Latest / Pharmacy Podcast Network / NOW, NEW, NEXT: NACDS TSE 2025 | Live Recap Part Two

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NOW, NEW, NEXT: NACDS TSE 2025 | Live Recap Part Two · Pharmacy Podcast Network

0:07
Speaker 1: You are listening to the Pharmacy Podcast Network.
0:26
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Pharmacy Podcast Network special coverage of the
0:29
Speaker 2: NACDS Total Store Expo, the largest gathering of retailers and
0:34
Speaker 2: suppliers in the health and wellness industry. This year, the
0:37
Speaker 2: PPN partnered with key source in Nimble RX and interviewed
0:40
Speaker 2: key leaders in retail pharmacy and the impact they're making
0:43
Speaker 2: on public health. Here's part two of our podcast coverage
0:47
Speaker 2: of the Total Store Expo twenty twenty five from Sunny
0:49
Speaker 2: San Diego.
0:50
Speaker 1: I ran into Scott von Dullan from nimb Rx here
0:55
Speaker 1: at the NACDS twenty twenty five. Scott is so good
0:58
Speaker 1: to see you here, Todd, It's all the pleasure.
1:00
Speaker 3: Great to be here, great to be seen.
1:02
Speaker 1: A shout out to Nimble RX for being a sponsor
1:06
Speaker 1: of the NYCDS Total Store Expoke coverage. But there are
1:11
Speaker 1: people that are listening to this podcast series right now
1:14
Speaker 1: who might not know what Nimble's doing, and you're doing
1:17
Speaker 1: a lot, so I want you to give our listeners
1:19
Speaker 1: an overview of how Nimble is impacting pharmacy profitability.
1:25
Speaker 3: My pleasure.
1:26
Speaker 4: We are impacting profitability by what we call experience payments.
1:31
Speaker 4: So when a pharmacy utilizes nimble rx's software with their
1:34
Speaker 4: patients and patients check out with our mobile checkout solution,
1:39
Speaker 4: we share that profit back to the store and the
1:41
Speaker 4: form of a monthly.
1:42
Speaker 1: Check And this is encouraging e commerce within the pharmacy
1:49
Speaker 1: or is it everything from prescription payment?
1:52
Speaker 4: The trigger for the experience payment is the actual checkout functionality. Okay,
1:57
Speaker 4: We do offer an OTC component if pharmacies want participate,
2:00
Speaker 4: where they can list OTC products that they sell in
2:03
Speaker 4: store on the platform that patients can add increasing the
2:07
Speaker 4: basket size.
2:08
Speaker 1: So when someone is in a specific area Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
2:16
Speaker 1: and they have a pharmacy and they are looking for things,
2:20
Speaker 1: does this do like a geo fencing aspect to this
2:23
Speaker 1: too good question.
2:25
Speaker 4: We are not recruiting today, We're not recruiting new patients
2:29
Speaker 4: from a marketing standpoint, you know, geofencing social media. What
2:33
Speaker 4: we are doing is accessing the current patient population through
2:36
Speaker 4: a direct API integration with the pharmacy management system, so
2:40
Speaker 4: whether that's Pioneer Liberty, et cetera, and then sending messages
2:44
Speaker 4: to the patients for will callbin meaning your prescription is
2:47
Speaker 4: ready to be picked up.
2:48
Speaker 3: You can pay now, have it delivered or pick it up.
2:51
Speaker 4: And then we do refill reminders, so before the prescription
2:54
Speaker 4: has been refilled and it's you know, a couple of
2:56
Speaker 4: days out for being ready to be refilled, we send
2:59
Speaker 4: those messages to patients as well, so there's two primary
3:01
Speaker 4: communications as they're going through that checkout process. We list
3:06
Speaker 4: OTC products there in the shopping experience. Okay, we are
3:10
Speaker 4: looking into ways though to your question, because it's a
3:12
Speaker 4: great one of how could we possibly recruit new patients
3:16
Speaker 4: through online advertisements as well?
3:18
Speaker 1: So if I have a specific medication I'm taking, does
3:22
Speaker 1: Nimble also surround it with some ancillarias that kind of
3:26
Speaker 1: complement that.
3:27
Speaker 4: We are building out right now an NDC matching NDC
3:31
Speaker 4: to OTC productses selection. It's not live yet, it's in
3:36
Speaker 4: the sandbox, so should be out in twenty twenty six.
3:40
Speaker 1: And then we're here at NACDS. So what's the dynamic
3:43
Speaker 1: difference between I have thirty pharmacies that I'm operating versus one?
3:48
Speaker 1: Is there an advantage to leveraging Nimbo RX within my empire,
3:55
Speaker 1: within the growth of my pharmacy.
3:58
Speaker 4: There is definitely differences as that you know, listeners are
4:02
Speaker 4: aware between a one store owner, a five store owner,
4:05
Speaker 4: a ten store owner, one hundred store owner. A lot
4:08
Speaker 4: of the groups here run very much more like small corporations,
4:12
Speaker 4: and you know, can can execute quickly. From an operational standpoint,
4:18
Speaker 4: I think there are advantages that if you know you
4:20
Speaker 4: have a large group of stores, let's just say one
4:22
Speaker 4: hundred store group like that would be represented here. As
4:26
Speaker 4: long as we have all of our ducks in a row,
4:27
Speaker 4: we can turn it on at all the stores almost simultaneously. Okay,
4:30
Speaker 4: so then the you know, the adoption immediately goes up.
4:34
Speaker 3: You don't have this slow rollout.
4:35
Speaker 4: We can also do a slow rollout, but the ability
4:39
Speaker 4: to turn it on quickly to one hundred store group,
4:41
Speaker 4: fifty store group and start making money immediately day one.
4:46
Speaker 1: So take us through the Take the listener through how
4:48
Speaker 1: they would enroll I have, let's say I'm a small chain,
4:52
Speaker 1: I have ten pharmacies in a community. Talk to me
4:55
Speaker 1: about the rollout.
4:56
Speaker 3: How it work.
4:58
Speaker 4: So generally we like to do we like to start
5:00
Speaker 4: with one store just to get everyone on the same page.
5:03
Speaker 4: Gives the owner confidence that hey, it's doing exactly what
5:06
Speaker 4: we said it was going to do. We know that
5:08
Speaker 4: we actually now start with messaging. We have two way
5:11
Speaker 4: messaging that we start the pharmacies with, so it's you know,
5:15
Speaker 4: it's a hip a compliant messaging platform. There's less of
5:18
Speaker 4: an interruption to the workflow. And we start with messaging,
5:20
Speaker 4: we get a high level of patient participation and adoption,
5:23
Speaker 4: and then we slowly and organically roll over into the
5:26
Speaker 4: we'll call bin and then the checkout. So we'll start
5:29
Speaker 4: with one store, iron out any of the creases, so
5:32
Speaker 4: to speak. Every staff is different, right, and we want
5:35
Speaker 4: the staff to be confident, to be trained.
5:37
Speaker 3: We go through that implementation.
5:39
Speaker 4: Process at the first store, make sure everything's solid, all
5:42
Speaker 4: questions are answered, and then we roll out accordingly at
5:44
Speaker 4: the other nine stores, and we'll do them usually in
5:46
Speaker 4: batches of five, three or five depending on the size
5:50
Speaker 4: of the group. Where the next you know, the next week,
5:53
Speaker 4: we'll launch three in the same day, and then the
5:55
Speaker 4: next week we'll launch three more and then until it's
5:58
Speaker 4: until it's finished.
5:59
Speaker 1: So talk to us about reporting too, and what we're
6:02
Speaker 1: able to what metrics were able to collect month to.
6:05
Speaker 4: Month, So reporting just on like the number of checkouts, yep, Yeah,
6:11
Speaker 4: we can provide those numbers, they can actually see them
6:13
Speaker 4: in the dashboard. How many checkouts they've had month over month,
6:16
Speaker 4: it's all, it's all right there. How many prescriptions, what
6:20
Speaker 4: the monetary value is to them in terms of the
6:22
Speaker 4: form of the check they're going to get. How much
6:23
Speaker 4: of their money was actually processed through Nimble because we
6:27
Speaker 4: have our own merchants provider, we use Stripe for credit
6:31
Speaker 4: card processing purposes, and so obviously giving them visibility and
6:35
Speaker 4: transparency into how much money we've processed for them that
6:37
Speaker 4: then we're also putting back into their account a daily basis.
6:41
Speaker 1: So this is so interesting because I've been following Nimble
6:44
Speaker 1: for quite some time, and every time I turn around,
6:47
Speaker 1: I'm seeing more and more obviously pharmacies enrolling and engaging.
6:52
Speaker 1: What is the suite spot? Where where are we seeing
6:55
Speaker 1: increase in revenue or ease back to the back to
6:59
Speaker 1: the patient, back to the user. What's kind of like
7:02
Speaker 1: the winner circle a celebration message, like what is it
7:10
Speaker 1: that our pharmacy operators are noticing about Nimble RX, you know,
7:15
Speaker 1: after starting to use it.
7:17
Speaker 3: I love this question.
7:18
Speaker 4: I think the first the first round of winning, I
7:22
Speaker 4: think is the patient experience, because when the patient gets
7:25
Speaker 4: the message and goes through the checkout. It's so smooth,
7:28
Speaker 4: it's intuitive, it's and they love it. In fact, some
7:32
Speaker 4: of the partnerships that we've gotten over the last year
7:34
Speaker 4: through the industry GPO partnerships, channel partnerships have occurred because
7:38
Speaker 4: somebody on their executive team got a message from Nimble
7:41
Speaker 4: and went through the patient experience and said, wait a second,
7:43
Speaker 4: we've talked to Nimble, but I just used it and
7:45
Speaker 4: it's amazing. On the on the flip side of that,
7:50
Speaker 4: the staff buy in comes when we get fifteen to
7:53
Speaker 4: twenty percent adoption in a given patient population, because the
7:56
Speaker 4: workflow starts to transition, things start to smoothen out. There's
7:59
Speaker 4: less phone calls coming into the pharmacy, happier patients, with
8:04
Speaker 4: less friction at in store checkout because they're not waiting
8:07
Speaker 4: in the line to pay right it's come in. They
8:09
Speaker 4: can grab a bag out of the separate A lot
8:12
Speaker 4: of our stores set up a completely separate Nimble line
8:14
Speaker 4: where they can just come straight up, get their stuff
8:16
Speaker 4: and go.
8:17
Speaker 3: And so when.
8:18
Speaker 4: That transition in the workflow takes place at that level
8:21
Speaker 4: of adoption, the staff buy in is immediate and they say,
8:26
Speaker 4: how did we do this before using Nimble and as
8:30
Speaker 4: one of our clients here I won't name names, but
8:32
Speaker 4: they call it nimbolizing patients.
8:34
Speaker 1: And that's a.
8:35
Speaker 4: Fun, fun term that a client just gave us today,
8:37
Speaker 4: nimbolizing patients.
8:39
Speaker 1: That's incredible. So getting I mean, we live on our
8:43
Speaker 1: phones and I do everything on our phone from from
8:46
Speaker 1: work to you know, obviously personal social media. So living
8:51
Speaker 1: on our phones, you're meeting the patient. You're meeting people
8:54
Speaker 1: where they're used to commerce, used to checking out, used
8:58
Speaker 1: to online banking. Is is this an app on their
9:02
Speaker 1: phone or is it just seamless into their text messages?
9:05
Speaker 3: So it's either.
9:08
Speaker 4: I think listeners would probably agree or understand that the
9:13
Speaker 4: adoption of an app is tough. You know, I think
9:15
Speaker 4: the whole salers of all tried apps at different points
9:17
Speaker 4: in time and getting that download number, you know, to
9:21
Speaker 4: where they want it, it's really tough. So the checkout,
9:24
Speaker 4: when you get the text message, hey, you have a
9:26
Speaker 4: message from Todd's Pharmacy, you click on that. It's in
9:29
Speaker 4: the SMS that will open up your web browser Google
9:32
Speaker 4: Chrome in ANET explorer and you can go through the
9:35
Speaker 4: HIPPA compliant checkout process, right there if you want to
9:40
Speaker 4: download the Nimble app, and we have an amazing app.
9:42
Speaker 4: It's one of the highest in healthcare on the Apple Store.
9:45
Speaker 4: It has like fifty thousand and five star reviews. You
9:49
Speaker 4: can download the app. There's definitely a more robust experience
9:53
Speaker 4: to the patient if you want to download the app.
9:55
Speaker 4: There's other tools there. There's a patient information education, There's
9:58
Speaker 4: all sorts of things in the app. You do not
10:00
Speaker 4: have to download an app to go through the checkout experience.
10:03
Speaker 1: As I'm listening to you, Scott, and I'm knowing what
10:06
Speaker 1: little I know, and i keep learning more about nimbo
10:10
Speaker 1: or x, I'm thinking of long term care at home,
10:13
Speaker 1: and I'm thinking of the expansion of people being able
10:16
Speaker 1: to do a telehealth engagement. I already have my prescription
10:23
Speaker 1: sent in for my physician. Now I'm at home, and
10:26
Speaker 1: I can pay for things without ever stepping into the
10:29
Speaker 1: store and then get the delivery to my home based
10:32
Speaker 1: on whatever that pharmacy sets up that ecosystem that I
10:37
Speaker 1: just described, is there also another component to this that
10:40
Speaker 1: ties into delivery.
10:43
Speaker 4: So I think eighty percent is the number of independent
10:47
Speaker 4: pharmacies that offer delivery.
10:48
Speaker 3: So it's really high.
10:49
Speaker 4: A lot of those stores only do ten deliveries a
10:51
Speaker 4: day fifteen, but some of them do hundreds, you.
10:56
Speaker 3: Know, the stores that do a lot of delivery.
11:00
Speaker 4: The transitional workflow with utilizing Nimble is huge in a
11:04
Speaker 4: very positive way. I don't know if I'm answering your
11:09
Speaker 4: question though, the one thing. Did I answer your question?
11:13
Speaker 4: I'm not sure it does.
11:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, because my next question is a follow up to that,
11:16
Speaker 1: and that is, if I have a delivery driver who
11:19
Speaker 1: works for me, and he shows up at the home,
11:23
Speaker 1: he may have a device himself, whereas in this case
11:27
Speaker 1: with Nimble, he could just say, hey, you're going to
11:30
Speaker 1: get a text from us. Just go through the prompts
11:33
Speaker 1: to have this paid, or it might maybe it comes
11:35
Speaker 1: to them before the driver gets there. But now they're
11:38
Speaker 1: able to pay for their prescription, pay for their products,
11:41
Speaker 1: and now there's a delivery that shows up that's already
11:45
Speaker 1: paid for. I would think that that would be probably
11:48
Speaker 1: what pharmacies want because then they're insured to get their
11:51
Speaker 1: money before they drop off the prescription.
11:54
Speaker 4: Correct and it helps out with some compliance issues too.
11:56
Speaker 4: So one of the cool things with Nimble is there's
11:59
Speaker 4: one hundred percent signature capture on every single order, which
12:01
Speaker 4: they have to have for auditing purposes. Right, these pharmacies
12:03
Speaker 4: can get in big trouble if they get audited. They
12:05
Speaker 4: don't have a signature.
12:06
Speaker 3: So you have to.
12:07
Speaker 4: Sign a full autograph on every checkout, which is great,
12:12
Speaker 4: and we force that back into the pharmacy management system
12:14
Speaker 4: so it's there if they need it. And then also
12:17
Speaker 4: from a compliance standpoint that they're not asking for a
12:19
Speaker 4: payment at the door, right, there's some issues we don't
12:22
Speaker 4: need to go in the weeds on that, but asking
12:24
Speaker 4: for a card at the door. Even some other horror
12:27
Speaker 4: stories where there's still stores out there that are writing
12:29
Speaker 4: the credit card down on a post it note and
12:32
Speaker 4: they're putting it behind the cast register. So when missus
12:35
Speaker 4: Jones calls next you next week for whatever, they can
12:37
Speaker 4: just run the card again because the credit card of
12:40
Speaker 4: course is saved you know, safely in the application. So yeah,
12:46
Speaker 4: from that standpoint, the stores love it. It really helps
12:49
Speaker 4: out on multiple fronts.
12:50
Speaker 1: How are we communicating, How are pharmacies communicating to patients,
12:55
Speaker 1: to people, to their clients that this is available to them.
12:59
Speaker 4: So the nice thing is because we've got that direct
13:02
Speaker 4: API integration into you know, Pioneer as an example, from
13:05
Speaker 4: day one, we can we have a conversation during the
13:08
Speaker 4: onboarding process with an owner. How do we want to
13:11
Speaker 4: start with the patient population? We want to just go ahead.
13:13
Speaker 4: We call it tagging. Tagging a patient meaning that they're
13:16
Speaker 4: going to be in the bucket of getting a communication
13:19
Speaker 4: from Nimble from day one. So we can do a
13:21
Speaker 4: slow rollout of a couple hundred patients you know, day
13:24
Speaker 4: one and a couple hundred to following month, et cetera.
13:26
Speaker 4: Or we can just go gangbusters and tag everyone that
13:30
Speaker 4: qualifies for Nimble and send them a message and come
13:33
Speaker 4: out of the gates.
13:34
Speaker 1: And is this everything that is sellable through the pharmacy
13:39
Speaker 1: or is it specifically prescriptions over the counter and other
13:43
Speaker 1: things that they're selling.
13:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, so mentioned earlier.
13:46
Speaker 4: The OTC piece is available if the pharmacy wants to
13:49
Speaker 4: utilize it. Most pharmacies they will. They list for six products,
13:53
Speaker 4: you know, seasonal things, right, they can change them anytime
13:57
Speaker 4: they want. But the main message going out or for
14:00
Speaker 4: the prescriptions and the other exciting thing I'll tell you
14:03
Speaker 4: real quickly is our two way messaging that I mentioned earlier.
14:08
Speaker 4: We found out through our research and the you know,
14:11
Speaker 4: tens of millions of messages that we've already had come
14:13
Speaker 4: across our platform with pharmacies between pharmacists and patients is
14:18
Speaker 4: the most popular question is when they call the sorry
14:22
Speaker 4: over the messaging. The most popular question, and this will
14:24
Speaker 4: come there's no surprise to your listeners is are you open?
14:28
Speaker 4: And so that's number one. The second is is my
14:32
Speaker 4: prescription ready? And the third is what are your hours
14:34
Speaker 4: of operation? Or when do you close today? And so
14:38
Speaker 4: through our two way messaging, we are now opening AI
14:42
Speaker 4: to answer all of those basic questions. But I tread
14:46
Speaker 4: lightly here because we've had lots of conversations with the
14:51
Speaker 4: super users of Nimble and members of our advisory board.
14:54
Speaker 4: We are going to put in our currently putting guardrails
14:57
Speaker 4: in place to make sure that we don't get clinical
14:59
Speaker 4: on the AI I piece that if a question comes
15:01
Speaker 4: up that definitely needs a staff member or pharmacist intervention,
15:05
Speaker 4: we alert them immediately so they can then take over
15:07
Speaker 4: the conversation and the AI won't touch it. But the
15:10
Speaker 4: AI can answer ninety five percent of the questions that
15:13
Speaker 4: they're either calling into the pharmacy for traditionally over the messaging,
15:18
Speaker 4: which is awesome because it's just going to help streamline
15:22
Speaker 4: another piece of the workflow, you know, reducing phone calls,
15:24
Speaker 4: answering those messages. It just runs immediately and in real
15:27
Speaker 4: time in the background. So we're really excited about that.
15:30
Speaker 1: Well, we're excited to be working with nimbar X. We're
15:32
Speaker 1: going to have a new three part series. It's going
15:34
Speaker 1: to be coming out from the team. We're going to
15:36
Speaker 1: dig into some of the users and they're going to
15:39
Speaker 1: talk through it from pharmacy owner to pharmacy owner. What
15:44
Speaker 1: else do you want to share with our listeners that
15:46
Speaker 1: are listening into the nacd IS show.
15:48
Speaker 3: Well, I'm just happy to be here.
15:50
Speaker 4: We're happy to support independent community and chain you know,
15:53
Speaker 4: small regional chain pharmacies.
15:56
Speaker 3: So, you know, we know so many people here. I know,
15:58
Speaker 3: you know probably.
15:58
Speaker 4: Everybody, but you know, working for a company like Nimble
16:02
Speaker 4: and being a part of helping support the mission of
16:04
Speaker 4: independent pharmacies, which I think, ultimately, and I'm not a
16:07
Speaker 4: pharmacy owner, is to do the best that they can
16:09
Speaker 4: do to take care of the health and wellness of
16:12
Speaker 4: their patients and the communities that they reside in. And
16:16
Speaker 4: having a tool like Nimble that streamlines their workflow that
16:20
Speaker 4: hopefully you know, I know for a fact, freeze up
16:22
Speaker 4: time to give these independent pharmacy owners. And one of
16:25
Speaker 4: the things that we talk about with our advisory board
16:28
Speaker 4: is giving them, you know, the time that they need
16:30
Speaker 4: to work on the business and not in the business.
16:34
Speaker 4: And I think, I think Nimble's a wonderful technology.
16:38
Speaker 3: And if you don't have Nimble yet, please contact us.
16:41
Speaker 1: We're going to find that the website is nimblearx dot com.
16:44
Speaker 4: It is nimblearx dot com and I'm Scott at nimblearx
16:49
Speaker 4: dot com, so you can email me there as well.
16:52
Speaker 1: Excellent. Well, like I said, listeners, be on the lookout.
16:55
Speaker 1: We're going to be tuning in deeper into these conversations
16:59
Speaker 1: and unpacking more of the Nimbo rx advantages. And Scott,
17:03
Speaker 1: thank you so much for helping us be here at
17:05
Speaker 1: the NACDS Total Store X.
17:06
Speaker 3: But Todd, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure,
17:08
Speaker 3: Thank you having.
17:16
Speaker 5: Hey.
17:16
Speaker 6: This is Chris Silevitch with Flavor RX and Filmmaster and
17:19
Speaker 6: we're here at tse A ACDs and San Diego.
17:27
Speaker 1: Hey, Chris, it's so good to see you. How are you.
17:29
Speaker 5: I'm doing great, How are you?
17:31
Speaker 1: Very good? Flavor RX. I remember when I first learned
17:36
Speaker 1: about you. It has to be it's more than ten years,
17:41
Speaker 1: and because it's making me fooled, but your organization has
17:46
Speaker 1: come so far and you've been a major part of that.
17:50
Speaker 1: What's been going on to Flavor RX.
17:52
Speaker 6: Well, it's actually we just had our thirtieth anniversary, Michael.
17:54
Speaker 6: I don't feel really old. I've been there for almost
17:58
Speaker 6: twenty five of those years. So thinking back and actually
18:01
Speaker 6: hearing the presentations this week about how much the industry
18:04
Speaker 6: has evolved. And when we started, we were using droppers
18:07
Speaker 6: to count drops of strawberry and bubblegum flavor and using
18:10
Speaker 6: a paper recipe book, you know, doing formulations by hand.
18:14
Speaker 5: So fast forward to today. The whole thing is automated.
18:18
Speaker 6: You scan the barcode of an NDC and let our
18:20
Speaker 6: machine reconstitute with purified water as well as customizing the taste.
18:25
Speaker 1: That's incredible. I know I've seen the device. It doesn't
18:29
Speaker 1: have a huge footprint in is that the main dispenser
18:34
Speaker 1: system that I see? And I think you have one
18:36
Speaker 1: over at the booth too, right.
18:37
Speaker 5: Yep, we're over at a booth thirty two sixteen.
18:40
Speaker 6: The dispenser's actually formatted to fit on an end cap,
18:43
Speaker 6: so it's no more than twenty inches wide, it's got
18:46
Speaker 6: six inches deep compatible with uniweb shelving, so it fits
18:50
Speaker 6: perfectly in one of their trays. And yeah, that's pretty
18:53
Speaker 6: much the standard for what most of our top customers
18:56
Speaker 6: are using today.
18:57
Speaker 1: So where's the growth right now for Flavor of OURX
19:00
Speaker 1: is it? Are you announcing these types of things to
19:04
Speaker 1: pharmacists that get into these specialities like I think of pediatrics,
19:10
Speaker 1: or I think of senior care or something. Do you
19:13
Speaker 1: go and start building those verticals or is it still
19:18
Speaker 1: primarily like our chain pharmacies.
19:20
Speaker 6: Now it's actually go in a few different directions with
19:22
Speaker 6: that question. But for our existing customers, what we're trying
19:25
Speaker 6: to do is make it easier. Not just automating the
19:28
Speaker 6: task of making flavoring effortless and zero seconds on your
19:32
Speaker 6: dispensing workflow, we're also trying to automate the ask and
19:35
Speaker 6: so using technology through different partners, Pioneer RX now their
19:39
Speaker 6: members can have a text message automatically sent to mom
19:42
Speaker 6: and dad saying your Maxiscillin's ready for pickup and you
19:46
Speaker 6: can have your medication flavored for whatever that price.
19:48
Speaker 5: Point might be.
19:50
Speaker 6: So that's one of the things we're trying to help
19:52
Speaker 6: our existing customers with.
19:53
Speaker 5: But also this year, more than.
19:55
Speaker 6: I can remember in the past few years, with so
19:58
Speaker 6: many store closures from some of the nast chains, independence
20:01
Speaker 6: have a great opportunity to attract that next generation of
20:05
Speaker 6: new shoppers. And pediatrics and acute care is often overlooked
20:09
Speaker 6: because it might not be the most high dollar rate away.
20:12
Speaker 5: But if you can use that as a hook to.
20:14
Speaker 6: Get the customers in and offer a service to make
20:16
Speaker 6: medicine time less stressful, we think you got a great
20:18
Speaker 6: chance to keep that customer sticky for the next you know,
20:20
Speaker 6: twenty years to come.
20:22
Speaker 1: What about the world of the cash based pet meds.
20:27
Speaker 1: Do you guys get into flavoring of pet meds at all?
20:30
Speaker 6: Yeah, we've got some savory flavors, grilled tuna, red angus beef.
20:34
Speaker 6: Back in the early days, if you left your coffee
20:36
Speaker 6: at your desk unattended, you might come back with a
20:38
Speaker 6: couple drops of some vet flavors in there to wake
20:41
Speaker 6: you up. But not as many pharmacies are in the
20:46
Speaker 6: dispensing or flavoring or compounding. I think the compounding regulations
20:49
Speaker 6: have kind of shifted that business and there's been quite
20:52
Speaker 6: an uptick of the one eight hundred pet meds and
20:54
Speaker 6: chewies out there, to be honest, but there are certainly
20:57
Speaker 6: some compounding pharmacies that do a tremendous amount of business
21:00
Speaker 6: and you know, use our flavors to make those pet
21:03
Speaker 6: meds a little more palatable.
21:04
Speaker 1: So I do think of compounding a lot. So that
21:08
Speaker 1: would be a perfect addition to a compounding pharmacy when
21:11
Speaker 1: they're dealing with especially compound that they're really going after
21:16
Speaker 1: a certain demographic and announcing that they could be flavored.
21:19
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'll also use that as an opportunity to segue.
21:22
Speaker 5: We are really.
21:24
Speaker 6: Trying to educate our customers across the country. After the
21:27
Speaker 6: last few years of you know, USP seven ninety five
21:30
Speaker 6: and kind of where flavoring stands in that conversation, forty
21:34
Speaker 6: eight out of the fifty states have now written through
21:37
Speaker 6: the Board of Pharmacy some policies that have separated flavoring
21:41
Speaker 6: out from those regulations. We're still facing some challenges in
21:44
Speaker 6: California and Washington State, but the other forty eight states
21:47
Speaker 6: there's some confusion out there of whether you know this
21:50
Speaker 6: complies or not. You can absolutely still flavor if you
21:53
Speaker 6: have any questions, you can go to the flavor x
21:55
Speaker 6: dot com website and we have a chart which will
21:57
Speaker 6: show you state by state exactly what the language looks like.
22:00
Speaker 1: It's excellent. What else like being here at ANACDS A
22:04
Speaker 1: little bit different pace? All business? Really, I heard a
22:08
Speaker 1: couple people kind of reviewing some clinical but this is
22:11
Speaker 1: more about Hey, this is like new markets, this is
22:14
Speaker 1: new business, this is new products and services. Why do
22:18
Speaker 1: you guys come to an ACDs.
22:20
Speaker 6: Well, I mean just you can't have a better opportunity
22:22
Speaker 6: to visit with I think we had forty total combined
22:26
Speaker 6: meetings over the course of three days, so I mean
22:28
Speaker 6: the value of that making that impact and really, you know,
22:31
Speaker 6: it's one thing to go there and do a business
22:33
Speaker 6: review face to face, but in this environment, not only
22:35
Speaker 6: do you get to see folks on the dance on
22:37
Speaker 6: the dance floor, well that's where I was going on
22:39
Speaker 6: the trade show for and maybe on the dance floor,
22:41
Speaker 6: and you know, I have a couple.
22:42
Speaker 1: Of chants for tonight. We were going to party tonight
22:45
Speaker 1: at any CDs.
22:46
Speaker 5: Yeah, and counting crows should be a fun one.
22:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know that's actually true. I haven't seen or
22:50
Speaker 1: heard counting Crows since my I think late college days.
22:55
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, let's.
22:55
Speaker 6: Hope they go back and play some of the nineties
22:57
Speaker 6: hits because I haven't heard too much of the new
22:59
Speaker 6: starf but I'm sure it's all great.
23:02
Speaker 1: Chris. This has been wonderful to catch up with you.
23:04
Speaker 1: I always like watching how you guys are doing and
23:07
Speaker 1: growing and assisting independent community pharmacies, our chain pharmacies to
23:12
Speaker 1: really stand out.
23:13
Speaker 6: So yeah, one last thing I would like to mention
23:16
Speaker 6: for customers even that aren't flavoring the film master side
23:19
Speaker 6: of our business. We now service about twenty three thousand
23:22
Speaker 6: pharmacies where we're maintaining the water quality that's.
23:25
Speaker 5: In their stores.
23:26
Speaker 6: So even if there's pharmacies out there that may not
23:28
Speaker 6: be dipping their toe and providing the flavoring service, our
23:32
Speaker 6: automation will just reconstitute effortlessly, and our technicians use a
23:36
Speaker 6: white glove to come in and we change out the.
23:38
Speaker 5: Filters every year.
23:40
Speaker 6: So that's a great opportunity for folks that you just
23:42
Speaker 6: want to get more efficient with reconstitution.
23:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think of that being in compounding pharmacies too.
23:49
Speaker 3: Yep.
23:49
Speaker 1: Absolutely all right, Chris, thank you so much for being
23:52
Speaker 1: part of the show.
23:53
Speaker 5: YEP, always a pleasure, Todd.
23:54
Speaker 7: Thanks, Hi, This is Sarah Rozac. I'm senior vice president
24:05
Speaker 7: of Health and Wellness Strategy and Policy with NACDS, and separately,
24:10
Speaker 7: I serve as the president of the NACBS Foundation.
24:18
Speaker 1: Hey, Sarah, welcome to the show. How are you.
24:20
Speaker 7: I'm doing great.
24:22
Speaker 1: Great to be back here at NACDS Total Store Expo
24:25
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, San Diego. It's a little hard for
24:29
Speaker 1: US East Coasters, but I'm already time adjusted. I got here.
24:35
Speaker 1: What is today Monday? I think I got here Thursday
24:39
Speaker 1: Friday and got adjusted pretty quickly. But what part of
24:43
Speaker 1: what part of the country are you in?
24:45
Speaker 7: I'm right outside of Washington, d C in northern Virginia.
24:49
Speaker 7: Thanks so much for having me on.
24:51
Speaker 1: Absolutely so, Total Storexpo for US is pretty special because
24:56
Speaker 1: it's very business intensive. It's the innovation of our chain industry.
25:01
Speaker 1: But what I want to talk about and what I
25:02
Speaker 1: want our listeners to understand is the foundation and how
25:06
Speaker 1: that's really part of the ecosystem of the NACDS. So
25:10
Speaker 1: please please share a little bit about that.
25:13
Speaker 7: Absolutely so. The NACDS Foundation is a five oh one
25:17
Speaker 7: c three nonprofit that is separate from, but affiliated with NACDS,
25:22
Speaker 7: and we're really focused on cultivating innovation and care. It
25:26
Speaker 7: means that we're the engine that enables experts to advance
25:30
Speaker 7: public health and our presence at TSEC is a fairly
25:34
Speaker 7: new one. A couple of years back, we moved our
25:37
Speaker 7: annual fundraiser, our annual dinner to be held at the
25:42
Speaker 7: Total Store expos So we were thrilled on Saturday night
25:46
Speaker 7: to have our twenty seventh annual Foundation dinner.
25:49
Speaker 1: Congratulations, thank you. So what's happening in the foundation. What
25:54
Speaker 1: sort of programs are you concentrating on? The Foundation helps
26:00
Speaker 1: to helps to get out there.
26:02
Speaker 7: Sure, so we're seeing growing momentum around the role that
26:06
Speaker 7: pharmacies are providing in offering localized care. And the Foundation
26:12
Speaker 7: is first supporting academic institutions who are updating curricula to
26:19
Speaker 7: reflect the expanding paradigm. We're also working with academic institutions
26:23
Speaker 7: on mentorship programs and offering scholarships. And we support research
26:30
Speaker 7: too that's defining the pathway to achieve ideal health outcomes.
26:36
Speaker 7: And we contract with various schools and colleges of pharmacy
26:42
Speaker 7: and they serve as principal investigators and execute that research
26:46
Speaker 7: for us.
26:47
Speaker 1: So how long have you been in the healthcare industry
26:50
Speaker 1: at healthcare space?
26:52
Speaker 7: Oh gosh, well, I've been at ANACBS and the Foundation
26:55
Speaker 7: about eleven years now. I've been in these roles, serving
27:01
Speaker 7: as the president of the Foundation since the middle of
27:04
Speaker 7: twenty twenty one. But it's definitely been an evolution. I mean,
27:08
Speaker 7: before I came to an ACDs, I worked in public
27:13
Speaker 7: health more broadly, thinking about how health departments and pharmacies
27:18
Speaker 7: can collaborate during emergency responses. And that was back in
27:23
Speaker 7: the days of the H one N one pandemic.
27:26
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness.
27:27
Speaker 7: So I actually left that job and came over here
27:30
Speaker 7: thinking that I wanted to do broader things beyond pandemics,
27:35
Speaker 7: and somehow history had something else in mind. But no,
27:40
Speaker 7: I've loved being in the pharmacy world. In the pharmacy
27:45
Speaker 7: space is a public health person and seeing the connection
27:48
Speaker 7: between public health and pharmacy, having aligned aligned in shared goals.
27:55
Speaker 1: It's so important because there's turbulence in the profect where
28:01
Speaker 1: a lot of our pharmacies, the chain pharmacies, for example,
28:05
Speaker 1: write aid with some of their closing of the stores
28:09
Speaker 1: in the some of the independence or closing issturs. So
28:13
Speaker 1: when we have this, when we can strengthen our existing
28:18
Speaker 1: regional chains and national chains so important because sometimes that's
28:22
Speaker 1: the only healthcare that a community has. How does the
28:26
Speaker 1: foundation kind of plug into the future of pharmacy, because
28:30
Speaker 1: you mentioned some of your scholarships, so talk to us
28:33
Speaker 1: about that.
28:33
Speaker 3: A little bit.
28:34
Speaker 7: Absolutely, so the Foundation is very much focused on innovation
28:40
Speaker 7: and collaboration with schools and colleges of pharmacy is definitely
28:45
Speaker 7: at the center of that. And actually at the annual meeting,
28:50
Speaker 7: we host deans from schools and colleges of pharmacy to
28:56
Speaker 7: be part of a program with us, and we gave
28:59
Speaker 7: out ten scholarships earlier this year trying to remember now
29:05
Speaker 7: with two hundred or two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
29:08
Speaker 1: Annual meeting with.
29:11
Speaker 7: Deans, and then even at our dinner last night, you know,
29:16
Speaker 7: we raised with folks from the industry. We were able
29:20
Speaker 7: to raise one point four million dollars this year that
29:23
Speaker 7: benefits that education and research. And we also at our
29:28
Speaker 7: annual dinner now include not only deans, but also faculty
29:34
Speaker 7: and students from partner schools. So we had about ten
29:41
Speaker 7: schools and Colleges of Pharmacy at.
29:42
Speaker 1: Our event.
29:44
Speaker 7: A couple of days ago, who have been at TSC
29:47
Speaker 7: as well.
29:48
Speaker 1: This is exciting, so we are very proud to be
29:52
Speaker 1: here covering the na CDs. It's one of the conferences
29:55
Speaker 1: we constantly put on our list. We are already talking
30:01
Speaker 1: about Boston twenty twenty six, so we'll have to make
30:06
Speaker 1: sure that we follow up with you and learn some
30:08
Speaker 1: of the progression of your programs. And I love reaching
30:12
Speaker 1: out to pharmacy students and letting them know that there's
30:16
Speaker 1: resources they may not even know about. And there's a
30:20
Speaker 1: tremendous amount of pharmacists that their future will start in
30:24
Speaker 1: a chain pharmacy environment and then evolve or stay or
30:27
Speaker 1: do whatever. But it's an important part is this kind
30:30
Speaker 1: of support. So very excited to have this interview an
30:33
Speaker 1: opportunity to talk with you, Sarah.
30:35
Speaker 7: Thank you, thanks so much, appreciate it.
30:44
Speaker 8: One of the most important missions of the NACDS is
30:47
Speaker 8: to help reform our current pharmacy benefit manager's impact on
30:50
Speaker 8: pharmacy care nationwide. The Pharmacy Benefit Manager Reform Act of
30:54
Speaker 8: twenty twenty five is a direct response to these urgent challenges.
30:58
Speaker 2: Yes, you're right, the bill require PBMs to open their
31:02
Speaker 2: networks to any willing pharmacy under fair and relevant contract
31:05
Speaker 2: terms as determined by the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
31:09
Speaker 5: This bill would establish.
31:11
Speaker 2: Powerful transparency requirements, ban spread pricing, a sure fair reimbursement
31:16
Speaker 2: for pharmacies, and tackle anti competitive practices that drive up
31:19
Speaker 2: drug costs and limit patient choice.
31:22
Speaker 8: The legislation also empowers the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
31:25
Speaker 8: Services and the Office of Inspector General to enforce these reforms,
31:30
Speaker 8: ensuring PBMs are held accountable and cannot retaliate against pharmacies
31:34
Speaker 8: or withhold critical information. And now back to the show.
31:37
Speaker 1: Pharmacies Incorporated. Brian Hose and Peter Starfest Welcome to the
31:43
Speaker 1: NACDS Total Store Expo post show podcast series. As excited
31:49
Speaker 1: to have both of you here. I've known about EPIC
31:52
Speaker 1: for years. As a matter of fact, when I started
31:54
Speaker 1: in pharmacy in long term care, I had pharmacies that
31:58
Speaker 1: were both long term care and community that we're EPIC
32:02
Speaker 1: clients and customers. That's how I learned from my customers.
32:06
Speaker 1: But introduce yourselves, and I want to I have some
32:09
Speaker 1: questions for you about the evolution of Epic certainly so.
32:14
Speaker 9: I'm Pete Starfus. I'm the vice president of Contracts and
32:17
Speaker 9: Trade Relations for Epic. I've been with Epic now for
32:20
Speaker 9: about eight years. I've been in the industry, though my
32:23
Speaker 9: whole career been on the manufacturing side. I've been on
32:26
Speaker 9: the wholesaler side, and now I'm on the retail side,
32:29
Speaker 9: and we service. We're a cooperative, We service retail independent
32:33
Speaker 9: pharmacy community, and what my job is is to provide
32:36
Speaker 9: value to my members and to make sure that they
32:39
Speaker 9: manage a lot of the challenging headwinds that they have
32:43
Speaker 9: in the industry today, whether it's on the reimbursement side
32:46
Speaker 9: or whether it's on the pricing side with you wholesale
32:50
Speaker 9: relationships and sourcing products and that sort of thing. So
32:55
Speaker 9: keeping community pharmacy alive and well is arming focus.
32:59
Speaker 10: Brian, Yeah, I'm Brian Hose.
33:01
Speaker 11: I'm the CEO of EPIC Pharmacies, which encompasses both our
33:05
Speaker 11: our buying group, our GPO, our p SAO, and then
33:08
Speaker 11: our compliance arm as well. I am a pharmacy owner originally,
33:13
Speaker 11: the CEO gig is a relatively new one for me.
33:15
Speaker 11: In the past the past two and a half years,
33:18
Speaker 11: but again it's it's it's all about helping independent pharmacies
33:21
Speaker 11: survive and doing what we can as pharmacy owners to
33:25
Speaker 11: make that happen.
33:26
Speaker 1: There's an advantage to EPIC members with the p SAO
33:30
Speaker 1: that that you're also bringing value to the to the member.
33:35
Speaker 1: Can you go through some of the strategies and things
33:37
Speaker 1: that you're doing.
33:38
Speaker 11: Yeah, Historically the p SAO was reserved for for our
33:41
Speaker 11: buying group members. It was really a you know, a
33:43
Speaker 11: very small group that that we were we.
33:45
Speaker 10: Were targeting with that.
33:46
Speaker 11: Most recently we've we've opened that up and become agnostic
33:49
Speaker 11: because that's what the industry was telling us that they wanted.
33:52
Speaker 10: So we're we're open to all.
33:54
Speaker 11: All pharmacies that that would want to join the p SAO.
33:58
Speaker 11: I think what really sets us apart is our entire
34:01
Speaker 11: board is as pharmacy owners were not owned by a
34:04
Speaker 11: wholesale or influenced by a wholesaler.
34:06
Speaker 10: In any way.
34:06
Speaker 11: We really are completely agnostic when it comes to that
34:09
Speaker 11: PSAO space now, and I feel like we work hard
34:13
Speaker 11: to provide value there for those members doing those back
34:15
Speaker 11: office services that they really, you know, otherwise would spend
34:19
Speaker 11: more on if they had to piece them out, doing
34:22
Speaker 11: the reconciliation, providing audit support, the compliance arm all of
34:26
Speaker 11: those types of things kind of come together to be
34:28
Speaker 11: a one stop shop for them in their contractor.
34:31
Speaker 2: Peter.
34:32
Speaker 1: When I entered pharmacy, it was hard to learn because
34:36
Speaker 1: I was on the long term care side. I wasn't
34:37
Speaker 1: even in community, and the PBM didn't make any sense
34:41
Speaker 1: to me. I don't think it makes sense to anybody,
34:44
Speaker 1: tell you the truth. But what I did understand was
34:47
Speaker 1: the value that the pharmacists provided, the consultant pharmacists that
34:51
Speaker 1: dug into the disease state. A lot of that's now
34:54
Speaker 1: blending over into community too with disease state management. So
34:57
Speaker 1: talk to me about some things that EPIC and EPICS
35:00
Speaker 1: members are doing that's standing out. That isn't just about
35:04
Speaker 1: the dispensing fee. There's other things happening to draw revenue
35:07
Speaker 1: into the pharmacies.
35:08
Speaker 9: There is, and I think you're seeing an evolution now
35:11
Speaker 9: a lot of younger pharmacists that are buying stores and
35:14
Speaker 9: understanding what you need to do that it's not just
35:17
Speaker 9: filling scripts, right, You're going to provide a lot of
35:20
Speaker 9: other services for your patient, whether it's immunization, whether it's
35:23
Speaker 9: home infusion, whatever you're doing, and that also provides other
35:27
Speaker 9: revenue streams into the pharmacy. That's going to help community
35:31
Speaker 9: pharmacies grow. And I think we've seen that with some
35:34
Speaker 9: of our members that are engaging in programs like that
35:38
Speaker 9: that are thriving and they're opening up news stores and
35:41
Speaker 9: multiple stores versus some of the older thinking where they're saying,
35:46
Speaker 9: you know, gee, I don't know why I'm not making it. Well,
35:49
Speaker 9: you've got to, you know, reach out and we try
35:51
Speaker 9: to help each other and try, you know, if we
35:54
Speaker 9: find out one store is successful doing something kind of
35:57
Speaker 9: trying to share the news and get the word out, Hey,
36:00
Speaker 9: maybe you want to look at doing xyz to make
36:04
Speaker 9: it more profitable. Me.
36:05
Speaker 11: Independent pharmacy owners are scrappy and right now, you know,
36:07
Speaker 11: making money from PBM contracts is really challenging. So when
36:10
Speaker 11: they can find ways to do it more clinically get
36:13
Speaker 11: paid on the medical side, you know, anyone that they
36:16
Speaker 11: can work with to provide healthcare in their communities and
36:19
Speaker 11: get paid for it fairly, I think is what you're
36:21
Speaker 11: seeing is they're really they're scrappy.
36:23
Speaker 10: They're they're going to find.
36:24
Speaker 11: A way to survive and this is one of the
36:27
Speaker 11: ways that they're able to do that.
36:28
Speaker 3: I think.
36:29
Speaker 1: So, what opportunities are now out there for the well
36:32
Speaker 1: positioned community pharmacies, independents that are out there. With the
36:36
Speaker 1: collapse of rite Aid and with the downsizing of some
36:41
Speaker 1: of the other nationals Walgreens and CBS, what is that
36:46
Speaker 1: presenting your membership? What are you hearing from your membership
36:48
Speaker 1: and some of the more aggressive stores to capitalize on
36:51
Speaker 1: that situation.
36:52
Speaker 11: I mean, the script volume is out there because you know,
36:55
Speaker 11: those stores were servicing a population of people who are
36:57
Speaker 11: filling lots of prescriptions. And the problem I think independent
37:00
Speaker 11: pharmacy is do they want that VODU?
37:01
Speaker 5: Yeah?
37:02
Speaker 11: I mean I feel like sometimes you're you're the hamster
37:05
Speaker 11: and you're on the wheel. Do you want to run
37:06
Speaker 11: faster for the same dollars or do you want to
37:08
Speaker 11: find a way to get out of the hamster wheel?
37:10
Speaker 11: And I think that that some of that volume is
37:13
Speaker 11: good volume and some of that volume is bad volume.
37:15
Speaker 11: And I think independent pharmacies are trying to figure out,
37:19
Speaker 11: you know, what can they do to help those communities
37:22
Speaker 11: and what can't they do to help those communities.
37:24
Speaker 1: So what's your opinion? Peter of the rise of that
37:28
Speaker 1: cash based player, the cost plus player that's out there,
37:32
Speaker 1: like shout out to Blueberry Pharmacy out of Pittsburgh. But
37:36
Speaker 1: there's a there's a that's a growth point where now
37:40
Speaker 1: it's some of these independents are like, that's it. I
37:42
Speaker 1: don't want anything to do with the PBM, And contracts
37:46
Speaker 1: with partnerships and contracts with organizations like EPIC are even
37:50
Speaker 1: more important in some ways in those models because you
37:55
Speaker 1: are the whole steller and they don't have to worry
37:57
Speaker 1: about necessarily the reimbursement I back. But what do you
38:01
Speaker 1: think of that?
38:02
Speaker 9: Well, depending on your you know, your dispense, you know,
38:08
Speaker 9: and what drugs you're dispensing, and you know, a lot
38:10
Speaker 9: of pharmacies are being forced to kind of look at
38:13
Speaker 9: options like what Blueberry is doing and saying I'm going
38:16
Speaker 9: to do a cash base only patient you know, engagement
38:20
Speaker 9: or that sort of thing, and some of them are
38:22
Speaker 9: finding it very successful. But it's another way that pharmacists
38:26
Speaker 9: are being kind of forced to look into other avenues
38:29
Speaker 9: and to other streams, and they're seeing what's working for
38:33
Speaker 9: other people and sometimes, you know, unfortunately we have to
38:37
Speaker 9: turn you know, some some things away and say, you know,
38:41
Speaker 9: I'm not going to play in that sandbox and maybe
38:43
Speaker 9: I'm going to service my patients a different way.
38:47
Speaker 11: Yeah, I mean it definitely limits what what what the
38:49
Speaker 11: pharmacy is able to stock, what products that.
38:52
Speaker 10: That people are willing to pay for.
38:53
Speaker 11: I know that, you know, expensive branded medications are not
38:56
Speaker 11: good cash cash sales. That just that not many patients
38:59
Speaker 11: are able to were that. So you're you're looking at
39:02
Speaker 11: mostly generic based businesses at that point, And is that
39:05
Speaker 11: really you know, is that the best shift for your community?
39:08
Speaker 10: Is that the best shift for your business? It's really tough.
39:10
Speaker 10: I mean it's a lot of tough decisions.
39:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is. We're going through an evolution for sure.
39:14
Speaker 1: Has there been anything in the technology space that stood
39:17
Speaker 1: out to some of your memberships that you're excited about?
39:20
Speaker 10: I think to our.
39:21
Speaker 11: Membership, they're they're they're excited about some of the things
39:23
Speaker 11: that make purchasing easier for them. There's lots of platforms
39:27
Speaker 11: out there now. I feel like there's lots of platforms
39:29
Speaker 11: for medical billing where that wasn't.
39:30
Speaker 10: The case before.
39:31
Speaker 11: So these are these are complicated things for them, and
39:34
Speaker 11: if they can make it easier, So we're seeing a
39:35
Speaker 11: lot of that that type of thing we're we're tapping
39:38
Speaker 11: into into new ways to do things, more effishing ways
39:40
Speaker 11: to do things, but also access to two dollars they
39:44
Speaker 11: didn't have before. Because I'm not an expert in medical billing.
39:47
Speaker 11: A lot of pharmacists, you know, we're not experts in
39:50
Speaker 11: medical billing, but I think it's opened up a good
39:51
Speaker 11: bit of opportunity for them with some of these companies
39:54
Speaker 11: that are willing to help.
39:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I also think of the rise of long
40:01
Speaker 1: term care at home and how people don't want to
40:04
Speaker 1: lose that what will leave their home and or there's
40:06
Speaker 1: no nursing home availability. So this community pharmacies are are
40:12
Speaker 1: now taking the steps to act as a more of
40:15
Speaker 1: a long term care esque and get paid like that
40:17
Speaker 1: for the services being provide, the emergency services provide. Are
40:21
Speaker 1: any of your members kind of digging into the long
40:24
Speaker 1: term care at home pharmacy models.
40:26
Speaker 10: Yeah, we definitely have a couple that have really adopted that.
40:29
Speaker 11: I mean, CPSN has been a big driver for that
40:32
Speaker 11: and for a lot of those pharmacies, and it's they've
40:34
Speaker 11: kind of had an easy button for them to help
40:36
Speaker 11: them get involved in that excuse me some of the
40:39
Speaker 11: ones that were already doing long term care services, the
40:41
Speaker 11: assistant living facilities and things.
40:43
Speaker 10: It's a really good fit for them.
40:44
Speaker 11: It makes makes a lot of sense because they're already
40:46
Speaker 11: dealing with those patients and there's needs now.
40:50
Speaker 1: Peter, is there a favorite conference that's coming up for
40:54
Speaker 1: the rest of the year that you're going to be
40:56
Speaker 1: getting ready for or is does EPICH have your own
41:00
Speaker 1: conference for the members.
41:01
Speaker 9: Well, we just did ours in conjunction with our wholesale partner,
41:05
Speaker 9: mckessinger and Kiss and Idea Share. But coming up, we
41:08
Speaker 9: have NCPA in October, which is all EPIC members. That's
41:12
Speaker 9: one of the benefits of being an EPIC members. You
41:14
Speaker 9: get your NCPA membership paid for and we're looking forward
41:18
Speaker 9: to that conference in October, just collaborating with all the
41:23
Speaker 9: pharmacists and pharmacists from other areas and groups and regions
41:26
Speaker 9: and finding out what we can do to better serve
41:30
Speaker 9: them and serve our members.
41:32
Speaker 1: Brian and Peter, this has been good to talk with
41:35
Speaker 1: you here at any CDs Total storexpo. If there is
41:38
Speaker 1: a pharmacy owner listening, curious about your services and working
41:42
Speaker 1: with you as they're buying, group what's the best way
41:45
Speaker 1: to get a hold of you.
41:47
Speaker 9: You could reach us at epic ARX dot com is
41:50
Speaker 9: our website and I'm at p starfus st A P
41:54
Speaker 9: s t A r fas at epic rx dot com.
42:00
Speaker 11: Yeah, I mean that's probably the best way to reach
42:01
Speaker 11: out through our website. We can route it to the
42:03
Speaker 11: right place because again we've got you know, a couple
42:05
Speaker 11: of different a couple different avenues for for helping independent
42:08
Speaker 11: pharmacies and make sure we get you to the right
42:09
Speaker 11: place and get someone on it for you.
42:11
Speaker 1: Hey, thanks for jumping on the show here at an
42:13
Speaker 1: A c DS. I appreciate you both.
42:15
Speaker 9: Thanks Tom,