Business and Cash Clinical Services
Coming out of the sudden, severe lockdowns from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), pharmacies are adjusting to a new way of serving patients and providing services. To build some positive momentum, here are 5 ways that current pharmacy owners are adapting their businesses to serve people.
#1. Crisis-Based Services
During a crisis, helping your patients and community can also lead to new services. Out of COVID-19, pharmacies have the opportunity to provide items like hand sanitizer, cleaners, safety garments, infrared thermometers, and more. By packaging and pricing a variety of products for the size of company or organization, you help customers quickly get the supplies they need from a local source.
#2. Managing DIR and GER Challenges
Direct and indirect remuneration (DIR) fees are typically the third largest expense in a pharmacy behind inventory and payroll costs. You can mitigate higher DIR fees by monitoring your Star Ratings, but also by exploring med syncing and compliance packaging. If you can reduce DIR fees by 1 to 2 percentage points through this investment, it’s easy to calculate how such technologies can pay for themselves and more — plus result in happier patients and families.
As for generic effective rate (GER) challenges and potential clawbacks, which are not influenced by performance measures, make sure that you know which contracts, if any, include GERs or “effective rate guarantees” in the contract language. You can work with your PSAO on contract terms, and also consider a separate inventory for plans with GERs. The separate inventory could be sourced differently with a higher average wholesale price to lessen a potential clawback.
#3. Offering Cash Clinical Services
This is a pioneering area where pharmacists can identify ways to keep their patients healthier and prevent or manage larger health problems. It may include phlebotomy and clinical testing to identify and consult on the root cause of ailments that can be treated prior to or beyond medications. Whether that results in non-interactive private label nutritional supplements or food sensitivity solutions, you should explore cash clinical services that make sense for your pharmacy.
Explore a few private label providers before you move forward with patient testing and consulting. Build relationships with a few trusted vendors, and educate your team first so that you feel confident promoting probiotics or other supplements to patients.
#4. Building Community Relations
Who are your target patients and customers? Take a look at who they are, the prescriptions they use, their family members, and common health care services. How can your pharmacy add value to their treatment experience and act as a resource?
For example, Nicolette Mathey, PharmD, a Florida-based pharmacist and a consultant to pharmacists through her company, Atrium24, identified elective surgeries as a trend in her community. So she developed a branded surgical treatment kit for cosmetic surgery clinics. The kits inform patients about surgery preparation and after-care. Often, the patients end up working with Mathey’s pharmacy on any medications or products related to their surgeries.
Another idea is to join — or have one of your team members join — public social media groups in the community. Interact with parents, coaches, or seniors on healthy living topics. Provide guidance if community members express a need that your pharmacy can solve.
#5. Enhancing Quality of Life
What happens when your pharmacy becomes a resource in your community during challenging times? You are viewed as a health care provider and a friend, building a network of healthier, informed community members and patients who rely on your business. As a trusted resource, you gradually diversify your services and revenues, which improves your bottom line margins, profits and quality of life.
Coming out of COVID, make sure that your pharmacy is a part of the larger community and health care conversation. You matter.
Need additional information?
To learn more about how independent pharmacies are adapting their operations to best serve their patients through COVID, get a sneak peek of the latest PDS member town hall.
About
Ollin Sykes is founder of Sykes & Company, P.A., and Scotty Sykes is a partner in the firm. Along with a knowledgeable team of counselors and advisors, they help independent and community pharmacies across the U.S. manage industry and business challenges — and thrive.https://www.sykes-cpa.com/ask-sykes/
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Here at PDS, we take pride in highlighting some of our incredible media partners. We know these companies have the potential to revolutionize pharmacies just like yours through their products and services. We’re excited to work with Pharmacy Times. Read on for their sponsored blog post about the importance of immunization programs, written by PDS member, Travis Wolff, PharmD and Emma Leffler, PharmD. Travis is the manager and co-owner of Med-World Pharmacy in Sapulpa, Oklahom and Emma is a PGY1 community pharmacy resident.
There are many areas of patient care where pharmacists can have a direct impact, yet a number of them do not have the confidence or understand the potential magnitude of that impact.
Moving the Independent Pharmacy Forward with Immunizations
If pharmacists want to continue to move the profession forward, seeking provider opportunities, they must gain that confidence and help stakeholders understand the important roles they play. These include conducting diabetes or point-of-care testing, but it is immunizations that provide the clearest snapshot.
Let’s go back to the years when pharmacists first saw immunization-friendly legislation being enacted from state to state. The National Association of Chain Drug Stores compared influenza vaccine rates from 2003 to 2013 to cover this period of pro-pharmacist legislation.
During that time:
5.1 million vaccinations could be attributed to the new legislation.
The American Pharmacists Association (APhA) Foundation conducted a pilot study that looked at immunizations across 8 community pharmacies in Washington State.
The study results showed that vaccine administration rates had increased by 41.4% over 6 months.
In addition, for every influenza vaccine walk-in, 1.45 other vaccinations were identified as being due. Of those unmet patient immunization needs, 95% were administered by the pharmacist at the point of care.
Understanding the impact pharmacists have had after receiving immunization privileges greatly boosts the case that they should be given additional responsibilities. After we shared these two studies with our federal and local representatives, they asked us about the local community we served. This led us to dive into our own initiatives.
Immunization Facts
We will start by laying out some important facts. Immunization is one of the most cost-effective means of preventing disease. Individuals can defend themselves against several diseases by staying up-to-date on all recommended immunizations. Additionally, as more individuals become protected from particular diseases, communities gain a collective immunity that aids in reducing complications, deaths, and hospitalizations. Community pharmacists can reach out to and educate patients in their communities, and administer these preventive immunizations to them.
Some challenges that providers face are:
Consistent accessibility to the adult patient population
Identifying patient vaccine eligibility
Supplying and administering all recommended immunizations in the office
Patient challenges range from access to reliable information, knowing which immunizations are recommended based on age or comorbidities, and remembering when to receive follow-up doses. By creating pharmacist-led immunization programs, community pharmacies can improve patient outreach, immunization rates, and follow-up doses.
From the most current data up to 2016, overall immunization rates for hepatitis A (23.7%), human papillomavirus (8.6%), influenza (70.4%), pneumococcal disease (66.9%), shingles (37.4%), and tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis (26.6%) have increased slightly. Pharmacists have the optimal opportunity to increase these rates around the nation. Our pharmacy targeted 1 specific immunization in 2019, the shingles vaccine Shingrix.
Seeing it in Action
In 2019, we promoted Shingrix immunizations on our Facebook page and flyers, and through individual discussions with the patients we identified as being eligible to receive them. The determination of eligibility stemmed from our Sync+ program, which analyzes patient profiles to determine chronic disease medication adherence, immunization eligibility, and preventive screening opportunities. Patients aged 50 years or older were identified as eligible for the Shingrix vaccination. Our Sync+ patients were sorted through, alphabetizing by last name. This allowed for a staggered informing of eligibility versus a bombardment of vaccinations on a single day or week. When the program identified a patient as being eligible, we communicated a message through a written note in the patient’s Sync+ basket, as well as a typed note in the patient’s electronic profile. Pharmacy team members could then counsel patients at pick-up time about benefits, eligibility, and what to expect.
Because of the advertisements and 1-on-1 counseling, our pharmacy, Med-World, more than doubled its Shingrix vaccination rates in 7 months versus the rate in 2018. Of the 447 patients we have analyzed thus far through Sync+, 74% are eligible for Shingrix immunization, 26% of whom have received it. Numerous patients identified have yet to receive their 1-on-1 counseling, because of when their pharmacy system sync day falls during the month.
Many patients had questions about whether Shingrix is still given if they have already received the Zostavax immunization, and whether it is inactive or live. Patients who previously received Zostavax are still eligible, and we encourage them to receive the new shingles immunization. Although
Zostavax is a live immunization and carries increased contraindications and precautions, Shingrix is an inactive immunization, which means greater availability to more people. Additionally, Shingrix is 97% effective at preventing shingles in people aged 50 years or older, whereas Zostavax is only 50% to 64% effective at preventing shingles in that age group.
Once patients receive their first immunization, we document the date of their next follow-up dose on their comprehensive immunization spreadsheet and computerized profile note. Each month, a staff member calls patients within the 2- to 6-month period to inform them that it is time for the last dose of Shingrix. When patients have received both doses, the staff make the appropriate documentation. In 2019, our program completed 3.5 times as many follow-up doses versus 2018.
Based on our findings, community pharmacist immunization programs can have an extensive impact on immunization rates, especially regarding follow-up dose rates. Barriers to patient immunization initiation included the ability to contact patients, patients receiving the immunization at a different facility, and cost. Additional research and time are needed to determine the longterm impact that pharmacist-led programs have on immunization rates and follow-up doses. We plan to expand our immunization program to include other immunizations, such as hepatitis B, Pneumovax 23, and Prevnar 13B.
We hope that community pharmacists across the nation will gain confidence and better understand how to communicate their value to stakeholders.
If we can have this kind of impact on immunizations, what would the impact be across other point-of-care health services if pharmacists were entrusted with them?
Next Steps:
Join the PDS Innovate in a Day event on February 11 where we will be talking more about immunizations and other strategies you can implement in your pharmacy now to propel your business forward in 2021.
References
Drozd EM, Miller L, Johnsrud M. Impact of pharmacist immunization authority on seasonal influenza immunization rates across states. Clin Ther. 2017;39(8):1563-1580. e17. doi:10.1016/j.clinthera.2017.07.004 Pilot project highlights pharmacists’ key role in identifying and resolving unmet vaccination needs. News release. American Pharmacists Association. Accessed July 24, 2020. https://www.aphafoundation.org/news-release-pilot-results Vaccination coverage among adults in the United States, National Health Interview Survey, 2016. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Updated February 8, 2018. Accessed July 24, 2020. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/imz-managers/coverage/ adultvaxview/pubs-resources/NHIS-2016.html Shingles vaccination. CDC. Updated January 25, 2018. Accessed July 24, 2020. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/shingles/public/shingrix/index.html What everyone should know about Zostavax. CDC. Updated January 25, 2018. Accessed July 24, 2020. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/shingles/public/zostavax/
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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 Wellness Works. Read on for their sponsored blog post about the business of nutritional sales and selling vitamins.
For decades, independent pharmacists have held an advantage when it comes to selling vitamins and nutritional supplements. First, as part of their undergraduate studies, pharmacists are the best educated healthcare professional to address the basic biochemical concepts of vitamins and supplements. Second, pharmacists have held a position of trust with consumers for decades. While 65% of Americans do search online for basic health information, the knowledge of and trust in the pharmacist is used to validate the health information found online. Lastly, as healthcare professionals, pharmacists are in daily contact with consumers exhibiting various metabolic diseases. These are diseases that have been acquired over time for which pharmaceutical offerings may not be the only options.
Vitamins are More Than a Line of Bottles on a Pharmacy Shelf
Today, vitamin sales account for $100 billion in revenue worldwide, and the U.S. accounts for 36% of that figure. What trends have driven that number?
First, there is an increased interest in better health through all demographics. Naturally, Baby Boomers would be expected to hold the greatest percentage of supplement sales, and they do at 36%. What may be surprising is that Generation X comprises 23% and Millennials 16%. All of this combines for a figure of 70-75% of Americans taking at least one supplement every day.
There is the increase in preventative healthcare. Celebrity health experts are widespread on social media, online and through multiple communication channels. And supplements have been recognized as being essential to the preventative health process.
Self-directed consumers no longer rely on physicians to advise them on their healthcare. Today, consumers search online for answers to their healthcare questions. This consumer self-direction is what is attributed for the increase in supplement sales across all demographics – Baby Boomers, Generation X and Millennials.
Finally, brand recognition and brand support are becoming major influencers as consumers search for providers they can trust for their supplement inquiries and sales.
What do Pharmacists Need to do to be Successful in this NEW Business of Nutritional Sales?
Offer a private label as an alternative to the national labels found everywhere. The exclusivity of a proprietary product line, based on quality and product knowledge, provides a valuable differentiator in this competitive area. Coupled with the trust consumers hold for pharmacists, a private label line generates return sales for pharmacist-recommended products.
Ensure that you can be found online. Today, being found online is evidence that you exist. Pharmacists should be prepared to offer their private lines not only in their pharmacies, but through online e-commerce as well. In 2017, sales of nutritional supplements in brick and mortar locations increased 3%. However, sales of nutritional supplements in brick and mortar locations that also offered online sales of the same supplements increased by 20%. The trusted pharmacist who can offer professional quality supplements both in their pharmacy and online can parlay that situation into a position that even Amazon cannot overcome.
Pharmacists need to utilize multi-channel marketing opportunities and support. By using a professional marketing program that provides consistent brand presence through social media, emails, website videos and other communication channels, the pharmacist creates an image of expertise and trust which carries through multiple demographics.
You don’t sell vitamins by just selling vitamins! By combining the pharmacist’s innate advantages with the strategic application of available technology and marketing, pharmacies can realize healthy nutritional revenue streams. Even in this competitive marketplace.
About the Author
Wellness Works helps independent pharmacists develop a profitable supplement revenue stream by creating a branded supplement line for sale in the pharmacy and even online. Wellness Works provides the professional products, marketing expertise, and business and clinical consulting to help pharmacists be successful with supplements.
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There is no shortage of options for owners looking to impact pharmacy growth. Successful independent pharmacy owners must maintain a balance between growing profits, investing in the business, and managing operational cash flow. This formula is not new. However, in light of significant industry shifts and stringent regulations; the balance is more challenging to achieve. Success is a matter of surrounding yourself with the right team in an environment that will cultivate pharmacy growth. The PDS Super-Conference and premier sponsor Live Oak Bank are the solution partners you need to establish successful programs and unlock capital for your pharmacy.
In an industry where large competitors have unlimited access to funds, and you need capital to implement essential profit programs; where do you start?
Step 1: Know Your Pharmacy Market
Understanding where your profits are coming from is the first step in taking your business to the next level. Passively waiting for the next prescription to walk through the door does not work anymore. The waiting game will not keep you operating at full potential. Actively targeting the most profitable aspects of your business keeps you on top of market conditions and prepared to adjust course in the face of changes.
Step 2: Managing Pharmacy Cash Flow Effectively
Cash is king, we all know it. Your pharmacy should have enough cash flow to reinvest back into your business and employees from marketing to new equipment, all while maintaining salaries and keeping the lights on. Mismanagement of or inattention to cash flow will limit how far you can take your pharmacy. It affects how banks look at you when applying for loans, and your ability to scale successful initiatives.
These are just a few of the tips that we cover with independent pharmacy owners at the Annual PDS Super Conference. Our goal is to provide owners with the tools and solutions to establish a solid foundation, kickstart pharmacy growth, and provide ongoing support you navigate the industry in the coming year.
Live Oak Bank is one of the largest investors in community pharmacies in the industry and has provided nearly $750 million in loans since 2010. They provide funding and packages to address all of your pharmacy needs.
Quick loan closes – approximately 47 days
Favorable terms with low-interest rates
Low equity requirements
As your dedicated solutions partner, Live Oak Bank can assist your pharmacy with everything from facilitating prescription file purchases and software solutions to streamlining improved inventory management. As a major sponsor of #PDS2017 Live Oak Bank will be in attendance, making it the perfect time to stop by their booth and learn more about their loan capabilities, low-interest rates, and equity requirements.
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