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Amazing New Technology Allows Pharmacists To Open Doors to New Revenue Streams | Pharmacy Crossroads · Pharmacy Podcast Network

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Pharmacy Podcast Network. This is
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Pharmacy Crossroads with your host, community pharmacy business veteran the
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: road trip goth Bruce naland community pharmacy is at a crossroads.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Pharmacy owners across the country are evolving their pharmacy businesses
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: and making a bigger impact on their communities. Bruce talks
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: with the most innovative community pharmacy owners, pharmacy industry experts,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: and people who are passionate about the business of pharmacy
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: and its impact on community healthcare. Pharmacy Crossroads is a
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: member of the Pharmacy Podcast Network. And now here's our host,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Bruce Neland.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Again everybody, this is Bruce neland with another episode of
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: Pharmacy Crossroads. It's sure a delight to be able to
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: do these podcasts. I get to meet some wonderful people,
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: and like today, I get to re engage with people
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: I've known for years and respect. So for today's episode,
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: we have Chris Antipas. Chris is the president of astes
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: Self Hills Pharmacy in Pittsburgh. He's also a partner and
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: an entrepreneur in a variety of other healthcare or pharmacy
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: related businesses, which will be the subject of our conversation today.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: What he's building and how he and his partners are
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: bringing and exciting new technology that will benefit pharmacies and
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: patients and payers. So it's a trifecta win for all
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: of us. Chris is the past president of the Sylvania
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Pharmacist Association, which I just really admire pharmacy owners who
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: get involved in their state pharmacy associations, national associations as well.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: What's fun for Chris being the president of PPA is
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: I was actually on the board of the Pennsylvania Association
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: back in like two thousand and two, three and four,
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: So it's kind of near and dear to my heart
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: joining Chris today, which is a real pleasure for me,
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: is my daughter Robin Amberg. Robin has introduced me to
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Chris and has made arrangements for us to do this
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: podcast today. Robin's been in the business the industry for
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: about fifteen years. She gets to work with some remarkable
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: companies and bring new and innovative things to pharmacy owners,
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: and so a little bit later we'll get a chance
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: to hear from Robin. So for right now, Chris, why
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: don't you take a minute and introduce yourself and set
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: the stage for what we're going to be talking about
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: later today.
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Great to see you Bruce always, and good to
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: be with you Robin as well, my dear friends. So yeah,
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  Speaker 3: so I've got a few things going on in my world.
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: I have a few different pharmacies that I own. You
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: mentioned Astes. That's a retail pharmacy that were decently high
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: volume retail pharmacy. I have a closed door long term
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: care pharmacy called cultar X. We also have a sterile
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: and non sterile compounding lab. I have a clinic based
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: pharmacy that does three forty b and I also have
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: a nationally fifty state licensed specialty pharmacy that's in the
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: specialty space. And that my experience across all these different
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: walks of the pharmacy world have driven me to do
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: what I can in this space to try try to
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: innovate and compete. I mean, as you know, Bruce, the
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: industry is like we're we're under duress, and we've been
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: under duress for more than a decade where our brothers
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: and sisters, fellow pharmacy owners have been forced to close
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: their doors, sell their businesses. If they're lucky, you know,
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: they're getting paid nickels on the dollar basically for their
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: businesses that they've put their life into. And so those
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: of us that are you know, fighting for survival, we
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: really do have to innovate in our businesses to stay
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: relevant and to compete in otherwise really you know, difficult
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: and turbulent waters.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: So Chris, that's a wonderful introduction, and thank you for
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: setting the table for the discussion. So now that we
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: know who you are, bring us up to speed on
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: this new technology you and your partners are bringing to
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: the industry and help us understand a little bit about
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: how and why we should be excited about all of that.
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: So I've gone the route of trying to leverage technology
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: in ways to basically demonstrate the value that the pharmacist
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: has in the healthcare supply chain. And I think that's
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: our biggest asset that we have and what we need
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: to leverage in order to you know, continue to fight
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: for fair compensation and also to win business. So some
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: of my business partners and I we launched a technology platform.
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  Speaker 3: We call it Modesto, and the goal the problem that
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: we're solving, I think is I think it's a fundamental
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: issue in healthcare that we're trying to solve, and I
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: think that it can only practically be solved at any
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: type of significant scale using technology. The problem is that
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: our industry is hyper focused on drug cost. What do
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: drugs cost? And how do we get drugs for less money?
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: That's the that's the age old battle. You've got payers
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: battling with drug manufacturers. It's kind of like that old
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: Spider Man meme where everybody's pointing at somebody else like, hey,
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: who are you? Or who are you? It's you? It's you,
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: it's you. You know, you got the PBMs in the
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: mix saying well, drug prices are high because of drug manufacturers,
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: and the payers are, you know, trying to maximize their
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: rebates and it's just a disaster. But it's hyper focused
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: on drug cost, and pharmacies are caught in the crossfire
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: because we're the ones that have to sell the drugs
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: and so we're getting paid less, but the wholesalers and
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: the drug manufacturers are trying to preserve their margins. The
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: big the elephant in the room from my perspective, is
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: the fact that the price that you pay for the
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: drug is only part of a very important equation. The
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: most important part of drugs and drug utilization is whether
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: or not the drug actually works. Getting a discount or
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: a good paying a good price or a deep discount
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: on a drug that does not work is not a
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: good deal. The real objective when taking drugs and paying
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: for drugs, you know it's it's Pharmacy is viewed as
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: a cost center, and the goal is to reduce the cost.
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: The reality is that pharmacy is an investment center, and
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: we should be hedging our investment by doing everything we
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: can in our power to ensure that drugs will work
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: in the patients that take them. The overwhelming tool that
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: we use to manage disease is through the use of
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: a medication. When people go to the doctor, it's like
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: seventy eighty plus percent of the time they're prescribed to
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: drug and so we rely on drugs to manage disease.
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: But the discussion ends once we confirm that we got
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: a good price for it. And I believe that the
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: pharmacist is the complete, completely untapped resource, an asset that
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: can be used to help get those drugs to a
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: desired outcome. Because even when you know we know that
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: drugs don't work in everybody for a variety of reasons,
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: Like if you look at clinical trials, not everybody benefits
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: from the drug in the clinical trial. And that's even
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: in a very controlled environment. When you add reality to
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: these equations, and you have social determinants of health, and
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: you've got all kinds of factors. People don't take their
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: meds correctly, or they don't store their meds correctly, or
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: they just forget to take it, or they choose to
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: take it differently. There are all kinds of variables that
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: we can control that will affect whether that drug is successful.
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: And I think that pharmacists have an opportunity to step
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: into that role own that. But as I said, I
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: think the only practical way to be able to do
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: that is through technology, and that's what we've built and
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: that's what we're trying to get in the hands of
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: pharmacists so that they can demonstrate that value. As the
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: healthcare system is on a crash course, like it's like
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: the age old you know illustration of the train on
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: the run on the tracks it's heading towards a gully
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: that tracks are out, like that's where healthcare is. We
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: cannot continue to just burn so much money, especially on
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: waste and healthcare, and that's a huge opportunity for pharmacies.
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: So Robin, let's bring you into the conversation again and
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: provide us some insights, you know, help set the stage
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: again or provide some more details on what you know
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: about what Chris is building and all that kind of stuff.
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no, thank you, Dad and Chris.
• 10:33
  Speaker 5: It's always fun to connect with people who I truly
• 10:38
  Speaker 5: enjoy and admire while focusing on pharmacy. So yeah, I've
• 10:43
  Speaker 5: had the opportunity over the last twelve years to really
• 10:46
  Speaker 5: get to know the independent pharmacy space, the community pharmacy space,
• 10:50
  Speaker 5: and my current opportunities.
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: I'm even expanding that.
• 10:54
  Speaker 5: To talk about the learn more about other pharmacy models,
• 10:58
  Speaker 5: as you mentioned Chris, specialty, long term care. And you know,
• 11:04
  Speaker 5: the thing that I think is always great about this
• 11:08
  Speaker 5: industry is at the end of the day, when everybody
• 11:13
  Speaker 5: does their job right, we should be making patients healthy.
• 11:18
  Speaker 5: And it's a it's basically an altruistic industry that obviously
• 11:24
  Speaker 5: is commercialized and monetized and and and and there's opportunities
• 11:30
  Speaker 5: to spread that wealth. Uh, but we got to focus
• 11:34
  Speaker 5: on the patients and that's that's a noble cause and
• 11:37
  Speaker 5: I appreciate and that's one of the things I love
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  Speaker 5: about being in this industry.
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: And knowing you, Chris.
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  Speaker 5: I mean the thing, the thing that first of all,
• 11:45
  Speaker 5: you've always been an example of, you know, finding ways
• 11:50
  Speaker 5: to make change and own own the problems. And you know,
• 11:55
  Speaker 5: as you laid out, so much of the focus on
• 11:59
  Speaker 5: pharmacy today is that drug cost and so little of
• 12:03
  Speaker 5: that is anything that pharmacy can control. And you know,
• 12:09
  Speaker 5: looking for things that a pharmacist can do to take
• 12:14
  Speaker 5: back control and really focus on the outcomes I think
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  Speaker 5: is always always in a valid use of time and
• 12:25
  Speaker 5: energy and resources. And you know you talk about, first
• 12:29
  Speaker 5: of all, innovate and I always think about as I
• 12:33
  Speaker 5: work on bringing new solutions into the market. Being innovative
• 12:38
  Speaker 5: is never easy. You're always at the forefront of doing
• 12:42
  Speaker 5: something first those early adopters. It's not usually comfortable when
• 12:48
  Speaker 5: you're innovating, but when you innovate, you end up differentiating
• 12:52
  Speaker 5: yourself and making change, and I think that's what pharmacists
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  Speaker 5: ultimately want to do as they run their businesses. So
• 13:00
  Speaker 5: I always applaud you and your efforts on what you're
• 13:03
  Speaker 5: doing in this space.
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  Speaker 2: Sure, Robin, thanks for that perspective that brings a lot
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: of light on what's going on. Do you have a
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: question or two you'd like to ask Chris that our
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: audience might appreciate having the answers to.
• 13:17
  Speaker 5: I do want to ask a couple questions about this.
• 13:21
  Speaker 5: I go back to Chris. You know, I guess twenty
• 13:25
  Speaker 5: years ago, maybe a little bit more than you know,
• 13:27
  Speaker 5: the star measures were introduced and and you know, I
• 13:31
  Speaker 5: remember working with pharmacies on really talking about if you
• 13:37
  Speaker 5: build systems that allow you to identify the right patients
• 13:42
  Speaker 5: and make change in their outcomes, you know it will
• 13:46
  Speaker 5: impact your business in a positive way. And that was
• 13:49
  Speaker 5: a hard shift because pharmacies didn't have the tools, and
• 13:54
  Speaker 5: they didn't know, and it wasn't an immediate benefit, and
• 13:57
  Speaker 5: as we know, it really didn't end up being a
• 13:59
  Speaker 5: huge benefit at all. But at the end of the day,
• 14:02
  Speaker 5: getting pharmacists to think ahead is a tough job because,
• 14:08
  Speaker 5: as you mentioned, their survival mode right now they're trying
• 14:11
  Speaker 5: to figure out, how do I stay open for another
• 14:13
  Speaker 5: twelve months?
• 14:15
  Speaker 4: What do you do to.
• 14:17
  Speaker 5: Tell pharmacists that if you really invest in making sure
• 14:21
  Speaker 5: that the drugs are working and you're taking care of
• 14:24
  Speaker 5: patients that this will pay off in your pharmacy, and
• 14:29
  Speaker 5: you're building a model that's going to change how they
• 14:32
  Speaker 5: survive going forward.
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: How do you get them to think that way?
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that that's the That is a fundamental
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: barrier for much of the industry. I think is the
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: mentality of the pharmacy owner. And I say this with
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: all due respect. I mean it's a lot easier for
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: me to get creative and innovative because I have a
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: team of people that are, you know, dealing with the day,
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: day to day challenges that are highly distractive, uh and
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: consume a lot of energy to address. Uh. That is
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: one of the advantages of having business partners. You know,
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: a lot of pharmacy owners are solo owners and they
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: don't have a team. So I think that is an
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: inherent challenge. That is, you know, that is a limitter
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: at the end of the day, they've got They've got
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: to dig deep and figure out how they can embrace
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: some of these innovative concepts. Medicare Star measures are focused
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: on what has been espoused as an outcome, but it's
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: not an outcome. Medicare Star measures are based on adherence,
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: and adherence is not an outcome. We talk about it
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: like it is getting good. Adherence is good, but the
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: reality is that it's a means to an outcome. If
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: you take your medicine, you might get better. Getting better
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: is the outcome or addressing whatever you're trying to address. Like,
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: every drug was approved by the FDA to do something
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: that is measurable. So what is the actual measure. Well,
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: it depends on the drug, It depends on the condition.
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: But every condition has something that can be used to
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: measure it. And those elements are either or a combination
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: of patient reported outcomes plus some type of medical data
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: that could be a lab value, it could be an
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: image of some kind. Right with certain cancers that the
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: metric of improvement is the size of the tumor. Well,
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: how do you measure the size of the tumor? Well,
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: you have to have some type of imaging done, and
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: or it's some other indication that is measurable in a objective,
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: like we're supposed to reduce falls. How many times did
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: the patient fall while they didn't fall? So we improve there,
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: you know, we improve their condition because they're not falling
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: or they're able to walk from point A to point
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: B without any assistance. Those are outcomes in order for
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: a like a pharmacy can influence those outcomes based on
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: how the patient uses their medicine, appropriate medication use and
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: all the variables that go into that appropriate storage, appropriate administration.
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: If it's a self administered drug, like the pharmacies have.
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: Pharmacies dispense drugs that are self administered inhaler's injectibles, et cetera.
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: If the patient doesn't use it correctly.
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: I mean all pills.
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: Obviously, a pill is pretty straightforward. You consume it, but
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: if it's not something that you consume, you've got to
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: apply it correctly. And we've seen patients do crazy stuff
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: that we can influence. One of the big variables, Bruce,
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: that you alluded to based on and what Modesto does
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: is Modesto can access the information in the patient's medical record.
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: We can see all of their lab values, we can
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: see all of their vitals, we can see all of
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: their notes from physicians, all of the radiology reports. We
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: can access all of that information through Modesto, so the
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: pharmacist can see what is going on with the patient.
• 18:30
  Speaker 5: That's huge because pharmacists have always tried to position themselves
• 18:34
  Speaker 5: as that central point of care, and putting all of
• 18:37
  Speaker 5: that together in one place has got to be the
• 18:39
  Speaker 5: first time that that's really happening on a comprehensive level.
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know of anybody doing it in pharmacy
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: typically because the whole argument is pharmacy is about reducing
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: drug costs. It's like, how do we get drugs for
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: less money? So by giving the pharmacist visibility to those
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: medical that medical information, the pharmacist already has a relationship
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: with the patient where the pharmacists can gather those patient
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: reported outcomes. So what Modesto does is it makes it
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: easy for the pharmacists to obtain those patient reported outcomes
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: by leveraging a what's called a progressive web application. It's
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: kind of like an app you download, kind of like
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: a mobile friendly website. It's neither of those. It's like
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: the best of both, making it accessible for patients to
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: access this what we call their health feed by just
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: touching a link in a text message, bringing it up
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: on their phone. And now we can interact with them
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: and we can send the patient structured assessments that can
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: gather information about their condition, and then the system modesto
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: ingests what the patient says, marries it up with the
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: medical data that we have on the patient to draw
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: a conclusion as to whether that patient is at their
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: therapeutic goal or they're not. And if they're not at
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: their therapeutic goal, are they trending towards it or are
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: they trending away from it? Or are they trending in
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: a direction where it doesn't appear they're going to get there?
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: When we have that knowledge and we have that assessment again,
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: all of this being completed automatically, the pharmacist doesn't have
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: to go out and start gathering this stuff and review it.
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: The system can review it, and the system presents the
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: pharmacist with the situations that need their attention. This patient
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: is trending in the wrong direction. This patient does not
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: appear at their therapeutic goal. We now have the opportunity
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: to dig deeper and say, Okay, hey, Bruce, it doesn't
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: look like the numbers are where we would expect them
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: to be. Three months into your therapy. What's going on.
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: Talk to me about how you're using your medication. Talk
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: to me about how you take it. Are you having
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: any issues with it, and we're going to reveal some
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: of the things that may be contributing to that drug
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: not working. It may be that you're doing everything correctly,
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: you're taking it when you're supposed to, you're storing it correctly,
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: so on and so forth. It's just that you're not
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: responding to the therapy. But as opposed to waiting twelve
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: months for you to go visit your doctor and have
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: a lab test done or whatever and the doctor says, no,
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: we're not really too pleased with it. We know now
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: that there's an issue and the pharmacist can be the
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: one the champions the intervention to address it. That is
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: a com We can accomplish that through technology and that's
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: what Modesto is. So there is now and there I
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: believe there is on the horizon as well. Medicare just
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: launched yesterday the Access program. Pharmacies are being hammered with this.
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: So if you don't know about the Access program, you
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: got to I'd love to know the rock that you're
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: living under, but you got to look into the Access
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: program because this is very different from star measures because
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: it's actually paying for outcomes. Now, like with all things
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: in pharmacy. We've got some barriers we've got to address
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: with the access program, but the very essence of this
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: program is to reward providers, including pharmacies, for delivering patients
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: to their clinical outcomes. And that's with a handful of diseases.
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: But it's an absolute sign that there are ways for
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: pharmacies to be paid for outcomes.
• 22:30
  Speaker 5: The fact that Medicare has finally made this shift is
• 22:34
  Speaker 5: really a giant leap of where pharmacy has been asking
• 22:38
  Speaker 5: to go and healthcare has been asking me to go.
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: So yeah, it's a monumental step in my opinion, and
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: it's really significant, but it also puts the pressure on
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: us to demonstrate that we can make a difference. And
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: what pharmacists are historically we've done is just we've relied
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: on these manual processes. We've relied on our pharmacy management systems.
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: And I say this with all due respect to the PMS.
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: Is like, it's not easy to be a good PMS.
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: But you can't be a good PMS and do everything
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: else great. It's not. You can't be great at everything.
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: And I don't love as a pharmacy owner having to
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: have multiple platforms and all this stuff, Like, I realize
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: that that's a drag too, But we have to reevaluate
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: how we operate on a daily basis, and there are
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: tools out there that we can leverage. And if we
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: can demonstrate that we the patient's pharmacists, can influence their
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: clinical outcome and we can now start getting paid for it,
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: that's monumental. But the horizon opportunity in my opinion, Bruce
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: and Robin, is that we cannot continue paying for health
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: care the way that we've been, especially when we know
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: that the there's so much waste. We know that drugs
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: are being just wasted on monument mental scales. Uh, the
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: patients come into our pharmacies with these unused medications, and
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: we want to blame we want to blame mail order,
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: and it's absolutely true some of the conflicts of interest
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: out there that are just burning burning cash. But we
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: can step into this role and demonstrate to the payers,
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: the planned sponsors above and beyond Medicare, because there are
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: other payers like employer groups and you know Medicaid plans
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: that they need this pharmacist in their network to support
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: helping their members get to a desired clinical outcome.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: Hey, hey, Chris, let me jump in for just a moment.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: We're getting short on time. How does if a pharmacy
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: owner is interested in what you're talking about, wants to
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: find out a little bit more, how can he how
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: can he learn more about Modesko.
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so they can reach out, they can reach out
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: to me Modesto. We have a website it's called modestohealth
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: dot com, so they could go to m E D
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: E S T O H E A L t H
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: dot com modestohealth dot com. One of our visions is
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: to be and we're working on this now. We have
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: several that we're working through bi directional APIs to pharmacy
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: management systems to reduce the burden of having multiple platforms
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: where you don't have to operate and do the swivel chair.
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: The system can automatically drive it. Now you'll need to
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: react and respond to the alerts. It's an alert driven system.
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: So system goes out and does the phishing of the information,
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: reviews that information, identifies alerts that need to be addressed,
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: and then the pharmacist goes and addresses those alerts, documents
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: it accordingly, and then of course obviously we need ways
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: to share that information and then report on it and
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: so on and so forth. And you know, this isn't
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: a technical dive on what the system's capabilities are, but
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: the point is that it can do that. And at
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: the same time, Modesto is also built to help facilitate
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: pharmacy operations and the interactions with patients. So there's so
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: much more that it does, but at its fundamental core,
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: it is a technology platform that's designed to elevate the
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: pharmacist to their rightful place in the healthcare ecosystem, to
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: demonstrate that we can impact metrics and values that matter,
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: and when we do, we reduce the total cost of care.
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: Pharmacy cost is one part of the equation and medical
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: costs are the other part, and to the extent that
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: we use medications appropriately, we can I think reduce both
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: of them. But obviously, if people are using their meds,
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: they're going to have to buy them and there's going
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: to be a cost to it. But the total picture
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: is what comes into more focus when the pharmacist is
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: integrated and involved in patient care.
• 27:04
  Speaker 5: And like we said in the beginning, just the final
• 27:07
  Speaker 5: note on that, we're preparing now for that horizon.
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: So it's great, So thank you.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: Wow, Robin and Chris. Thanks to both of you. This
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: has been not only informative, but it's exciting. This Modesto
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: product that Chris you're bringing to the market, and you
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: tell me that there are already pharmacies using it, and
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: you're getting positioned to roll this out so that more
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: can take advantage of it. It's time for us to
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: wrap up here, so I'm going to say thank you Chris,
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: and thank you for Robin. It's always a pleasure chatting
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: with you. And again for my listeners, remind you that's
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: Modesto Health me d e Sto health dot com. And
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: that's it for today from Pharmacy Crossroads. Our motto is
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: helping pharmacies do more and do better.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: Good day, Thank you, thanks for listening to Pharmacy Crossroads.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: If you're interested in talking with Bruce, please contact the
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: show visit Pharmacycrossroads dot com. We look forward to hearing
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: from you.