Latest / Pharmacy Podcast Network / Revealing the Power of Pharmacy Data: Automation Insights with Dr. Matthew Song | Pharmacy Tech Trends: PrimeRx

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Revealing the Power of Pharmacy Data: Automation Insights with Dr. Matthew Song | Pharmacy Tech Trends: PrimeRx · Pharmacy Podcast Network

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: You are listening to the global network of podcasters dedicated
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: to the pharmacy profession.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Pharmacy Podcast Network.
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: We are committed to the pharmacy owner's success. PRIMRX believes
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: in empowering pharmacies with innovative solutions to thrive in today's
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: competitive landscape. We look forward to working with pharmacy owners
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: and sharing how our solutions can contribute to their sustained
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: profitability and growth. Connect with us on the web by
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: going to primarx dot io. That's primearx dot io.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: You put me in a room with a pharmacist, sprinkle
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: in some technology, maybe even some pharmacy software, and let's
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: talk data. And I'm an excited guy. My name's Todd.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: You're a founder of the Pharmacy Podcast Network. I started
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: in pharmacy soaking in data through pharmacy management systems and
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: technology that really helped to position operations to understand what
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: their patients needed and in sometimes what the hospital systems
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: needed with the long term care facilities needed. Now we
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: jet us in ahead twenty years later and we're in the.
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  Speaker 2: Age of AI. We're in the age of.
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  Speaker 1: Big data being leveraged to save money and to keep
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  Speaker 1: pharmacies alive. I'm so thrilled to welcome doctor Matthew song
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  Speaker 1: Farmde and he's with the primar X team. Matthew works
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: with the Technology group. He's the director of Data Engineering
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: and Analytics. What better person to talk about data, Matthew, Welcome.
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  Speaker 2: Nks Meetcha Todd. I'm honored to be on your podcast.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Thank you well, We're honored to have you. This is
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: the pharmacy podcast Tech Trends by the Primary X team.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: For all of their shows, please go to Primearx dot
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Io Forward Podcasts. Once again, that's primary X dot Io
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Forward Podcasts. Matthew, I want to jump right into this
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  Speaker 1: as I opened up. Data is to me in my
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: junior level of understanding it compared to you, and you're
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: seeing it almost like Neo saw the matrix, where he
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: saw the coding happening. He could make pictures out of code.
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  Speaker 1: I'm at a level where I can look at it
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  Speaker 1: like a map, but it is a map. Data is
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  Speaker 1: a map and it can lead us to different things.
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  Speaker 1: And so just right off the bat, talk to us
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  Speaker 1: about your experience as a pharmacist and as someone who
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  Speaker 1: really values data and understands that in fact, it does
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  Speaker 1: help guide us in our businesses.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, pharmacy data is definitely a map, and
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  Speaker 2: it's more than a map. You know, you can use it,
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  Speaker 2: use the data to your advantage. You can analyze it,
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  Speaker 2: dice it, and a lot of you could draw a
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  Speaker 2: lot of strategies from it. When I first graduated from
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: pharmacy school, I started my career as inpatient pharmacist at
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  Speaker 2: a hospital, rural hospital, and every day I was working
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  Speaker 2: on you know, treating patients, dispensing medications, and I realized
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  Speaker 2: how much data you need in order to treat a patient,
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  Speaker 2: and how much the EHR data would help me efficiently
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  Speaker 2: treat patients, for example, finding patients with a ki a
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  Speaker 2: Q kidney injury and just you know, how do I
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  Speaker 2: how do I select how do I easily select a patient?
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  Speaker 2: Like there was at the time I was using a
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  Speaker 2: EHR that didn't have those tools available for you to
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  Speaker 2: easily find patients with AKI or patients with antibiotics, and
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  Speaker 2: just having those lists to me would have saved me
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  Speaker 2: a lot of time. And that's something I always thought
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  Speaker 2: about as a pharmacist working at my desk, how do
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: I treat patients better? And That's when I really needed
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  Speaker 2: to have the tools that would analyze the data for
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  Speaker 2: you as a clinical.
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  Speaker 1: Pharmacist, Matthew, that's the clinical side of data that continues
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  Speaker 1: to accumulate. I think of the lifetime of a human being,
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  Speaker 1: and you know, I'm that gen xer. So the tracking
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: of my life and data was much smaller than someone
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  Speaker 1: that was born let's say ten, even twenty years ago,
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  Speaker 1: where the EHR has really started to be accumulative for
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  Speaker 1: us to be able to to track, Hey, what was
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: your health like when you were first born. Did you
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  Speaker 1: go through anything clinically, did you need anything special that
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  Speaker 1: was out of the ordinary, maybe something that was a
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  Speaker 1: chronic condition. What was the reaction of our physicians, what
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  Speaker 1: was the reaction and medications that were used in treatment plans?
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  Speaker 1: And then what was the follow up data? Now that
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  Speaker 1: individual was twenty five years old and we can look
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  Speaker 1: back on trends, we can look back on data to
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  Speaker 1: really help map maybe what that next test would be.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe it's pharmacogenomics, or maybe it's dialing into diabetes care
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  Speaker 1: or preventative care. I think data today, Matthew, is so
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  Speaker 1: much more useful and powerful because of the types of
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  Speaker 1: tools that we have at our disposal as clinicians at
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  Speaker 1: you you're the clinician, you're the farm d and so
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  Speaker 1: that leads me to our next question, which is how
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  Speaker 1: do you see our independent community pharmacists who are are
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  Speaker 1: being challenged to transform their businesses from prescription based business
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: meaning we're getting a dispensing fee, we're working everything around
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  Speaker 1: the single prescription. That's going to continue to sunset and
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  Speaker 1: you're going to see the rise of pharmacists dialing into
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  Speaker 1: data to really become more clinical advisors for people in
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: a multitude of different conditions. But how do you see
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: that continuing to become a focus in empowering our pharmacists.
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  Speaker 2: Of course, pharmacy industry is easily one of the most
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  Speaker 2: regulated and control businesses in the nation, if not the
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: most regulated and control business in the nation. So running
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  Speaker 2: a pharmacy is an easy and pharmacists are not trained
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  Speaker 2: to be business owners or business analysts from pharmacy school,
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  Speaker 2: but they would have to function as one in order
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  Speaker 2: to run a business, understand laws and regulations, and understand
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  Speaker 2: the finances and economics in order to be successful in
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  Speaker 2: the pharmacy business, and data is the best tool you
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  Speaker 2: can utilize to become successful in the pharmacy business. And
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  Speaker 2: I would like to share some strategies with the pharmacist listeners.
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  Speaker 2: So using your pharmacy's own data to diagnose, you can
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  Speaker 2: use that to diagnose your own business and you can
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  Speaker 2: use the data to your advantage. So that's something I
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  Speaker 2: would like.
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  Speaker 1: To share, yes, And I think we can break that
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  Speaker 1: into categories, especially like what we were saying about, we're
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: moving away from just the revenue that's coming in from
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  Speaker 1: the prescription fee, and now we're going to be moving
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  Speaker 1: to being able to make more as a pharmacist based
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: on your knowledge of maybe a specific disease, state, conditions, titration,
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  Speaker 1: if it were like a medicine that you're moving from
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: one to the next. But let's talk about the business
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  Speaker 1: side of the data. Because the pharmacist listening right now,
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: the pharmacy owners listening right now, they know better than
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: anyone that it's data that's really going to help them
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  Speaker 1: see the bigger picture and start making some decisions. So
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: first of all, let's talk about how could we tap
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: into understanding where are top payers, who are top payers were,
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: where that money was coming from, and being able to
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: make some pivots to ensure that we can keep that
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  Speaker 1: going as much as possible.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, So I would like to share how
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: to utilize top payers data. So I would like to
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: start with the saying, pharmacy data is your compass. PPM
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: is the storm. So you can't stop the weather, but
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: you can navigate it wisely with data. So I want
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: to start with the small equation economics equation, it's profit.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: It goes revenue minus cost. So PBM is definitely the
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: revenue side of it for for your pharmacy because it
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: gives you reinbursements for your prescriptions. And when you UH,
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: when you first open your pharmacy, you're signed into an
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: agreement with usually UH P s AO Pharmacy Services Administrative
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: Organization UH and P s AO. Their function is to
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: negotiate with the PBMs and create kind of a group
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: contract for your pharmacy. Because pharmacies are our usually difficult
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  Speaker 2: to write, you know, sign contracts with you know, hundreds
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: of PBMs and payers. UH it's it's it's would be
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  Speaker 2: very difficult to write write hundreds of contracts with them.
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  Speaker 2: So P s a O usually pre contracts for you.
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  Speaker 2: And if you're a pharmacy owner starting a business, you
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: you can just sign in with the p s A oh,
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  Speaker 2: and you should be good. You're you're contracted with hundreds
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  Speaker 2: of UH payers and p b ms. However, you know
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  Speaker 2: when I when I ran a pharmacy in the past,
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: that the reimbursement rate wasn't wasn't good for my pharmacy,
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  Speaker 2: and so we had to go and renegotiate with some
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  Speaker 2: of the pharmacy some of the p b ms. And
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  Speaker 2: the first thing we did was to look at our
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  Speaker 2: top payers by volume, for the top payers, and we
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  Speaker 2: selected top five payers of PBMs and then renegotiated with them.
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  Speaker 2: And so we carved them out of our PSAO contracts
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  Speaker 2: and then renegotiated with them to get better contracts. So
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  Speaker 2: one of the one of the things that one of
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  Speaker 2: the reasons we did that was because the reimbursement rate
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  Speaker 2: wasn't good and also we thought we could negotiate better.
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  Speaker 2: So we used a couple of things to renegotiate. The
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: first thing is UH that we were a rural pharmacy,
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: So rural pharmacy you could get better rates than regular
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  Speaker 2: PSAO rates. So so that was that was one thing.
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  Speaker 2: And another we were also serving skill care nursing homes.
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  Speaker 2: So if you are LTC pharmacy, you can and also
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  Speaker 2: renegotiate for LTC you know, prices. So so those were
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  Speaker 2: two things we use that data for to in order
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  Speaker 2: to renegotiate for a better reimbursement rates and just to
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  Speaker 2: to put it, put it out there as a caveat.
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  Speaker 2: Not all p SAOs UH allow for pharmacies to carve
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  Speaker 2: carve out a negotiation, So just make sure with your
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: p s AO and see if that is possible option
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  Speaker 2: for you.
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  Speaker 1: So I'm noticing, Matthew that there's some changes happening in
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  Speaker 1: the business of pharmacy where you have people like doctor
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  Speaker 1: Kyle McCormick out of Pittsburgh that has done away with PBMs.
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  Speaker 1: He's now a cash based, he's a he's a club
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  Speaker 1: based pharmacy.
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  Speaker 2: He's doing away with that.
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  Speaker 1: He Also there's the manufacturers who are starting to approach
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  Speaker 1: some larger pharmacy entities and starting to directly contract with them,
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  Speaker 1: avoiding PBMs, avoiding the PSAOS. So with that dynamic happening,
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  Speaker 1: I think that psaos will be more open to the
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  Speaker 1: savvy pharmacy business owner out there coming to them and
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  Speaker 1: saying listen, I'm going to carve out my top three
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  Speaker 1: PBMs and I'm going to go to them directly in
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: order to negotiate. Because it's our lifeblood, it's survivability, it's
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: trying to get the most out of it. So even
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: though your PSAO might say, hey, we don't want you
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: to do that, or we're not you're not allowed to
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: do that, I would challenge every body listening, every single
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: pharmacist listing, pharmacy owner listening. But you could press those
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: psaos with some of those ideas if you have the data,
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: and better than just the data is making sense of it.
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  Speaker 1: So talk to us about the tools in place to
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: actually make sense of that. And then I also want
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: you to talk with our listeners about some other strategies,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: including finding revenue and the best profit in specific drugs
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: by volume.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's a good point, Todd. I wasn't aware that,
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: you know, there's some trends, you know, people who are
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: moving away from you know, PBMs. That very interesting point
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: because there this is a double edged sword, right, So
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: if you're you know, moving away from PBMs altogether cash only, yeah,
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: you might be able to save maybe save some costs
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: for your customers. Maybe, but you may be losing a
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: lot of your patients. Majority of the people are insurance insured,
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: so uh, you know, patients who want to use their
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: insurance you know, may not be a good customer for you.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: But if their insurance wasn't paying well you know either,
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: then maybe yeah, that's a good strategy to go go with.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: So the second topic that I wanted to mention I
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: wanted to speak about was trying to pull the top
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: drugs by volume or revenue or profit and and and
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: if your if your pharmacy system allows, that is a
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: very good report to go to. So I want to
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: start by another saying, knowing your drug data is like
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: knowing your vitals. It tells you if your business is
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: stable or slipping, right, So you can't treat what you
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: don't measure, right, So you know, I think like a
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: clinical pharmacist, uh you know, and and your pharmacy is
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: your is your patient, right, So when you're treating a page,
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: you need to draw the lapse, know the vitals and
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: see where it's broken, right, and so exactly the same way,
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: looking at your drug data is just like knowing the
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: vitals for your pharmacy business. You will see which drug
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: is your top performing drug in terms of volume or
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: in terms of revenue or profit. Your drug could be
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: very very high in volume. However, if your profit margin
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: is really small, there is something you can do about it, right,
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: so you know, first thing, you know, because your profit
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: eqales revenue minus cost, you can either reduce the cost
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: or improve the improve the revenue. Right, the easiest option
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: is to go to Google, purchase the drug from the
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: cheaper vendors. You know. We primary x provides primary x
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: market where you can compare drug prices across forty or
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: fifty different vendors secondary vendors and purchase the you know,
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: ship this drug from them. So so that using primaryx market, uh,
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: you know marketplace that can really help save draw costs
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: for your business. And also you can optimize your inventory
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: or you know, reduce carring costs. So for example, having
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: too much inventory, you'll spend too much upfront costs right
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: or or also if you're carrying too little, you may
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: be you know, not being able to feel something. So
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: setting like max and minimum of your inventory for NBC
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: or per product depends on how you manage your inventories.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: It will be really good. So PRIMARYX our software actually
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: has a good inventories tools for you. It's automated and
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: and if you're not utilizing a perpetual inventory for your pharmacy,
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: it will be really good idea to to manage that,
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: uh to to to start using it, to start using
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: your perpetual inventory for your pharmacy, using your pharmacy system.
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: Primars has a very good inventory management system. Just to
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: let you know, uh And so yeah, these are some
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: of the options. And and also you could there there
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: are various ways you can go about by using top
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: drugs by volume or profit or revenue. You could also
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: identify some clinical service opportunities like MTM or some adherence
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: programs for your your your patients. So for example, you know,
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: if these are you know, top drugs selling, you know,
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: you could open an MTM service for that you know,
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: specific drug or if it's like main struck, then you
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: can try and adherence programs to even further increase the
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: InCrest the drug prescription volumes and even even you know,
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: bring in extra you know, clinical revenues like like like MTN.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we we were talking about our payers at the beginning.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: Really to dial into that understand your data. The second
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: thing that we're mentioning is the top drugs by volume
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: and the revenue and profit that comes from that that
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: can help us in buying. With primary X market, you're
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: able to do things on the fly, which is really cool,
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: Like you can literally be doing this. You could be
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: filling them a prescription out and you can do the
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: dropdown to pick the medication and you could literally buy
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: without ever having to go I remember back in the
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: day you had to go to a whole nother section
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: of the software system to do anything. This is all
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: built in when it's happening. But let's talk about the
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: third thing, which I think is really interesting and it's
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: a good point that you helped us map out when
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: we were talking about our podcast today, and that is
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: the relationship that we have as pharmacy owners with our
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: prescribers and how important that is form numerous reasons, including
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: finding new opportunities to dive into trends that are happening,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: whether that's vaccines or whether that's maybe a specific disease
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: data or a physician that's a specialist that now you're
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: getting a prescription on something that's out of the ordinary.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's like a specially met or something.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: So talk to us.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: About the data and the world of our top prescribers
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: by volume and what that means to us as pharmacy owners.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, this is a very very interesting topic. So
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: you can utilize your pharmacy system to draw a report
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: of your top prescribers or top clinics by prescription volume.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: And this data can be used strategically and clinically also.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: So I want to start by the saying prescriber data
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: turns relationships into strategy. So using uh, prescriber data, you
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: can use it to anticipate the needs, not just react to,
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: you know, prescriptions coming in, but you can actually do
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: and you can actually do proactive strategies with with the clinics.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: So for example, you can align clinical programs with the
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: prescriber focus. So what I'm saying is no, know your
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: top prescribers and what their clinics are and align your
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: pharmacy clinical programs with them. Go together. So for example,
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: if your if your top prescribers clinic is doing joint diabetes, okay,
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: you can you can launch joint diabetes education together, a
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: one C tracking and things like that. If they are
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: starting immunization drives for example, then you can see where
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: you can fit in and do it together with with
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: with your local clinic or hospital. And same thing with
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: COPD asthma action plan coordinations, and you can do a
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: lot of different things with with your clinic instead of
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: waiting for prescriptions to come in and building these relationships
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: with prescribers can go a very long term and really
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: help your pharmacy to grow with them and uh so
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: so sharing you know, insights, sharing you know, these partnerships
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: can uh go long term. I know a pharmacists who
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: who did very similar things. This pharmacy was a compounding
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: pharmacy and they were very good at compounding sterilized compounds,
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: non sterile compoundings. And they had a nearby a prescriber
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: who really whose whose uh patient demographics were hormone replacement
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: therapy patients, and the pharmacy specialized into compounding. They uh
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: they talked to the doctor, they talked to the prescriber
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: and actually provided them with the compounding products that they
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: can create so they can compound for for the prescriber,
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: it's prescriber's patients. So they came up with the compounding
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: products together that the mistaken compound for their patients and
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: restless history. So they were able to get a lot
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: of compounding prescriptions. And at the time, compoundings weren't really
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: covered by a PBMs, so a lot of these were
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: actually paid for by their patients by cash. So you know,
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: they were able to get rid of a lot of headaches,
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: you know, whether compounding is going to be covered or not,
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: because it wasn't, most of them were not covered. So
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: but yeah, this is like one of the examples of
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: like aligning your clinical programs or understanding what the prescriber
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: likes to prescribe, understanding you know, their specialties, understanding their
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: preferred drug preferred drug classes, and syncing it with their
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: you know, clinical programs together. So this is one of
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: the examples, and you can grow with your local clinics.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Together absolutely and then informing your prescribers, informing your physician
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: partners of things that you're doing to surround the patient
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: that three sixty degree of care. Where if this is
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: a diabetic patient, now your pharmacy says, hey, we have
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: diabetic shoes, we have socks, special socks, we have you know, wheelchairs,
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: we have durable medical equipment, we have other things that
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: can become ancillary to the primary therapy. And if you're
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: allowing your physicians to know that you are doing that
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: for your patient base, they're you know, they can't send you,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: you know, they can't send their patients directly to your pharmacy,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: but they can always make a suggestion where they're like, oh,
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: you're you're kind of going through your diabetes right now,
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: or you're you're going through something. And I know the
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: ABC Community Pharmacy down the street really dials into that.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: And I think that's all about relationships. Like you said, Matthewsing,
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: it's using data to find your prescribers, but that's not
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: the end point. The end point is using that data
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: to solidify and make those relationships even stronger.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yes. I also forgot to mention when I
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: first started my pharmacy business back in I don't have
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: the pharmacy anymore, but back in twenty sixteen, your local
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: hospitals or clinics might may not have your pharmacy in
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: their system, and it's very important to make sure that
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: to let them know. Let your local clinics or hospitals
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: know that your pharmacy exists and have them entered into
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: their database or their system. This is very important because
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: without that, they will not be able to write scripts
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: to you. And that's something I realized after a few
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: months of running the pharmacy business. I realized the hospital
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: didn't have us in their database, and so I had
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: to call and ask them to can you create my
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: pharmacy within your database. Give them your MPI, n C, PDP,
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: your address, phone number of fax number so that they can,
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: you know, send these scripts to your pharmacy. And you
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: would think that that is automated. You know, they will
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: have all the list pharmacy lists in their database. Sometimes
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: they do. Sometimes they get automated updates, not all of them.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: So make sure to when you open your pharmacy business,
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: let that all the clinics nearby you and introduce you
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: your pharmacy and have them added to their database, because
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: without that, you won't be able to receive prescriptions for
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: a long time. Maybe they'll be added down the road,
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: but not right away. So that's one of the things
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: I wanted to mention.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: That sounds so simple, but boy is that important. It's
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: just making your physicians and your clinics and your hospital
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: systems aware of your presence and your passion about your community.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: And I think that that also goes a long way. Hey,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: we saved the next one. The fourth point of really
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: strengthening your business through data, This is the best. We
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: save the best for last, and that is our top
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: patients and assuring that our patients are adherent and what
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: that means for profitability is enormous. One side is you know,
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: you're giving you're giving a little extra to your top patients,
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: showing you showing them their appreciation. They might be generational,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: they might have you know, been the second third generation
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: coming to your pharmacy. And then on the other side,
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: it's that adherence. I mean, adherence is so good for
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: the health of our patient to stay on their medications,
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: stay on their treatment and being able to trend what
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: that treatment is doing for them, and then being able
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: to map it and then pass that data even back
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: to physicians of how it's trending. But it's also means
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: that your revenue is going to stay in place because
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: you're keeping your patients on their medications, you're keeping them happy,
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: You're surrounding them with other things that are ancillary to
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: the primary therapy. So talk to us about number four,
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: the top patients and our patient adherence and how data
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: impacts that.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: Yes, of course, DoD. So knowing your patience is super important.
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: So I want to start by saying, if you know
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: your patience by name, you care, but if you know
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: them by data, you improve their care. So it's very
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: important to know your top patients by prescription volume or
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: profit or revenue. And they are your most loyal customers.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: And so you know, my boss always says, uh, pharmacy
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: is not in prescription business. You know, pharmacies in refill business,
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: meaning your pharmacy is rewarded in your patients loyalty. Right,
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: So UH know your top one hundred customers by volume,
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: These are your you know, most loyal customers. Make sure
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: to follow up with their medications and with their medication adherents.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: Build loyalty through their you know, personalization of their medicine.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: Assign these patients to metzinc programs. Uh from our access
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: Missed Medzinc program. It allows you to fill their medications
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: on time as scheduled. You can also recognize it, recognize
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: their loyalty, reward their loyalty through discount you know within
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: your store. Let them know if if there's any like
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: payer impacts, there are some you know, every year there's
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: some changes to your payers. Right, so if you know
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: your customers, just you know, let them know when they're
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: coming in or by phone call or by text, just
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: let them know that your insurance is going to be
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: impacted and things like that. So so these are your
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: most loyal customers. And uh oh, this is another another
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: similar point. So make sure you're farharmacy is your patients
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: preferred pharmacy in the e HR systems in your local
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: clinics and hospitals. You can you can call clinics to
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: do that. You have to let your pharmacy your patients
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: know to please select your pharmacy as the preferred pharmacy
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: when sending prescriptions. So when they go see your doctor,
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: go to see their doctors, when they prescribe their medications,
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: then in the e HR it will you will automatically
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: select your pharmacy, uh whenever the patient comes in. So
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: so that is very important. It seems easy, right, but
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: having your patients selecting your pharmacy as as the preferred
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: pharmacy in in their doctor's clinics HR, it will just
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: default all their medications to come to you and prescriptions
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: to come to you. And so you know, these are
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: some of the kind of tips and that that I
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: would I would like to share as a forma informaticist.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: This is this is something I have I have been
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: working with, you know, is the EHR. So I've worked
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: with e hrs, and EHRs are very manually updated, many
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: of them, and so just having your pharmacy updated there.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: And you know, these things happen sometimes manually with the
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: older systems and sometimes newer systems too, So just having
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: them updated in their HR, having your pharmacy entered in
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: in their EHRs, it's it's very important.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: This has been great Matthew for really mapping out how
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: to leverage data better, how to get more out of
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: our data. I want to just give a shout out
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: to our listeners. If you are a prix user, you
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: probably already know a lot of this. You probably have
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: coaching and team members inside the primary X family that
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: has helped you. However, if you're not a primary X user,
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: reach out to the team that they're they're here to
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: strengthen independent community pharmacy and they're packed full of ways
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: to use data better and by doing that you may
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: find yourself gravitating towards the systems that are in place
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: at primar X. But regardless, I want to give a
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: shout out to our technicians. Thank you so much for
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: being the right hand of our pharmacists. The pharmacy technicians
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: sometimes becomes specialists in leveraging data and leveraging by and
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: leveraging inventory management, also a patient engagement. So a shout
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: out to our techs and our pharmacy owners. If there's
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: anything that our publication can research for you or do
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: for you, including our team at primar X, please reach
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: out to us. You can email me at My last
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: name is Uri. That's e U r Y at pharmacypodcast
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: dot com. Once again, that's Uri at pharmacypodcast dot com.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: And then take a look. There's so much information over
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: at the prim r x website. It's prime rx dot io.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: Doctor Matthew Song, thank you so much for being on
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: this podcast today and talking more about tech trends.
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Todd, it was nice speaking with
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: you today.