Latest / Pharmacy Podcast Network / Redefining Possible; The APhA 2026 Annual Conference Post Show | Part Two

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Redefining Possible; The APhA 2026 Annual Conference Post Show | Part Two · Pharmacy Podcast Network

0:00
Speaker 1: We'd like to thank the Independent Pharmacy Cooperative or IPC
0:03
Speaker 1: for sponsoring this episode.
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Speaker 2: You are listening to the global network of podcasters dedicated
0:14
Speaker 2: to the pharmacy profession. Welcome to the Pharmacy Podcast Network.
0:33
Speaker 1: Pharmacists from across the nation have come together to redefine
0:36
Speaker 1: the possibilities of what pharmacists can do together. The American
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Speaker 1: Pharmacists Association's twenty twenty six Annual Conference was hosted in
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Speaker 1: Los Angeles, California, where pharmacy, advocacy and advancing technologies brought
0:48
Speaker 1: together key industry leaders. The Pharmacy Podcast Network brings you
0:52
Speaker 1: into the conversation with this special three part series of
0:55
Speaker 1: the APHA Annual Conference post show.
1:05
Speaker 3: One of my favorite people in pharmacy, Kelly stovevolved here
1:08
Speaker 3: at the twenty twenty six APHA.
1:10
Speaker 4: Hey Todd, great to be here.
1:11
Speaker 5: It's great to.
1:12
Speaker 3: See you so Los Angeles. This is a time change
1:17
Speaker 3: for me. I don't like coming to the West Coast,
1:19
Speaker 3: but once I get here, I kind of like it.
1:21
Speaker 5: But I didn't leave myself enough time to see anything.
1:23
Speaker 6: Have you have you got on the sun and the
1:25
Speaker 6: blue sky?
1:27
Speaker 4: You know, that's just wonderful to be here on this
1:29
Speaker 4: side of the United States, it is.
1:32
Speaker 3: Talk to us about IPC Independent Pharmacy Cooperative making an
1:36
Speaker 3: investment to be part of the APHA.
1:39
Speaker 6: I love APHA.
1:40
Speaker 4: You know. APHA is that is that conference or that
1:43
Speaker 4: convention where all pharmacy comes together across the whole industry.
1:47
Speaker 4: So you know, I personally like to come and reset
1:50
Speaker 4: because I leave, you know again being so proud to
1:53
Speaker 4: be in this profession, in this industry and you know,
1:56
Speaker 4: meet my amazing peers across the industry. So it's really
2:00
Speaker 4: an important one for me personally on the IPC level.
2:04
Speaker 4: You know, one of our taglines is freedom to Farm,
2:08
Speaker 4: and I think what that means is empowering our pharmacies
2:11
Speaker 4: in our stores.
2:12
Speaker 6: And you know we do that whether.
2:14
Speaker 4: It be through purchasing, through consultation, through clinical programs. We
2:19
Speaker 4: want to be able to help empower to empower those
2:22
Speaker 4: pharmacies to go into the direction they want to and
2:24
Speaker 4: have that freedom to direct their business, pivot and direct
2:28
Speaker 4: their business how they want to and how they want
2:30
Speaker 4: it to be in the future. And coming to a
2:32
Speaker 4: conference like this really gives us that education and the
2:37
Speaker 4: background to be able to step up and help our
2:40
Speaker 4: stores where they are.
2:42
Speaker 3: I also think freedom to farm. When I read on
2:45
Speaker 3: your website and the marketing that the team has done,
2:49
Speaker 3: it's without removing obstacles, so that.
2:52
Speaker 5: You are free.
2:54
Speaker 3: Do you have a freedom to provide pharmacy services? And
2:58
Speaker 3: that's because of your member base is feeding IPC all
3:04
Speaker 3: of this knowledge about what's not working, so that you
3:07
Speaker 3: guys can pivot and turn it into something to make
3:10
Speaker 3: it that it doesn't become an obstacle anymore. So talk
3:13
Speaker 3: to us about some of the success that some of
3:16
Speaker 3: those programs have rolled out and now it's a program
3:20
Speaker 3: for every one of your members.
3:23
Speaker 6: I think that you know, that's a great question.
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Speaker 4: And one of the things that comes to mind is
3:28
Speaker 4: because we have this membership that is all across the
3:32
Speaker 4: nation and we're able to talk with so many members,
3:35
Speaker 4: then we see a lot of people that have started early,
3:38
Speaker 4: maybe made some mistakes and pivoted and been able to
3:42
Speaker 4: really recover from that. And so we are able to
3:45
Speaker 4: then take our experience with these members and then spread
3:48
Speaker 4: it out and allow that information to also help someone
3:53
Speaker 4: else be successful down the way.
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Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly.
3:57
Speaker 3: And so I think of the places that you show
4:00
Speaker 3: up and the components of government relations and the ability
4:07
Speaker 3: to execute better decisions on contracting, and then the generic
4:14
Speaker 3: warehouse to be able to get the right medication and accessibility.
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Speaker 5: And so there's.
4:21
Speaker 3: This whole center of support for the membership. And then
4:26
Speaker 3: of course then the individual programs which are helping to
4:29
Speaker 3: create profit and those are some of the most exciting
4:32
Speaker 3: ones I.
4:32
Speaker 5: Like talking about.
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Speaker 3: So when I think about that and the age of pharmacy,
4:36
Speaker 3: we're going to be moving from the dispenser, which is
4:40
Speaker 3: very important, but into actually caring for a patient that
4:44
Speaker 3: may have a chronic disease state or something that's happening.
4:48
Speaker 3: Talk to us a little bit about what IPC has
4:51
Speaker 3: been able to help teach their members of those profit
4:55
Speaker 3: opportunities that are embedded in care, that are embedded in
5:00
Speaker 3: programs that are desperately needed in communities that sometimes don't
5:05
Speaker 3: have a pharmacy for miles.
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Speaker 4: Like remote patient monitoring, chronic care management, and especially with
5:10
Speaker 4: the Rural Health Transformation program that's on board right now.
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Speaker 4: You know, those things are just going to expand, and
5:16
Speaker 4: we have extensive education. We have a team that will
5:19
Speaker 4: work with our stores educate them on those programs, explain
5:22
Speaker 4: those CPT codes. You know what you can do for billing,
5:25
Speaker 4: how you how you can work with providers in your
5:29
Speaker 4: area for collaborative practice agreements. And I'd also like to
5:32
Speaker 4: point out, in addition to the list that you named,
5:34
Speaker 4: is our vendor programs are incredibly strong. So we work
5:38
Speaker 4: with about fifty vendors that we have contracted with to
5:41
Speaker 4: bring discounts to our membership and it saves our stores
5:44
Speaker 4: millions of dollars in contract savings every year. And through
5:47
Speaker 4: these vendors, you know, we can help advance remote patient monitoring.
5:50
Speaker 4: You've got to have devices, you know, and so that
5:54
Speaker 4: has really helps a store be innovative. It's hard to
5:58
Speaker 4: innovate without a vendor. So we're really proud of the
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Speaker 4: vendor program we bring to our members as well.
6:03
Speaker 7: Well.
6:03
Speaker 5: We're proud of IPC.
6:05
Speaker 3: Your partnership with Pharmacy Podcast Network has been pivotal for
6:08
Speaker 3: us to help us grow, especially talking about issues that
6:11
Speaker 3: are very specific to independent community pharmacy versus our coverage
6:15
Speaker 3: of specialty pharmacy or long term care pharmacy.
6:19
Speaker 5: But it's funny, I start seeing.
6:21
Speaker 3: IPC playing in all of those aspects and you're showing up,
6:25
Speaker 3: you know, I see market at SMBA. So you guys
6:28
Speaker 3: are actually showing up everywhere.
6:30
Speaker 4: But you know what, where can we touch our members
6:33
Speaker 4: because it's a it's a time where there's such an
6:36
Speaker 4: opportunity for expansion. Of course, you know there's struggles as well,
6:40
Speaker 4: but there's also such opportunities for expansion. And if we
6:43
Speaker 4: don't have that background in all of these areas, then
6:46
Speaker 4: we can't help like we want to help as a
6:49
Speaker 4: as a GPO and as a fine cream.
6:51
Speaker 3: So Kelly Stovall here at the APHA, twenty twenty six,
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Speaker 3: Thanks so much for spending time with us.
6:56
Speaker 5: A rat, Thank you, Toyan.
7:01
Speaker 4: Hi.
7:02
Speaker 8: My name is Amantha Bagdin. I am the founder and
7:04
Speaker 8: CEO of our ex post. Welcome to the Pharmacy Podcast.
7:09
Speaker 3: Amantha here at the APHA, twenty twenty six.
7:12
Speaker 5: It's so good to see you.
7:14
Speaker 8: It's good to see you again. We're kicking out conference season.
7:16
Speaker 3: I know it is conference seas and it means that
7:20
Speaker 3: last year I promised my wife I said I'm going
7:22
Speaker 3: to attend eight. I attended twelve, where I think it
7:24
Speaker 3: might have been thirteen. This year I'm trying to stay
7:27
Speaker 3: at around eleven, but it'll probably turn out to be fourteen.
7:31
Speaker 3: It's hard not to go to conferences.
7:33
Speaker 8: I think I have eighteen planned on our road show,
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Speaker 8: and I'll be attending most of them, but we'll compare
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Speaker 8: notes at the end.
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Speaker 5: So our ex post right out of the gate.
7:43
Speaker 3: Give our listeners a little background on what is our
7:46
Speaker 3: ex post.
7:46
Speaker 8: Yep, we're pharmacy to pharmacy marketplace and we help independent
7:50
Speaker 8: pharmacies sell they're unused drugs to other pharmacies.
7:54
Speaker 5: That makes sense.
7:56
Speaker 3: I just want to let listeners know you didn't get
7:58
Speaker 3: to come to Los Angeles and come to the APHA
8:01
Speaker 3: twenty twenty six. The absolute incredible, most coaldest booth out
8:07
Speaker 3: there is.
8:08
Speaker 5: Our ex post.
8:09
Speaker 3: Whose idea was that to be to build something that's
8:12
Speaker 3: so it's almost like going to Disney World or something.
8:16
Speaker 5: To walk into your booth, it's so beautiful. Well, I'm from.
8:19
Speaker 8: Los Angeles and this is where the company hqa's and
8:22
Speaker 8: so since APHA was making its way out here, I
8:26
Speaker 8: thought I needed to really expand on bringing the magic
8:30
Speaker 8: into the show. And I think our booth is a
8:33
Speaker 8: great way for people to capture video, grab some jumbo pens,
8:37
Speaker 8: some cotton candy, and bring that magic back.
8:38
Speaker 5: Home with them. It really is. It's very special.
8:41
Speaker 3: So just for the we're audios, so people listening to podcasts,
8:46
Speaker 3: it was colorful. You had balloons all together, You had
8:51
Speaker 3: like spongy things. It looks like I could jump into it.
8:55
Speaker 3: Describe the booth a little bit to the listeners.
8:57
Speaker 6: Yeah, So we went.
8:58
Speaker 8: With a pastel rainbow theme for the booth and we
9:03
Speaker 8: have just these bright, colorful balloons everywhere, star balloons everywhere.
9:09
Speaker 8: We have little pills that are a balloon inside of
9:13
Speaker 8: the balloon press up on the outside so it almost
9:16
Speaker 8: looks like the pilps are taped onto the balloon. We
9:19
Speaker 8: have we have pill shaped pillows or pill ohs, I
9:23
Speaker 8: guess is what they would be bright cotton candy. And
9:27
Speaker 8: I think what's been really fun is a lot of
9:29
Speaker 8: people have enjoyed our jumbo size pens. And the reason
9:32
Speaker 8: that we made that swag is for people to bring
9:35
Speaker 8: their to bring these jumbo pens back to the pharmacy
9:39
Speaker 8: and give it to their favorite pharmacy technician because we
9:42
Speaker 8: know how we all fight over pens in the pharmacy.
9:46
Speaker 5: I love it.
9:48
Speaker 3: So something special about you, Amantha that I've noticed over
9:51
Speaker 3: the years and knowing you as you constantly are giving
9:55
Speaker 3: back to the profession in the realm of things that
9:58
Speaker 3: are not getting enough attention. And one of the places
10:01
Speaker 3: that I think you speak very well because of your
10:04
Speaker 3: experience as a tech yourself is the pharmacy technician. So
10:08
Speaker 3: and that's one of your passions too, And it's to
10:11
Speaker 3: bring more notice to the tech. It's to raise the tech,
10:15
Speaker 3: it's to give more responsibility and growing their careers. Give
10:19
Speaker 3: some of that background to our listeners.
10:20
Speaker 8: Yeah, I've been a pharmacy technician for twenty years. My
10:24
Speaker 8: first job was at Write it It across the street
10:28
Speaker 8: when I was sixteen years old, working in the pharmacy,
10:31
Speaker 8: and I just absolutely fell in love. And then I
10:33
Speaker 8: ended up working at an independent pharmacy here in Los
10:36
Speaker 8: Angeles for a long time, and I think that's where
10:38
Speaker 8: I really had my eyes.
10:40
Speaker 6: Open to the world of community.
10:43
Speaker 8: Independent pharmacy and really caring about patients. And I knew
10:46
Speaker 8: I could get paid more, probably working at a chain store,
10:49
Speaker 8: but I loved my pharmacy family. And I think when
10:54
Speaker 8: I was with a partner at the time, making technician
10:58
Speaker 8: wages and.
10:59
Speaker 5: Splitting runs was feasible. But I think that it's.
11:03
Speaker 8: Really important for pharmacy technicians to understand that this is
11:06
Speaker 8: a long term career and we need to get the
11:08
Speaker 8: rest of that in the industry onboard with paying wages
11:12
Speaker 8: where a pharmacy technician is going to stay and they're
11:14
Speaker 8: going to grow, especially as standard of care kind of
11:18
Speaker 8: takes off in other states. That means that pharmacy technician
11:21
Speaker 8: support system needs to occur in the pharmacy to allow
11:23
Speaker 8: pharmacists to practice a lot of those services and build
11:27
Speaker 8: that infrastructure. And that is something I'm super passionate about,
11:30
Speaker 8: is how do we get pharmacy technicians to be mini
11:34
Speaker 8: entrepreneurs within their own store bring in additional revenue so
11:38
Speaker 8: that the pharmacy owner doesn't have to make that difficult
11:40
Speaker 8: choice of saying, like, you know, maybe you're only going
11:43
Speaker 8: to get a quarter raise because we're losing so much
11:45
Speaker 8: money on these prescriptions.
11:47
Speaker 5: Yeah.
11:47
Speaker 3: So the elephant in the room with techs is the
11:51
Speaker 3: realm of AI. And I heard several comments that I
11:55
Speaker 3: was very argumentative about that said, hey, AI is going
12:00
Speaker 3: to make the pharmacy technicians less and less needed. And
12:06
Speaker 3: I laughed and I'm like, that's such bullshit. I was like,
12:08
Speaker 3: here's the thing. If we have inventory or something double
12:15
Speaker 3: checking or something that the tech was normally doing that.
12:19
Speaker 3: You're saying now that AI is taking over, why isn't
12:23
Speaker 3: that same technician now being used to develop something within
12:29
Speaker 3: the pharmacy to bring in more revenue by being creative
12:32
Speaker 3: or being entrepreneurial. Like you said, So, I think that
12:35
Speaker 3: this is the age of the pharmacy tech in opposite
12:40
Speaker 3: of what's being said about AI. But give us your
12:42
Speaker 3: reflection on that, because I know that you think the
12:44
Speaker 3: same kind of way that I do.
12:45
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think that pharmacy technicians everyone in the careers really,
12:50
Speaker 8: but pharmacy technicians have a lot of skill sets that
12:53
Speaker 8: probably aren't being optimized for or even recognized in the pharmacy.
12:58
Speaker 8: And AI is this interesting tool, this disintermediary that allows
13:06
Speaker 8: if a pharmacy technician to maybe work on professional development
13:10
Speaker 8: over the weekend, learn how to use cloud code or
13:13
Speaker 8: cloud cowork, and bring that back into the pharmacy and
13:16
Speaker 8: augment the work that they're doing and say, hey, these
13:18
Speaker 8: are the repetitive tasks and if I can use AI automation,
13:24
Speaker 8: if I can have a trigger, a sequence and an outcome,
13:28
Speaker 8: that's going to free me up to spend more time
13:30
Speaker 8: with patients. We want the same thing that pharmacists want.
13:32
Speaker 8: We want more time with the patients. We want it
13:35
Speaker 8: to be able to take better care of them. And
13:38
Speaker 8: I think AA really unlocks that.
13:41
Speaker 5: It does.
13:42
Speaker 3: Our ex post started because of your love of the
13:48
Speaker 3: business of pharmacy. But talk to us about the beginnings
13:51
Speaker 3: of our ex posts and now what it's become where
13:53
Speaker 3: it can become a national tool for all of all
13:56
Speaker 3: of the pharmacies that want to use it.
13:58
Speaker 8: Yeah, I remember thinking about our ex posts. Twenty fourteen
14:02
Speaker 8: is when I had thought about the concepts and we
14:05
Speaker 8: were trading with other independent pharmacies, and I thought, this is,
14:09
Speaker 8: you know, talking about repetition and automation. Like I'm spending
14:12
Speaker 8: so much time calling around to other pharmacies saying if
14:16
Speaker 8: they have something that we are out of stock of,
14:18
Speaker 8: or if we had surplus inventory, if we could offload
14:21
Speaker 8: it to them because we couldn't take a five thousand
14:23
Speaker 8: dollars hit on a medication if that expires on our shelf,
14:26
Speaker 8: and then jumping into my car during my lunch break
14:29
Speaker 8: to go pick up the medication or drop off the
14:31
Speaker 8: medication to the other pharmacy, or waiting for a check
14:35
Speaker 8: in the mail from the other pharmacy for that payment,
14:38
Speaker 8: and we would just scribble on a piece of paper
14:40
Speaker 8: and take a note to the wall that Elliott's Pharmacy.
14:43
Speaker 8: I was just that five thousand dollars, and I just thought,
14:46
Speaker 8: if this piece of paper falls off the wall, there's just.
14:48
Speaker 5: No accounting for it.
14:49
Speaker 8: And you know, like my time is better spent on
14:53
Speaker 8: things that are going to drive the pharmacy forward and
14:56
Speaker 8: not calling around to other pharmacies. So, you know, no
14:58
Speaker 8: one wants to career necessarily in the pharmacy to be
15:02
Speaker 8: just about inventory management, although I know those are some roles,
15:06
Speaker 8: especially in large health systems. We don't work with health systems,
15:09
Speaker 8: but we think that in the future that's definitely a possibility.
15:12
Speaker 3: So is it the independent pharmacy that is mostly using
15:16
Speaker 3: our ex post right now?
15:17
Speaker 8: Yeah, we do primarily. I think one hundred percent of
15:19
Speaker 8: our pharmacies are independent pharmac's. Over ninety percent of our
15:24
Speaker 8: customers are single location pharmacies because we started here in California,
15:28
Speaker 8: but as we've expanded towards the East coast, we're now
15:32
Speaker 8: operational in seventeen states. We've come across some multilocation stores
15:38
Speaker 8: where they know they have surplus and they know they
15:41
Speaker 8: need to get it from one store to another, but
15:43
Speaker 8: they don't have an easy way of doing it. They're
15:44
Speaker 8: still bogging down the pharmacy managers. They're still typing everything
15:49
Speaker 8: into an Excel spreadsheet. And you know, interestingly enough, we
15:52
Speaker 8: found out that our ex posts out of the box
15:54
Speaker 8: also serves as a solution for multi multi location pharmacy businesses,
16:00
Speaker 8: and so that's where our journey is taking us this year.
16:02
Speaker 3: It was awesome talk to our or tell our listeners
16:06
Speaker 3: how best to reach out to you and learn more
16:08
Speaker 3: about our ex post.
16:10
Speaker 5: Yeah.
16:10
Speaker 8: Well, if you want to see our balloon booth some photos,
16:13
Speaker 8: you can find us on Instagram at our ex underscore
16:18
Speaker 8: post and I'm most active on LinkedIn under Amantha Bagden
16:23
Speaker 8: or o ourx Post company page.
16:25
Speaker 5: I appreciate you. It's so good to see you.
16:27
Speaker 3: It's great to be Actually, this is nice for you
16:29
Speaker 3: because it's kind of in your backyard.
16:31
Speaker 8: I could I walk here. Yeah, it's so close.
16:34
Speaker 5: I love it.
16:34
Speaker 8: It's I can snag all the swag and I don't
16:37
Speaker 8: have to worry about getting it onto.
16:39
Speaker 5: A place like the swag exactly.
16:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're never going to have an apha in Pittsburgh. Unfortunately,
16:46
Speaker 3: so I'm not going to be able to be in
16:47
Speaker 3: my backyard, but they they're having it in North Carolina
16:51
Speaker 3: next year.
16:51
Speaker 8: Yeah to travel, but our signature swag is going to
16:54
Speaker 8: be our jumbo size put. So if you couldn't make
16:56
Speaker 8: it to APHA, if you're heading on to any of
16:58
Speaker 8: the other conferences, please find SAX kids love them.
17:02
Speaker 5: I love it. Thank you so much, Amantha, Thank you
17:04
Speaker 5: Tod for having me.
17:10
Speaker 3: APHA twenty twenty six here with Dixie Lecoq from Peer
17:15
Speaker 3: r Ex.
17:15
Speaker 5: Dixie is so good to see you.
17:17
Speaker 7: Always great to see you, Todd, and then really appreciate
17:20
Speaker 7: you being here at our annual meeting this year.
17:22
Speaker 5: Yes, and it's an in and out for me. I
17:25
Speaker 5: have to I was.
17:26
Speaker 3: I came in last night, was here only for a day,
17:29
Speaker 3: flying out this evening. We've committed to the Pharmacy Profits
17:33
Speaker 3: Summit in Dallas.
17:35
Speaker 5: Head ex check headed to Dallas.
17:36
Speaker 7: At least you don't have to go too far. It's
17:38
Speaker 7: kind of like when I got sew you at Pennsylvania
17:41
Speaker 7: Pharmacists Association meeting and it was like I flew in
17:45
Speaker 7: and flew right back out. So that was I wish
17:47
Speaker 7: I had been able to stay a little longer, but
17:49
Speaker 7: times we would have we agreed it too much sometimes, right.
17:53
Speaker 5: All right, so let's talk. Let's give updates on peer.
17:56
Speaker 3: First of all, give the listeners just a quick update
18:00
Speaker 3: just in case they haven't heard of it.
18:02
Speaker 7: What is per rx sure PERRRX is Pharmacy Ethics, Education
18:07
Speaker 7: and Resources. It's a nonprofit in pharmacy ethics that I
18:11
Speaker 7: founded in twenty fifteen. Actually got the idea after the
18:16
Speaker 7: twenty fourteen APHA meeting. I started thinking about, you know,
18:20
Speaker 7: what was going on at the time we had an ECC.
18:23
Speaker 7: We were still kind of recovering from that tragedy and
18:26
Speaker 7: how it affected pharmacy and pharmacy practice and the ethic.
18:30
Speaker 7: You know, I started thinking about the ethics behind that,
18:33
Speaker 7: and if I wanted to start talking about that, how
18:36
Speaker 7: could I make it different than what, you know, when
18:39
Speaker 7: everybody else is talking about med safety and law and
18:42
Speaker 7: things like that, using it from an ethical standpoint versus
18:46
Speaker 7: just what's right, and you know, it's like what's the
18:50
Speaker 7: law or what isn't the law? Like not everything's covered
18:54
Speaker 7: by the law that pharmacists run into. So I started
18:57
Speaker 7: that in twenty fifteen and since then have been doing
19:00
Speaker 7: podcasts with Pharmacy Podcast Network, provide four half hour ce
19:06
Speaker 7: programs on my website that you were graciously partnered with
19:10
Speaker 7: me to get live on there, and also some additional
19:15
Speaker 7: specifically pharmacy ethics continuing education modules on my website pro
19:20
Speaker 7: rex dot org and giving the opportunity one if you've
19:24
Speaker 7: been a lot of times the Board of Pharmacy will
19:27
Speaker 7: sanction a pharmacist or a pharmacy technician and tell them
19:30
Speaker 7: they need to do so many cees on ethics. And
19:34
Speaker 7: if you start searching for that and you're a pharmacist,
19:37
Speaker 7: you want to take something that you're going to be
19:39
Speaker 7: able to use. And there weren't any pharmacy specific continuing
19:44
Speaker 7: education programs on ethics and how it affects pharmacy practice.
19:49
Speaker 7: So I saw that void and I'm just trying to
19:52
Speaker 7: fill it. So I was fortunate to be able to
19:54
Speaker 7: speak yesterday at one of the continuing education programs here
19:58
Speaker 7: for APHA, and then I'm doing their April Hot Topics webinar,
20:04
Speaker 7: so kind of building on the case studies that I
20:07
Speaker 7: presented yesterday and digging in a little deeper during the webinar.
20:11
Speaker 7: So hopefully some of your listeners if they're APHA members.
20:14
Speaker 7: They can see what it's all about by attending that
20:18
Speaker 7: webinar in April.
20:19
Speaker 3: So as you're talking, Dixie, I think of a conversation
20:23
Speaker 3: that I just had with my daughter on Thursday as
20:26
Speaker 3: we were at the bus stop.
20:27
Speaker 5: We usually have about five to ten minutes with each other.
20:31
Speaker 3: I either say a quick prayer with her or ask
20:33
Speaker 3: her how our day is going to go, or try
20:34
Speaker 3: to like reflect on something. And she was frustrated. And
20:38
Speaker 3: she reminds me of myself in school. I didn't really
20:43
Speaker 3: like school as much because I don't think it was stimulating.
20:47
Speaker 3: I was so hyperactive and so creative that I always
20:49
Speaker 3: wanted to do something extra. So I told her that
20:53
Speaker 3: school is there to teach you to learn, not necessarily
20:59
Speaker 3: what too long learn, but how to learn and how
21:02
Speaker 3: to apply certain principles of repetitiveness to drive things into
21:06
Speaker 3: your memory, or figuring out something and then really honing
21:10
Speaker 3: in to try to figure out what are you most
21:12
Speaker 3: interested in? Are you in the maths or the sciences
21:15
Speaker 3: or whatever. So when I think of that, and then
21:17
Speaker 3: I think of law, like I think of lawyers have
21:20
Speaker 3: to go to so much school to memorize different cases
21:24
Speaker 3: that have happened before. So now I come to ethics,
21:27
Speaker 3: and ethics isn't to me in with all the materials
21:31
Speaker 3: that I've read from you, different things that I've read
21:34
Speaker 3: about ethics healthcare. Ethics is probably one of the most
21:38
Speaker 3: complex things that we could dig into, and then it
21:41
Speaker 3: comes into debate too for goodness sakes, But when we
21:46
Speaker 3: have it black and white finally, like it goes through
21:49
Speaker 3: puer RX and you guys come out with some modules
21:51
Speaker 3: or you come out with some new ce If I'm
21:53
Speaker 3: a practitioner, if I'm a provider, there's going to be
21:56
Speaker 3: a level of comfort to be able to look back
21:59
Speaker 3: to the content to say, oh, in this case, here's
22:03
Speaker 3: how pr RX kind of defined this. However, don't you
22:07
Speaker 3: think PERRX is there to try to teach the pharmacist
22:12
Speaker 3: and teach the tech how to think or not not
22:17
Speaker 3: what to think, but how to think.
22:19
Speaker 6: One hundred percent.
22:20
Speaker 7: Like yesterday when I presented the case studies, I gave
22:24
Speaker 7: different scenarios of what I try to get pharmacists, pharmacy technicians,
22:29
Speaker 7: student pharmacists to think through the process of making the decision.
22:33
Speaker 7: And because it's not black, it's not always black and white.
22:36
Speaker 7: I can't say, like, even if the answer seems clear,
22:41
Speaker 7: there may be other possibilities, you know, speaking towards our
22:46
Speaker 7: keynote speaker we just had, there might be other possibilities,
22:50
Speaker 7: you know, just not feeling a prescription. It might be
22:54
Speaker 7: one opportunity, you know, one decision, but what is actually
22:59
Speaker 7: more ethical to go a little above and beyond either
23:04
Speaker 7: filling the prescription or not filling the prescription, or questioning
23:08
Speaker 7: why you would fill the prescription, or even how you
23:10
Speaker 7: treat your pharmacy team and the other you know, all
23:13
Speaker 7: the members on your team. How do you respond to
23:16
Speaker 7: a medication error? It's not just the logistics and mechanics
23:20
Speaker 7: of the error itself and the documentation, but how are
23:24
Speaker 7: you approaching the patient about it? Are you contacting the
23:28
Speaker 7: prescriber if that's necessary or you know, seems to be necessary,
23:32
Speaker 7: And how do you go through that decision making process
23:36
Speaker 7: using your ethical you know, using an ethical framework to
23:41
Speaker 7: make those decisions. So it's absolutely one hundred percent. I
23:44
Speaker 7: even said it yesterday that I'm not telling you what
23:47
Speaker 7: the answer is. I'm not telling you the answer is easy.
23:51
Speaker 7: I'm just I'm giving you the possibilities of things I
23:53
Speaker 7: know are happening. Out there and if we practice. My
23:57
Speaker 7: whole thing is if we practice these converse stations and
24:01
Speaker 7: these decisions while we're not in a stressful situation, and
24:07
Speaker 7: especially if not in front of a patient. We have
24:09
Speaker 7: to make decisions very quickly, and if we haven't practiced
24:12
Speaker 7: that or talked about it outside that realm, then it's
24:16
Speaker 7: going to be more difficult. And I think, you know,
24:19
Speaker 7: as our younger generation comes up and comes through, I
24:23
Speaker 7: think they are used to being told this is the answer,
24:27
Speaker 7: or it is black and white, and it you know,
24:29
Speaker 7: there is a lot of gray in healthcare. There's sometimes
24:33
Speaker 7: you know, you might have to break the law to
24:36
Speaker 7: be the best thing for your patient, and how do
24:39
Speaker 7: you justify that and look at that and be able
24:43
Speaker 7: to figure out that decision making as to what is
24:47
Speaker 7: going to be best for the patient because there are
24:49
Speaker 7: primary responsibility and it's not easy. It's a tough conversation
24:55
Speaker 7: sometimes to have. And it also every situation is different
24:58
Speaker 7: because your personal ethics might be different than mine. I
25:01
Speaker 7: might see things more black and white and maybe you're
25:04
Speaker 7: more a little more gray, and it depends. You also
25:07
Speaker 7: have to live with yourself and when you see something,
25:11
Speaker 7: there are a lot of signs around here that say
25:12
Speaker 7: when you see something, say something. And I think that's
25:15
Speaker 7: another thing I'm really trying to hone in for people
25:19
Speaker 7: that if you're seeing things at your practice site that
25:23
Speaker 7: shouldn't be that way. And you know, i'd like to
25:26
Speaker 7: think after an ECC, after you know, you have all
25:29
Speaker 7: these regulations where these things shouldn't be happening, but practitioners
25:34
Speaker 7: are still letting it go and not saying anything, or
25:38
Speaker 7: maybe they just leave and it continues to happen, and
25:42
Speaker 7: then people get sick and people die and people are
25:45
Speaker 7: damaged by that. So and you have to live with that.
25:50
Speaker 7: So knowing that you have an ethical responsibility to speak
25:55
Speaker 7: up to figure out how to solve or fix the problem,
25:59
Speaker 7: like this is not okay, we need to fix it,
26:02
Speaker 7: and having that confidence to be able to do that,
26:06
Speaker 7: and going through that decision making process of how you're
26:09
Speaker 7: going to do that instead of just reacting.
26:12
Speaker 3: And not to put pressure on the listener right now,
26:14
Speaker 3: but you pharmacists out there that's listening, you may be
26:18
Speaker 3: the only person in the patient's life that's going to
26:22
Speaker 3: take the time to do something that's difficult, or make
26:25
Speaker 3: a decision that's difficult, or stand up for the patient
26:29
Speaker 3: with parents, or with the insurance provider, or with you know,
26:34
Speaker 3: somebody else in the equation subscriber.
26:37
Speaker 7: Unfortunately, you know, but sometimes we get intimidated, like who
26:41
Speaker 7: are we to question what the prescriber wants and if
26:45
Speaker 7: you're not comfortable with it, having that difficult conversation versus
26:50
Speaker 7: just getting rid of it and being like, you know,
26:53
Speaker 7: I can't fill this or I don't have the medication,
26:55
Speaker 7: and you know, those little white lives. We kind of
26:58
Speaker 7: do to avoid those conversation because we face you know, again,
27:02
Speaker 7: it's not easy. We are busy, We have a lot
27:06
Speaker 7: of things on our plate that we need to get done,
27:09
Speaker 7: and sometimes pushing it off is faster. But we really
27:15
Speaker 7: when you start looking at these situations from an ethical standpoint,
27:19
Speaker 7: in knowing who you are and what's important to you,
27:23
Speaker 7: you start looking at these situations very differently. And that's
27:26
Speaker 7: just what I'm trying to do and get out there.
27:28
Speaker 5: I love it.
27:29
Speaker 3: So how do listeners connect with you? How do they
27:33
Speaker 3: learn more about pr X?
27:35
Speaker 7: Sure they can visit my website or my Facebook page
27:38
Speaker 7: LinkedIn We're again Pharmacy, Ethics, Education and Resources, or you
27:43
Speaker 7: can normally just find it by searching p ee r
27:46
Speaker 7: r X two ours two ours.
27:50
Speaker 3: All right, well DIXI g Lacock, thanks so much for
27:52
Speaker 3: being on the show. Thank you for always being willing
27:55
Speaker 3: to share and talk with us. We have to do
27:59
Speaker 3: this week in Pharmacy with you coming up leaving Chate.
28:01
Speaker 7: I really appreciate your support. Todd, You've been great for us.
28:04
Speaker 7: I help us get the word out there.
28:06
Speaker 5: Thank you so much.
28:07
Speaker 7: Thank you.
28:11
Speaker 9: Independent pharmacy is the heart of community care. At Independent
28:16
Speaker 9: Pharmacy Cooperative, we believe your success strengthens the health and
28:20
Speaker 9: well being of the communities you serve. As the nation's
28:23
Speaker 9: largest member owned GPO, IPC helps pharmacies thrive with competitive pricing,
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Speaker 9: profit sharing and the support of a team who shares
28:30
Speaker 9: your vision. Let's build the future of independent pharmacy together
28:34
Speaker 9: and gain the freedom to farm. Visit ipcrex dot com
28:37
Speaker 9: to start the conversation with an IPC representative.
28:40
Speaker 10: Today, we are.
28:48
Speaker 3: Here at the twenty twenty six APHA. I'm here with
28:51
Speaker 3: doctor Aaron Parsons, director of Compliance with Elspedia.
28:55
Speaker 5: Welcome to the show.
28:56
Speaker 10: Thanks for having me today.
28:58
Speaker 3: All right, pharmacist in complain clients. Pharmacists keep people safe.
29:04
Speaker 3: Compliance Ultimately keeps people safe. It's actually a pretty good marriage.
29:08
Speaker 5: So talk to us about what you do at LSPDIA.
29:11
Speaker 10: Absolutely, So I joined the LSPDIA team about six months ago.
29:14
Speaker 10: I practiced community pharmacy for about sixteen years and came
29:18
Speaker 10: over to LSPDIA to take that knowledge and that passion
29:22
Speaker 10: for taking care of our patients and helping them build
29:24
Speaker 10: out their solution to best help their healthcare clients and
29:28
Speaker 10: their pharmacy clients. Because what LSPDIA does as a software
29:32
Speaker 10: solution is help those pharmacy customers utilize our software to
29:37
Speaker 10: make sure that they are compliant with DSSA, which is
29:40
Speaker 10: a newer regulation to the pharmacy space. And DSSA is
29:43
Speaker 10: all about protecting the supply chain. And I think every
29:46
Speaker 10: pharmacist who went to pharmacy school ultimately got into it
29:49
Speaker 10: because they care about patients and making sure patients get
29:52
Speaker 10: the medications they need and that they're safe and they're
29:54
Speaker 10: not getting a fraudulent medication. And that is where that
29:57
Speaker 10: marriage between operations and compliance was a really good fit
30:01
Speaker 10: for me and why I'm passionate about what LESPDA brings
30:04
Speaker 10: to the market.
30:05
Speaker 3: So I learned about lspedia from Matrex, which is a
30:10
Speaker 3: partner of yours as well. Shout out to Johnny Kello.
30:13
Speaker 3: He's amazing, really cares about his client base, he cares
30:16
Speaker 3: about the profession. That's why he's partnered with lspedia because
30:20
Speaker 3: he's like, hey, listen, we're missing an element of all
30:22
Speaker 3: this around compliance. Talk to us about the upcoming webinar
30:26
Speaker 3: that you guys are going to be doing together.
30:28
Speaker 10: Yeah, I look forward to it. We're still building out
30:30
Speaker 10: what that agenda and that's going to look like. But
30:32
Speaker 10: one of the big things I think that all of
30:34
Speaker 10: us are passionate about and why we're trying to kick
30:36
Speaker 10: this partnership off and this webinar, is there's still such
30:39
Speaker 10: a need to educate the community pharmacy about what DSSA
30:43
Speaker 10: means and what they're obligated to do. Because the DSSA
30:46
Speaker 10: regulation came into effect in twenty thirteen and there was
30:49
Speaker 10: a ten year ramp up period and then a number
30:51
Speaker 10: of delays, so so many pharmacies just think they still
30:54
Speaker 10: don't have obligations and they're not required to do anything,
30:57
Speaker 10: and frankly, that's just not true. Partnering with other organizations
31:02
Speaker 10: who feel passionately and have customer bases that they want
31:04
Speaker 10: to make sure are prepared and working together on that
31:07
Speaker 10: education and helping get those teams connected to the resources
31:10
Speaker 10: they need.
31:11
Speaker 3: So when I think of the role of the pharmacist
31:13
Speaker 3: and how drastically it's changed. I entered pharmacy in twenty
31:16
Speaker 3: two thousand and four, been podcasting since two thousand and nine,
31:20
Speaker 3: and just in the seventeen years that we started the show,
31:24
Speaker 3: so much has changed for representation of where pharmacists are
31:27
Speaker 3: showing up and what they're doing. I can't think of
31:29
Speaker 3: a better place for a pharmacist to be doing DSCSA
31:34
Speaker 3: overwatch and compliance and consultancy. So when you look back
31:40
Speaker 3: in your career as a pharmacist and you came from community,
31:43
Speaker 3: what's now, what is this opportunity with lspedia? What's it
31:47
Speaker 3: pulling out of your education that's really honing into the
31:52
Speaker 3: secret sauce of what it is to be a pharmacist.
31:56
Speaker 5: So it's a great question.
31:58
Speaker 10: Let me think about how I want to answer that.
32:00
Speaker 10: I think what it does is it allows me to
32:03
Speaker 10: leverage so much of how pharmacists are so good at
32:06
Speaker 10: doing so many things. We are such a critical part
32:09
Speaker 10: of our communities. We wear so many hats, and we
32:12
Speaker 10: are such a valuable trusted resource and this role and
32:17
Speaker 10: what LSPDIA does is continues to allow pharmacists to be
32:20
Speaker 10: a trusted resource. We help our pharmacists know that they're
32:23
Speaker 10: dispensing safe medications to their patients. We work with them,
32:27
Speaker 10: and one of the big things we offer versus some
32:29
Speaker 10: of the others in the marketplace is.
32:31
Speaker 5: We're your partners.
32:33
Speaker 10: We are there for audit support. We have had historically,
32:36
Speaker 10: like customers reach out who are like somebody the Board
32:39
Speaker 10: of Pharmacy was in and they were asking this question
32:41
Speaker 10: and I felt wildly unprepared. Not only do we help
32:43
Speaker 10: that customer, but we also then take that experience and
32:47
Speaker 10: make sure we get that message out to everyone else
32:49
Speaker 10: because it is so important for us that our teams
32:51
Speaker 10: feel comfortable when a regulator walks in the door, so
32:55
Speaker 10: that they're not stressed and they can focus on what
32:57
Speaker 10: they do best in taking care of their patients. And
33:00
Speaker 10: I think everything I've learned in my career along the
33:02
Speaker 10: way has helped me make sure that we're focusing on
33:04
Speaker 10: letting them do their jobs and what they do best
33:07
Speaker 10: and taking some of that burden off their plate.
33:09
Speaker 5: It's awesome.
33:10
Speaker 3: Well, we're looking forward to doing more with LSPDA. By
33:13
Speaker 3: the way, listeners, go to lspedia dot com to learn more.
33:18
Speaker 3: Reach out to Aaron if you have any questions. Aaron,
33:20
Speaker 3: this has been great, Thanks for being part of the show.
33:22
Speaker 10: Thanks for asking me to join. It's pleasure to meet
33:24
Speaker 10: you guys.
33:29
Speaker 3: Sally Raffi here with me at APHA twenty twenty six.
33:32
Speaker 5: Doctor Rafi, It's so good to see.
33:34
Speaker 6: You, so good to be here in person with you.
33:36
Speaker 3: Hey, you have been a pioneer in the realm of
33:42
Speaker 3: if people don't know the birth control pharmacist and your
33:46
Speaker 3: passion to deliver contraception birth control but doing it through pharmacists,
33:56
Speaker 3: but then taking advantage of what pharmacists can do from
33:59
Speaker 3: the three sixty degree of health. Tell our listeners a
34:02
Speaker 3: little bit about the mission and what you guys are
34:05
Speaker 3: doing right now.
34:06
Speaker 11: Yeah, that's what we're here for. We are here to
34:09
Speaker 11: support pharmacists in providing contraception care, the full spectrum of
34:15
Speaker 11: reproductive health services and women's health in their practices, whether
34:18
Speaker 11: they're in community pharmacy or another practice setting. We're here
34:22
Speaker 11: as pharmacists to help them along their way.
34:24
Speaker 6: Peers helping peers.
34:26
Speaker 3: So I'm always looking out for opportunities for pharmacists to
34:31
Speaker 3: slow things down with clients and patients and educate because
34:37
Speaker 3: if you think about that's safety. I mean, number one
34:42
Speaker 3: reason of pharmacist is in existence is the safety aspect.
34:45
Speaker 5: But as safety comes with education.
34:47
Speaker 3: So talk to us about how would you coach a
34:52
Speaker 3: community pharmacy to roll out such a program with all
34:56
Speaker 3: the busyness that is part of an everyday life of
34:59
Speaker 3: a pharmacists and tech team.
35:01
Speaker 11: Totally, we get the realities on the front lines.
35:04
Speaker 6: You know, we're there too. We know what it's like.
35:06
Speaker 11: It's very busy. Pharmacists are doing a ton of things,
35:10
Speaker 11: but part of that can be access. It's safety and access,
35:13
Speaker 11: and we are there to help our community members get
35:16
Speaker 11: what they need to take care of themselves and provide
35:19
Speaker 11: that education, provide the products, provide the services all of
35:22
Speaker 11: the above. The best ways to get started with contraception
35:27
Speaker 11: care is to help patients with refills, so they're already
35:30
Speaker 11: on something that they like and they're just out of refills.
35:33
Speaker 11: It's a pretty straightforward visit. You just make sure they
35:36
Speaker 11: don't have any contraindications to the medication and send them
35:40
Speaker 11: on their.
35:40
Speaker 6: Way with a fresh supply.
35:42
Speaker 11: Those are pretty straightforward visits, maybe five minutes, and it's
35:47
Speaker 11: a great way to get started.
35:49
Speaker 3: So, Sally, I want to give a shout out to
35:51
Speaker 3: the buying groups that we work with. We work with IPC,
35:54
Speaker 3: We've been working with them now for three or four years,
35:57
Speaker 3: APCI CPA. There's so many alphabet soups out there for
36:02
Speaker 3: buying groups. The reason why I want to shout out
36:04
Speaker 3: buying groups is this is an opportunity to build programs
36:08
Speaker 3: for your independent community pharmacies that can drive new revenues
36:13
Speaker 3: and even starting out with a community awareness program that
36:16
Speaker 3: you put out an ad in the paper, or you
36:19
Speaker 3: do some kind of outreach to local community services or
36:26
Speaker 3: community health services or clinics. Educating a physician when we
36:32
Speaker 3: have the twelve year old, the fourteen year old, the
36:35
Speaker 3: sixteen year old girl that's going through with their you know,
36:39
Speaker 3: puberty and things like that, to educate and take an
36:42
Speaker 3: opportunity to say, hey, here's the realm of taking a
36:46
Speaker 3: pill versus getting a shot, versus you know what this
36:49
Speaker 3: does for hormones or what this does for appetite or
36:53
Speaker 3: whatever it is. It's an opportunity to demystify, So talk
36:57
Speaker 3: to us a little bit about how could we use
37:00
Speaker 3: birth control pharmacists in your programs. And then I also
37:03
Speaker 3: want to ask you a follow up question about visits,
37:07
Speaker 3: but talk to us about building programs like that.
37:10
Speaker 11: Yeah, So, like you said, these patients, it's the beginning.
37:14
Speaker 6: It's the beginning of their journey.
37:16
Speaker 11: As adults, as folks navigating a variety of reproductive health issues,
37:21
Speaker 11: and also the beginning of a relationship with the pharmacy.
37:24
Speaker 11: So you have them there in front of you, you
37:27
Speaker 11: do education, comprehensive counseling about what all their options might
37:31
Speaker 11: be when it comes to birth control.
37:32
Speaker 6: When the time comes.
37:34
Speaker 11: Maybe they're not interested today, but you're providing that education,
37:38
Speaker 11: planting those seeds, so when it is time for them
37:41
Speaker 11: to want to use something, they know they can come
37:43
Speaker 11: to you for it. And once they've come to you
37:46
Speaker 11: for their birth control, they're more likely to come to
37:48
Speaker 11: you for vaccines that they need, or they're going on
37:51
Speaker 11: an international trip with school and they need to do
37:54
Speaker 11: their travel health visit or whatever it might be. It
37:57
Speaker 11: just starts that relationship and hopefully they're with you for
38:00
Speaker 11: decades to come.
38:01
Speaker 3: For so many people that don't realize what is the
38:05
Speaker 3: opportunity at the pharmacy. So this really creates the relationship first,
38:10
Speaker 3: and now you're filling it with other services that you
38:12
Speaker 3: can bring on with that. Let's transition to the world
38:16
Speaker 3: of visits. Talk to us about the Visits program.
38:19
Speaker 11: Yeah, so Visits is our new pharmacist prescribing software we
38:22
Speaker 11: just launched to hear at this conference this weekend. Very
38:25
Speaker 11: exciting and this is really designed to make the process
38:29
Speaker 11: more efficient, give pharmacists more confidence in providing this service,
38:35
Speaker 11: and just make it that much easier for everyone involved,
38:38
Speaker 11: the patient, the pharmacist Ours Pharmacy supports team members everybody,
38:43
Speaker 11: so patients can hop on the website and schedule their
38:46
Speaker 11: appointment and fill in their health information that crosses over
38:50
Speaker 11: onto the pharmacists side and in the background it is working.
38:55
Speaker 11: The algorithm that is our pharmacist powered algorithm takes an
38:58
Speaker 11: account medical health ability criteria from the CDC guidelines, patient
39:03
Speaker 11: preferences around their birth control, and it provides the pharmacists
39:06
Speaker 11: with recommendations on this is the best match products for
39:09
Speaker 11: this patient to help them choose something that is going
39:12
Speaker 11: to work best for that patient, and provides other buckets
39:15
Speaker 11: of medications like these would work, but they're not preferred
39:19
Speaker 11: for this patient, or these require referral, or these.
39:22
Speaker 6: Are not safe for the patient.
39:23
Speaker 11: So really gives farms the stability to get that clinical
39:26
Speaker 11: decision support in making their prescribing decisions, and then from
39:31
Speaker 11: there meets all of their state specific requirements in terms
39:34
Speaker 11: of documentation, notifying the PCP, giving the patient a summary
39:39
Speaker 11: of the visit. All of that takes care of it
39:41
Speaker 11: for them, and also does medical billing so they can
39:45
Speaker 11: bill for the visit, which has been such a big
39:48
Speaker 11: barrier for pharmacies to get started on this. I always
39:51
Speaker 11: tell them, actually, people are willing to pay cash for this,
39:54
Speaker 11: and you will get plenty of patients coming in for
39:57
Speaker 11: cash pay visits. However, if a patient has insurance, it's
40:02
Speaker 11: nice for them to be able to use it at
40:03
Speaker 11: the pharmacy. Right, So it does open the door for
40:06
Speaker 11: pharmacies to start doing medical billing. We've got the credentialing services.
40:10
Speaker 11: Now we can get folks fully set up. They can
40:12
Speaker 11: bill for this service and so much more. Hopefully as
40:15
Speaker 11: those doors continue to open for pharmacies.
40:18
Speaker 3: All Right, so someone's listening, They're like, I want to
40:21
Speaker 3: understand what Sally and the team's doing.
40:23
Speaker 5: How do they get a hold of you? How do
40:24
Speaker 5: we reach out to here?
40:25
Speaker 11: Yeah,