Pharmacy competition is fierce, but don’t let it get you down. As an independent pharmacy, you have the potential to cash in on ideas, solutions, and new technology much faster than any chain or big-box store. By being open to new ideas and solutions, you invite in new sources of revenue you never would’ve realized otherwise. If you’d like to improve your community pharmacy performance, check out the following solutions that just might help boost your financials.
Medication Therapy Management (MTM) Program: Help your patients navigate the complexity of healthcare by immersing yourself in managing patients’ medication use. Your approach to MTM can vary. You can provide services like comprehensive medication reviews (CMRs) by actively managing drug therapy and helping to resolve medication-related problems. You can also take a more active role in managing patients’ therapy by helping to prevent treatment issues from arising or resolving medication problems.
As the pharmacist, you will look over and manage all of the medications a patient is taking (including prescriptions, over-the-counter meds, herbal therapies, and dietary supplements) to ensure the best outcome for the patient.
Inventory Management Program: One of your pharmacy’s largest assets is prescription drug inventory. It’s crucial in driving cash flow and profitability. While you may do okay managing the inventory levels, if you’re not managing it as you should, you might be limiting cash flow. By looking into a web-based inventory management program (with automated ordering), you can ensure your inventory levels and cash flow are bettered.
Inventory management can not only improve your cash flow, it can also save you time in preparing prescription drug orders. Investing in an inventory-management program will enable you and your staff to spend a lot more quality time with patients.
Medication Synchronization Services: A lot of people take numerous medications. Therefore, it can be quite difficult and confusing when trying to manage them. A lot of people end up missing doses of much-needed chronic medications when they don’t have enough on hand. This is where medication synchronization comes into play to help simplify the refill process for patients and caregivers.
By synchronizing refills to the same date each month, medication synchronization helps improve patients’ medication adherence. And with newer, web-based solutions, the identification process of eligible patients to synchronize is now automated rather than manual. Refill dates can also be planned in advance, and you can better manage your inventories and also plan for your staffing needs more effectively.
Pharmacy Services Administrative Organization (PSAO): PSAOs are crucial for independent pharmacies. They contract with pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) on behalf of their pharmacy membership and act as intermediaries. While your pharmacy may already be affiliated with a PSAO, it’s a good idea to find out if other PSAOs/drug wholesalers might be able to provide more comprehensive support for your pharmacy.
Telepharmacy: Remote dispensing is used to provide better access to care and to expand your pharmacy’s footprint. While COVID-19 accelerated the adoption of telehealth in all healthcare settings, two years later, a lot of pharmacies have come to a halt with virtual consultations with pharmacists.
Telehealth isn’t just a temporary fix. With the right platform, services such as chronic-care management (CCM), diabetes self-management training, and medication-therapy management, can be synced and supported by existing pharmacy-management solutions.
Improving your pharmacy’s performance will allow you to better serve your patients and keep ahead of the competition in the ever-changing healthcare industry. With the right tools, you’ll be able to give more of your expertise to your patients while other systems take care of the nitty-gritty.
A Member-Owned Company Serving Independent Pharmacies
PBA Health is dedicated to helping independent pharmacies reach their full potential on the buy-side of their business. Founded and owned by pharmacists, PBA Health serves independent pharmacies with group purchasing services, wholesaler contract negotiations, proprietary purchasing tools, and more.
An HDA member, PBA Health operates its own NABP-accredited secondary wholesaler with more than 6,000 SKUs, including brands, generics, narcotics CII-CV, cold-storage products, and over-the-counter (OTC) products — offering the lowest prices in the secondary market.
