It’s no secret that independent community pharmacies today are looking for new opportunities to generate revenue for their businesses.
Declining reimbursement rates, increasing competition and pressure to meet quality measures make it nearly impossible for these pharmacies to continue being successful by simply dispensing prescriptions.
So, what can your pharmacy do? One solution may be to offer clinical programs and services.
Here’s a look at how your independent community pharmacy can improve patient outcomes and boost its bottom line by expanding into clinical programs.
Exploring new opportunities in clinical services
There are a number of different clinical programs and services pharmacies can offer to generate extra revenue, improve outcomes and differentiate their businesses.
Clinical services your pharmacy can offer include:
- Chronic disease management
- Comprehensive medication reviews (CMRs)
- Health screenings
- Immunizations
- Medication adherence
- Medication synchronization
- Medication therapy management (MTM)
- Pharmacogenomics
- Prevention and wellness education
- Smoking cessation
- Specialty pharmacy
- Transitions of care
You can develop these programs yourself, or you can use a third-party vendor or company to help.
Generating additional revenue
Whether patients pay through insurance or out-of-pocket, clinical services will generate new revenue streams.
Offering clinical services can also increase your front-end sales, as expanded offerings will likely drive more traffic into your retail section.
For example, if you offer diabetes education classes, you’ll likely have more patients visiting your front end to buy blood glucose meters, testing strips, diabetic shoes, supplements, skin care products and syringes.
When you offer new clinical services, you also have an opportunity to recommend supplementary over-the-counter (OTC) products.
For example, you could recommend relevant retail products like nicotine gum, lozenges, and patches to patients in your smoking cessation program.
Identifying potential patients
Before you can offer clinical services, you need to identify when patients may be interested in one of the programs or services you provide.
For example, you’ll want to know if a patient visits your pharmacy multiple times a month to pick up different prescriptions, so you can recommend your medication synchronization program.
Or, if a patient comes in to refill his insulin prescription, you’ll want to be alerted so you can inform him about your diabetes management program.
By taking advantage of the features of your pharmacy management system, you can ensure patients who qualify for one of your programs are flagged and pharmacists are alerted.
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 run 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 warehouse 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.
