Latest / Pharmacy Podcast Network / PBM Truth, Cash-Based Pharmacy, and Psychedelics in Medicine | TWIRx

Transcript

PBM Truth, Cash-Based Pharmacy, and Psychedelics in Medicine | TWIRx · Pharmacy Podcast Network

0:11
Speaker 1: Talk show about the profession of pharmacy.
0:14
Speaker 2: Back towards.
0:18
Speaker 3: And now Here's our host and founder of the Pharmacy
0:21
Speaker 3: Podcast Network pod You're hey, welcome to this Week in Pharmacy.
0:30
Speaker 3: It is a great week in pharmacy. We are deep
0:36
Speaker 3: into twenty twenty six. Can you believe it's already almost
0:40
Speaker 3: We're on the eve of June twenty twenty six. June's
0:44
Speaker 3: always my favorite month. It's the kickoff of my favorite season, summertime, summertime.
0:50
Speaker 3: I hope you are experiencing some good summer. I am
0:53
Speaker 3: getting frustrated.
0:55
Speaker 1: We have a pool.
0:56
Speaker 3: It's expensive. Up keep you guys. Anybody has a pool
0:59
Speaker 3: out there?
1:00
Speaker 1: Oh? Heated?
1:02
Speaker 3: Thank the goodness because in southwestern Pennsylvania the weather is
1:06
Speaker 3: very all over the map, cold in the evening sometime.
1:11
Speaker 3: And my birthday June thirtieth, so June is a great month.
1:16
Speaker 3: Father's Days in June. Headed out to vacation. Hope that
1:20
Speaker 3: you are getting some vacation this summer. We were just
1:24
Speaker 3: at McKesson idea Share and what an amazing time that
1:32
Speaker 3: we had in Denver. Shout out to our listeners. If
1:35
Speaker 3: you didn't get a chance to go, We're going to
1:38
Speaker 3: have a four part series. The McKesson Idea Share podcast
1:43
Speaker 3: press coverage starts next week. Thank you to Independent Pharmacy
1:48
Speaker 3: Cooperative IPC and the AAPA Buying Group for sponsoring our
1:55
Speaker 3: podcast press coverage. We have a big show today to
2:01
Speaker 3: share with you. I want to start out with Torque's
2:04
Speaker 3: News and get into this. This just came out today.
2:08
Speaker 3: More PBMs follow lawsuits against Tennessee over a bill that
2:13
Speaker 3: is banning ownership of stores. So let's get this straight.
2:18
Speaker 3: PBMs that can't get their way and they cannot compete financially,
2:24
Speaker 3: cannot compete. Listen to this Wall Street PBMs, ETNA, CBS Health,
2:32
Speaker 3: Express Scripts, Optum, They cannot compete. They're saying unless they
2:39
Speaker 3: own pharmacies. They're basically saying, if we can't be the
2:43
Speaker 3: ensure that makes the decisions of what pharmacy our patients
2:49
Speaker 3: go to, if we can't steer patients, if we can't
2:53
Speaker 3: make pricing difference differentials in reimbursement, if we can't reimburse
2:59
Speaker 3: our own pharmacy differently than our independence that are out
3:02
Speaker 3: there or different chains that aren't in their networks, if
3:06
Speaker 3: we can't control everything about pharmacy, benefit management, and pharmacy services,
3:13
Speaker 3: then we're going to sue you.
3:15
Speaker 1: And they are.
3:16
Speaker 3: They're the PBMs and the lobbying groups that are so
3:18
Speaker 3: powerful with multimillions of dollars at the disposal is suing
3:24
Speaker 3: Tennessee because they want to own the entire game. They
3:28
Speaker 3: want the insurance, they want the pharmacies. The new suit
3:32
Speaker 3: now means that there's going to be some scrutiny on
3:36
Speaker 3: the bill that was signed into law by Bill Governor
3:40
Speaker 3: Bill Lee in May, and it faces three separate legal
3:44
Speaker 3: challenges with a likelihood that they will be consolidated into
3:49
Speaker 3: one lawsuit. In twenty twenty five, Arkansas passed a similar
3:54
Speaker 3: ban in faces legal challenges from the same companies and associations,
4:00
Speaker 3: and a judge ultimately consolidated the case into one single lawsuit,
4:04
Speaker 3: which makes sense. Tennessee co ownership ban, called the Fair
4:10
Speaker 3: RX Act, came after lawmakers pushed the States Commerce and
4:14
Speaker 3: Insurance Department to audit all three state PBMs. The probe
4:19
Speaker 3: found that many of the reimbursed affiliated pharmacies, which in
4:22
Speaker 3: some cases they owned, at significantly higher rates than they
4:27
Speaker 3: did non affiliated pharmacies, often independently owned. I don't understand
4:34
Speaker 3: how this is even making court. This should be thrown
4:37
Speaker 3: out and the judge should say, if you guys keep
4:41
Speaker 3: pressing this, I'm going to bring criminal charges against the
4:45
Speaker 3: PBMs because of how you've cheated the state Medicaid systems
4:50
Speaker 3: and the reimbursement of how the taxpayer in Tennessee is
4:57
Speaker 3: not getting their money's worth because it's being sucked up
4:59
Speaker 3: into EBS Health's profits. This is horrible. So I hope
5:03
Speaker 3: this is knocked down. We have to keep our eyes
5:05
Speaker 3: on it. Go look for this article. It's put out
5:08
Speaker 3: by the Tennessee lookout and be aware and call your
5:13
Speaker 3: own state representatives and bring this to their attention, please,
5:17
Speaker 3: all right. Next up on Twerk's news from drug Channels,
5:21
Speaker 3: Blank insights the questions manufacturers wish they had asked before
5:25
Speaker 3: selecting a patient services partner. Take a look at this.
5:29
Speaker 3: This is very interesting, the expansion of treatment care, the
5:35
Speaker 3: expansion of pharmacies partnering or owning their own primary care,
5:41
Speaker 3: they hire nurse practitioners.
5:45
Speaker 1: Dig into this a quote. If you pursue the.
5:48
Speaker 3: Websites for leading solutions, they all essentially make the same claims.
5:52
Speaker 3: While the industry has coalesced around marketing the same value
5:57
Speaker 3: proposition there is a big difference in act capabilities, which
6:01
Speaker 3: buyers often find difficult to discern. Over the past decade,
6:06
Speaker 3: we have grown blink Ourx to support more than fifty brands,
6:11
Speaker 3: and we have powered multiple blockbuster launches. Based on the
6:15
Speaker 3: needs of our many customers. We invested seven hundred and
6:19
Speaker 3: fifty million into our technology platform, built a specialized team
6:24
Speaker 3: over one thousand employees, and established the largest and most
6:28
Speaker 3: robustly integrated pharmacy network in patient services industry. This goes
6:35
Speaker 3: on to ask the questions that can the platform identify
6:40
Speaker 3: and offer the lowest available patient price cash or covered
6:44
Speaker 3: across all payers within minutes of receiving the prescription and
6:48
Speaker 3: why that matters. This is a great article from a
6:52
Speaker 3: reliable source that digs into the pharmaceutical supply chain and
6:57
Speaker 3: ecosystem from drug channels look at up drug Chain Net.
7:01
Speaker 3: This just came out today Friday, June twenty sixth, twenty
7:05
Speaker 3: twenty six. Continuing with towrqux news from Pharmacy Times, it
7:11
Speaker 3: says OTC in the lock Zone expands access, but cost
7:16
Speaker 3: and distribution gaps still limit overdose prevention. Over the counter
7:22
Speaker 3: status primarily streamlines procurement and redistribution of nonprofits and public agencies,
7:28
Speaker 3: while out of pocket costs continue to suppress pharmacy based
7:32
Speaker 3: purchasing among high risk individuals. It goes on to say
7:36
Speaker 3: that the geographic and logistical graps, especially in rural areas,
7:40
Speaker 3: necessitate hyperconvenient access models such as vending machines, repurposed newspaper boxes,
7:47
Speaker 3: and routine kit distribution and clinical settings. You know the
7:53
Speaker 3: whole concept of getting OTC and access to an ox zone.
7:58
Speaker 3: I wish we could allow more so with our community pharmacies,
8:03
Speaker 3: and maybe those distribution points would be outside of a
8:07
Speaker 3: community pharmacy and a vendor vending machine type. What is
8:12
Speaker 3: your ideas around this? Go look this article up once again.
8:14
Speaker 3: This is from Pharmacy Times. Over the counter and the
8:17
Speaker 3: lock zone expands access, but cost and distribution gaps still
8:22
Speaker 3: limit overdose prevention. Take a look at that important. Next
8:28
Speaker 3: up on twerks from the Houston Chronicle, it says America's
8:32
Speaker 3: compounding pharmacy surge and out running regulations experts want tougher oversight.
8:40
Speaker 3: Now Pharmacy Podcast Network as a partner the Alliance for
8:44
Speaker 3: Pharmacy Compounding the APC. Shout out to Scott and his team.
8:49
Speaker 3: I'd like to hear from Scott on this article specifically,
8:52
Speaker 3: but I know from following this that of compounding farm
9:00
Speaker 3: macies over the entire history of compounding have not been perfect,
9:03
Speaker 3: and in fact have been brought up on charges for
9:06
Speaker 3: not following the necessary safety protocols for poisoning people and
9:14
Speaker 3: having something happen in a case that came out of
9:17
Speaker 3: New England years ago. However, the regulations on compounding pharmacy
9:25
Speaker 3: in this specific article, it says that state power is limited,
9:31
Speaker 3: especially for compounding pharmacies that dispense drugs nationwide. A pharmacy
9:37
Speaker 3: can face discrepant disciplinary action in one state over quality problems,
9:43
Speaker 3: but continue to ship drugs to other states where it
9:46
Speaker 3: has a license. Now here's the thing. This article is
9:52
Speaker 3: brought up in authored and written and if you can
9:56
Speaker 3: see through the lines and read through the lines, you
9:59
Speaker 3: know that there are lobbying organizations that are hired by
10:03
Speaker 3: the manufacturers who do not want to see compounding exist
10:08
Speaker 3: or you know, be able to deliver the services that
10:13
Speaker 3: they do. And it's a balancing act. The tiny, little
10:17
Speaker 3: microscopic percentage of compounding pharmacies that haven't done what is
10:21
Speaker 3: right from a safety perspective, giving the opportunity to grab
10:26
Speaker 3: on to that line of thinking and an argument against
10:32
Speaker 3: other compounding pharmacies. And it goes on to say, there's
10:36
Speaker 3: a quote that says, if a compounder distributes those compounded
10:40
Speaker 3: drugs to multiple states, it can be really difficult to
10:43
Speaker 3: gather information about the harm and quality issues associated with
10:48
Speaker 3: those drugs and then connect them to the compounder and
10:51
Speaker 3: take action to help patients. So it can exacerbate an
10:56
Speaker 3: already serious problem. But it's really it's a potential serious problem. Statistically,
11:03
Speaker 3: it's not a serious problem. Compounding pharmacies are upstanding for
11:07
Speaker 3: the most part. Majority of them are standing, And I
11:10
Speaker 3: understand the oversight. I think a lot of the oversight
11:13
Speaker 3: and a lot of the checks and balances comes from
11:16
Speaker 3: within any way. And I hope that the APC and
11:22
Speaker 3: pro compounding out there can reach out to the FDA
11:26
Speaker 3: and to organizations that are worried and let them see
11:31
Speaker 3: the data, let them see they're reporting, let them see
11:34
Speaker 3: how careful they are with sterile compounding. But take a
11:40
Speaker 3: look at this article. Go look this up, put in
11:43
Speaker 3: the word compounding pharmacy in in your Googler, and then
11:49
Speaker 3: search the news section and you'll come to the Houston Chronicle.
11:53
Speaker 3: America's compounding pharmacy surges outrunning regulations. Experts want tougher site,
12:01
Speaker 3: and like I said, it's probably more of the lobby
12:05
Speaker 3: and groups for the manufacturers that want to see the
12:08
Speaker 3: money come back to the manufacturer and not the customization
12:12
Speaker 3: of our compounding pharmacies. Hey, we have a great show today.
12:17
Speaker 3: I'm excited that you're here, that you're listening. Please, if
12:21
Speaker 3: you have something dynamic, if you have something special, if
12:24
Speaker 3: there's a special story that you'd like to share. A
12:26
Speaker 3: pharmacy technician, a pharmacy owner, a pharmacist, a specialty pharmacy.
12:32
Speaker 3: We have a new series coming out in specialty pharmacy
12:34
Speaker 3: called Specialty Care Close to Home, and this is going
12:39
Speaker 3: to feature insights into healthcare systems specialty pharmacy, specifically building
12:46
Speaker 3: them making them more profitable. The Pitfalls excited to be
12:51
Speaker 3: working with the Allegheny Health Network out of Pittsburgh on
12:55
Speaker 3: the opening shout out to doctor Laura Mark and then
13:00
Speaker 3: we have assistance and support from several organizations. Can't wait
13:05
Speaker 3: to get this series out to you. To listen today
13:09
Speaker 3: on twerks, we have a absolute Juggernaut Superstar. I hope
13:14
Speaker 3: you know about this man. Doctor Brad Hart from Forest
13:18
Speaker 3: Park Pharmacy is joining us. We'll also be talking with
13:22
Speaker 3: doctor Kobe Burns. Doctor Colbe Burns is the president of
13:26
Speaker 3: the Psychedelic Pharmacist Association and his sidekick, the Batman and
13:32
Speaker 3: Robin of the Psychedelic Pharmacist Association, Doctor Andy Krutt. I'm
13:37
Speaker 3: excited to bring this to the Pharmacy podcast Network. We
13:40
Speaker 3: have to nail down the end of the cannabinoid system
13:44
Speaker 3: with the usage of THHC and CBD in therapy, and
13:48
Speaker 3: then the side of where psychedelics play in how this
13:52
Speaker 3: can impact PTSD, help out veterans, help out people with
13:58
Speaker 3: other neurological disorders. This is an exciting time in pharmacy.
14:03
Speaker 3: If you're listening and you're interested in some of these
14:06
Speaker 3: on the edge sciences that need more need more regulation
14:12
Speaker 3: from a national perspective, so we can get through that
14:14
Speaker 3: as quickly as possible, to get this into studies, to
14:18
Speaker 3: get this in the hands of our physician and pharmacist
14:20
Speaker 3: teams for the issues that they're facing. But I don't
14:23
Speaker 3: want you to miss this opportunity to listen in. We
14:27
Speaker 3: are excited that you're here. We're excited about what's happening
14:31
Speaker 3: in our pharmacy industry and yeah you are listening to
14:35
Speaker 3: turks are featured guest Brad Heart Pharmacy, owner Forrest Park Pharmacy.
15:04
Speaker 1: Welcome to torqu Spread.
15:07
Speaker 4: Thank you for having me. Awesome to finally get the chat.
15:11
Speaker 1: Finally.
15:12
Speaker 3: I have been stalking you on LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook.
15:19
Speaker 3: I just love your content and you know what is
15:22
Speaker 3: most impressive to me. The listeners might not realize this,
15:25
Speaker 3: but you're putting out a ton of content and it's
15:30
Speaker 3: very timely. Sometimes you're more of a news source for
15:34
Speaker 3: me than just the you know, the announcements that you're making.
15:39
Speaker 3: Talk to me. Let's start it. Let's start in social media,
15:41
Speaker 3: because you know, I don't want to sound like the
15:45
Speaker 3: old guy, but I am. You know, the Internet, when
15:49
Speaker 3: I was in the telecom air from two thousand and
15:54
Speaker 3: No nineteen ninety six to two thousand and three.
15:59
Speaker 1: Zero interne you know that we were able to get into.
16:03
Speaker 3: Social and then facy spaces came about my Space and
16:08
Speaker 3: in Facebook and now of course it's the whole other
16:11
Speaker 3: side where there's generations that don't remember not having social media,
16:16
Speaker 3: which before we started recording, I was thinking of news
16:22
Speaker 3: and how I'm not going to traditional news sources anymore.
16:26
Speaker 3: I'm checking Twitter first, I'm checking Instagram, I'm checking LinkedIn,
16:32
Speaker 3: and then if something pops up sometimes I'll go out
16:34
Speaker 3: into Google and verify it's just.
16:37
Speaker 1: Not someone's opinion or something.
16:39
Speaker 3: But talk to me about the leverage of social media
16:41
Speaker 3: and how you've used that not only to brand yourself
16:44
Speaker 3: and help your own pharmacy, but more importantly, what you've
16:48
Speaker 3: done for the whole industry.
16:52
Speaker 4: Sure, so for us, social media is core to the business.
16:56
Speaker 4: That's the only thing that ever worked for us. As
16:59
Speaker 4: far as getting customers into the store, well, I started
17:02
Speaker 4: it sort of out of desperation. We were going for
17:05
Speaker 4: about four months and then I fired all the insurance
17:09
Speaker 4: companies like I talk about, and most of my customers
17:11
Speaker 4: walked out. So we were just like hanging in the
17:14
Speaker 4: store with no customers coming by, and I was like,
17:16
Speaker 4: I guess we got to start shooting. You know, I
17:18
Speaker 4: didn't want to do videos. It's not like something I
17:20
Speaker 4: had ever you know, aimed for. It wasn't it wasn't
17:25
Speaker 4: on my agenda, but it needed to be done. So
17:27
Speaker 4: we just started talking about what was going on with us,
17:31
Speaker 4: and luckily the PBMs and the way that they pay
17:36
Speaker 4: and the way that they charge payers is so insane
17:40
Speaker 4: that it kind of went viral right from the beginning
17:42
Speaker 4: about my you know, two weeks into making daily videos.
17:45
Speaker 4: That's what I've been doing for I don't know, two
17:48
Speaker 4: and a half years now. About two weeks in, I
17:51
Speaker 4: had my biggest video ever, and so that that just
17:56
Speaker 4: changed the way that we could do everything. If I
17:58
Speaker 4: had something, you know, vitamins suddenly started selling, you know,
18:02
Speaker 4: any product there was, there was an avenue to reach people.
18:07
Speaker 4: So I just I couldn't stop. That's that's the that's
18:10
Speaker 4: everything that we have. And I did, you know, every
18:13
Speaker 4: kind of content I could think of. I did what
18:15
Speaker 4: I initially did, which was the insane prices. I don't
18:19
Speaker 4: know if it was terrifluid of mine, I can't remember
18:20
Speaker 4: which one it was, but it's you know, twenty four
18:22
Speaker 4: hundred with insurance, seventeen dollars with US and I just
18:26
Speaker 4: found hundreds of those in the Medicare data so I
18:29
Speaker 4: could do those forever. And then when I ran out
18:31
Speaker 4: of those, I just started looking for other stuff. And
18:33
Speaker 4: that's how I got into like the daily news type
18:35
Speaker 4: of content. There's tons of wildly interesting things. You know,
18:40
Speaker 4: every day you go to the Department of Justice website,
18:42
Speaker 4: there's a one hundred million dollars fraud that they got,
18:46
Speaker 4: you know, So there's just unlimited fascinating things in here.
18:52
Speaker 4: And for me personally with the store, also, doing this
18:55
Speaker 4: content has allowed me to stay on top of what's
18:58
Speaker 4: going on. If there's a new trend or something going on,
19:02
Speaker 4: I'm aware of it immediately because I have to spend
19:04
Speaker 4: time researching every single day to put out content that's interesting,
19:09
Speaker 4: so I'm right on top of it. So it's it's
19:10
Speaker 4: been really helpful for us to know what's happening, what's changing,
19:15
Speaker 4: where it's going. And for example, Ivermectin was huge for that.
19:19
Speaker 4: We were right on top of ivermectin. We had no
19:22
Speaker 4: idea who was looking for ivermectin in Texas. It's over
19:25
Speaker 4: the counter, which is what I'm talking about, by the way,
19:28
Speaker 4: but we had no idea what was going on. We
19:30
Speaker 4: just knew that it happened and people online were asking
19:32
Speaker 4: about it, so we did it and we ended up
19:36
Speaker 4: being the first in Texas to do it, and that's
19:38
Speaker 4: our biggest seller by a mile now and it's not
19:41
Speaker 4: something I anticipated. It was just something I was aware
19:43
Speaker 4: of because every single day I'm logging on looking for news,
19:47
Speaker 4: thinking of content, and it's been critical for us to
19:53
Speaker 4: survive for sure.
19:56
Speaker 1: Just awesome.
19:57
Speaker 3: If you're listening in your car, you're walking, you're not
20:02
Speaker 3: able to see the screen. We'll have links in the
20:04
Speaker 3: show note to take you to the YouTube so that
20:07
Speaker 3: you can see some of what we'll be sharing on screen.
20:11
Speaker 3: I'm at Forrestparkpharmacy dot com and known as the Cost
20:17
Speaker 3: Plus and Compounding Pharmacy out of Fort Worth, Texas. The
20:23
Speaker 3: content that you're generating.
20:26
Speaker 1: Is like you were saying, it's it's twofold.
20:29
Speaker 3: It it's teaching you what's going on, But then now
20:32
Speaker 3: you're teaching the nation what's going on. This is a
20:37
Speaker 3: mission now because it's it's impacting so much more than
20:41
Speaker 3: just Fort Worth, Texas community. You talk to me about
20:45
Speaker 3: how what you've done in efforts to educate, how that
20:51
Speaker 3: has in turned impacted you and your reach throughout the nation.
20:56
Speaker 3: So are you also licensed in other states where you're
20:59
Speaker 3: serving other patients because of the popularity of the content
21:03
Speaker 3: that you're generating.
21:05
Speaker 4: Yeah, we got license. We're trying to get as many
21:08
Speaker 4: as we can, but we're still sort of bootstrapping here,
21:12
Speaker 4: so it's like we have a license a month or something,
21:14
Speaker 4: you know. But yeah, we're expanded to about ten states
21:18
Speaker 4: now and people ask us for new stuff all the
21:21
Speaker 4: time because social media is nationwide, so we're getting requests
21:26
Speaker 4: all the time and just trying to get everywhere we can.
21:31
Speaker 4: But yeah, it's it's the education aspect that, like I said,
21:35
Speaker 4: it's been educational for me because I get on I
21:38
Speaker 4: see some article about you know whatever it is, like
21:42
Speaker 4: an audit that they did on a PBM in some
21:45
Speaker 4: other state, and I look through that data and see
21:47
Speaker 4: that they're getting like, you know, Virginia is a great one.
21:50
Speaker 4: They have all that incredible information about how terrible Virginia
21:53
Speaker 4: is doing with their rebates, how much they're paying for generics,
21:58
Speaker 4: And then that shows me a whole new avenue to
22:00
Speaker 4: look for new information, like where did they get this information?
22:03
Speaker 4: How did they find it? You know, can I find
22:05
Speaker 4: that for my state? But I'm not the only one
22:09
Speaker 4: that that's educational for, you know. HHS reached out to
22:13
Speaker 4: me after I did some of these originally, uh and asked,
22:17
Speaker 4: you know, where are you getting this data? And I'm like,
22:19
Speaker 4: from you guys, It's on your website, you know. And
22:25
Speaker 4: the guys that are working aren't the guys that made
22:27
Speaker 4: the website. So it's like everybody's trying to find all
22:29
Speaker 4: this information because the PBM scene is changing so fast,
22:33
Speaker 4: you know, they're they're so motivated to find new avenues
22:39
Speaker 4: that if if you haven't been there for decades, following
22:41
Speaker 4: it every day, you're not going to nowhere to So
22:44
Speaker 4: it's been really interesting and you know, I got to
22:47
Speaker 4: do the Maha movie, which was great, and when they
22:50
Speaker 4: flew me out to Utah to record a little bit
22:52
Speaker 4: with that, which was I've never done anything like that.
22:54
Speaker 4: That was awesome. But he told me that Senator from Arizona,
22:58
Speaker 4: retired Senator from Aarazona is the one that put him
23:02
Speaker 4: onto me, which is like, I can't believe that, like
23:05
Speaker 4: serious people are finding this content and enjoying it, and
23:08
Speaker 4: it's just it's mind blowing.
23:10
Speaker 1: That is so awesome to hear.
23:12
Speaker 3: And I want to give a shout out to pharmacists
23:15
Speaker 3: that are listening, even our technicians that are listening, our
23:18
Speaker 3: pharmacy owners, people in the industry. You take the time
23:23
Speaker 3: to put good, reliable, trusted content out and it becomes
23:28
Speaker 3: a calling card for you in your career, for your business,
23:32
Speaker 3: for your pharmacy. And I noticed the organizations that are
23:37
Speaker 3: not using social media to be forthright and transparent, and
23:42
Speaker 3: it's telling in and of itself. You know that they're
23:44
Speaker 3: hiding behind their own facts and they're putting themselves out
23:48
Speaker 3: of business in many cases in the whole CVS health
23:51
Speaker 3: world where they've closed pharmacies down just based on their
23:54
Speaker 3: own on their own PBM business models. And I wanted
23:59
Speaker 3: to ask you, when did did you become a cash
24:02
Speaker 3: based pharmacy in the Fort Worth area?
24:05
Speaker 1: When did that start?
24:07
Speaker 4: So we opened up with the plan to just be
24:10
Speaker 4: a normal retail pharmacy. We didn't really know at all
24:13
Speaker 4: what was going on with the reimbursement. We just knew
24:16
Speaker 4: my wife had a good skill. We were here, let's
24:19
Speaker 4: make it happen. And after four months we looked at
24:23
Speaker 4: our data and we had averaged two percent under our
24:28
Speaker 4: cost of the drugs on our remmerson, So we were
24:30
Speaker 4: losing two percent. It was not like it was paying
24:33
Speaker 4: everything and we were under two percent there, but like
24:35
Speaker 4: literally for four months two percent under the cost on
24:38
Speaker 4: our drugs, and it was like we weren't even close
24:41
Speaker 4: to profitable at that point. So it was it couldn't work,
24:44
Speaker 4: you know. And the pharmacy owners that have been in
24:46
Speaker 4: it for a long time sort of can see it coming,
24:48
Speaker 4: and they have a base of patients that they can manipulate.
24:51
Speaker 4: They could say no to this prescription, yes to this prescription.
24:54
Speaker 4: As a new pharmacy, we had none of that option
24:57
Speaker 4: or understanding, so we were just filling everything and losing money,
25:01
Speaker 4: you know, so there was no option. We just went,
25:03
Speaker 4: we've got to make the switch, fire all of them.
25:06
Speaker 4: We were it was cheaper. We could see in our
25:08
Speaker 4: own data that it was cheaper for patients to pay cash,
25:12
Speaker 4: so it just it was like it made perfect sense
25:15
Speaker 4: to us, but we lost most of our customers. We
25:18
Speaker 4: explained to them so thoroughly paig long ride ups for
25:22
Speaker 4: patients with complicated profiles, here's what you're going to save
25:24
Speaker 4: on this drug. Here's what you save on this drug,
25:27
Speaker 4: and you know, they didn't care. It was like, oh,
25:29
Speaker 4: no insurance, I'm going to go down the street. So
25:32
Speaker 4: we we lost seventy percent of our customers and we
25:35
Speaker 4: had to begin to figure out how to explain that
25:39
Speaker 4: this was good for them, and you know, that's that's
25:42
Speaker 4: where I got into all the information that you see
25:45
Speaker 4: in the daily posts. Now, yeah, the cash thing, it
25:49
Speaker 4: wasn't a plan. It was just a necessity because the
25:51
Speaker 4: PBMs have become so greedy, and luckily that greed is
25:55
Speaker 4: what allows this to exist. If they were, you know,
25:59
Speaker 4: manipulate all this and not nearly as greedy, that they
26:02
Speaker 4: could get away with it. True, but since they're so
26:05
Speaker 4: greedy that my price is able to be cheaper even
26:07
Speaker 4: though they're collecting one thousand dollars a month from people,
26:10
Speaker 4: that's what allows us to exist.
26:13
Speaker 3: The reason why I asked is I want to document
26:17
Speaker 3: someday and come up with maybe a blog post, turn
26:21
Speaker 3: it into a podcast discussion to understand the rise of
26:26
Speaker 3: the cash based pharmacy that's really starting to take fire now.
26:31
Speaker 3: When I was serving the board of directors for the
26:36
Speaker 3: Pennsylvania Pharmacists Association years and years ago, there was a
26:40
Speaker 3: pharmacy student that had a crazy idea to build a
26:45
Speaker 3: cash base pharmacy, and I think at the time he
26:48
Speaker 3: was p three a shout out to doctor Kyle McCormick
26:51
Speaker 3: out of Pittsburgh, and he built and released and launched
26:57
Speaker 3: on March twentieth of two thousand, Blue Barry Pharmacy, which
27:01
Speaker 3: was a cash based pharmacy. And his wholesaler friends, people
27:07
Speaker 3: that knew him, fellow pharmacists out of pharmacy owners out
27:12
Speaker 3: of Pittsburgh, were all like, that's really cool, but you're crazy,
27:17
Speaker 3: you know, I don't know how you're going to do this.
27:19
Speaker 3: And he and his family and thank the Lord that
27:22
Speaker 3: his wife was a pharmacist and able to work for
27:26
Speaker 3: a different entity and have income for their family. But
27:29
Speaker 3: they took punches right on the chin for quite some
27:33
Speaker 3: time in getting it up and running and being told
27:36
Speaker 3: that it wasn't going to work. And now it's on fire.
27:39
Speaker 3: And now his clients and his patients and his community
27:44
Speaker 3: love him and love the being able to staple the
27:47
Speaker 3: way that they want to do things and the way
27:49
Speaker 3: they want to treat the customer and the way that
27:51
Speaker 3: and I'm just like, damn that that's freaking cool. So
27:56
Speaker 3: from your you're part of this very special membership, this
28:00
Speaker 3: very special partnership. But have you do you have any metrics,
28:04
Speaker 3: like how what's do we know how many there are
28:08
Speaker 3: out there? These these cash based pharmacies. I'm sure no
28:11
Speaker 3: one has an exact number, but what do you know
28:14
Speaker 3: about it?
28:15
Speaker 4: Yeah, so the cost plus stuff, Kyle is definitely the
28:18
Speaker 4: first one that I knew of. I mean, Cuban big,
28:20
Speaker 4: but I think Kyle was before him. Kyle kind of
28:23
Speaker 4: was the innovator of the idea, and it's it's awesome
28:27
Speaker 4: that we have him. He's he's fearless, you know, he
28:29
Speaker 4: moves forward with his own ideas. I wish I had that.
28:32
Speaker 4: I need a trailblazer to follow in the footsteps of
28:35
Speaker 4: you know. But his site is the only place I
28:39
Speaker 4: know of the list. And he has a website to
28:41
Speaker 4: list cost plus pharmacies cost Postpharmacies dot com. I think
28:44
Speaker 4: is what it is. And uh, I send patience to
28:47
Speaker 4: that all the time. It used to be in my
28:48
Speaker 4: phone tree. I'm not sure if it still is. But
28:50
Speaker 4: when I went really viral, I had people calling from
28:53
Speaker 4: all over the country. Uh, and I had to put
28:55
Speaker 4: a thing like, if you're from outside of Texas, don't
28:58
Speaker 4: call us, go to four costplus Pharmacies dot com and
29:01
Speaker 4: look for one in your state. Unfortunately, if you look
29:04
Speaker 4: at that, most states don't have one. You know, when
29:08
Speaker 4: we started, I think there were ten cost plus pharmacies
29:11
Speaker 4: in the country, and some of those were kind of
29:13
Speaker 4: the fake ones, you know. It's like, you know, just
29:16
Speaker 4: kind of pretended to do it but not really doing it.
29:19
Speaker 4: But I know Pennsylvania now Kyle has put out a
29:23
Speaker 4: lot of pharmacists. They're opening cost plus pharmacies. The Freedom
29:27
Speaker 4: pharmacy is a really interesting one because he used to
29:31
Speaker 4: run the insurance pharmacy next door and ended up dumping
29:35
Speaker 4: that one and moving to cost plus only. But yeah,
29:38
Speaker 4: it's growing, but it's still very, very small. I don't know,
29:43
Speaker 4: I'd be surprised if there were more than twenty in
29:46
Speaker 4: the country.
29:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're going to do a follow up on that
29:49
Speaker 3: brat and try to bring more light because I want
29:52
Speaker 3: to be encouraging to pharmacy owners out there who want
29:56
Speaker 3: to break away. A pharmacy owner out of Kentuck he
30:00
Speaker 3: has three pharmacies and he's going to dedicate one or
30:04
Speaker 3: has dedicate one to cash based only, and he wants
30:09
Speaker 3: to see how fast it takes to get above the
30:12
Speaker 3: red and move into being able to spread it like
30:16
Speaker 3: a virus to the other, to the other pharmacies and
30:19
Speaker 3: get it going. Mark Cuban costs plus drugs. When I
30:25
Speaker 3: learned about doctor Alex reaching out to Mark Cuban from
30:28
Speaker 3: a cold email, and it was blessed and they moved forward.
30:33
Speaker 3: We did an interview with doctor Alex on January twenty
30:36
Speaker 3: seventh of twenty twenty one. And so I absolutely agree
30:41
Speaker 3: with you that that Kyle McCormick and his team were
30:46
Speaker 3: the first, you know, to put the flag in the
30:50
Speaker 3: in the nation to disrupt the stranglehold that the three
30:55
Speaker 3: largest PBMs have on our industry and are taking the
30:58
Speaker 3: joy out of pharmacy and pharmacy ownership and being a
31:01
Speaker 3: farmist in all facets of everything. And I did not
31:07
Speaker 3: trust Mark Cuban. So when I first heard about this
31:10
Speaker 3: and I interviewed this guy, he's so intelligent. Doctor Alex
31:14
Speaker 3: is amazing. And initially after that interview, I made blog post,
31:19
Speaker 3: I did some LinkedIn and I wasn't being disrespectful, I
31:23
Speaker 3: wasn't being aggressive, but what I was being is very
31:25
Speaker 3: informative because I was saying to the pharmacy owners, hey listen,
31:28
Speaker 3: here's another rich, powerful man out there that's wanting to
31:33
Speaker 3: get into the PBM space probably and move it. And
31:37
Speaker 3: I was not trusting And now that I see this
31:40
Speaker 3: since twenty twenty one, five years later, and I see
31:45
Speaker 3: Mark Cuban showing up on interviews that he doesn't have
31:49
Speaker 3: to be on because of how busy he is. He's
31:51
Speaker 3: showing up on news organizations he doesn't have to be there,
31:55
Speaker 3: and when he's talking, he's not really talking just about
31:59
Speaker 3: his business. He's talking about the ecosystem. So I finally
32:03
Speaker 3: trust where he has really been an accelerator in helping
32:09
Speaker 3: to the helping the public to slow down for a
32:11
Speaker 3: second and understand what's been in front of you, what's
32:15
Speaker 3: been hidden from the public for so long. And when
32:18
Speaker 3: you couple that with PBM reform happening in so many
32:21
Speaker 3: different of the states wins, especially like Tennessee and Arkansas
32:25
Speaker 3: where you can't own pharmacies and own a PBM and
32:28
Speaker 3: the same entity. And who knows if you know the
32:31
Speaker 3: teeth on that is going to rip it apart or not,
32:34
Speaker 3: it's to foresee. But what do you think of that
32:37
Speaker 3: whole dynamic, Mark Cuban, costs plus drugs and and what's
32:41
Speaker 3: what's potentially there to help us, you know, transform the
32:45
Speaker 3: nation's medication needs.
32:48
Speaker 4: Yeah, Mark Cuban is the leading voice by you know,
32:51
Speaker 4: a mile and he's all in. I'm a mass fan.
32:54
Speaker 4: I live in Dallas, so I've been I've been with
32:56
Speaker 4: Mark Cuban for decades now, and it was interesting seeing
33:00
Speaker 4: him go into pharmacy and then me being like that's neat,
33:03
Speaker 4: and then me getting into pharmacy and being like that's neat.
33:06
Speaker 4: But I'm not like competing with him. And now me
33:08
Speaker 4: and Mark Cuban have this exact concept going. So I'm
33:12
Speaker 4: seeing Mark Cuban all day, every day. But he's great.
33:15
Speaker 4: I mean, he has a fantastic information. His team is
33:20
Speaker 4: digging in everywhere. He can talk to CEOs, he can
33:24
Speaker 4: get in front of Congress, he can you know, he
33:27
Speaker 4: shows up on Trump RX. You know, he's doing broadcasts
33:30
Speaker 4: with Trump. So it's like he's doing an amazing job
33:35
Speaker 4: of getting it out there, and he's he's talking about
33:37
Speaker 4: what the challenge is. The real challenge for cost plus
33:40
Speaker 4: pharmacies like mine is getting it to the patients. Because
33:44
Speaker 4: we still live in a world where almost everybody has
33:47
Speaker 4: employer sponsored insurance, so people aren't choosing their insurance. So
33:51
Speaker 4: he has to convince the CEOs, he has to convince
33:55
Speaker 4: the people determining the benefits that they should make a change,
33:59
Speaker 4: because that's really where the is in making a change
34:02
Speaker 4: right now. You know, I'm direct to consumer because I
34:06
Speaker 4: don't have, you know, the ability to deal with CEOs
34:11
Speaker 4: and get in front of those people for that type
34:13
Speaker 4: of stuff. But he he is, and so hopefully he
34:17
Speaker 4: can start to turn some some minds and let him
34:22
Speaker 4: see that they shouldn't be dealing with those predatory companies
34:26
Speaker 4: managing their entire set of benefits.
34:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, yeah, it's it's it's the psychology, brilliant
34:35
Speaker 3: brilliant intelligence psychology. And you can back up thirty forty
34:39
Speaker 3: years to take the public and make them think that
34:46
Speaker 3: they need insurance all the time, and go back to Kyle.
34:52
Speaker 3: Kyle McCormick says, when you go to get your oil changed,
34:57
Speaker 3: are you pulling out your car insurance or are you
35:02
Speaker 3: just paying for the maintenance. And that's a really, really
35:06
Speaker 3: good point. But the insurance industry knows damn well what
35:11
Speaker 3: they're doing. And over those forty years, and it's accelerated
35:15
Speaker 3: over the last five it's been you need insurance, you
35:19
Speaker 3: need insurance for everything, and if you don't need it,
35:23
Speaker 3: if you can't have it because it's too expensive, then
35:26
Speaker 3: you better take out a what's the plans called that
35:29
Speaker 3: you put money in and then you can buy OTC
35:34
Speaker 3: and stuff. What are those plans called? Yeah, exactly, So
35:39
Speaker 3: we have that insurance industry has brainwashed the public in
35:46
Speaker 3: not understanding what insurance was really meant for. Which were
35:50
Speaker 3: you know, life altering, financial clobbering situations that you couldn't
35:57
Speaker 3: afford if you broke your leg or you were in
35:59
Speaker 3: a car act cendory, you came up with a horrible disease, cancer,
36:03
Speaker 3: or something where the influx of expense was just going
36:07
Speaker 3: to crush you. So obviously insurance is where it belongs.
36:10
Speaker 3: But the average consumer that walks up to the prescription
36:15
Speaker 3: counter without even thinking about it, is ready with their
36:18
Speaker 3: license and ready with their insurance card and ready to process.
36:22
Speaker 3: And if everybody would just take a time out for
36:25
Speaker 3: a second and say, well, would it be like how
36:28
Speaker 3: expensive would this be on my family if I paid
36:31
Speaker 3: for this cash, if I paid for this just myself,
36:34
Speaker 3: And if they if they did that analysis over a
36:37
Speaker 3: year and looked at their deductibles and looked at their payments,
36:41
Speaker 3: and they'd be paying less money. And it's just like, wow,
36:45
Speaker 3: we need Brad on a megaphone, and we needed to
36:48
Speaker 3: get you in touch with iHeartMedia and Serious XM and
36:53
Speaker 3: create a Mark Cuban b you know, Brad show to
37:00
Speaker 3: get you to guys announcing it to the consumer. But
37:04
Speaker 3: we really need, we need the heart and all of
37:08
Speaker 3: this to show. And that's why I'm so excited about you.
37:13
Speaker 4: You.
37:14
Speaker 3: Every time you talk, I see the passion come out.
37:16
Speaker 3: Sometimes you're even more excited one day than the next,
37:20
Speaker 3: probably because of the bullshit that's being pulled from the
37:23
Speaker 3: insurance world, But that passion is what.
37:28
Speaker 1: People want.
37:29
Speaker 3: They don't want to listen to a pharma commercial about
37:32
Speaker 3: butterflies on the screen and you're running and you're jogging
37:36
Speaker 3: and you have to take this medication and just this.
37:38
Speaker 3: I'm just so tired of the fakeness of health care.
37:42
Speaker 3: So when we have healthcare providers that are stepping up,
37:45
Speaker 3: taking time out of your day, investing in education, and
37:49
Speaker 3: then that turns into advertisement, I don't think there's anything
37:52
Speaker 3: better in the in the advertising and marketing world when
37:55
Speaker 3: you're doing it out of your heart, knowing it's better
37:58
Speaker 3: for a a nation and an ecosystem and a consumer, a
38:03
Speaker 3: patient consumer that doesn't know any better.
38:07
Speaker 4: Yeah, you said something really interesting that I've I've found
38:10
Speaker 4: to be really true there. It's the fear of what
38:13
Speaker 4: something might cost is really what drives people to this.
38:16
Speaker 4: You know, a lot of my videos, I'll say something
38:20
Speaker 4: about how insurance makes it more expensive, this would be
38:22
Speaker 4: cheaper without insurance, and then somebody will say, yeah, that's
38:25
Speaker 4: all great until you get cancer and it bankrupts you.
38:29
Speaker 4: You know, And that's that part right there, That catastrophic
38:34
Speaker 4: cost fear is what really gets people. They can't imagine
38:39
Speaker 4: not being able to take care of it, and especially
38:42
Speaker 4: when they have a family. If you have kids and
38:44
Speaker 4: you're you imagine yourself risking cancer treatment for your kids
38:49
Speaker 4: because you don't want to pay the premiums. You know.
38:51
Speaker 4: That's the insidious part and what drives me insane about
38:54
Speaker 4: that argument is that the cost is caused by the insurance.
39:00
Speaker 4: We have no idea what healthcare costs without that bottomless
39:04
Speaker 4: pit of crowdfunded money. That the insurance companies will pay
39:09
Speaker 4: for things because they want the fear. The more expensive
39:12
Speaker 4: it is, the better it is for the insurance companies.
39:15
Speaker 4: And that's that's really what I want people to understand,
39:18
Speaker 4: is the insurance company created the fear it would be affordable,
39:23
Speaker 4: not cheap. Of course, it would be affordable because there's
39:26
Speaker 4: no other way for them to get money if they
39:30
Speaker 4: had to get the money directly from us. And it
39:33
Speaker 4: just drives me nuts when when I see the fear
39:36
Speaker 4: driving it, and the fear is driven by the insurance companies,
39:39
Speaker 4: I just I just absolutely hate that.
39:42
Speaker 3: What I like is that we're getting more and more
39:46
Speaker 3: detailed and exposed information with the entire ecosystem. Shot out
39:50
Speaker 3: to Antonio Chacha and his work, Shout out to Greg
39:54
Speaker 3: Rybold and his work with APCI and IPC's work and
39:59
Speaker 3: digging in the data, data, data, And here's what I
40:02
Speaker 3: think is going to happen. And I'm sure someone's going
40:05
Speaker 3: to take advantage of this. If you took a region
40:08
Speaker 3: of prescriptions in a specific geographic area by geo fencing
40:13
Speaker 3: or ZIP code, and you collected the cost of medications
40:19
Speaker 3: and then the true cost of medication, although that in
40:21
Speaker 3: itself can be kind of a mystery, and you strip
40:24
Speaker 3: away all of the insurance insurance, you know, bucket of
40:28
Speaker 3: what is paid out is over here the cost, and
40:31
Speaker 3: you were able to be able to balance of seeing
40:36
Speaker 3: throw it into AI or something, ask them to do
40:38
Speaker 3: an analysis. But massive amounts of data, massive amount of prescriptions.
40:42
Speaker 3: How many times people are pulling their insurance card and
40:45
Speaker 3: paying a deductible versus just paying cash for the prescription.
40:49
Speaker 3: And then where's the Where was the true savings? Was
40:52
Speaker 3: the true savings in cost plus you know cost blessed
40:56
Speaker 3: model or was the true savings in insurance? And insurance
40:59
Speaker 3: always say saying, hey, we're going to save you money
41:01
Speaker 3: this year. Hey employer, we got a new program. And
41:05
Speaker 3: our TPA just came up with this new roller coaster
41:08
Speaker 3: that's gonna take this.
41:09
Speaker 1: Over here and this over here.
41:12
Speaker 3: Brad I worked with a group of pharmacy owners out
41:16
Speaker 3: of Ohio that came out with a PBM which was
41:20
Speaker 3: the first of its kind. This is back twenty years ago,
41:24
Speaker 3: apro RX out of Ohio, and we went to George Howe,
41:31
Speaker 3: our George Junior Republic, which was up in northern Pennsylvania
41:37
Speaker 3: and north western Pennsylvania. And what it was is it
41:41
Speaker 3: was a home for It was a campus with two
41:44
Speaker 3: thousand troubled male youth and it was just for them.
41:50
Speaker 3: They were sent from all over the nation. It involved
41:53
Speaker 3: some counseling and some more of a religious pool and
41:58
Speaker 3: just surrounding these kids with hope and with a place
42:03
Speaker 3: to stay and kind of rehabilitation. And they had all
42:08
Speaker 3: of their prescription information.
42:10
Speaker 1: They had it on the table.
42:12
Speaker 3: The analysis was done, and I was so excited that
42:14
Speaker 3: I got the team up with them. I went did
42:16
Speaker 3: the proposal, we did the data collection. We were sitting
42:19
Speaker 3: in front of the CFO and sitting in front of
42:23
Speaker 3: the nurse that was part of the decision making, and
42:27
Speaker 3: we presented them with a one point six million dollars
42:30
Speaker 3: savings on everything that they're doing and how three point
42:34
Speaker 3: forty b was playing into it and all this stuff,
42:36
Speaker 3: and it was it was freaking amazing. It went silent.
42:39
Speaker 3: We didn't hear from them for three months. Finally apro
42:44
Speaker 3: gets an email back, Hey, listen, we're going to re
42:47
Speaker 3: sign with CBS Health because they're giving us a eight
42:52
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty thousand dollars rebate up front and like it.
42:59
Speaker 3: It made us go crazy because we're like, where's the
43:02
Speaker 3: rest of your money?
43:03
Speaker 1: Like where why would you?
43:05
Speaker 3: But know, they sign a three year agreement because it
43:08
Speaker 3: was a safety thing. That CFO was like, you know what,
43:11
Speaker 3: we could really use that money right now. For this, this,
43:13
Speaker 3: and this, not realizing that they're keeping you hostage to
43:17
Speaker 3: a system that is benefiting only their organization in the
43:22
Speaker 3: form of profits and control and keeping you on that.
43:25
Speaker 3: And it did that that opened my eyes And this
43:28
Speaker 3: probably happened maybe about fifteen years ago, but that really
43:31
Speaker 3: opened my eyes to the need for PBM reform and
43:36
Speaker 3: the tricks that are played on organizations that are fragile
43:40
Speaker 3: in the in revenue to keep it going, to keep
43:43
Speaker 3: their services going, for these young boys, to keep.
43:45
Speaker 1: Them, you know, tied into medication.
43:48
Speaker 3: And I mean, that's that's a hard that's a hard
43:52
Speaker 3: thing to swallow and get the consumer, the business consumer
43:57
Speaker 3: or the non business consumer. And I think that CFO
44:00
Speaker 3: would be intelligent enough to see through it, and I'm
44:03
Speaker 3: sure that they did see through it. But regardless, it
44:05
Speaker 3: was eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars check.
44:08
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's an incredible story to see that that savings
44:12
Speaker 4: number and then they still choose the alternative, which is
44:16
Speaker 4: just unbelievable. And that's the type of thing I was
44:17
Speaker 4: talking about with Mark Cuban. He gets that type of
44:20
Speaker 4: meeting way more often than other people are able to get,
44:23
Speaker 4: you know, he gets in front of those those CEOs,
44:25
Speaker 4: those CFOs, and I'm sure he's seen that exact type
44:29
Speaker 4: of thing just a million times. And the thing that
44:32
Speaker 4: those guys can't see that it's hard for me to
44:35
Speaker 4: explain to them, is that this story that broke with
44:39
Speaker 4: Hunterbrook Media about the GPOs and the way that they
44:42
Speaker 4: were stealing the rebates, that's the type of thing that
44:46
Speaker 4: the PBMs can do forever. They can just create an entity,
44:49
Speaker 4: they can find another hole. All this PBM reform, we
44:53
Speaker 4: can plug all the holes we've seen so far, but
44:56
Speaker 4: because of their position in the system, they can poke
44:58
Speaker 4: a new hole that we didn't imagine, you know, And
45:00
Speaker 4: then five years from now, we're looking at the one
45:02
Speaker 4: hundred million dollars that they stole and creating a new
45:06
Speaker 4: PBM reform to solve that problem, when really they don't
45:09
Speaker 4: need to be there at all, you know, I don't know.
45:12
Speaker 4: It drives me insane to see that type of manipulation
45:19
Speaker 4: ability because of the vertical integration and their their position
45:23
Speaker 4: in the stack of that.
45:25
Speaker 3: All right, So, how is Forest Park doing now?
45:29
Speaker 1: Is this?
45:29
Speaker 3: You are on the water, You're chugging down the you
45:32
Speaker 3: know the track. Is everything working right now? In kind
45:36
Speaker 3: of you had to dump your fire, your your patients
45:40
Speaker 3: off of insurance and now talk to us about what's
45:43
Speaker 3: happening now.
45:44
Speaker 4: Yeah, so we dumped them. It took us, Oh, I
45:48
Speaker 4: don't know, a little while. The compound the GLP ones
45:51
Speaker 4: were happening right at that time, and that was when
45:54
Speaker 4: everybody discovered five or three b's like, oh, that's a
45:56
Speaker 4: thing we can do, you know. So that that floated
45:59
Speaker 4: us for a little while. And the whole time I'm
46:02
Speaker 4: doing daily video, so I'm just constantly adding patients steering that.
46:06
Speaker 4: But like I said about the social media, because I
46:09
Speaker 4: had the ability to reach customers, people were seeing what
46:13
Speaker 4: I was saying. I had something. Whatever the thing was,
46:17
Speaker 4: it was the compound of GLP wants for a little while,
46:19
Speaker 4: it's ivermecta. Now I always have whatever the thing is.
46:22
Speaker 4: I have people that want it that can float me
46:25
Speaker 4: while I add the patients. Our patient base now like
46:28
Speaker 4: our core low cost generic recurring patients. That's finally gotten
46:33
Speaker 4: us to where it's like par like that's we've reached
46:37
Speaker 4: our minimum number that we need to float on that
46:40
Speaker 4: and now I can I can try to grow. I'm
46:42
Speaker 4: trying to grow the compounding big time, which is is
46:46
Speaker 4: tougher sell because like for regular prescriptions, I have a
46:49
Speaker 4: really good angle with the cost plus. You know, I
46:52
Speaker 4: can pitch something, but in compounding everybody's cash price, so
46:55
Speaker 4: it's like, you know, I got no angle there. I'm
46:58
Speaker 4: just trying normal stuff there. But yeah, the cost plus
47:02
Speaker 4: stuff we finally reached far and thanks to social media,
47:07
Speaker 4: I've been able to survive to get there because it's
47:10
Speaker 4: taken a long time. Every patient has to know the
47:13
Speaker 4: full story. Everybody has to understand who's charging the money,
47:17
Speaker 4: Why is it so expensive? Is it always going to
47:20
Speaker 4: be this expensive? You know, they have to really understand
47:22
Speaker 4: the full ecosystem to appreciate using us. So it's been
47:28
Speaker 4: a real challenge. But luckily we survived and we made
47:33
Speaker 4: it to survivability.
47:35
Speaker 1: Now that's awesome.
47:36
Speaker 3: So when I just got back from Idea Sharre mckesson's
47:40
Speaker 3: big independent community pharmacy show, and huge parts of the
47:46
Speaker 3: talk was programs that have nothing to do with prescription revenue,
47:51
Speaker 3: nothing to do with PBMs, nothing to do So we're
47:54
Speaker 3: talking about skincare programs where they hire an esthetician now
47:58
Speaker 3: that becomes part of staff. We're talking about home care
48:02
Speaker 3: where they're doing new entities, a whole new entity that's
48:07
Speaker 3: home care, and they're doing you know, light cleaning, some shopping,
48:12
Speaker 3: some bathing, and then they're coupling that with what's now
48:14
Speaker 3: known as long term care pharmacy at home and they're
48:17
Speaker 3: getting reimbursed at long term care rates. And then we're
48:21
Speaker 3: talking about contraception where it's like now you're becoming the
48:23
Speaker 3: contraception center where you advertise to the community, Hey, you
48:30
Speaker 3: want education on birth control and family planning.
48:33
Speaker 1: You know where you need to go.
48:36
Speaker 3: So talk to me about You've set the groundwork, You've
48:39
Speaker 3: set a common denominator that you will in the future.
48:42
Speaker 3: Now your baseline, you're able to build upon that. What
48:46
Speaker 3: other things are you thinking about that you could add
48:48
Speaker 3: to Forest Park Pharmacy in impact Fort Worth, Texas. But
48:55
Speaker 3: then you know, grow and impossibly open up the next one.
49:00
Speaker 4: Yeah, for us, you know, like I said, compounding, we
49:04
Speaker 4: don't do stereo compounding. That would be great to be
49:07
Speaker 4: able to include stereal compounding, because that's still I mean,
49:13
Speaker 4: I just see that that's gonna last forever. Even though
49:15
Speaker 4: the GLP ones have become available now they become more affordable.
49:18
Speaker 4: I think the sterile compounding is going to be going
49:21
Speaker 4: to be critical. Let's see the the vitamins. We do
49:27
Speaker 4: a bunch of vitamins, but only specific ones, like I'm
49:33
Speaker 4: not able to I'm not a big vitamin guy personally,
49:36
Speaker 4: So like, if you're asking me to pitch why you
49:39
Speaker 4: need something, like, I don't have an answer for you.
49:42
Speaker 4: I can only find like one or two that are
49:44
Speaker 4: really impactful for me. And that's what I can talk about.
49:47
Speaker 3: Uh.
49:47
Speaker 4: And that's of course the only thing that's else, because
49:49
Speaker 4: if if somebody asked me a question about something else,
49:52
Speaker 4: I'm like, I don't know, man, you tell me why
49:54
Speaker 4: you want that.
49:54
Speaker 1: You know, that's a really good point.
49:57
Speaker 3: You're selling with sincerity, and it's like, hey, I take
50:02
Speaker 3: this liquid vitamin C that absorbs better into me and
50:06
Speaker 3: it works for me because if I feel like I'm
50:08
Speaker 3: getting a cold and I double up on it, you
50:11
Speaker 3: know it helps. But that is there's a sincerity to that.
50:14
Speaker 3: That's why you're trusted. That's why pharmacists are trusted because
50:17
Speaker 3: I meet so more pharmacist than ever where they're talking
50:21
Speaker 3: about what is happening to them personally, and then they
50:25
Speaker 3: are always saying, hey, listen, if you have questions about this,
50:27
Speaker 3: I'm gonna either go get you answers or I'm going
50:29
Speaker 3: to get a specialist, or I'm going to kind of
50:31
Speaker 3: dig down in this for you so that you're doing
50:33
Speaker 3: what's right. Because it's funny how the consumer thinks that
50:37
Speaker 3: if it's to OTC that there's no harm to it.
50:40
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it's over the counter, so it doesn't really matter.
50:42
Speaker 3: And I'm like, no, dude, Like things have become OTC
50:46
Speaker 3: and they used to be prescriptions and you can't just
50:49
Speaker 3: you know, take whatever you want. And yeah, it's it's
50:52
Speaker 3: a world that if I think you know that if
50:55
Speaker 3: it worked for you, it's going to work for your
50:57
Speaker 3: your patient and it's something you're comfortable selling and making
51:01
Speaker 3: a profit off it, I would feel like, crap, you're
51:03
Speaker 3: if you're putting something out.
51:04
Speaker 1: There that you know damn well is you know is
51:08
Speaker 1: not working.
51:09
Speaker 3: And and there's a there's an element of sincerity to that, Brad.
51:12
Speaker 1: So that's cool.
51:13
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I think the thing that we need the
51:16
Speaker 4: most for us to connect with more patients is a
51:21
Speaker 4: better connection to a cash pay prescriber, a doctor that
51:26
Speaker 4: we'll see somebody one time, and uh, you know what
51:31
Speaker 4: we have access to right now is the uh? I
51:36
Speaker 4: forget direct primary care doctors, you know where it's like
51:39
Speaker 4: a membership thing, which is great. It's a cash pay there.
51:41
Speaker 4: That's how doctors want it to work, is they see
51:43
Speaker 4: those patients consistently, they know your profile, they can talk
51:47
Speaker 4: to you, they can respond to you quickly. That's fantastic.
51:50
Speaker 4: But when I have people walk in like I need something,
51:53
Speaker 4: how can you help me with that? And I'm like,
51:55
Speaker 4: do you want to sign up for a membership you
51:57
Speaker 4: know with a doctor? You know? So I would like
51:59
Speaker 4: to to find a way to get to get better
52:01
Speaker 4: access to a prescriber that can see them quickly. But
52:06
Speaker 4: in the doctor world that doesn't seem to exist. The
52:09
Speaker 4: equivalent of cost plus pharmacy in the doctor world seems
52:12
Speaker 4: to be the direct primary here, which is membership based.
52:16
Speaker 4: So I'm working to try to see if I could
52:18
Speaker 4: find a way to connect with a cash page and
52:22
Speaker 4: the telehealth that's kind of the answer to that, but
52:24
Speaker 4: it's not quite what a lot of people are looking for.
52:27
Speaker 4: You know, most of my patients are older, you know,
52:30
Speaker 4: getting on their phone and like having a video call
52:33
Speaker 4: is just not an option. So I don't know how
52:37
Speaker 4: I'm going to find that that's that's definitely the need
52:41
Speaker 4: for us right now.
52:42
Speaker 1: Brad.
52:43
Speaker 3: It's so interesting to hear different pharmacy owners make different
52:46
Speaker 3: decisions for that opportunity. We've heard the trend which came
52:52
Speaker 3: and went by the way.
52:53
Speaker 1: I feel like, I feel like I'm sold.
52:55
Speaker 3: But about ten years ago telehealth telepharmacy, and then about
53:01
Speaker 3: seven years ago we saw the kiosk be put into
53:04
Speaker 3: the into the counseling room. It had a camera on,
53:07
Speaker 3: it was all wired up, the blood pressure cuff, you know,
53:10
Speaker 3: was there, everything in the seat. And then therefore it
53:13
Speaker 3: you didn't have to frighten per se the older patient
53:17
Speaker 3: that it made it feel like it was a very
53:19
Speaker 3: healthcare driven transaction and they didn't have to fire up
53:24
Speaker 3: their phone or anything. They just sat in the room.
53:25
Speaker 3: The door was shut. Either a technician set in with
53:28
Speaker 3: them if they wanted or it didn't, you know, what
53:30
Speaker 3: was ever was happening. They went through kind of the
53:33
Speaker 3: and then that way the entity was being paid for
53:36
Speaker 3: the services the physician that came online, and then the
53:40
Speaker 3: prescription was sent right to the you know, to the
53:42
Speaker 3: pharmacy that they choose. And the first one that came
53:45
Speaker 3: up on the list was the pharmacy they're sitting in.
53:47
Speaker 3: So it's like it there was that model. Then there's
53:50
Speaker 3: the model where we're hearing pharmacy partnering with nurse practitioners
53:57
Speaker 3: or hiring a nurse practitioner and grow services that are
54:01
Speaker 3: desperately needed probably in the in the community anyway. And
54:04
Speaker 3: it doesn't fit to everything, but it fits like eighty
54:07
Speaker 3: percent of you know what prescriptions will trickle down, and
54:11
Speaker 3: so yeah, I think you're onto something and layering what
54:14
Speaker 3: you've built so that you can stay profitable and keep growing.
54:18
Speaker 3: I want to see that happen because I want to
54:20
Speaker 3: see I want to see the cash based freedom model.
54:23
Speaker 3: It's freedom to just keep growing throughout the nation. I
54:27
Speaker 3: want to see it disrupt so badly that it's going
54:30
Speaker 3: to force, you know, the the insurance companies to pivot
54:34
Speaker 3: or do something different that brings things back to at
54:38
Speaker 3: least a middle point, you know, of the way it
54:42
Speaker 3: was twenty years ago.
54:44
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And and you know one of the
54:48
Speaker 4: things that's that's crazy to me about where it's headed,
54:51
Speaker 4: you know, trump our X. I don't know if you
54:53
Speaker 4: look at that very much, but that's a bizarre one.
54:56
Speaker 4: To me because Amazon is kind of the elephant in
54:59
Speaker 4: the room with this cash pay thing, and Amazon is
55:04
Speaker 4: now the top of like every search on trump our
55:06
Speaker 4: x because they have the membership model on top of it,
55:10
Speaker 4: and they have they have their I forget what their
55:14
Speaker 4: their prescriber offices are called, but you know, they're they're
55:17
Speaker 4: kind of exploding everywhere. So I'm really interested to see
55:20
Speaker 4: where they where they take everything they you know, they're
55:24
Speaker 4: pushing all directions at all times. Amazon is, you know,
55:28
Speaker 4: so we'll be We'll be really interested to see They
55:30
Speaker 4: started as the cash only and then they added the
55:32
Speaker 4: insurance and that just is a complication that I don't
55:35
Speaker 4: think most people appreciate even at that scale. So we'll
55:38
Speaker 4: see how that how that shacks out for them. But
55:41
Speaker 4: they're definitely between them and Mark Cuban, the big shots
55:46
Speaker 4: are are here and the benefits of the cost plus
55:50
Speaker 4: model and the cash pay models. So I think we're
55:52
Speaker 4: going to be seeing some some big.
55:53
Speaker 3: Steps absolutely, And we see that the local independent community
55:58
Speaker 3: of pharmacy is leveraging that relationship and that knowledge and
56:01
Speaker 3: that trust that they're part of the community and that
56:04
Speaker 3: still holds weight, That still holds especially if you can
56:07
Speaker 3: back it up with some patient savings and some other
56:10
Speaker 3: programs that are that they're needing anyway. They need womb care,
56:14
Speaker 3: they need like I was saying, contraception or skincare, whatever
56:18
Speaker 3: it is. But this has been awesome. I could talk
56:21
Speaker 3: to you for hours. We're out of time here on twerqus,
56:24
Speaker 3: but promise me you're going to come back. Maybe we'll
56:26
Speaker 3: get a panel discussion of the top ten cash based
56:31
Speaker 3: pharmacies throughout the nation, and let's do I want to
56:34
Speaker 3: do some cheerleading for you guys, because you're you're doing
56:37
Speaker 3: work that's changing lives and it's changing it's changing markets,
56:42
Speaker 3: and it's trickling. Right now, it's just this slow little drip,
56:46
Speaker 3: but I guess what the river's coming and it's going
56:50
Speaker 3: to be reckoning. So it's it's exciting to see you succeed.
56:53
Speaker 3: I'm a huge fan. Thank you so much for coming
56:56
Speaker 3: on twerks.
56:57
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, thank you for having me and love loved
57:00
Speaker 4: the chat and can't wait to hear more.
57:02
Speaker 3: Hey, shout out where people can follow you on the
57:05
Speaker 3: platforms too.
57:07
Speaker 4: Yeah, we're at Forest Park Farm on everything, forest Park Pharmacy,
57:12
Speaker 4: maybe on X but yep, Forest Park Farm and where everywhere.
57:17
Speaker 4: Instagram actually banned me. I didn't mention that earlier. Way. Yeah,
57:22
Speaker 4: it was crazy, no warnings whatsoever. Just when day I
57:24
Speaker 4: woke up and it was like, you know, this video
57:27
Speaker 4: is deleted, this video is to deleted, this video is deleted.
57:30
Speaker 4: Your band like one thing. Yeah, it was crazy and
57:33
Speaker 4: I can't get it back. I don't know what, but
57:35
Speaker 4: so don't look for me on Instagram, but everywhere else.
57:38
Speaker 3: We've heard that so many times with certified people that
57:43
Speaker 3: were talking about things that were actual but absolutely factual,
57:47
Speaker 3: and they get banned from a platform because there's either
57:50
Speaker 3: an algorithm or somebody that doesn't understand what's being said
57:54
Speaker 3: and they think it goes against the guidelines, and it's
57:57
Speaker 3: it's a public disservice in my opinion.
58:00
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Yeah, a robot ban me.
58:03
Speaker 3: So whatever, jeez, all right, we'll be right back with
58:05
Speaker 3: more twerks.
58:06
Speaker 4: Hang on.
58:12
Speaker 5: As frontline healthcare providers, pharmacists like you understand the importance
58:16
Speaker 5: of personalized care, especially in acute pain management. Euryal Pharma
58:20
Speaker 5: is dedicated to providing high quality, generic products tailored to
58:24
Speaker 5: meet your patient's needs. The company aims to serve a
58:28
Speaker 5: diverse range of patient populations, including athletes recovering from intense training,
58:33
Speaker 5: weekend warriors managing minor injuries, and those seeking a practical
58:37
Speaker 5: and mess free option for acute pain management. Keep your
58:40
Speaker 5: all in your toolbox of pain management options and join
58:43
Speaker 5: the ranks of pharmacists leading away in personalized care. To
58:47
Speaker 5: learn more about Euryal Pharma and its products, including full
58:51
Speaker 5: prescribing information, boxed warnings, and important safety information, visit Eurylpharma
58:57
Speaker 5: dot com That's why aurl Pharma dot com and connect
59:02
Speaker 5: with them on LinkedIn.
59:08
Speaker 3: Hey, welcome back to twerks this week in Pharmacy. Excited
59:12
Speaker 3: to be here with doctor Klobe Burns and doctor Andy
59:16
Speaker 3: Kurt farm D's and we're going to be jumping into
59:19
Speaker 3: the subject of psychedelics. But Andy, you are no new
59:23
Speaker 3: guide to the pharmacy podcast network. What was your experience before?
59:28
Speaker 6: Oh it was great. I was here a little while
59:30
Speaker 6: ago talking about a survey that we're doing with the PPA.
59:33
Speaker 4: So glad to be back.
59:35
Speaker 1: Thank you for coming back.
59:37
Speaker 3: Kloby, you and I have been connected for on LinkedIn,
59:41
Speaker 3: I don't know over ten years. I've been a fan
59:43
Speaker 3: of yours and your research into the world of psychedelics,
59:47
Speaker 3: and I'm very proud to have you here on twerks.
59:49
Speaker 1: This will not be your last time, sir.
59:52
Speaker 7: Well, thank you. It's really good to be here. Todd
59:55
Speaker 7: and we have we have connected in the past. I
59:56
Speaker 7: don't think we've met in person. I'm on the West coast,
59:59
Speaker 7: but on these days in person, you.
1:00:01
Speaker 3: Know, we're going to get to a pharmacy conference and
1:00:03
Speaker 3: we're going to definitely spend some time together digging into
1:00:07
Speaker 3: something that's fascinating all you see Berkeley News. This wasn't
1:00:13
Speaker 3: this week in Pharmacy. This was actually a couple of
1:00:15
Speaker 3: weeks ago. But the article's titled tripping into Old Age?
1:00:20
Speaker 3: Can Psychedelics Protect the Aging Brain? And the reason why
1:00:26
Speaker 3: I not so much the article itself because I didn't
1:00:29
Speaker 3: get a chance to really dive into it. But what
1:00:31
Speaker 3: was I what I was excited about is when this
1:00:34
Speaker 3: becomes a science that is protected by evidence based study,
1:00:40
Speaker 3: and now it's placed back into the hands of our
1:00:42
Speaker 3: physicians and it's back backed up. The therapy is backed
1:00:47
Speaker 3: up by a pharmacist who actually understands how psychedelics are
1:00:51
Speaker 3: impacting a person's brain and metabolization and the whole science
1:00:57
Speaker 3: of behind it that you've always worked in the realm
1:01:00
Speaker 3: of pharma pharmacological stuff. But Coleby, give us an opening,
1:01:07
Speaker 3: what's the state of the nation of psychedelics in medicine.
1:01:11
Speaker 2: Well, that's a good question.
1:01:12
Speaker 7: There's been a lot of progress in this area and
1:01:15
Speaker 7: a lot of enthusiasm for sure in the last three
1:01:18
Speaker 7: to five years. I would say my area background is
1:01:23
Speaker 7: as a military veteran. I was the division officer of
1:01:27
Speaker 7: the outpatient pharmacy at Campea June, North Carolina, which is
1:01:31
Speaker 7: one of the largest military treatment facilities in the country,
1:01:36
Speaker 7: and veteran population experience as a rate of PTSD, as
1:01:41
Speaker 7: we know, that's much higher than the general public, Major
1:01:44
Speaker 7: depressive disorder, anxiety disorders, sleep disorders, all kind of tie
1:01:48
Speaker 7: under that umbrella as well. And we see that there
1:01:52
Speaker 7: is a need for alternative therapies for veterans and even
1:01:57
Speaker 7: maybe some are active duty personnel if this is something
1:01:59
Speaker 7: that's ever opened up to them. I felt that the
1:02:03
Speaker 7: care that was being delivered. Not to say anything about
1:02:08
Speaker 7: the individual providers, I don't mean to knock any healthcare
1:02:12
Speaker 7: providers or clinicians, but the actual options that were providing
1:02:17
Speaker 7: to our veterans. To me, are not satisfactory for the
1:02:20
Speaker 7: most part. We know that with PTSD only about fifty
1:02:25
Speaker 7: percent or less even while respond to conventional approaches. You know,
1:02:30
Speaker 7: if you look at specifically a veteran population, the response
1:02:33
Speaker 7: rate is less than fifty percent. We're talking more like
1:02:35
Speaker 7: thirty percent. That even the VA recognizes in its official
1:02:39
Speaker 7: documents that there is not good outcomes for veterans obtaining
1:02:44
Speaker 7: care for PTSD. So that really launched my interest into
1:02:48
Speaker 7: this whole science, which has been around since the nineteen sixties,
1:02:54
Speaker 7: even the fifties, if you go back far enough, a
1:02:57
Speaker 7: lot of this was buried by regular changes and policy changes.
1:03:01
Speaker 7: We saw the War on Drugs under Richard Nixon in
1:03:05
Speaker 7: the seventies led to outlawing, you know, many of these substances,
1:03:08
Speaker 7: putting them under Schedule one status. But there was this
1:03:13
Speaker 7: sort of renaissance that's taken place in the last ten
1:03:16
Speaker 7: or fifteen years that's brought see substances back to the
1:03:20
Speaker 7: forefront of medicine and people are increasingly seeing them as
1:03:25
Speaker 7: legitimate therapeutic options. We're seeing more clinical trials perhaps than
1:03:30
Speaker 7: ever before on psychedelic substances. So definitely an area that
1:03:35
Speaker 7: a lot of people I think are interested in. Does
1:03:37
Speaker 7: seem like there's still some lingering stigma, especially among people
1:03:42
Speaker 7: that have medical licenses, because we're still talking largely about
1:03:46
Speaker 7: substances that are illegal, and certainly neither Andy or Eye
1:03:51
Speaker 7: are here to say that people should be taking this
1:03:55
Speaker 7: substance or make any kind of stance or argument about
1:03:58
Speaker 7: federal policy. We're just here to talk about the science
1:04:01
Speaker 7: and about our organization specifically.
1:04:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, excited to have you both here. Andy, It's great
1:04:08
Speaker 3: to connect with you again. I've been watching you and
1:04:12
Speaker 3: stalking you both on LinkedIn some post stuff. I'm excited
1:04:16
Speaker 3: to kind of get an update. So the frustration from
1:04:21
Speaker 3: my perspective as the consumer, and when I talk to
1:04:25
Speaker 3: lay people, talk to people that aren't pharmacists or pharmacy technicians,
1:04:31
Speaker 3: people were like, you're a pharmacist, and I'm like, no, no, no,
1:04:33
Speaker 3: I just hang out with pharmacists so much in text
1:04:35
Speaker 3: that I can speak to speak. But something that frustrates
1:04:39
Speaker 3: me is when pharmacists have been talking about things in psychedelics,
1:04:45
Speaker 3: specifically the endocannabinoid system and cannabis and THHD and the
1:04:50
Speaker 3: balance of CBD and the difference and where it could
1:04:53
Speaker 3: be applied and topicals, and so they've been talking about
1:04:58
Speaker 3: this for twenty years. Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert, both
1:05:04
Speaker 3: both psychologists, Doctor Leary, doctor Albert, were part of enormous
1:05:09
Speaker 3: amounts of research money in the nineteen sixties that really
1:05:13
Speaker 3: started to dig into trauma depression, PTSD, alcoholism.
1:05:19
Speaker 1: And how.
1:05:22
Speaker 4: Is that the.
1:05:25
Speaker 3: Substance is called psilocybin within the psychedelic world. Okay, so yeah,
1:05:31
Speaker 3: so psilocybin was being put into different experiments.
1:05:37
Speaker 1: Why do you think.
1:05:39
Speaker 3: On both sides, marijuana, psychedelics, acupuncture, Why are there aspects
1:05:49
Speaker 3: of medicine from your perspective, that never get the attention
1:05:54
Speaker 3: that they that they should get until finally it just
1:05:56
Speaker 3: becomes too a pair and by too many people that
1:06:02
Speaker 3: are qualified to to make claims and studies, then of
1:06:06
Speaker 3: course are being attracted.
1:06:07
Speaker 1: But give me your opinion on that.
1:06:14
Speaker 7: Well, that's a very broad question. I think, Uh, it's
1:06:18
Speaker 7: it's hard to answer because.
1:06:21
Speaker 2: It's hard.
1:06:22
Speaker 7: There maybe isn't a clear answer, to be honest, I
1:06:24
Speaker 7: do think that there's always there's always some stigma and uh,
1:06:28
Speaker 7: and some of that stigma I think is rooted in
1:06:30
Speaker 7: just conceptions about how medicine, I guess is supposed to
1:06:36
Speaker 7: work some of it, maybe as we don't understand how
1:06:41
Speaker 7: acupuncture works, that people are not informed, they don't read
1:06:44
Speaker 7: the scientific literature, And even with the psychedelics, I think
1:06:47
Speaker 7: there only recently has kind of been this understanding of
1:06:50
Speaker 7: the functional the default note network excuse me, which is
1:06:54
Speaker 7: believed to turn off when somebody is in a high
1:06:58
Speaker 7: dose psychedelic experience, and that kind of shuts off an
1:07:02
Speaker 7: area of the frontal cortex that regulates the ego of
1:07:05
Speaker 7: the personality and allows them to be a part of
1:07:09
Speaker 7: a collective experience. People report these experiences of feeling like
1:07:15
Speaker 7: they're more connected than ever before, to the earth, to
1:07:19
Speaker 7: a community, to a communal consciousness, which is a difficult
1:07:25
Speaker 7: concept even to define. What is consciousness? I mean, what
1:07:28
Speaker 7: are we even talking about?
1:07:29
Speaker 1: Yep.
1:07:30
Speaker 7: So these are really abstract concepts for one that I
1:07:33
Speaker 7: don't think fits into a narrative of objective science the
1:07:40
Speaker 7: way we understand it. So I think that's part of it,
1:07:43
Speaker 7: but there might be other explanations as well.
1:07:46
Speaker 3: I always like to hear from people that are in it,
1:07:49
Speaker 3: who really believe the science and the research, and you're
1:07:52
Speaker 3: doing research, you're seeing application part of it, getting accepted
1:07:57
Speaker 3: is being able to bring people together that are scientists,
1:08:02
Speaker 3: that are physicians and pharmacists to come together and give
1:08:06
Speaker 3: each other information and that's exciting. Talk to us, Kurt,
1:08:12
Speaker 3: talk to us about the Psychedelic Pharmacists Foundation. Andy, give
1:08:20
Speaker 3: us an overview of this.
1:08:22
Speaker 6: Sure, So it's going to be the education side of
1:08:26
Speaker 6: the PPA. It's launching on June twentieth, so that's pretty exciting.
1:08:31
Speaker 6: That's just coming up this weekend, and it's really going
1:08:34
Speaker 6: to dig into some of the really important missions to
1:08:38
Speaker 6: the PPA, but do it in a way that we
1:08:42
Speaker 6: can do that five oh one C three. Status also
1:08:45
Speaker 6: really excited about educating folks and collaborating with other organizations
1:08:51
Speaker 6: to bring that education to as many people as we can.
1:08:54
Speaker 6: Did you have anything else to add in there, Koby.
1:08:57
Speaker 7: Well, June twentieth, there's World Psychedelics Days, so we're timing
1:09:00
Speaker 7: the launch of the foundation for that day. And this
1:09:04
Speaker 7: has been something that it's been the works for a
1:09:06
Speaker 7: long time, so we're excited for advancing this.
1:09:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, the art of public relations and insight and curiosity
1:09:17
Speaker 3: and communications is different for the medical professional that wants
1:09:24
Speaker 3: their career to last and they want to be connected
1:09:27
Speaker 3: and they want to be respected, backed by science, backed
1:09:31
Speaker 3: by evidence. Even if you disagree, I want I'm actually
1:09:34
Speaker 3: I love listening to podcasts where we have providers that
1:09:37
Speaker 3: are respectfully disagreeing with each other on different concepts because
1:09:40
Speaker 3: it helps you to stretch on either side of that
1:09:43
Speaker 3: so you can really invest in continuing education on that subject.
1:09:51
Speaker 3: So talk to us about the opportunity. So we if
1:09:56
Speaker 3: we're a pharmacist, we're very interested in this. We join
1:09:59
Speaker 3: the psychede Like Pharmacists Foundation. What are your plans for
1:10:03
Speaker 3: the interconnection, not only the national presence, but also in
1:10:07
Speaker 3: your own state. What are you guys planning to do?
1:10:12
Speaker 7: Every state is kind of approaching this differently. At this point,
1:10:16
Speaker 7: we have very much a patchwork network of state regulations
1:10:20
Speaker 7: and regulations, and it's interesting. I know, Ben Malcolm with
1:10:24
Speaker 7: a spirit pharmacist. He mentioned to me that, you know,
1:10:28
Speaker 7: this is the great thing about democracy is that.
1:10:34
Speaker 1: Sorry, oh.
1:10:38
Speaker 7: Really, states are rolling out with all of their own
1:10:40
Speaker 7: individual policies, which you know is exciting depending on how
1:10:46
Speaker 7: you think about it. You know, states are kind of
1:10:47
Speaker 7: the laboratories of democracy and our constitutional model where states
1:10:53
Speaker 7: are allowed to experiment a lot and try new things
1:10:55
Speaker 7: and that's confusing maybe to someone who's from Europe or
1:10:58
Speaker 7: not in the United States, but that's the way we've
1:11:00
Speaker 7: chosen to address this so far. So we're getting all
1:11:03
Speaker 7: these little experiments like Oregon being the first state to
1:11:06
Speaker 7: really roll out psilocybin for medicinal use, and they've had
1:11:11
Speaker 7: some challenges with that and there's some maybe areas they
1:11:14
Speaker 7: could do better, and other states are going to copy
1:11:17
Speaker 7: that and continue to move forward. I begain is one
1:11:21
Speaker 7: that really has become popular among different states around the
1:11:25
Speaker 7: country in terms of advancing research on IB again, but
1:11:30
Speaker 7: I don't want to spend too much time talking about
1:11:32
Speaker 7: that today, but definitely there's a lot of policy initiatives
1:11:35
Speaker 7: at the state level, and we're just trying to plug
1:11:37
Speaker 7: in with the Psychedelic Farms associations so we can share experts,
1:11:42
Speaker 7: kind of testimony and provide scientific evidence for policy makers
1:11:49
Speaker 7: and for key decision makers, because we don't necessarily say
1:11:53
Speaker 7: that again we're here to lobby one way or another
1:11:56
Speaker 7: on a specific issue, but we want to make sure
1:11:58
Speaker 7: people are informed about the shoes.
1:12:02
Speaker 3: Andy, what are you seeing at the state level and
1:12:05
Speaker 3: acceptance and people talking about another pharmacist interest. Are you
1:12:09
Speaker 3: seeing an opportunity, let's say two to five years into
1:12:14
Speaker 3: the future. Is there an opportunity for for the future
1:12:17
Speaker 3: pharmacist to become an expert in the science of how
1:12:21
Speaker 3: to apply the psychedelic you know, component of microdosing or
1:12:28
Speaker 3: however it works. But what do you think about that?
1:12:30
Speaker 6: No, I think that there's roles. Now as we move
1:12:34
Speaker 6: into a broader community, I think we'll we'll see especially
1:12:39
Speaker 6: movement into specialty because we think these uh, these you know,
1:12:44
Speaker 6: entities that are on the horizon of potentially seeing FDA
1:12:47
Speaker 6: approval will probably see some sort of rens to follow
1:12:50
Speaker 6: up with it. If we had to venture a guest,
1:12:53
Speaker 6: we don't know until it comes out. So there's definitely
1:12:55
Speaker 6: gonna be pharmacist roles. And the p p A is
1:12:58
Speaker 6: very passionate about advocating for that pharmacist role there. The
1:13:01
Speaker 6: PPF is going to be more so that we can
1:13:04
Speaker 6: talk about the science of psychedelics and really inform whomever
1:13:08
Speaker 6: needs to be informed about how those are working in
1:13:10
Speaker 6: language that they can understand, which is what pharmacists do best.
1:13:15
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Amen.
1:13:17
Speaker 3: So there are associations, there are conferences that are already
1:13:22
Speaker 3: out there that are touching on this Pain Week. For example,
1:13:27
Speaker 3: doctor Mark Garrow Fully, he's known as the pain Guy
1:13:30
Speaker 3: and he he, you know, has done so much work
1:13:38
Speaker 3: just in pain that now he's being asked to speak
1:13:42
Speaker 3: at the Pain Week, which brings all these pain specialists together,
1:13:45
Speaker 3: whether it's a physician or somebody in surgery or chiropractors
1:13:51
Speaker 3: or whatever it is. But what an opportunity to show
1:13:54
Speaker 3: leadership in how medication is impacting you know, different types
1:13:59
Speaker 3: of pain, different you know, what you're going through. I
1:14:03
Speaker 3: see no different in that Colby than with psychedelics and
1:14:07
Speaker 3: having a pharmacist.
1:14:09
Speaker 1: Know, hey, here's the situation.
1:14:12
Speaker 3: This woman just had a baby and and she's she's
1:14:17
Speaker 3: six weeks into being a new mom, and she's going
1:14:19
Speaker 3: through massive depression. Okay, that's a real thing. How could
1:14:24
Speaker 3: science that has been you know, people have been doing
1:14:28
Speaker 3: research specifically on that. And now you have a pharmacist
1:14:32
Speaker 3: that could say to the to the family, to the husband,
1:14:35
Speaker 3: to the counselor hey, let's do a microdose of the
1:14:39
Speaker 3: bloo but he blah and you know the substance, and
1:14:41
Speaker 3: let's make their sure that she's doing this, this and this,
1:14:43
Speaker 3: and start out real slow and then see how that
1:14:46
Speaker 3: changes you know that experience as a new mom, So
1:14:49
Speaker 3: I I can't wait to hear from you guys on
1:14:51
Speaker 3: on what you're working on. Give give us a little
1:14:54
Speaker 3: piece of steak here, and give us something that is happening,
1:14:57
Speaker 3: like anything that you you hear that's percolating out there.
1:15:01
Speaker 3: Koby is an exciting application.
1:15:05
Speaker 7: Well, one of the biggest well, I should say one
1:15:10
Speaker 7: of the drugs is for this along right now in
1:15:12
Speaker 7: the clinical review process is COMP three sixty, which is
1:15:17
Speaker 7: a particular psilocybin product that's been marketed by Compass Pathways
1:15:21
Speaker 7: and that is hopefully going to be approved by the
1:15:25
Speaker 7: FDA perhaps this year. It's been granted priority review status
1:15:30
Speaker 7: and President Trump has made it a priority, you know,
1:15:33
Speaker 7: through an executive board came out a couple months ago
1:15:37
Speaker 7: to really try to get these products out to market faster,
1:15:41
Speaker 7: recognizing an area of unmet need for patients and mental
1:15:45
Speaker 7: health space. So this particular product does seem to have
1:15:48
Speaker 7: a lot of promise for treatment resistant depression.
1:15:50
Speaker 2: I see the website is up on.
1:15:53
Speaker 7: Screen, but we're looking forward to that potentially being approved
1:15:58
Speaker 7: and really trainings is going to be a very critical
1:16:02
Speaker 7: piece of this process. The psychedelic Pharmacis Association. Actually it
1:16:06
Speaker 7: applied for a training grant with Compass Pathways to help
1:16:10
Speaker 7: to provide area of expertise to clinical sites to really
1:16:14
Speaker 7: get providers more comfortable with using these products and working
1:16:19
Speaker 7: with someone having a psychedic experience. You know, that a
1:16:25
Speaker 7: lot of competitive space for that grant, so fortunately didn't
1:16:29
Speaker 7: get it. But I think there's more opportunity really to
1:16:31
Speaker 7: provide training, not just to advance it needs a particular product,
1:16:37
Speaker 7: but really understand for sites like how to implement.
1:16:42
Speaker 2: Using a psychedelic substance.
1:16:46
Speaker 3: So I'm not sure. I can't remember if I've introduced
1:16:51
Speaker 3: you or not, Colby, but have you heard of doctor
1:16:56
Speaker 3: Korn and doctor Fisher Coorn. They're a married couple out
1:17:00
Speaker 3: of the state of New York and they have been
1:17:03
Speaker 3: researchers of cannabis in application in different research or different tests.
1:17:12
Speaker 3: But do you know the Corns, Stephen and Meredith up
1:17:14
Speaker 3: there in New York? Now, Okay, so the Corns they've
1:17:22
Speaker 3: done this. Like I said, actually it's been over twenty
1:17:24
Speaker 3: almost twenty five years, and the course is now accepted
1:17:28
Speaker 3: in I want to say twenty four of our fifty
1:17:31
Speaker 3: states as the provider's course for the entry into different
1:17:37
Speaker 3: different applications of cannabis in in education. So what excites
1:17:43
Speaker 3: me about that is now it's getting massive attention at
1:17:46
Speaker 3: the state level health and human services in each of
1:17:49
Speaker 3: those states and now connecting to the corns for follow
1:17:52
Speaker 3: up education application to specific issues. I want to see
1:17:56
Speaker 3: this happen in pharmacy, in pharmacists. Pharmacists are now kind
1:18:01
Speaker 3: of like leading the coupling of all of that because
1:18:05
Speaker 3: it's it's other association. It's the politics of it, it's
1:18:09
Speaker 3: the expertise, it's the data follow up, it's it's reaching
1:18:12
Speaker 3: out when a state representative reaches out to the association
1:18:15
Speaker 3: say hey, we'd like some quality information on this, this
1:18:18
Speaker 3: and this.
1:18:19
Speaker 1: That's exciting.
1:18:20
Speaker 3: So that's why I want to get more attention around
1:18:23
Speaker 3: what you're doing, uh, the Psychedelic Pharmacist Foundation, And then
1:18:29
Speaker 3: we have to have both of you back. We want
1:18:31
Speaker 3: you to dial into some maybe application discussions, maybe something
1:18:35
Speaker 3: in depression or mental health or something. But promise, promise
1:18:39
Speaker 3: us you're going to be back on twerks.
1:18:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for thanks for having us Todd.
1:18:46
Speaker 1: All right, Andy, we're.
1:18:47
Speaker 2: Looking forward to collaborating more.
1:18:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, you are a two timer. You'll be a three timer.
1:18:51
Speaker 3: We'll just keep this gone.
1:18:53
Speaker 6: All right, sounds good.
1:18:55
Speaker 1: Hey, we'll be right back with more twerks.