Latest / Pharmacy Podcast Network / 2026 Cencora ThoughtSpot Rewind | Part Four
Transcript
- 0:05Speaker 1: You are listening to the global network of podcasters dedicated
- 0:09Speaker 1: to the pharmacy profession.
- 0:10Speaker 2: Welcome to the Pharmacy Podcast Network.
- 0:13Speaker 3: Welcome to the 2026 Sankora ThoughtSpot Rewind.
- 0:30Speaker 4: Hosted by Todd Urie, founder and CEO of the Pharmacy
- 0:34Speaker 4: Podcast Network. Embedded in the Outcomes booth, this is your
- 0:38Speaker 4: direct line into one of the biggest pharmacy events of
- 0:41Speaker 4: the year. You'll hear interviews from real pharmacy owners, keynote speakers,
- 0:46Speaker 4: first-time podcasters, and more, only on the Pharmacy Podcast Network,
- 0:51Speaker 4: made possible by the support of our sponsor, Outcomes.
- 0:58Speaker 5: Hey, Mike, it's good to see you here at ThoughtSpot 2026.
- 1:01Speaker 5: It's been just a bunch of energy here.
- 1:05Speaker 6: How's this conference going for you?
- 1:07Speaker 2: The conference is going good.
- 1:08Speaker 3: I'm enjoying seeing all the different vendors, exhibitors here, trying
- 1:11Speaker 3: to get new ideas for things, kind of seeing where
- 1:14Speaker 3: pharmacy is going too. It's always good to re-energize with
- 1:19Speaker 3: other pharmacists and people that are passionate about pharmacy to
- 1:24Speaker 3: keep it going because it is one of those– Things
- 1:27Speaker 3: that is almost dying just because of reimbursement rates and stuff.
- 1:30Speaker 2: Right.
- 1:30Speaker 3: So we're always trying to find the next thing. And like,
- 1:33Speaker 3: how do we better serve our patients? Because every pharmacist
- 1:34Speaker 3: that goes to pharmacy school does it for their patients.
- 1:37Speaker 2: Right.
- 1:38Speaker 3: And so if you're not able to take care of
- 1:39Speaker 3: your patients, it's like, what do you do? And then
- 1:41Speaker 3: you see them close and they're looking for something like, man,
- 1:44Speaker 3: I'm sorry, I can't help you. Like, but this is
- 1:46Speaker 3: all we have.
- 1:47Speaker 2: Right.
- 1:47Speaker 3: And so that's why I'm always looking for the different
- 1:49Speaker 3: things to do.
- 1:50Speaker 5: Well, I think of pharmacy, especially our independent community, in
- 1:55Speaker 5: two sides. I think of the medication management, which involves
- 2:00Speaker 5: like a dispensing fee. But then I think of the
- 2:02Speaker 5: new opportunities that are bringing in clinical services and being
- 2:07Speaker 5: more proactive in their health. And your pharmacy has been
- 2:10Speaker 5: extremely successful in the proactive side when you're using functional
- 2:16Speaker 5: medicine and you're using the supplement side to really not
- 2:19Speaker 5: only grow your business, obviously, but more importantly, you're taking
- 2:22Speaker 5: care of your patients who who are you know you
- 2:25Speaker 5: go to amazon or you go to google and you
- 2:27Speaker 5: start trying to find something and it's hit or miss
- 2:30Speaker 5: of what you're doing you come to the pharmacy and
- 2:32Speaker 5: you say listen i am having trouble sleeping or i'm
- 2:36Speaker 5: having digestive problems now all of a sudden the pharmacist
- 2:40Speaker 5: eyes light up because they're like dude like we're going
- 2:42Speaker 5: to take you over to this let's talk about these
- 2:44Speaker 5: supplements talk to me about.
- 2:45Speaker 6: That environment from your pharmacy perspective.
- 2:48Speaker 3: Yeah, so I remember when I first opened up the pharmacy,
- 2:50Speaker 3: so we're a compound cash only pharmacy in Harlingen, Texas,
- 2:53Speaker 3: which Harlingen is like, or in the Rio Grande Valley,
- 2:56Speaker 3: is like one of the five poorest regions in.
- 3:00Speaker 2: The United States, right?
- 3:01Speaker 3: So when I told people I was going to do
- 3:03Speaker 3: a compound cash only pharmacy, they were like, it'll never work.
- 3:06Speaker 2: Here we are six years later, and it's still working, right?
- 3:10Speaker 3: So we focus in a lot of hormones, but then
- 3:12Speaker 3: we also look at a lot of different things, right? So,
- 3:15Speaker 3: you know, a lot of functional medicine providers out there,
- 3:17Speaker 3: they'll say, well, I do functional medicine, but all they
- 3:18Speaker 3: do is hormones, right? They're just looking at testosterone, estrogen, progesterone.
- 3:23Speaker 3: And then they used some supplements, adrenal insufficiency, very few.
- 3:27Speaker 3: But so when we started looking at everything, we're like, no,
- 3:30Speaker 3: let's look at the whole patient, right, and try and
- 3:32Speaker 3: figure out what's going on with them. And so once
- 3:35Speaker 3: we started treating patients with high homocysteine levels, right, so,
- 3:40Speaker 3: you know, we'll talk about homocysteine. Homocysteine is one of
- 3:42Speaker 3: those blood markers that there was an Anhein study that
- 3:45Speaker 3: was done in 2024 that came out that showed homocysteine
- 3:48Speaker 3: Patients that have a homocysteine above 12 have a 67%
- 3:53Speaker 3: mortality risk of cardiovascular disease than those that have those
- 3:56Speaker 3: under 8, right? And so, but when you look at
- 3:59Speaker 3: the reference range of homocysteine, it goes from 5 to 15.
- 4:03Speaker 2: So a lot of my providers are like, oh, the
- 4:05Speaker 2: patients out of.
- 4:05Speaker 3: 14, they're okay. They're in the normal range. And I'm like, yeah,
- 4:09Speaker 3: but what's the optimal range? They're like, well, what are
- 4:12Speaker 3: you talking about? So then I bring up this study
- 4:14Speaker 3: and created a presentation I can share with you. You
- 4:16Speaker 3: can share with your listeners. I share with them, and
- 4:18Speaker 3: they're like, what the hell? Like, am I doing this
- 4:21Speaker 3: for my patients?
- 4:21Speaker 2: I'm like, no.
- 4:23Speaker 3: And I go, I'll bet you anything most of your
- 4:25Speaker 3: patients that have this have some genetic SNPs, which we're
- 4:27Speaker 3: not even going to look at those genetics, but we can.
- 4:30Speaker 3: And I go, most of them have high blood pressure.
- 4:32Speaker 3: Most of them have high cholesterol. We start looking at
- 4:35Speaker 3: their blood pressure and sharing that they're like, man, you
- 4:37Speaker 3: know what? They're on three different blood pressure meds, right?
- 4:40Speaker 2: And then they're like.
- 4:42Speaker 3: Their blood pressure is still like 135 over 88, and
- 4:45Speaker 3: that's low.
- 4:45Speaker 2: And I'm like, we can get it lower.
- 4:48Speaker 3: So we'll start them on a methylated B vitamin, right,
- 4:52Speaker 3: a couple other things, and we're able to drop their
- 4:55Speaker 3: blood pressures, usually within about a month or two, to
- 4:58Speaker 3: like right now we have one gentleman.
- 5:00Speaker 2: He came in.
- 5:00Speaker 3: He was on three different medications for blood pressure, and
- 5:04Speaker 3: now he's on one, on half a dose of one
- 5:06Speaker 3: of the meds that he was taking, and he's on
- 5:09Speaker 3: that methylated B vitamin. His blood pressure right now is
- 5:11Speaker 3: hitting like 115 over 70. This guy is 70 years
- 5:15Speaker 3: old before he was on all these different meds, and
- 5:16Speaker 3: they told him, oh, no, you're going to be okay.
- 5:19Speaker 2: And he wasn't okay.
- 5:20Speaker 3: He was actually on the verge of having a cardiovascular
- 5:23Speaker 3: event because his homocysteine was at 24.
- 5:27Speaker 2: And we needed it under eight, right?
- 5:29Speaker 3: And so when he saw these things, and he was
- 5:31Speaker 3: seeing a top cardiologist from Houston and all these other things.
- 5:35Speaker 3: And he saw me just like, wow, this is crazy. Like,
- 5:37Speaker 3: this is a marker that's showing my risk. And I
- 5:40Speaker 3: feel something's off. But everything in my labs that the
- 5:44Speaker 3: doctors really look at, your lipid panel, you know. your A1C,
- 5:48Speaker 3: everything was normal in that sense. But when we looked
- 5:52Speaker 3: at other optimal levels, like even his CRP was a
- 5:55Speaker 3: little bit elevated, which CRP is for inflammation. Once we
- 5:58Speaker 3: got the blood pressure control, we got his homocysteine under control,
- 6:03Speaker 3: the guy's like, I'm good. He goes, this is the
- 6:06Speaker 3: best I've ever felt. You know, at 70 years old,
- 6:08Speaker 3: he's like, I'm going to be here for a lot longer, right?
- 6:11Speaker 5: Absolutely.
- 6:13Speaker 3: And then you start thinking about it. It's like, okay,
- 6:14Speaker 3: but what are, you know, as a pharmacy, how do
- 6:17Speaker 3: you make that change? And I'm like, well, look, you
- 6:20Speaker 3: can dispense, you know, hydrochlorothiazide, right? And the 30-day supply.
- 6:25Speaker 3: And maybe you're going to make 30 cents.
- 6:29Speaker 2: Maybe you're going to lose money. You never know, right?
- 6:31Speaker 7: True.
- 6:32Speaker 3: And I go, but I can sell him this methylated
- 6:33Speaker 3: B vitamin that's actually helping him and make.
- 6:36Speaker 2: $ 20 profit.
- 6:37Speaker 3: Wow.
- 6:38Speaker 8: Right?
- 6:38Speaker 2: It's just making that switch. And they're like, oh, well.
- 6:42Speaker 2: People aren't going to pay for it.
- 6:43Speaker 3: And I'm like, we're in one of the poorest regions
- 6:45Speaker 3: of the United States and we have people paying for
- 6:48Speaker 3: it because they care about their health. The whole thing
- 6:52Speaker 3: of being like, oh, the doctors know everything. I'm going
- 6:55Speaker 3: to listen to what the doctor says. A lot of
- 6:57Speaker 3: that is gone. And we have patients that are on
- 6:59Speaker 3: Medicaid that come to pay cash price. We have patients
- 7:02Speaker 3: that are on Medicare. They're like, I'm going to pay
- 7:03Speaker 3: the cash price because you know what? This stuff makes
- 7:06Speaker 3: them feel better than the other stuff.
- 7:07Speaker 5: Right.
- 7:08Speaker 9: Right.
- 7:09Speaker 3: So it's also telling the pharmacies, too, that, you know,
- 7:12Speaker 3: it's not about just dispensing and volume. It's all about
- 7:16Speaker 3: helping your patient. And, yes, you're going to be profitable
- 7:18Speaker 3: by making some of these simple changes. And, you know,
- 7:22Speaker 3: home assisting, a lot of people, like some of my providers,
- 7:23Speaker 3: are like, oh, it's an expensive test.
- 7:26Speaker 2: It's a $ 10 test. Yeah. You know, sometimes you get $ 20.
- 7:30Speaker 2: I mean, if you're paying more than $ 30 for a
- 7:31Speaker 2: homeless system, you're overpaying.
- 7:33Speaker 3: But yeah, it's not that much of a test. If
- 7:35Speaker 3: you do it in a big comprehensive test, you can
- 7:37Speaker 3: do a big comprehensive test for like $ 280, $ 300. But
- 7:40Speaker 3: you're looking at over 100 different biomarkers, right? And you
- 7:45Speaker 3: can do that with like Rupa Health, which is part
- 7:47Speaker 3: of Fullscript now. And there's a lot of other ways
- 7:50Speaker 3: to do it. And so I work with a lot
- 7:51Speaker 3: of providers too. And I tell them, hey, look, your
- 7:53Speaker 3: patient's asking for this. Will you run all these labs?
- 7:56Speaker 2: Yes, I'll run them.
- 7:57Speaker 3: They send them to me. I review them with the patient,
- 8:00Speaker 3: charge them a consultation fee.
- 8:01Speaker 2: And the patients do well.
- 8:02Speaker 3: But it's always really thinking differently than what traditional medicine
- 8:07Speaker 3: is doing. And honestly, 20 patients of mine are actually
- 8:12Speaker 3: physicians that are tired of traditional medicine. And they're looking
- 8:17Speaker 3: for something else. And so I'm just constantly always like, okay,
- 8:21Speaker 3: what can we do better? What can we do better?
- 8:22Speaker 3: How do we get more pharmacies to do this stuff, right?
- 8:26Speaker 3: And that's been the thing that I've been trying to
- 8:28Speaker 3: work on is like, how do I get this message
- 8:30Speaker 3: out there to all these pharmacists? And how do we
- 8:33Speaker 3: do this training to tell them like, look, I've been
- 8:36Speaker 3: doing this for this long.
- 8:37Speaker 2: How do I get you guys involved to do all
- 8:40Speaker 2: this stuff?
- 8:41Speaker 9: Yes.
- 8:41Speaker 2: Because it works.
- 8:42Speaker 3: And it's one of those things like I didn't know
- 8:44Speaker 3: if it was going to work. So why am I
- 8:45Speaker 3: going to go and tell people, oh, you need to
- 8:46Speaker 3: do this and it doesn't work?
- 8:49Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
- 8:50Speaker 3: And I don't want to be known as a guy that, oh,
- 8:52Speaker 3: he's teaching us all.
- 8:52Speaker 2: This and it doesn't work. No, I want it to work.
- 8:55Speaker 2: And so I've seen it in our clinic. I've seen
- 8:57Speaker 2: it work. So I know it's going to work, you know?
- 9:01Speaker 3: So yeah, I mean, with our pharmacy and different things,
- 9:04Speaker 3: you know, keeping track of what patients are doing, that's
- 9:06Speaker 3: exactly what I want.
- 9:07Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 9:08Speaker 2: This is good news.
- 9:09Speaker 6: This is very good news.
- 9:10Speaker 5: We appreciate that story because that really brings evidence to
- 9:16Speaker 5: that holistic approach, the supplements that can be better controlled.
- 9:20Speaker 5: And I don't want to spend money on supplements unless
- 9:23Speaker 5: they're going to work. And I don't, I don't like, I,
- 9:26Speaker 5: I take, what I would think is a higher quality
- 9:29Speaker 5: supplement on purpose. It was for a recommendation of a
- 9:32Speaker 5: pharmacist that I work.
- 9:33Speaker 6: With, what I love.
- 9:35Speaker 5: So your proactiveness is not only helping people live better,
- 9:39Speaker 5: live longer, live better lives, healthier lives, but that revenue
- 9:44Speaker 5: is so important for your pharmacy.
- 9:46Speaker 6: So This is good news, Mike. I really appreciate you
- 9:49Speaker 6: sharing this.
- 9:49Speaker 5: Hey, I want to give a shout out to Ashley Bishop,
- 9:52Speaker 5: one of my special friends. She's been one of the
- 9:54Speaker 5: greatest supporters of us in our podcast, and she's actually
- 9:57Speaker 5: one of your friends as well.
- 9:58Speaker 2: Yeah, no problem. Yeah, she's a great person. And, yeah,
- 10:01Speaker 2: I'm glad we got to connect again.
- 10:03Speaker 3: I know it's just short and sweet, and I know
- 10:04Speaker 3: we're supposed to work on something else.
- 10:06Speaker 5: Yeah, we will.
- 10:07Speaker 2: And all the other stuff.
- 10:08Speaker 3: But, yeah, you know, it's exciting when you start seeing
- 10:11Speaker 3: what we got going on and the things that are
- 10:14Speaker 3: changing and just the way you can get so much
- 10:17Speaker 3: information and out there to people.
- 10:21Speaker 2: And, you know, even looking at your.
- 10:23Speaker 3: AI bots and how do we incorporate AI into all
- 10:26Speaker 3: these things.
- 10:27Speaker 5: Yeah, embrace it and learn how to control it and
- 10:30Speaker 5: use it to your advantage for sure.
- 10:31Speaker 2: Exactly, 100%.
- 10:32Speaker 5: Mike, thanks for being here on ThoughtSpot 2026.
- 10:34Speaker 6: All right, great seeing you, Todd.
- 10:36Speaker 2: See you.
- 10:38Speaker 1: Pharmacy teams today are expected to do more than ever.
- 10:43Speaker 1: process prescriptions faster, manage growing workloads, navigate constant interruptions, and
- 10:49Speaker 1: still deliver exceptional patient care. That's why Outcomes is introducing
- 10:54Speaker 1: a new pharmacy experience across both Rx30 and Computer Rx,
- 10:59Speaker 1: designed to help pharmacies work smarter, move faster, and operate
- 11:03Speaker 1: with greater confidence. Rx30 delivers a modern, intuitive workflow with
- 11:09Speaker 1: streamlined navigation, guided processes, unified work queues, and automation that
- 11:14Speaker 1: reduces manual effort while preserving the trusted foundation pharmacies rely
- 11:19Speaker 1: on every day. At the same time, ComputerRx continues to
- 11:23Speaker 1: evolve with enhancements focused on performance, workflow efficiency, stability, and
- 11:28Speaker 1: practical automation that remove friction from daily operations. Together, these
- 11:34Speaker 1: investments are centered on a single goal, helping pharmacy teams
- 11:37Speaker 1: spend less time navigating software and more time focusing on patients.
- 11:42Speaker 1: Whether you're an Rx30 or computer Rx customer, you'll benefit
- 11:46Speaker 1: from a pharmacy experience designed around real-world workflows, reduced complexity,
- 11:51Speaker 1: improved efficiency, and continuous innovation. The future of pharmacy technology
- 11:57Speaker 1: is about changing how you work and making every step
- 12:00Speaker 1: work better along the way.
- 12:13Speaker 6: Tim Weber back on the pods.
- 12:16Speaker 5: It's so good to see you, Tim.
- 12:17Speaker 7: How are you?
- 12:17Speaker 10: I'm good, Todd.
- 12:19Speaker 6: Hey, you were on This Week in Pharmacy.
- 12:21Speaker 5: We were really talking about supply chain, which was a
- 12:24Speaker 5: really interesting conversation. But today I want to talk about
- 12:28Speaker 5: we have pharmacy deserts that had spread, many different reasons
- 12:32Speaker 5: that that took place. Rural pharmacies are gold channels for us.
- 12:36Speaker 5: I mean, they deliver health care services where there is
- 12:39Speaker 5: no health care services. people might have to drive 10,
- 12:42Speaker 5: 20 miles just to get to the next pharmacy. Sancora
- 12:46Speaker 5: is well positioned throughout the nation in supporting independent community
- 12:50Speaker 5: pharmacies and kind of helping to design strategies to really
- 12:54Speaker 5: help those rural pharmacies. I want you to speak on
- 12:56Speaker 5: that because I think that's special.
- 12:57Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree, Todd.
- 12:58Speaker 10: And there's a huge opportunity for us to really support
- 13:01Speaker 10: healthcare and communities that have become pharmacy deserts or could
- 13:04Speaker 10: become pharmacy deserts.
- 13:05Speaker 2: So our ownership team.
- 13:07Speaker 10: Has a a wealth of knowledge in the space on
- 13:10Speaker 10: how to transition pharmacies, especially in rural markets, where, you know,
- 13:15Speaker 10: if that pharmacy closes, that it becomes not only a
- 13:18Speaker 10: pharmacy desert, but a healthcare desert, right? They're the only
- 13:22Speaker 10: provider in that area. So our ownership team has been
- 13:25Speaker 10: working with a group here, and they've transitioned already 16
- 13:28Speaker 10: pharmacies in a rural market, into a group that's going
- 13:32Speaker 10: to keep the pharmacy afloat, run it more like a
- 13:34Speaker 10: chain environment so they keep their administrative costs down, and
- 13:37Speaker 10: then start to bring in clinics alongside those pharmacies so
- 13:40Speaker 10: that that pharmacy becomes now the healthcare center of that community.
- 13:44Speaker 5: I think of the nurse practitioner looking for those kinds
- 13:47Speaker 5: of opportunities, becoming the one that's doing some of that
- 13:50Speaker 5: primary care service. connecting that to the pharmacy so that
- 13:54Speaker 5: we can get the medication without having any gaps in adherence.
- 13:58Speaker 5: Talk to us a little bit about more of that
- 14:00Speaker 5: dynamic of how that's going to work.
- 14:03Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 14:03Speaker 10: So our team is working. The ownership group is one side.
- 14:08Speaker 10: And then as those pharmacies come on, they're a journey
- 14:10Speaker 10: and good neighbor. And so now we're able to support
- 14:11Speaker 10: them in all sorts of administrative things, clinical services. helping
- 14:17Speaker 10: them recruit pharmacies, technicians, whatever they need. We are able
- 14:20Speaker 10: to support them and build that base.
- 14:23Speaker 5: What's been most exciting for you at ThoughtSpot 2026? Is
- 14:27Speaker 5: there anything that's standing out really bringing additional attention to
- 14:31Speaker 5: the success of our independent community pharmacies.
- 14:33Speaker 10: Yeah, we've got a lot of great services here. We
- 14:36Speaker 10: launched a couple of new marketing things from social media
- 14:39Speaker 10: this year. We've launched a new merchant services thing, allow
- 14:45Speaker 10: pharmacies to bring their credit card fees down a little bit,
- 14:48Speaker 10: extend their margins a little bit bigger.
- 14:51Speaker 8: All right.
- 14:51Speaker 5: And then what are you most excited about for the
- 14:54Speaker 5: future of pharmacy and independent community pharmacy?
- 14:57Speaker 10: Yeah, I think the future is really interesting, particularly around
- 14:59Speaker 10: the payer space and value-based care. And we're positioned well
- 15:04Speaker 10: to help pharmacies get there. There's a lot of work
- 15:07Speaker 10: to do. Value-based care is going to take mindset changes
- 15:10Speaker 10: and payer changes and things like that. But we think
- 15:13Speaker 10: it's coming sooner rather than later. And we're gearing up
- 15:16Speaker 10: independents to be ready for that.
- 15:18Speaker 5: Tim Weber with Sincora. I want to thank you for
- 15:20Speaker 5: having us back. This is our second Thought Spot. I
- 15:23Speaker 5: love it. I love the energy here covering this podcast press.
- 15:26Speaker 5: Thank you, Tim, for this.
- 15:27Speaker 2: Appreciate it. Thanks, Todd.
- 15:36Speaker 5: Brian Pinto here at Thought Spot 2026 in Orlando.
- 15:41Speaker 6: Brian, it's good to see you.
- 15:42Speaker 2: Good to see you again, Todd. All right.
- 15:45Speaker 5: The talking heads of the pharmacy industry, man. We come on,
- 15:50Speaker 5: we meet up with people, pharmacy owners, year after year
- 15:53Speaker 5: at different events.
- 15:55Speaker 6: ThoughtSpot, this is our second.
- 15:56Speaker 5: Good neighbor pharmacies out there making differences for their community.
- 16:00Speaker 5: I want to hear it from your perspective, though. What
- 16:02Speaker 5: are you most excited about as being a business owner,
- 16:06Speaker 5: business operator in the pharmacy space with all the pressures
- 16:09Speaker 5: that are on you? in order to stay in business,
- 16:12Speaker 5: like what's jazzing you up? What's making you passionate about
- 16:14Speaker 5: this all?
- 16:15Speaker 9: So I think at this point, so I've been an
- 16:18Speaker 9: operator owner for 22 years and, um, you know, I've
- 16:22Speaker 9: done my fair share of advocacy over the last five
- 16:24Speaker 9: to 10. I just finished up a term as a
- 16:27Speaker 9: president of New Jersey farms association. So, um, I've gotten
- 16:31Speaker 9: to speak to other colleagues in the space, whether it
- 16:34Speaker 9: be community hospital, you know, specialty and, and just the,
- 16:39Speaker 9: the I think it's, even with all of these new
- 16:44Speaker 9: AI additions to whether it's our software or just other add-ons,
- 16:50Speaker 9: just how much that's going to open up my technician's time,
- 16:54Speaker 9: my pharmacist's time, to actually be doing stuff that is
- 16:57Speaker 9: pursuant to our, to what we learned, to our license.
- 17:00Speaker 9: I was at a CE this morning where they were
- 17:03Speaker 9: talking about actually practicing to your degree. I've been out
- 17:08Speaker 9: of school 25 years. They always say you only keep
- 17:11Speaker 9: 10% of what you learn, which is probably accurate. But yes,
- 17:15Speaker 9: I would like to get past the rigmarole, the administrative duties,
- 17:21Speaker 9: the audits, all the stuff that burdens independent pharmacy and
- 17:26Speaker 9: actually get back into the practice of supporting patients' health
- 17:31Speaker 9: and outcomes. I see that as the way forward for
- 17:36Speaker 9: all of us. And I think that, you know, going
- 17:38Speaker 9: in the direction of artificial intelligence and what that offers
- 17:41Speaker 9: and how a lot of the companies here are utilizing it,
- 17:44Speaker 9: you know, is only going to benefit us.
- 17:47Speaker 6: And, you know, make the profession stronger. Yeah, I agree.
- 17:51Speaker 5: Talk to us about your business, how many locations you have,
- 17:55Speaker 5: and then what mix between retail, long-term care, you know, compounding,
- 18:01Speaker 5: like talk to us about the business overall.
- 18:03Speaker 6: So there's been an evolution in that.
- 18:05Speaker 9: You know, we used to, at one point in time,
- 18:08Speaker 9: I had six locations and they were all full service pharmacy. Some,
- 18:12Speaker 9: you know, one of them had a long-term care focus.
- 18:14Speaker 2: Another one had compounding.
- 18:16Speaker 9: You know, since COVID, we've had to sort of realign that. So,
- 18:20Speaker 9: you know, we, now one of our locations is compounding only.
- 18:23Speaker 9: So what we did is we consolidated all the compounding
- 18:26Speaker 9: practices from a couple of the stores and put them
- 18:29Speaker 9: all under one roof. So for For compliance, for personnel purposes,
- 18:34Speaker 9: we did that, and we feel that workflows are where
- 18:38Speaker 9: we want them to be, and now we're going to
- 18:40Speaker 9: focus on growth, especially now with the new FBA panel
- 18:44Speaker 9: last week with the peptides, and that brings a whole
- 18:47Speaker 9: other avenue to the business that we want to further investigate.
- 18:53Speaker 9: The two or three other ones that I have are
- 18:56Speaker 9: mainly full-service pharmacies, focus on immunizations, but we're trying to
- 19:01Speaker 9: focus more on the LTC at home. That's actually why
- 19:05Speaker 9: events like this are great, because it allows you to
- 19:08Speaker 9: see what other players are on the market, what other
- 19:11Speaker 9: colleagues are using. We've actually found a couple of opportunities
- 19:16Speaker 9: that we can start to pursue with that long-term care
- 19:19Speaker 9: at home space.
- 19:20Speaker 6: I think between that and some of.
- 19:22Speaker 9: The relationships I have already with JerryMed, we can definitely
- 19:26Speaker 9: evolve that.
- 19:27Speaker 5: Long-term care pharmacy at home is a huge opportunity to
- 19:32Speaker 5: center into these patients that can't get out of their
- 19:35Speaker 5: homes for whatever reason. They're frustrated, and being able to
- 19:39Speaker 5: bring service to them and consistency to them emergency services
- 19:44Speaker 5: to them, and then be able to get paid for it,
- 19:46Speaker 5: which is even better.
- 19:48Speaker 2: I think that's what's held.
- 19:50Speaker 9: a lot of pharmacists back is the fact that we've
- 19:54Speaker 9: been given stuff out for free, and I think that's
- 19:56Speaker 9: what's frustrated pharmacists for years. And it's fatigued them to
- 20:00Speaker 9: a point that it's just like, I need to focus
- 20:02Speaker 9: on what keeps my doors open. So the fact that
- 20:05Speaker 9: there is now, you know, pay for, for pay and
- 20:10Speaker 9: reimbursement for these services, whether it be, you know, compliance
- 20:13Speaker 9: packaging now, whether it be, you know, the, the, um,
- 20:16Speaker 9: the other services that, that are involved. And I know there's,
- 20:19Speaker 9: there's CEs related to that all weekend. So, um, I
- 20:22Speaker 9: think that finally provides some level of stability to a
- 20:27Speaker 9: lot of pharmacists that are just like, you know, I'm spending,
- 20:30Speaker 9: you know, half my day doing all these things for patients,
- 20:33Speaker 9: but you know, all I'm getting is a 15 cent
- 20:35Speaker 9: dispensing fee on the prescriptions we're doing. So I think
- 20:38Speaker 9: that there's a sense of relief, but obviously we still
- 20:42Speaker 9: have to keep pushing forward because I think those could
- 20:47Speaker 9: be short-term wins if we don't continue to show that
- 20:50Speaker 9: these ultimately are producing the correct outcomes for patients.
- 20:54Speaker 5: Brian, I appreciate your insights being part of the ThoughtSpot
- 20:58Speaker 5: podcast press coverage. It's exciting to hear about the innovation
- 21:02Speaker 5: of what you're doing in your communities, expansion of different services,
- 21:06Speaker 5: and of course the growth in long-term care pharmacy at home,
- 21:09Speaker 5: that's going to be huge. And that'll continue to be
- 21:12Speaker 5: a revenue source and a focus for our community pharmacies
- 21:17Speaker 5: for the next 20 plus years.
- 21:19Speaker 9: I think so, because I think most independents are at
- 21:21Speaker 9: the front line of it.
- 21:22Speaker 2: I think that we're the.
- 21:23Speaker 9: Best apt at being able to adapt to that. I
- 21:28Speaker 9: think that the bigger chain community pharmacies, they're not necessarily
- 21:33Speaker 9: too big, but I just don't think that they can
- 21:36Speaker 9: adapt their entire business models to accommodate that patient base.
- 21:40Speaker 9: And that patient base isn't going to be in a
- 21:42Speaker 9: nursing home. They're not going to be in assisted living facilities.
- 21:46Speaker 9: The economics just don't go in that direction. A lot
- 21:49Speaker 9: of people want to stay at home, and I think
- 21:50Speaker 9: that that's where the opportunity for us to service those
- 21:53Speaker 9: same patients and families that we've been servicing for the
- 21:56Speaker 9: last however many years is going to be to our advantage.
- 21:59Speaker 6: Brian, thanks for being here.
- 22:00Speaker 9: Thanks, Todd. Good seeing you again.
- 22:02Speaker 2: Appreciate it.
- 22:06Speaker 5: Paul Shelton here at the Sincora ThoughtSpot 2026.
- 22:10Speaker 6: Paul, it's good to see you.
- 22:12Speaker 7: Good to see you as well, Todd.
- 22:14Speaker 5: We love when you come on the show because one
- 22:17Speaker 5: of my favorite subjects is to help our independent community
- 22:20Speaker 5: pharmacies dive much deeper and purposeful into long-term care pharmacy
- 22:26Speaker 5: at home. You're part of the Long-Term Care Pharmacy at
- 22:30Speaker 5: Home Pharmacy Network, and it's... It's almost like, why wouldn't
- 22:38Speaker 5: you be doing this right now if you know you
- 22:40Speaker 5: have elderly patients, you have people that don't want to
- 22:45Speaker 5: come to the pharmacy, they want to engage with you.
- 22:48Speaker 5: It has to be the right candidate. You have to
- 22:50Speaker 5: kind of give them. But talk to our listeners about
- 22:53Speaker 5: the network and what you guys are doing to empower
- 22:56Speaker 5: our community pharmacies.
- 22:57Speaker 7: Yeah, absolutely.
- 22:58Speaker 2: Thanks, Todd.
- 22:59Speaker 7: So the network is a, basically, it's a knowledge center.
- 23:02Speaker 8: It's an opportunity for us to help pharmacies answer questions
- 23:04Speaker 8: that they've had for years and just not known how
- 23:08Speaker 8: to actually find that right answer for themselves.
- 23:11Speaker 7: Basically, we have a knowledge base.
- 23:12Speaker 8: We've got office hours every week, which allows you to
- 23:15Speaker 8: jump on a call every Tuesday at noon Eastern time.
- 23:18Speaker 7: We do an open call on Zoom. And if you
- 23:21Speaker 7: have questions, jump on Ask.
- 23:22Speaker 2: That's what we're here for.
- 23:23Speaker 8: And it really allows us to help pharmacies move the
- 23:26Speaker 8: process forward. If you think of the long-term care PSAOs,
- 23:30Speaker 8: GPOs in the market as the pathway for long-term care reimbursement,
- 23:35Speaker 8: think of the network as the map, the water bottle,
- 23:37Speaker 8: the boots that help you go down that pathway more effectively.
- 23:40Speaker 8: We literally have the long-term care home process roadmap that
- 23:43Speaker 8: is a step-by-step process to actually get started in LTC
- 23:46Speaker 8: at home.
- 23:47Speaker 7: If you're already started and you feel like.
- 23:48Speaker 8: You're doing a great job, we do have the ability
- 23:50Speaker 8: to pull data from your pre-MS, understand what your patients look,
- 23:54Speaker 8: who are patients that are guaranteed to be LTC at home,
- 23:58Speaker 8: how can you help find those, and then most importantly,
- 24:00Speaker 8: how do we take patient data and turn that into
- 24:03Speaker 8: a growth engine for your pharmacy?
- 24:05Speaker 7: How do I go and find new patients?
- 24:06Speaker 8: Because great, I can make more of the patients I've
- 24:08Speaker 8: already got, but how do I grow my pharmacy, take
- 24:11Speaker 8: patients away from the national chains, and really make a difference?
- 24:15Speaker 5: And then You've also told us in the past that
- 24:17Speaker 5: if there's a number of patients inside your patient base,
- 24:22Speaker 5: it will help you really pay for the implementation.
- 24:26Speaker 2: Of the program. Absolutely.
- 24:27Speaker 7: Absolutely.
- 24:27Speaker 6: What is the sweet spot of that? What does that.
- 24:30Speaker 7: Come out to?
- 24:31Speaker 8: So it's interesting because, you know, obviously there's some fees
- 24:34Speaker 8: that are involved to set up the second NCPDP and
- 24:37Speaker 8: your ESI contract once you're set up with your long-term
- 24:40Speaker 8: care PSCO, GPO. That cost is about $ 900 plus your time.
- 24:46Speaker 8: What we find is 10 patients on LTC at home
- 24:51Speaker 8: increase your reimbursement in your pharmacy by $ 800 if they're
- 24:54Speaker 8: an average LTC at home patient. So at that point,
- 24:56Speaker 8: you've paid for your fees. There's a cost for the
- 25:00Speaker 8: LTC PSAO. So in two months of 10 patients, you've
- 25:04Speaker 8: covered the entire cost, and now you're pocketing an extra
- 25:07Speaker 8: $ 600 to $ 800.
- 25:07Speaker 7: A month for those patients.
- 25:09Speaker 8: When we run assessments for most pharmacies, we're seeing between $ 4, 500
- 25:13Speaker 8: and $ 5, 500.
- 25:14Speaker 7: A month of opportunity.
- 25:17Speaker 8: We had one recently that was the joke about Weight Watchers.
- 25:22Speaker 7: The results may vary.
- 25:23Speaker 8: This was when we had $ 32, 000 of opportunity within that
- 25:27Speaker 8: one pharmacy.
- 25:28Speaker 7: And that's on a monthly basis.
- 25:30Speaker 8: I mean, it's an atypical answer, but we're working with
- 25:34Speaker 8: some folks in rural North Carolina that across seven stores
- 25:37Speaker 8: had over.
- 25:38Speaker 7: $ 40, 000 in opportunity.
- 25:39Speaker 8: And that's the kind of thing where it plugs in
- 25:41Speaker 8: and you really can make a difference very quickly. You know,
- 25:44Speaker 8: I was given a CE this morning about long-term care
- 25:46Speaker 8: and institutional care and kind of thinking about how to change,
- 25:49Speaker 8: what's different in the.
- 25:50Speaker 2: Space, right?
- 25:51Speaker 8: And one of the things that we've kind of had
- 25:52Speaker 8: an aha moment around is like for the last 20 years,
- 25:57Speaker 8: the entirety of long-term care has been 3.2 million patients
- 26:00Speaker 8: a year or, you know, slowly.
- 26:02Speaker 7: Growing into 3.2 million patients a year.
- 26:04Speaker 8: With LTC at home, that market expands to 17.4 million patients. 14.2
- 26:11Speaker 8: million patients are LTC at home. Their long-term care service
- 26:14Speaker 8: supports customers. That's spread across the entire United States. Heavily
- 26:18Speaker 8: populated in rural areas, heavily populated in urban areas. I mean,
- 26:22Speaker 8: they're quite literally all over the country. The only time
- 26:25Speaker 8: we don't see it being a benefit is if you're
- 26:27Speaker 8: on rural contracts with all of your payers, to include
- 26:30Speaker 8: Prime and to include your Optum ESI. It doesn't necessarily
- 26:35Speaker 8: make sense, or if you're in a very heavy Medicaid area.
- 26:37Speaker 8: But of the 375 assessments that we've done, we're averaging,
- 26:41Speaker 8: like I said, about $ 4, 700 per member per month.
- 26:44Speaker 7: And that's real.
- 26:45Speaker 8: We've been able to execute and help pharmacies find that
- 26:48Speaker 8: consistently as a conservative number.
- 26:52Speaker 5: What are the components, just to kind of list them?
- 26:54Speaker 5: We have the GPO contract. We have logistics and delivery.
- 26:59Speaker 6: We have packaging.
- 26:59Speaker 2: Yep.
- 27:00Speaker 6: Talk to us about what are the components.
- 27:02Speaker 7: Absolutely. So great question.
- 27:04Speaker 8: So it's really you've got to make sure you're compliant
- 27:06Speaker 8: with CMS guidelines. So a couple things are easy to do.
- 27:08Speaker 8: Go buy a tackle box, get some emergency log books,
- 27:11Speaker 8: put it in there, put it on the shelf. You're
- 27:12Speaker 8: never going to use it, but you need to have
- 27:14Speaker 8: the capacity to provide that so that you're compliant with
- 27:17Speaker 8: CMS guidelines. Second, you're going to need to have the
- 27:20Speaker 8: ability to deliver. We strongly recommend several different apps that
- 27:23Speaker 8: are in the market just to make sure you're managing
- 27:25Speaker 8: your drivers well.
- 27:26Speaker 7: There's a bunch of different choices there.
- 27:28Speaker 8: If you have an in-house driver, if you've got more
- 27:29Speaker 8: than three, put them into a separate company so that
- 27:31Speaker 8: you're reducing that liability. Packaging.
- 27:34Speaker 7: It's got to be special packaging.
- 27:35Speaker 8: Special packaging is defined as not vials.
- 27:39Speaker 7: So as long as you're not using a standard.
- 27:41Speaker 8: Vial, you're using strip packaging, you know, multi-dose card, multi-dose
- 27:46Speaker 8: strip packaging, cassettes, that's all fine.
- 27:49Speaker 7: Those are all specialized packaging.
- 27:51Speaker 8: Then the last thing is you need to have a
- 27:52Speaker 8: contract to support IV and custom compound formulation and 24-7
- 27:56Speaker 8: access to the pharmacy.
- 27:58Speaker 5: I see that doesn't seem like a huge on-taking. It
- 28:03Speaker 5: sounds like you're already doing a lot of that.
- 28:05Speaker 7: Yeah, most pharmacies are already doing a lot of this.
- 28:07Speaker 7: This is the wild thing, Todd.
- 28:08Speaker 8: The local pharmacy that I have in a little town
- 28:10Speaker 8: that I live in in central North Carolina, I walked
- 28:12Speaker 8: in two years ago to talk to them about this,
- 28:14Speaker 8: and I was like, guys, what are you doing? You're
- 28:16Speaker 8: packaging for 120 patients. You're not capturing any additional revenue
- 28:20Speaker 8: for that. You're doing all the work. You're just not
- 28:22Speaker 8: getting paid for it. And we were able to convert
- 28:24Speaker 8: 32 patients for $ 3, 600 today. In literally one Friday afternoon.
- 28:28Speaker 8: I got there at 1 o'clock, we left at 4.30,
- 28:31Speaker 8: and we found $ 3, 600 of found money in the pharmacy
- 28:34Speaker 8: on a monthly basis.
- 28:36Speaker 7: Now, and the important part is they were.
- 28:37Speaker 8: Already doing the work to qualify for LTC at home.
- 28:41Speaker 8: They're already providing compliance packaging with a multi-dose card. They're
- 28:44Speaker 8: already delivering. They were already giving out their cell phone number.
- 28:48Speaker 8: There's really nothing else they had to do to qualify.
- 28:51Speaker 7: It was one of those, like, wow, this is not
- 28:52Speaker 7: a one-off. It's, again, back to the Weight Watchers.
- 28:54Speaker 8: Now, Paul lost 70 pounds on Weight Watchers. Results atypical.
- 28:57Speaker 8: Average person loses 7 to 10 pounds. This is the
- 29:00Speaker 8: 32 patients for $ 3, 600 is very normal. And so it's
- 29:05Speaker 8: sitting there for most pharmacies ready to go capture it
- 29:07Speaker 8: and grab it and run with it and really address that, again,
- 29:11Speaker 8: that 14.2 million patients that are now authorized for LTC.
- 29:14Speaker 6: All right.
- 29:16Speaker 5: Let's give the listeners the website for the network.
- 29:19Speaker 7: Absolutely.
- 29:20Speaker 8: It's ltcah.com. Super easy to find. So LTCAH, so LTCathome.com.
- 29:27Speaker 7: Come see us.
- 29:27Speaker 9: All right.
- 29:28Speaker 5: Paul Shelton, thanks for being on the Thought Spot 2026 show.
- 29:31Speaker 2: Of course.
- 29:32Speaker 7: Thank you so much for having me.
- 29:39Speaker 2: Thought Spot 2026.
- 29:40Speaker 5: 2026, one of the aspects of independent community pharmacy and
- 29:43Speaker 5: the growth of business is the opportunity in compounding. And
- 29:47Speaker 5: what better team member from Curified Labs in.
- 29:50Speaker 6: The booth with me right now at Outcomes. Arman, how
- 29:53Speaker 6: are you?
- 29:54Speaker 2: I'm doing great, man. I love these conferences.
- 29:58Speaker 11: Really get to meet a lot of different people doing
- 30:00Speaker 11: a lot of cool different things.
- 30:03Speaker 5: And how compounding is expanding, we know that through our
- 30:08Speaker 5: relationship on the network with the Alliance for Pharmacy Compounders,
- 30:11Speaker 5: we get a lot of good information from them from
- 30:14Speaker 5: a policy perspective.
- 30:16Speaker 6: And shout out to their team. They're doing awesome work. However...
- 30:19Speaker 6: When we want to actually.
- 30:20Speaker 5: Get the rubber to meet the road and we start
- 30:22Speaker 5: crawling into the trenches of how do we make more
- 30:25Speaker 5: money and how do we service our communities in the
- 30:28Speaker 5: realm of where compounding is necessary, tell our listeners what
- 30:32Speaker 5: Curify Labs does and how it makes a difference.
- 30:35Speaker 11: Yeah, so Curify Labs, obviously we're in the equipment side
- 30:40Speaker 11: of what you're doing in your compounding lab. But for
- 30:42Speaker 11: the most part, what we're doing is we have 3D
- 30:44Speaker 11: technology that We have our own GMP manufactured bases. We
- 30:50Speaker 11: have a full team of pharmacists, technicians in the U.S.
- 30:54Speaker 2: That are helping customers.
- 30:57Speaker 11: Or maybe pharmacies looking to grow, but they don't want
- 31:00Speaker 11: to grow their head count, right? So when you start
- 31:03Speaker 11: looking at let's rush things or let's build our volume
- 31:08Speaker 11: at our pharmacy, a lot of times you're looking at
- 31:11Speaker 11: hurting your accuracy, your precision, maybe some compliance, right? So
- 31:15Speaker 11: with us, what we're able to do is we can take,
- 31:18Speaker 11: you know, a technician and we can make them do
- 31:21Speaker 11: three to nine times as much, you know, when it
- 31:24Speaker 11: comes to compounding, you know, maybe their output and actually
- 31:29Speaker 11: be more accurate, be more precise. And we give you
- 31:31Speaker 11: all the tools. We show you everything. And the system
- 31:35Speaker 11: is awesome. It's 3D compounding. Now, it is 3D technology
- 31:39Speaker 11: that's inspired by 3D, you know, printing technology. But it
- 31:44Speaker 11: works in a way where your technician can leave the
- 31:47Speaker 11: room and you're still printing perfectly weighed out compounds constantly.
- 31:53Speaker 5: It's so futuristic. I love the thought of this. Listen,
- 31:57Speaker 5: listeners to the show, we have a special Pharmacy Podcast
- 32:02Speaker 5: Network three-part series that's going to dig deep into the
- 32:06Speaker 5: insides of Curify Labs, showing you how to be a
- 32:10Speaker 5: successful compounding growth company, independent community pharmacy. Arman, we can't
- 32:15Speaker 5: wait to hear more about this on the special series upcoming.
- 32:18Speaker 5: We thank you for being here at ThoughtSpot 2026 with us.
- 32:22Speaker 2: Amazing.
- 32:23Speaker 11: Thanks so much for having me, and I can't wait to,
- 32:25Speaker 11: you know, release this three part series with you.
- 32:28Speaker 7: So dig in.
- 32:29Speaker 2: All right.
- 32:30Speaker 6: Talk to you soon.
- 32:30Speaker 2: See you guys.