With decreasing third party reimbursements and an increasingly competitive market, making the right buying decisions matters now more than ever. But making the right decisions—the ones that increase your profits and keep your business thriving–can be incredibly challenging. That’s why PBA Health developed ProfitGuard.
ProfitGuard was designed specifically for community pharmacies, to secure them the best supplier pricing available, and to provide them the tools they need to make informed, money-saving buying decisions every day.
How it works
ProfitGuard forms groups of community pharmacies and uses the group’s combined purchasing volume to negotiate better pricing and terms for everyone. ProfitGuard’s contract experts know just what to look for, and what to ask for, to get you the best deal out there.
But better supplier pricing is only the beginning. ProfitGuard also takes the time and headache out of improving your purchasing on a day-to-day basis. Personalized online tools track your contract performance, verify pricing and give you money-saving recommendations on products you are already purchasing. With just a few clicks, you’ll have all of the information you need to make buying decisions that benefit your bottom line.
Expert contract negotiations
To get the most competitive contract terms and pricing, ProfitGuard takes a different approach than most. ProfitGuard submits RFPs across multiple wholesalers to obtain the best cost of goods available, and then constantly monitors individual product pricing and offers up recommendations that keep pharmacists saving.
For pharmacists like Randy Newberry, R.Ph., owner of The Prescription Shop in Jerseyville, Ill., getting the very best pricing is important.
“Even though we don’t see it every day, that underlying contract negotiation has a profound effect on our business,” Newberry said. “Your wholesaler contract can make or break you.”
Newberry decided to give ProfitGuard a try in 2008, after his wholesaler began to misrepresent purchases and withhold a large amount of money in rebates.
“We worked and worked to get that straightened out and we couldn’t. So we decided we really needed to do something different,” Newberry said. “We were really happy when ProfitGuard came along.”
Newberry no longer has to worry about getting the right rebates or pricing because all of that is tracked for him through ProfitGuard. He just checks his personalized website regularly to quickly see if he’s meeting his contract and to make sure his wholesaler is giving him the correct pricing. If the numbers don’t line up, PBA Health takes the discrepancy to the wholesaler and ensures that a full reimbursement is issued.
“ProfitGuard made running our business easier and way more sophisticated,” Newberry said. “Before, we did not have the data to help us understand what a certain contract might look like, or to identify what is good or bad in a contract. And then, of course, we had no way to follow up after the fact to determine whether we were getting the deal we negotiated.”
Today, Newberry lets other community pharmacies know how ProfitGuard can save them money and back them up if their wholesalers aren’t meeting their end of the deal. Newberry said that a lot of pharmacies are surprised when they hear how much they could be saving on their cost of goods.
“It’s amazing. As the numbers are crunched, as (other pharmacies) share some initial data with their PBA Health rep, most all of them show significant savings,” Newberry said. “It’s almost like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me. I had no idea that I could be leaving that much money on the table or just giving that much money to my wholesaler’s profits instead of to mine.’”
Business tools that simplify
What makes ProfitGuard different from anything else on the market is that it offers a complete solution to improve buying. It not only saves you money on your cost of goods, but it also tracks your purchasing data for you on a personalized, easy-to-use website.
The website gives owners, pharmacists and techs the information and tools they need to make the most profitable buying decisions—all in one place. You can easily see if you’re getting the pricing you contracted for, where you’re sourcing your products from and if you’re meeting the generic percentage of your contract so you don’t miss a single rebate.
For pharmacists like Randy Meents, Pharm.D., owner of Greenfield Pharmacy in Greenfield, Mo., being able to access that information all in one place takes away the burden of doing it manually, and the worry of not getting a fair deal.
“Not only do ProfitGuard tools make it easier, they make it possible,” Meents said. “As a small independent businessperson, I don’t have the time, the ability, or the analytical algorithms to do that kind of thing. We’d have to hash it out product by product individually and we’re unable to see a bigger picture like we can see through ProfitGuard.”
Using ProfitGuard’s tools, Meents said he is able to focus more on his patients and on the bigger picture of his business, instead of tracking down numbers and invoices.
“What I like is that PBA Health is your partner and they have the tools to make sure that the wholesaler is keeping the terms of the contract without shifting numbers or shifting the way they calculate things one way or another,” he said.
Recommendations that keep you saving
While getting the best supplier pricing is important and can have a huge effect on a pharmacy’s bottom line in the long term, most buying decisions happen in the day-to-day. Prices fluctuate often, product availability changes daily, and pharmacists are left to act as part-time detectives, seeking out better pricing when they can with their already busy schedules.
ProfitGuard changes that. By logging on to your store’s personalized website and clicking on the recommendations tab, you will see products you could be saving money on, and the very best options to do so.
Whether it is switching manufacturers, moving a product from your primary to your secondary wholesaler (or vise versa), or choosing a different NDC, you will be able to easily compare, select and print the recommendations you want to use. And recommendations are updated weekly, so the price comparisons are always timely.
“If I was buying something and the price changed, or if I was buying something and there was an alternative that was cheaper, if it was even marginally expensive or if I used it repeatedly, it adds up,” Newberry said. “It’s just amazing how much those things add up.”
Newberry estimates that just by using the recommendations, he saves between $20,000 to $30,000 per year, and that’s on top of his better negotiated cost of goods.
Buying better, made easy
Making profitable buying decisions for your business does count now more than ever. But that doesn’t mean it has to be
difficult, or that you have to go it alone.
ProfitGuard was created specifically for community pharmacists like you, to make buying for your pharmacy easier, more intuitive and much less time-consuming than ever before.
Newberry has seen ProfitGuard work for his business, which is why he recommends it to other pharmacy owners.
“Pharmacies and pharmacy staff are very pressed for time. We don’t spend a lot of time sitting around drinking Cokes,” Newberry said. “But it’s worth it. Just a little bit of time can make a huge impact on your bottom line.”
Find out more
Learn more about how ProfitGuard can help lower your cost of goods at pbahealth.com/profitguard. Make sure to download the free white paper on increasing pharmacy profits, too! You can also discover how one pharmacist has used ProfitGuard to dramatically increase his profits. Read a testimonial from Huy Duong, owner of Dale’s Pharmacy in Fort Lupton, Colo.
Related articles:
Testimonial: How One Pharmacist Increases Profits with ProfitGuard
10 Ways to Purchase Better
ProfitGuard Testimonial: Tim Mitchell
