Get ready to think differently about your business in 2015. The health care industry is evolving and your independent community pharmacy must, too. If you understand the trends of tomorrow, then you can adapt to make them work for your business and your community today. These five emerging trends are ones to watch out for—and implement—in the new year.
1. Natural products for front end
The “going green” movement is coming to pharmacies. Diversify the offerings in your front end in 2015 by stocking natural vitamins, supplements and health and beauty products. Fifteen percent of consumers say they’ll use more natural and organic products in the next 12 months, according to a 2014 report by IRI, a market research company. If you’re not stocking a varied selection of natural health, beauty and personal care products, you could be missing out on front-end sales.
2. Medication therapy management
Signing up for and completing your assigned medication therapy management (MTM) cases will be increasingly important in 2015. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) don’t currently issue Star Ratings for pharmacies, only for health plans. But the plans can assess how their network pharmacies meet CMS-defined quality measures. Completing your MTM cases can help improve adherence levels and medication safety, which is what the Star Ratings are based on. As a result, maintaining high ratings can potentially improve pharmacy reimbursement and network participation.
3. Specialty pharmacy
The specialty market is booming right now, and it’s an area your pharmacy can access. Help make health care local again for the patients in your community. Patients who are living with chronic conditions that require specialty medications can benefit from a specialty care program at your pharmacy.
4. Big data
Whether it’s analyzing loyalty card transactions, coupon redemption at point-of-sale or prescription purchases, understanding data about your patients is essential to success. Like many retailers, national chain pharmacies and big box stores are already collecting and analyzing as much data as they can to increase sales and keep customers coming back. And it’s not just front-end data. Knowing your patients—their disease states, potential drug interactions, adherence rates, gaps in therapy and high-risk medications—will be important in 2015. You’ll need to know your performance numbers in order to meet the expectations of health plans, PBMs and CMS, and also to ensure network participation and continued access to patients.
5. Disease state management services
As pharmacy grows more clinically focused, now’s the time to consider niche areas your pharmacy can specialize in. The most common disease state management services independent community pharmacies currently provide are immunizations, blood pressure monitoring and diabetes training, according to the 2014 NCPA Digest conducted by the National Community Pharmacists Association. Some niche areas to look into for 2015 include smoking cessation, lipid monitoring, asthma management, weight management, osteoporosis services, HIV/AIDS, anticoagulation monitoring and pet medicines.
