No one enjoys taking bitter medication, especially kids. It’s hard enough for parents to get children to eat their vegetables, so why not make their medication something they’ll want to take.
Offering a tastier alternative to awful-tasting medicine will make the kids and the parents happy. Plus, happy customers will continue to come back.
If you don’t already have a medication flavoring program, you’re missing out on perks for your pharmacy. FLAVORx is a company that makes medication flavoring for pharmacies like yours, and their well-run program offers some enticing benefits for your pharmacy, such as:
Better Adherence
When you allow kids to choose their favorite flavor, they play an active role in the process. FLAVORx also provides compliance charts and medicine-taking tips to help parents and their kids get through their medication regimen. You’ll also get sugar-free lollipops to hand out to patients as an incentive to finish their medication.
Increased Business and Profits
According to FLAVORx, it’s estimated that an individual store could gain 16-24 new customers a year and generate $51,000-$78,000 in new business by offering custom-flavoring services. Therefore, flavoring can provide a good profit margin. And while you’re busy offering flavoring to the little ones, you can also promote the service to local physicians and daycare centers. And don’t forget that over-the-counter liquid medications for allergies, colds, and flu can also be flavored.
Tap Into Pet Medications
Kids’ prescriptions and medications aren’t the only medications you can add flavor to. You can also offer the service for pet medications. Simply promote your pharmacy as a place for pets to get deliciously flavored medication. Spread the word to patients and veterinarians in the area that you can customize medications to taste like chicken, bacon, peanut butter, beef, or tuna for pets.
Amp up Your Marketing
Promote your flavoring service to local prescribers, patients, and vets using marketing tools such as social media. While signage is great, there needs to be something that’s spoken to customers when they come to drop off or pick up the prescriptions. Some great lines you could use to suggest your patients add a flavor to their medication include, “This drug has a really bad taste to it, so we highly recommend adding a flavoring to it,” and “How would you like this medication to taste? We can customize it for you.”
All in Good Taste
Providing this family-friendly service is now as easy as can be with FLAVORx Auto. The Auto fully automates the reconstitution and flavoring process, leaving you with more time to focus on patients. Especially as liquid prescription volume rises during cough, cold, and flu season. The FLAVORx Auto and flavoring service help pharmacies attract families, provide great customer care, and improve workflow.
Some pharmacists are hesitant about suggesting this service to their patients because it’s an added charge. However, making sure kids follow their medication regimen through the entirety of their course of treatment is important, as is offering tips and tricks to help parents get their kids to take their medicine as prescribed. This will set your business apart from the rest.
Though it can be a chore to get children to take their medicine, your pharmacy can help parents keep their kids adherent. Here are some tips you can offer parents:
- Pinpoint a child’s issue with the medication. Do they not like the taste of the medication? Do they have difficulty swallowing pills? Are they experiencing any negative side effects from the medicine? Once you know the issue, you can work together to find a solution.
- Offer medication flavoring. You can improve adherence by removing taste as a discouraging factor. By letting kids choose their favorite flavor, you’re allowing them to make choices about their medicine. This gives them a sense of ownership and responsibility, and this can increase adherence. With the Auto, you can easily customize the taste of liquid medication and help kids take ownership of their medicine-time experience.
- Start a rewards system for kids. Every time they visit your pharmacy with their parents, give them a small reward such as a sticker, a fun eraser, or a decorative pencil or pen. This will make them feel at ease, and from that point on, they’ll be excited to visit your pharmacy.
Offering to add a flavoring in patients’ medications shows that you care about their experience. You’ll enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty because patients truly appreciate your extra effort to make their medicine more tolerable. And if your service is great, word will get around town, and you’ll attract new, young families to your store. Plus, with social media, they’ll advertise for you via online reviews
With the busy cough, cold, and flu season approaching, consider integrating the Auto and flavoring service into your pharmacy’s workflow. It can have a significant impact on your business in the coming months. Differentiate your pharmacy from the competition and offer families an outstanding experience that benefits kids, parents, and the pharmacy staff. Visit flavorx.com for more information.
Want to learn more?
Here are some great statistics about flavoring prescriptions:
- Even though awareness of medication flavoring is low, demand for custom medication flavoring services is high. The customers who receive custom flavoring are more likely to recommend the pharmacy to friends and family.
- In 2022, the pharmaceutical flavors market was valued at over $1 billion. Over the next decade, it’s expected to grow over 5% annually.
- FLAVORx has flavored over 100 million prescriptions across the United States. It’s available in over 46,000 pharmacies, including CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid, and Walmart.
- 50 of 52 Boards of Pharmacy have determined that USP 795 nonsterile compounding standards do not apply to the simple practice of medicine flavoring, with most Boards saying they do not consider flavoring to be compounding at all.
More articles from the December 2024 issue:
- Beyond Prescription Dispensing
- ADHD Medications
- Phishing Scams
- It’s All in the Packaging
- Whooping Cough on the Rise
- Pill Variations and Non-Adherence
- The Power of Unique Endcaps
- Prescription Flavoring
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