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

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

0:07
Speaker 1: You are listening to the Pharmacy Podcast Network.
0:26
Speaker 2: This year, the PPN partnered with key Source and nimble
0:29
Speaker 2: RX and interviewed key leaders in retail pharmacy and the
0:32
Speaker 2: impact they're making on public health. Here's the final episode
0:36
Speaker 2: of the three part series of the Total Store Expots
0:38
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five from the San Diego Convention Center.
0:42
Speaker 3: Andy Crawford here with key Source and ACDs twenty twenty five.
0:47
Speaker 3: It's been great spending time with you here in the booth.
0:49
Speaker 3: There's been constant traffic. Your meetings are all over the place.
0:54
Speaker 3: It's a busy time.
0:55
Speaker 4: This is good. Yeah, I mean, this is the show.
0:58
Speaker 5: This is our super Bowl of the year, back to
1:01
Speaker 5: back meetings, and it's so great to talk to these
1:04
Speaker 5: pharmacies from all across the country. You know, everybody's here
1:08
Speaker 5: rallying around the cause. How can they buy better? What
1:12
Speaker 5: strategies can they use to procure better? And really what's
1:15
Speaker 5: going on, you know with reimbursement rates really putting a
1:18
Speaker 5: lot of pressure on these guys and gals, and you know,
1:22
Speaker 5: this is the place to be to talk about it.
1:23
Speaker 5: And I think both from the manufacture side and from
1:26
Speaker 5: the pharmacy procurement side.
1:29
Speaker 3: So let's let's go with that word, because there's strategy
1:33
Speaker 3: differences between our standalone independent community pharmacy that serve their
1:39
Speaker 3: community for years and years, and some of them are struggling,
1:43
Speaker 3: some of them are doing okay. Now we have our
1:45
Speaker 3: regional chains, national chains. Some of the interesting stories that
1:52
Speaker 3: you've told is the collapse of some of those chains
1:56
Speaker 3: in many different ways right aid for example, some of
1:59
Speaker 3: the us that Walgreens are experiencing in CBS, and now
2:03
Speaker 3: this is giving an opportunity for the expansion of maybe
2:08
Speaker 3: our smaller chains ten locations. Talk to us about that
2:12
Speaker 3: and what you're noticing by talking to these operators and
2:17
Speaker 3: owners the balance and struggle of that dynamic.
2:20
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think you hit on something that's kind of
2:24
Speaker 5: it's an interesting situation. You've got contraction and then you've
2:28
Speaker 5: got expansion going on at the same time. The contraction
2:32
Speaker 5: obviously of the store footprint of some of these larger
2:35
Speaker 5: national chains the device stuture of write aid and you're
2:39
Speaker 5: seeing these smaller regionals have opportunities to absorb these prescriptions
2:43
Speaker 5: organically and these scripts organically and some to the tune
2:47
Speaker 5: of hundreds, if not thousands coming in regionally and I
2:51
Speaker 5: think most of that is oriented around demographic so it's
2:55
Speaker 5: not necessarily nationwide. But if you have a higher concentration
2:59
Speaker 5: of these store that you know are contracting in a
3:02
Speaker 5: certain community, it gives a lot of opportunity for those
3:04
Speaker 5: that are in the regional space and maybe in some
3:08
Speaker 5: of those independents that might only have six to eight locations,
3:11
Speaker 5: it's really nice because they're able to come in and
3:14
Speaker 5: to provide a service that is lacking in that community
3:18
Speaker 5: right for those that are contracting. So there's always opportunity
3:22
Speaker 5: and chaos, and I think the best.
3:24
Speaker 4: Out there are capitalizing on that right now. So it's
3:28
Speaker 4: kind of an interesting situation.
3:30
Speaker 3: So the mix of operators and operations and pharmacies that
3:35
Speaker 3: you've met here at an A C D S, there's
3:39
Speaker 3: energy and there's a there's an element of positive you know,
3:42
Speaker 3: a lot of positivity going on. What what have you
3:45
Speaker 3: been hearing that that is creating that hope and that
3:50
Speaker 3: that opportunity for growth.
3:53
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'd say there's always light at the end of
3:56
Speaker 5: a dark tunnel, and I think that pharmacy has been
3:59
Speaker 5: going through it right.
4:00
Speaker 4: Everybody knows, it's nothing new.
4:02
Speaker 5: I think the strain of reimbursements weighing on a lot,
4:05
Speaker 5: But I think a lot of people, you know, have
4:07
Speaker 5: a really good outlook on you know, new opportunities with
4:11
Speaker 5: maybe some high dollar brands that have been genericized recently
4:14
Speaker 5: that could open up some leverage for them to be
4:17
Speaker 5: able to access more generics to the value and what
4:20
Speaker 5: does that do for them? Increases their bottom line and profitability.
4:24
Speaker 5: And I think that's the struggle right now in this
4:26
Speaker 5: industry is how do you balance script volume and not
4:30
Speaker 5: necessarily the increase of script volume doesn't always equate to profitability.
4:34
Speaker 5: So if there's these you know, economic factors happening within
4:39
Speaker 5: their procurement departments where they can buy better and have
4:42
Speaker 5: access to products that have recently genericized, giving them more
4:47
Speaker 5: leverage to be profitable and remain profitable, that's a that's
4:51
Speaker 5: a huge benefit to them. So I think there's some
4:52
Speaker 5: excitement around you know, what next year holds, the obvious
4:57
Speaker 5: you know, ongoing you know effort for re form within
5:00
Speaker 5: the PBMs, the PBM space. So I think there's a
5:03
Speaker 5: lot of camaraderie at this show because you have an
5:08
Speaker 5: independent pharmacy, you have a chain pharmacy might be regional,
5:12
Speaker 5: might be national. So you have somebody down to the
5:14
Speaker 5: single store Bob's Pharmacy on the corner, up to those
5:18
Speaker 5: that have thousands of stores, right, and they all have
5:21
Speaker 5: commonality between them, right, the betterment of the industry, the
5:25
Speaker 5: betterment of pharmacy to ultimately do one thing, best care
5:29
Speaker 5: for the patient.
5:30
Speaker 3: So something that I've noticed in independence, and I'm wondering
5:34
Speaker 3: since you talked to more regional change than we do
5:39
Speaker 3: at the podcast network, and that is we have a
5:42
Speaker 3: rise in independently owned pharmacies no longer using one of
5:48
Speaker 3: the three primaries, and now they're one hundred percent collection
5:52
Speaker 3: of a whole bunch of different secondaries and they're kind
5:55
Speaker 3: of inventing their own contracting spins. So are you seeing
5:59
Speaker 3: some of that in the in the realm of our
6:01
Speaker 3: regional chains.
6:03
Speaker 5: Absolutely, I'd say I highlighted it a little bit in
6:06
Speaker 5: episode two of our three part podcast. I think the
6:09
Speaker 5: biggest patterns I'd love to look for patterns. The biggest
6:11
Speaker 5: patterns I see are those procurement departments that followed a
6:17
Speaker 5: traditional channel and that might have been procure from the
6:19
Speaker 5: primary through their PVA and maybe supplement direct if they can,
6:24
Speaker 5: if they have self distribution But what I'm seeing now
6:28
Speaker 5: is they have one thing that can control in the
6:31
Speaker 5: uncontrollable world of pharmacy.
6:33
Speaker 4: Right now, and that is buying better.
6:36
Speaker 5: And diversification of supplier partners. Is it's not a hopeful
6:44
Speaker 5: you know, do it if I can, It's a must
6:47
Speaker 5: right now. It's no longer something that you know was
6:50
Speaker 5: on the side. It's it's an integral part of a
6:53
Speaker 5: strategy to procure. And I think you're going to see
6:57
Speaker 5: continue growth, leveraging, you know, secondary suppliers, more strategic purchasing
7:03
Speaker 5: initiatives that might not necessarily be leveraging a primary award
7:09
Speaker 5: with one certain supplier partner, but maybe diversifying how can
7:14
Speaker 5: I proactively procure items that are high volume movers at
7:19
Speaker 5: a discount so I can impact my bottom line. So
7:23
Speaker 5: I think, yeah, they're open a lot more open minded
7:29
Speaker 5: than the traditional paths in the past. And I would say,
7:32
Speaker 5: I know we're at an ACDs right now live podcasting,
7:35
Speaker 5: but I'm starting to see this bleed into other classes
7:38
Speaker 5: a trade within the pharmacy industry, which is kind of interesting.
7:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, you've spoken to me about a mixture under the
7:46
Speaker 3: same umbrella where there's the community business, the long term
7:50
Speaker 3: care business, the specialty business, and it's starting to really
7:54
Speaker 3: blend in differently than where the silos were very solid
7:58
Speaker 3: five and ten years ago.
8:00
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, i'd say specialty and institutional business. Health systems.
8:07
Speaker 5: I think i'll talk a little bit aout now since
8:09
Speaker 5: you brought it up. I think you know, I come
8:11
Speaker 5: from the health system background. I used to you know,
8:13
Speaker 5: be a buyer at a health system among other things.
8:15
Speaker 5: And you know that's another area, another class of trade
8:18
Speaker 5: that has been pretty pretty diplomatic about only using a
8:24
Speaker 5: traditional sourcing path, and you know they're looking for ways
8:30
Speaker 5: to improve the bottom line and it's outside that traditional path.
8:33
Speaker 5: So now more than ever, you see these purchasing alignments
8:38
Speaker 5: start to evolve and to single supplier to multi supplier
8:43
Speaker 5: sort of arrangements.
8:45
Speaker 3: Hey, if you're listening and you want an opportunity to
8:48
Speaker 3: dig into your specific needs as a regional chain, as
8:54
Speaker 3: an independent, as someone who's really planning on growth, reach
8:58
Speaker 3: out to Andy Crawford at keysource dot com. Andy, what
9:02
Speaker 3: has been interesting to you here at an a c
9:04
Speaker 3: DS that that you you know, you've been surprised about,
9:08
Speaker 3: or something that's really standing out.
9:11
Speaker 5: I'd say, you know, the deadline for d s c
9:16
Speaker 5: C implementation is Wednesday of next week in this industry,
9:20
Speaker 5: so that's a huge talking point. And I'd say what
9:24
Speaker 5: I'm surprised about, I guess, is how prepared some are
9:29
Speaker 5: and how ill prepared others are. I'd say that most
9:33
Speaker 5: of those that are, you know that are larger, very
9:36
Speaker 5: well prepared. Key Source has been prepared for about a
9:40
Speaker 5: year now, so we're in good position. But uh, you know,
9:43
Speaker 5: I'd say that's somewhat surprising to think that we're only
9:46
Speaker 5: what day is its Sunday, We're three days away from deadline,
9:49
Speaker 5: and you got people that quite haven't figured it out yet.
9:51
Speaker 5: So I know this has been a model that's been
9:57
Speaker 5: kicked down the road a few times and delayed. But
9:59
Speaker 5: this the party is starting Wednesday, so you better be ready.
10:04
Speaker 3: We have a lot coming up here on the NACDS
10:06
Speaker 3: Total Store Expo podcast series, brought to us by key Source.
10:12
Speaker 3: Once again, thank you so much Andy for supporting us
10:15
Speaker 3: here covering this event.
10:16
Speaker 4: Absolutely Todd, thanks so much. Talk Say.
10:25
Speaker 6: Hi, this is Luanne Myers live from NACDS.
10:33
Speaker 3: Hey lou Ann, it's great to see you outcomes. We
10:37
Speaker 3: were so excited to be with Outcomes at Thought Spot
10:40
Speaker 3: twenty twenty five, and now we're here with you at
10:43
Speaker 3: the NACDS Total Store Expo. It's good to see you.
10:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, good to see you. Yeah, I was jealous.
10:48
Speaker 6: It sounded like you had a great time in our
10:50
Speaker 6: booth and had some good conversations with John Carlson.
10:54
Speaker 3: And some of our team exactly. So that three part
10:57
Speaker 3: series isn't even totally out yet. I think we're on
11:00
Speaker 3: episode one or two as it rolls out. But something
11:03
Speaker 3: that I'm excited to talk to you about. I want
11:05
Speaker 3: our listeners to dial in and hear from you. You
11:11
Speaker 3: have your finger on the pulse of trends, and there's
11:14
Speaker 3: a different environment when we're talking about regional chains and
11:19
Speaker 3: national chains versus an independent or a long term care
11:22
Speaker 3: pharmacy or even a specialty pharmacy. So let's talk about
11:25
Speaker 3: the trends that you're noticing in the space of chain pharmacy.
11:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you know.
11:31
Speaker 6: Being at Outcomes, we are interacting with over sixty five
11:34
Speaker 6: thousand pharmacies, so it puts us in a unique place
11:37
Speaker 6: to see what we're hearing from both retailers and independence.
11:42
Speaker 6: My space being over enterprise is that I work mainly
11:45
Speaker 6: with both retail and national chains. I've been at Outcomes
11:49
Speaker 6: for about two months now, and so one of the
11:51
Speaker 6: things I've done just coming into this position is kind
11:54
Speaker 6: of getting.
11:54
Speaker 1: To top to top trying to talk with all the leaders.
11:56
Speaker 6: Of our accounts and understanding what are their goals for
11:58
Speaker 6: twenty twenty five beyond. And I am seeing some common
12:02
Speaker 6: themes and sharing back what we're hearing from other leaders
12:06
Speaker 6: just so we can help inform them on what are
12:08
Speaker 6: some areas they might want to invest in, because, as
12:11
Speaker 6: you know, Todd, pharmacy has changed quite a bit. So
12:13
Speaker 6: I'd say the three main areas that I'm seeing are one,
12:16
Speaker 6: you have to diversify your prescriptions. Volume is not the answer.
12:21
Speaker 6: We can't continue to just fill you know, cheap maintenance
12:24
Speaker 6: meds and be profitable. So how do they bring in
12:27
Speaker 6: more clinical services at a higher dollar rate, So maybe
12:31
Speaker 6: doing tips around blood pressure where you can get a
12:33
Speaker 6: high dollar rate for doing that tip versus you know,
12:36
Speaker 6: getting a three dollars generic filled and trying to.
12:40
Speaker 1: Get that with volume.
12:42
Speaker 6: The other point that I see a lot of, and
12:44
Speaker 6: I would say this is the number one thing that
12:46
Speaker 6: I've heard from pharmacy leaders is we have to reduce
12:48
Speaker 6: our cost to fill, so whether that is prioritizing high
12:52
Speaker 6: dollar activities in the pharmacy or looking to automation. So
12:56
Speaker 6: I know we've had a lot of boot traffic today
12:59
Speaker 6: and yes, looking at our pill counts and virtual verification,
13:03
Speaker 6: so looking at things like that or going paperless. Our
13:06
Speaker 6: central fill is continuing to be an answer for how
13:09
Speaker 6: do we free up or reallocate our pharmacy staff so
13:13
Speaker 6: that they're working at the top of their license and
13:15
Speaker 6: doing things that are more face to face in clinical
13:18
Speaker 6: care versus kind of administrative work. And then I'd say
13:22
Speaker 6: the third thing is really looking at strategic alliances or
13:26
Speaker 6: community alliances. So we're seeing a lot of trends with
13:30
Speaker 6: some of our retaillers working with.
13:32
Speaker 1: Employers our local community. So that could be you know,
13:36
Speaker 1: filling scripts for a local.
13:37
Speaker 6: Employer and having lockers that could be doing meds to
13:41
Speaker 6: beds for a local health system. Food as medicine, so
13:46
Speaker 6: maybe connecting with a local meals on wheels provider and helping.
13:51
Speaker 1: You know, a patient that might be food sensitive.
13:54
Speaker 6: And so those are things that we're trying to help
13:56
Speaker 6: with folks to really dig into those programs to see
14:00
Speaker 6: maybe you are working with an employer today, But what
14:02
Speaker 6: are some other things you could do outside of just
14:04
Speaker 6: filling scripts with them?
14:06
Speaker 1: Like would they be interested in maybe.
14:08
Speaker 6: A smoking cessation program or other things there? So we
14:12
Speaker 6: think there's there's The pharmacy is often kind of the
14:16
Speaker 6: central point in the community, so what are some other
14:18
Speaker 6: things that we can help our leaders have conversations with
14:21
Speaker 6: some of those community partners since.
14:23
Speaker 3: The theme here is obviously our regional change chain pharmacy
14:27
Speaker 3: at any CDs Total STOREXPO. A question that I had
14:30
Speaker 3: that I knew you were coming, so I was excited
14:32
Speaker 3: about that was outcomes in a realm of a central
14:37
Speaker 3: fill environment, but then knowing what the NDC is, knowing
14:41
Speaker 3: what the therapy is, and now being able to put
14:44
Speaker 3: the treatment tracking system on top of that. Does pill
14:49
Speaker 3: account fit into that ecosystem?
14:52
Speaker 6: Yeah, we've certainly had Pill count can certainly work both
14:55
Speaker 6: at Central Pill and both at a local store. So
14:58
Speaker 6: you know, at Central Pill, well, you know, we've certainly
15:01
Speaker 6: had you know, you have your larger automation when you
15:05
Speaker 6: think about you know, the canisters and things like that,
15:07
Speaker 6: but they also have to identify and count those products
15:11
Speaker 6: that go into that. But there's also things that don't
15:13
Speaker 6: fit into the large products that you might have a
15:17
Speaker 6: one off count. People are still manually counting for things
15:20
Speaker 6: that maybe aren't fast movers. But then in the store,
15:23
Speaker 6: having someone manually count and verify, you know, that's something
15:27
Speaker 6: that you can take labor out of and have the
15:31
Speaker 6: pill count.
15:31
Speaker 1: Machine do that for you.
15:33
Speaker 6: So and especially if you're thinking about like controls or
15:36
Speaker 6: things that are double count like having a machine do
15:38
Speaker 6: that and record that is a great service.
15:41
Speaker 3: So some of the success that I'm hearing from pharmacies
15:44
Speaker 3: is going into special themes, whether that's women's health, birth
15:51
Speaker 3: control in some states because now pharmacists can prescribe it.
15:58
Speaker 3: So is there any themes that you're noticing in the
16:02
Speaker 3: trends that are that are having a lot of success
16:04
Speaker 3: bringing new revenues into into into community pharmacies.
16:08
Speaker 6: We're definitely seeing some trends. You know, we've seen a
16:12
Speaker 6: lot of things in like blood pressure testing.
16:17
Speaker 1: I think that's one.
16:18
Speaker 6: That we can see pharmacies making some good revenue on.
16:23
Speaker 6: We certainly aren't talking to payers to do a little
16:26
Speaker 6: bit more of that in the future. So those are
16:29
Speaker 6: things that you know, if they have the machine right there,
16:31
Speaker 6: in the store, or they could get that value from
16:34
Speaker 6: their doctor.
16:35
Speaker 1: That's something that they could report back on.
16:37
Speaker 6: So those are some good things that we would like
16:39
Speaker 6: to see grow for opportunities in the future.
16:42
Speaker 3: How about testing, How does testing fit into the the
16:46
Speaker 3: outcomes system?
16:47
Speaker 6: We do have medical billings, so depending on your state.
16:51
Speaker 6: There's a couple of new programs out in Pennsylvania in
16:55
Speaker 6: Maryland that are coming out as we speak, so a
16:59
Speaker 6: little bit more tells to come on that, but yeah,
17:01
Speaker 6: it is specific to what state there is. There are
17:04
Speaker 6: some testing that is like COVID and flu. Some of
17:09
Speaker 6: those are across the country, but there's other specific things
17:13
Speaker 6: more some states are a little bit more corrective, kind
17:16
Speaker 6: of like this session today, it's kind of interesting per
17:18
Speaker 6: board per state of what's allowed. So we'd like to
17:21
Speaker 6: see that a little bit more expansive, but at least
17:25
Speaker 6: in our system, if you go in you can see
17:27
Speaker 6: what's applicable to your state to do medical billing. But
17:31
Speaker 6: we are seeing a trend with cash medical billing. We're
17:34
Speaker 6: certainly seeing that as a trend, especially for if you
17:37
Speaker 6: think about STREP testing, especially for folks with children. The
17:43
Speaker 6: daycare calls and says, you know, they've got strap. You
17:45
Speaker 6: can't come back until you've proven that they don't have strap.
17:48
Speaker 6: So to go in somewhere and get a cash strap
17:51
Speaker 6: test is something that they're willing to do and pay
17:53
Speaker 6: for so they can take them back to daycare quickly.
17:57
Speaker 3: Right, And it's important a shout out to you pharmacy
18:00
Speaker 3: owners and operators out there to communicate those services to
18:04
Speaker 3: your to your community, to your patient base, to let
18:07
Speaker 3: them know that that's available. Yeah, because the first thing
18:10
Speaker 3: that a person's going to do that doesn't realize that
18:12
Speaker 3: is they might call their primary care instead of their pharmacy,
18:16
Speaker 3: and their pharmacy can interact and be that hub of
18:19
Speaker 3: health care for them.
18:20
Speaker 1: Yeah.
18:20
Speaker 6: Absolutely, And I think it's it is important to share
18:23
Speaker 6: that because you want to protect and defend your business
18:26
Speaker 6: and there's no reason why you shouldn't be doing that
18:28
Speaker 6: because you're they're already in your store, They're already familiar
18:32
Speaker 6: to you. I know in my own pharmacy. You know,
18:34
Speaker 6: I know both pharmacists by name. They wave to me
18:36
Speaker 6: when I'm you know.
18:37
Speaker 1: In there for shopping. I mean, they're who I would
18:40
Speaker 1: want to treat.
18:40
Speaker 6: And quite frankly, I think I could get in and
18:42
Speaker 6: out a lot more quickly for something like that than
18:46
Speaker 6: you know waiting, you know at Urgent Care where where
18:49
Speaker 6: if I didn't have Strepp, that's definitely where I'm going
18:51
Speaker 6: to get.
18:51
Speaker 3: It exactly all right. So how has the show been
18:55
Speaker 3: for outcomes and your meetings and how has this twenty
19:00
Speaker 3: five event? Ben?
19:01
Speaker 1: I think it's a great show.
19:03
Speaker 6: It's definitely. I think we have the best spot on
19:05
Speaker 6: the floor. We're right in the main alley and we've
19:08
Speaker 6: been back to back, so it's been a great show.
19:11
Speaker 1: We always enjoy, you know, seeing.
19:13
Speaker 6: Our clients and friends and colleagues here, so we've just really.
19:18
Speaker 1: Had a great time.
19:19
Speaker 3: We so much appreciate you stopping by the press booth
19:23
Speaker 3: and giving us a testimony of how pharmacy is evolving
19:27
Speaker 3: through technology and pill count. We want to hear more
19:30
Speaker 3: about that. Thank you so much for being part of
19:32
Speaker 3: the NACDS TSSE Total Store Expo Posha.
19:36
Speaker 7: Oh thanks, Hey.
19:51
Speaker 3: We are here at the NACDS Total Store Expo twenty
19:54
Speaker 3: twenty five and I've run into Crystal Leonards. It is
19:57
Speaker 3: so good to have you back on the podcast.
20:00
Speaker 7: Are you I'm doing well? Thanks so much for having me, Todd.
20:03
Speaker 7: A lot of energy here at an ACTS Total Store Expo.
20:07
Speaker 3: Absolutely, you were a big part of it. You had
20:11
Speaker 3: some presentations, You were extremely busy, as is the team.
20:17
Speaker 3: I went walked past the McKesson booth and it was
20:20
Speaker 3: constantly stacked with curiosity and people and discussions. I didn't
20:26
Speaker 3: get to see you at the booth, but I'm so
20:28
Speaker 3: glad that you're making this time for us. Now for
20:30
Speaker 3: the post show, let's jump right in because I know
20:35
Speaker 3: that you have interesting insights and such an array of
20:39
Speaker 3: how pharmacy is impacting our communities. You and I have
20:43
Speaker 3: talked many times back at the Idea Share McKesson Ideas
20:46
Speaker 3: here twenty twenty five about the independence and many of
20:49
Speaker 3: the things that they're working on, and there's some similarities
20:53
Speaker 3: between them and the chain, the regional chain and the
20:56
Speaker 3: national chains. But then there's other things that are very
21:00
Speaker 3: special to either of those categories. So talk to us
21:03
Speaker 3: about regional chain and your emphasis and your excitement here
21:07
Speaker 3: at NACDS twenty twenty five.
21:10
Speaker 7: Yeah. So, I would say there are a lot of
21:12
Speaker 7: similarities in pharmacy and particularly community community pharmacy right now,
21:18
Speaker 7: regardless of if you're a large chain or a single
21:21
Speaker 7: store independent. So As we've talked about before, Health Maart
21:25
Speaker 7: is an independent pharmacy franchise, but we do support forty
21:28
Speaker 7: three hundred pharmacies across all forty nine states. Most of
21:32
Speaker 7: our pharmacies are located in rural and urban underserved areas,
21:36
Speaker 7: so they're often the front door to care in their community.
21:41
Speaker 7: And one of the things that's been really a focus
21:44
Speaker 7: at an ACDs, and we talked about in a panel
21:47
Speaker 7: earlier today, was around technology, in particular automation and central fill.
21:53
Speaker 7: And this is an area that is important regardless of
21:57
Speaker 7: if you're a small chain, a regional chain, or an
22:01
Speaker 7: independent pharmacy. I would say pharmacies are increasingly embracing automation
22:07
Speaker 7: and central fill. They're looking to enhance their operational efficiency
22:11
Speaker 7: and be able to elevate their patient care. We saw
22:16
Speaker 7: at NECDS around solutions like mckessons Central Pill as a Service,
22:22
Speaker 7: which is really a full service pharmacy automation solution. It
22:26
Speaker 7: helps organizations to scale their prescription dispensing programs and do
22:31
Speaker 7: it cost effectively. And in particular, this is important for
22:35
Speaker 7: smaller chains or independence because they don't have as much capital, right,
22:40
Speaker 7: and so you can use this service without that burden
22:44
Speaker 7: of capital to build your own central pill and oftentimes
22:48
Speaker 7: our smaller pharmacies, our rural locations might operate with leaner
22:52
Speaker 7: staff and tighter margins, So this helps to free up
22:56
Speaker 7: the pharmacist and technicians time so they can focus on
23:00
Speaker 7: more patient care services. And then we also talked about
23:07
Speaker 7: an appetite for other types of automation like inventory optimization
23:12
Speaker 7: tools and analysis. I think anything where pharmacies can free
23:16
Speaker 7: up cash flow right now that might be sitting on
23:18
Speaker 7: their shelves, like inventory, that's definitely been a focus.
23:24
Speaker 3: So I know that the team is helping to implement automation,
23:30
Speaker 3: taking it step by step, helping those pharmacies to grow
23:33
Speaker 3: based on the planning. And then you just hit on
23:37
Speaker 3: something as I'm listening to you, when you are expanding
23:41
Speaker 3: or when you are growing or even adding automation, it's
23:44
Speaker 3: making differences in your workflow, which is impacting our technicians
23:49
Speaker 3: and how well they're used, how they're leveraged, how their
23:53
Speaker 3: roles are also changing, just like our pharmacist roles are
23:56
Speaker 3: changing and they're doing more even treatment management, relying on
24:00
Speaker 3: our technicians to do more of these operational and customer
24:05
Speaker 3: service and even revenue generating opportunities through what the patient's needing.
24:11
Speaker 3: To talk to us about how technicians are being leveraged today.
24:16
Speaker 7: Yeah, so I've really seen the technology technician role evolve
24:22
Speaker 7: and change, and you talked about some of them being
24:24
Speaker 7: the operational backbone a little bit, and I believe that's true.
24:28
Speaker 7: So whether it's in dispensing or also helping with things
24:32
Speaker 7: like inventory management. We've seen many of our member pharmacies
24:38
Speaker 7: match kind of the interest and abilities the technicians have
24:40
Speaker 7: and assign them even responsibilities beyond the counter. So whether
24:44
Speaker 7: that's managing the fun end department or one of our
24:47
Speaker 7: Pharmacy of the Year finalists, how a lead technician who's
24:50
Speaker 7: responsible for marketing and social media. And then just increasingly
24:56
Speaker 7: if technology or automation or centralfill are helping take care
24:59
Speaker 7: of some of that dispensing. I'm also seeing technicians increasingly
25:03
Speaker 7: involved in whether it's immunization delivery and support, point of
25:08
Speaker 7: care testing, remote monitoring, and so they might be able
25:12
Speaker 7: to help with documentation, medical billing processes, or in the
25:16
Speaker 7: case of immunizations, the actual delivery to the patient. And
25:21
Speaker 7: then the third area I'd love to touch on is just
25:24
Speaker 7: when technicians are able to be cross trained. We're seeing
25:29
Speaker 7: a growing area is technicians as community health workers, and
25:33
Speaker 7: they've really always been at the center of their communities
25:36
Speaker 7: and oftentimes they're the first base or voice that you
25:40
Speaker 7: would see when you go into the pharmacy. So I
25:42
Speaker 7: think they already have those deep that deep trust, and
25:45
Speaker 7: providing the community health worker training just allows them to
25:48
Speaker 7: connect in a different way and more meaningful to be
25:51
Speaker 7: able to match that patient with needed resources. So whether
25:55
Speaker 7: it's tools like health mart dot findhelp dot com, which
25:59
Speaker 7: is of closed loop zip code based social determines of
26:02
Speaker 7: health resource, or other resources that might be in their
26:06
Speaker 7: community like transportation, childcare and nutrition services, food banks, diperbanks,
26:12
Speaker 7: and I'm just really excited. We just recently had our
26:17
Speaker 7: third round of mckinsson funded scholarships for community health worker
26:22
Speaker 7: training focused on technicians, and it's been amazing to see
26:27
Speaker 7: just the impact that they can have. Some of our
26:30
Speaker 7: first round of technicians have already made thousands of referrals
26:34
Speaker 7: and are continuing to serve as those frontline advocates. And
26:38
Speaker 7: from a health Mark perspective, we're actively supporting expanding technicians
26:42
Speaker 7: scope even beyond what I talked about today through advocacy
26:47
Speaker 7: and also through preparing the technicians from a training perspective.
26:53
Speaker 3: I love that, Christ and how you even touched on
26:56
Speaker 3: such an array. We started with operations, but you're also
26:59
Speaker 3: mentioning things like customer service, engaging the patient wellness follow up.
27:04
Speaker 3: And then you touched on what I like to do
27:07
Speaker 3: and I don't have enough time to do it, which
27:09
Speaker 3: is social media.
27:10
Speaker 4: So our own.
27:13
Speaker 3: Shot a coouldry, champion pharmacist owner in Tampa, our champion
27:18
Speaker 3: Dave Randolph, his technician team, both of those independent community
27:23
Speaker 3: pharmacies are leveraging that social media. And then now we're
27:27
Speaker 3: seeing we're seeing other organizations, bigger chains, starting to get
27:31
Speaker 3: into it because people are realizing now it's such an
27:36
Speaker 3: important part of our communications to our public and reaching
27:39
Speaker 3: out to them through social and making it fun but
27:42
Speaker 3: making it educational. Part of that reminds me of how
27:46
Speaker 3: artificial intelligence is impacting all of us, including some marketing campaigns.
27:51
Speaker 3: Definitely in my team really helping me with assuring transcriptions
27:57
Speaker 3: and leveraging the data.
27:59
Speaker 4: We talk about.
28:00
Speaker 3: And we're going to start doing some cataloging of podcasts,
28:04
Speaker 3: But talk to me about AI. I mean, I can
28:06
Speaker 3: only imagine in the hands of your technology team in
28:10
Speaker 3: automation and the systems that you're putting into place. How
28:13
Speaker 3: do you think AI is going to affect our chain
28:16
Speaker 3: pharmacies throughout the nation.
28:18
Speaker 7: Yeah, maybe I'll just start with marketing. How you mentioned
28:22
Speaker 7: we have our health Mart marketing edge platform for pharmacies,
28:26
Speaker 7: and we're seeing a lot more engagement in digital and
28:30
Speaker 7: SEO optimization and there's a lot of practical applications there
28:34
Speaker 7: from using AI to help develop content. So that's one space.
28:39
Speaker 7: I'm also seeing a lot of applications when it comes
28:42
Speaker 7: to the pharmacy and also back office support areas. One
28:48
Speaker 7: in particular that we have a partnership with as an
28:51
Speaker 7: AI powered virtual assistant. So really it unifies the traditional
28:56
Speaker 7: IVR web mobile chat interfaces, and it'll allows patients to
29:00
Speaker 7: interact with the pharmacies in the way that they want to,
29:05
Speaker 7: even after hours. So our pharmacies are very focused on
29:08
Speaker 7: that direct patient interaction and pick up their phone, but
29:11
Speaker 7: they're not always there twenty four to seven, so this
29:14
Speaker 7: allows that extended reach, and then it also reduces technician
29:19
Speaker 7: workload and prioritizes some of those more complex cases for
29:23
Speaker 7: the pharmacists attention. So we've seen in pharmacies that have
29:27
Speaker 7: implemented this up to seventy percent reduction than calls without
29:31
Speaker 7: disrupting that workflow. And it is integrated with pharmacy systems,
29:35
Speaker 7: including the custom pharmacy systems, so that just frees up
29:38
Speaker 7: the pharmacies time to focus where patients need the most
29:42
Speaker 7: and not have all those distractions in terms of their workflow.
29:46
Speaker 7: And then just for our back office teams, we're actively
29:50
Speaker 7: engaging with my even Microsoft Copilot for example, using chat
29:54
Speaker 7: and agents, and I've seen many of our customers do
29:58
Speaker 7: the same. And for us, those back office teams are
30:01
Speaker 7: saving on average three hours a week, you know, so
30:03
Speaker 7: that can be reallocated towards higher level tasks. And last year,
30:08
Speaker 7: my favorite thing coming out of an ACBS TSC was
30:11
Speaker 7: that AI powered virtual assistant. And this year it was
30:14
Speaker 7: just incredible the amount I think I counted at least
30:17
Speaker 7: twenty myself different vendors that tied back to AI related services.
30:22
Speaker 7: So I think if we have this conversation even six
30:25
Speaker 7: or twelve months from now, you know, just a myriad
30:28
Speaker 7: of changes are coming in this space.
30:31
Speaker 3: Well you your whole team that is paying attention to
30:36
Speaker 3: those trends, which is going to support our next gen pharmacist,
30:39
Speaker 3: our pharmacists that are starting to get more into clinical services.
30:42
Speaker 3: They're going to need organizations, their supporters, their infrastructure to
30:47
Speaker 3: be plugged in and ready and not, you know, because
30:51
Speaker 3: you were otherwise, we're going to be left behind. And
30:53
Speaker 3: like you said, six months from now, Crystal, it's going
30:55
Speaker 3: to be a whole nother thing, and it's going to
30:57
Speaker 3: be you know, a whole other level of intelligence and
31:00
Speaker 3: keeping up with this. This is exciting, it's so it's
31:03
Speaker 3: so much fun to be able to interview you in
31:06
Speaker 3: these different settings. I got to talk to you in
31:08
Speaker 3: the independent Community Pharmacy space at IDEA Share. Now we're
31:13
Speaker 3: talking at NACDS Total Store Expo really about how these
31:18
Speaker 3: the chains are reaching out and filling in pharmacy deserts
31:21
Speaker 3: and supporting their communities and how mckesson's part of that.
31:24
Speaker 3: And now we're going to the NASP twenty twenty five,
31:28
Speaker 3: we're gonna be talking about specialty. So I can't wait
31:31
Speaker 3: to engage with your team there. But where are you
31:34
Speaker 3: off to next? Because I know you're always busy too, Crystal.
31:37
Speaker 7: Yeah, I'm actually off to our National Independent Advisory Board
31:41
Speaker 7: meeting coming up soon, and that's where we engage over
31:45
Speaker 7: a dozen owners, some of the names you actually mentioned
31:47
Speaker 7: today on the podcast. They're across the country and they
31:52
Speaker 7: really help give the voice of community pharmacy and the
31:55
Speaker 7: programs and support solutions that mccusson provides on their behalf.
31:59
Speaker 7: It's we engage with them usually at least four times
32:02
Speaker 7: a year, and that it's just one of my favorite
32:05
Speaker 7: meetings to hear about what they're doing to serve their
32:07
Speaker 7: patients and their community and also where they may need
32:10
Speaker 7: our help. So I always leave that meeting really energized
32:13
Speaker 7: and with a list full of ideas, and I have
32:16
Speaker 7: a feeling we have a focus on that agenda on
32:19
Speaker 7: technology and AI. So I'm hoping to you know, many
32:23
Speaker 7: of the themes that we talked about today ty to
32:25
Speaker 7: what we'll be discussing with our pharmacies there in Phoenix.
32:30
Speaker 3: Phoenix, all right, thank you so much for making this
32:34
Speaker 3: time for us putting this information out on the coverage
32:37
Speaker 3: that we're doing here at the ANA CDs Total Store Expo, Crystal.
32:41
Speaker 3: This has been this has been exciting to talk with you.
32:44
Speaker 4: Thank you so much.
32:45
Speaker 7: Thanks so much, Tod to appreciate the opportunity As always.
32:51
Speaker 2: Patient safety and health are top priorities for pharmacies across
32:55
Speaker 2: the nation. Pharmacies exist as a result of the trust
32:58
Speaker 2: that patients place in them. Pharmacies rely on and appreciate
33:01
Speaker 2: the respected professionalism and dedication of the pharmacists and pharmacy
33:05
Speaker 2: technicians who earn that trust every day while.
33:08
Speaker 8: Filling prescriptions accurately and helping patients take them correctly and safely.
33:12
Speaker 8: Pharmacists also provide to patients other health and wellness services
33:16
Speaker 8: that they need and desire in a highly accessible setting
33:18
Speaker 8: that is committed to quality. The NACDS Total Store Expo
33:22
Speaker 8: brings together the leaders in chain pharmacy, and our time
33:25
Speaker 8: in San Diego was nothing short of historical.
33:28
Speaker 2: Don't miss the NACDS Total Store Expo twenty twenty six
33:31
Speaker 2: coming to Boston on August fifteenth through the seventeenth. And
33:35
Speaker 2: now here's our special and final interview with CEO of NACDS,
33:39
Speaker 2: Steven Anderson.
33:44
Speaker 3: NACDS twenty twenty five. What an amazing opportunity to gather
33:48
Speaker 3: together here in San Diego. I'm here with Steve Anderson,
33:52
Speaker 3: CEO of the NACDS. Steve, this is one of my
33:56
Speaker 3: favorite parts of the trip. Is meeting up with you
34:00
Speaker 3: every year, So thank you for doing this.
34:01
Speaker 9: It's great to be have you back here on our
34:04
Speaker 9: trade show floor, and we value our relationship with you
34:06
Speaker 9: because you bring great insights to all people, from all
34:10
Speaker 9: watchers and all listeners. So it's great.
34:12
Speaker 3: Thank you. Yeah, all right, what an exciting time in pharmacy.
34:16
Speaker 3: As much as there is strife and struggles, there is
34:21
Speaker 3: excitement and moving forward in the role of our pharmacist.
34:25
Speaker 3: There were some technology discussions that were here, the innovation
34:30
Speaker 3: of artificial intelligence, kind of moving things forward. Give our
34:33
Speaker 3: listeners a little overview of NACDS twenty twenty five.
34:37
Speaker 9: Yeah, this is a really exciting time in pharmacy and
34:39
Speaker 9: healthcare generally, and particularly as it relates to the health ecosystem.
34:44
Speaker 9: On this trade show floor, we have a lot of
34:47
Speaker 9: different companies. I've just talked to a couple of them.
34:50
Speaker 9: There's seven of them that their sales are increasing seventy
34:53
Speaker 9: five percent a year, which is pretty amazing, and their
34:56
Speaker 9: startups and doing really well. We have a lot of
34:59
Speaker 9: big companies here, but the whole focus of this, the
35:03
Speaker 9: theme of the conference is now, new and next, and
35:06
Speaker 9: that sums it up. We're here now we're dealing with
35:09
Speaker 9: a lot of different issues, a lot of activities in
35:12
Speaker 9: retail health and pharmacy. But what's new, and that was
35:16
Speaker 9: the whole purpose of this discussion we had Peter Diamandis
35:20
Speaker 9: come in from Singularity University that just blew everybody's mind
35:23
Speaker 9: in terms of AI and what's going to happen with
35:26
Speaker 9: automation and robotics and all kinds of different aspects of AI.
35:30
Speaker 9: So we're all going to live longer, by the way,
35:31
Speaker 9: so starting Belsting now, they're going to be around a
35:34
Speaker 9: long time. But at the same time, there's a lot
35:38
Speaker 9: of activity going on in addition to that technology. There's
35:41
Speaker 9: a confluence of other events and a lot of it
35:44
Speaker 9: is what's coming out of Washington right now. We kind
35:47
Speaker 9: of have a sense now we're not quite at the
35:51
Speaker 9: first year of this term, far from it, but we
35:55
Speaker 9: get this sense that it's the centers for Medicare and
35:58
Speaker 9: Medicaid services HHS are really focusing on the technology ecosystem
36:04
Speaker 9: of health. We were a early founder of sure Scripts
36:08
Speaker 9: back in two thousand and one. My first job when
36:11
Speaker 9: I got here was to merge with our ex hub
36:14
Speaker 9: that was a similar had a similar platform and they're
36:18
Speaker 9: playing a huge role in this effort by the administration,
36:23
Speaker 9: along with the likes of the early adopters. As the
36:26
Speaker 9: administration said, it's Amazon, Google, Anthropic Chat, GPT, Shurskrips. That's
36:34
Speaker 9: a pretty good company in terms of what we're doing.
36:36
Speaker 9: So we're really focusing on how do we advance healthcare?
36:40
Speaker 9: You know, And it's not you know, we have to
36:44
Speaker 9: you know, I love Jim Collins who wrote all the
36:47
Speaker 9: books good to great and you protect the core. You
36:49
Speaker 9: still what you got to do, but you have to
36:51
Speaker 9: stimulate progress and almost focus as it is a different
36:57
Speaker 9: subject similar to what Clayton Christensen was talking about than
37:00
Speaker 9: the innovators deliver. So there's a lot of activity here,
37:04
Speaker 9: a lot of really great discussions, and I can't tell you.
37:07
Speaker 9: I mean the fact that we are all going to
37:09
Speaker 9: have all these AI agents on each phones with all
37:13
Speaker 9: of our healthcare records. That plays really well in terms
37:16
Speaker 9: of what we've been doing in NECs for about the
37:19
Speaker 9: last twenty.
37:19
Speaker 3: Years, plugging that technology into our pharmacy systems to be
37:24
Speaker 3: able to bring services that are more clinical and treatment
37:28
Speaker 3: management and digging down into diabetes. Our nation needs pharmacies
37:34
Speaker 3: more than ever before. Because some of our pharmacies, the attrition,
37:39
Speaker 3: the pullback, the pharmacy deserts creeping in NACDS is an
37:44
Speaker 3: important organization to camaraderie and pulling together and brain trust
37:49
Speaker 3: and thinking like, how do we move forward, how do
37:54
Speaker 3: we actually in some in some cases, how do we
37:57
Speaker 3: expand you know, pharmacy in different parts of the nation.
38:00
Speaker 3: So what has the total store expo where these people
38:04
Speaker 3: are all coming together. Have you heard any conversations about
38:08
Speaker 3: expansion in certain areas and what are those areas that, oh, yes,
38:12
Speaker 3: probably we're tearing them.
38:13
Speaker 9: A lot of the topics that I just covered, you know,
38:15
Speaker 9: agenic AI is really where it's going to be at
38:18
Speaker 9: in the future, and all the aspects of that would
38:21
Speaker 9: come out of this initiative from the Trump administration focuses
38:27
Speaker 9: on interoperability, which we need to expand pharmacy services in
38:31
Speaker 9: this country, and so there's all kinds of aspects of
38:35
Speaker 9: that that really relate well. And you know ninety percent
38:40
Speaker 9: of all Americans that within five miles of pharmacy. You've
38:42
Speaker 9: heard me say this about a thousand times and you
38:44
Speaker 9: can't say it enough. But at the same time, there's
38:49
Speaker 9: really I focused in my remarks yesterday in the General
38:52
Speaker 9: Session about the pharmacy deserts and you know, pharmacy closures.
38:57
Speaker 9: And we came up with some new Holling data through
39:01
Speaker 9: our polling firm, the well respected Morning Console, so we
39:04
Speaker 9: can sharpen our image even and our action even more.
39:09
Speaker 9: And you know, it's amazing. I mean, eighty three percent
39:13
Speaker 9: love their pharmacist. That that is clear. But it was
39:15
Speaker 9: really interesting that ninety seven percent of the Americans that
39:19
Speaker 9: were polled in this firm said that we need public
39:23
Speaker 9: policy to keep the pharmacies open. And ninety seven percent.
39:27
Speaker 9: When do nearly one hundred percent of Americans agree on anything,
39:31
Speaker 9: I've never heard of that before. That's but that's pretty study.
39:34
Speaker 9: And in the big beautiful bill that was enacted that
39:38
Speaker 9: was signing the law on the fourth of July this year,
39:41
Speaker 9: there's provisions in there focusing on real retail, on rural health,
39:46
Speaker 9: and that's where you know, some of the biggest intractable
39:49
Speaker 9: problems that we had. We launched this food as Medicine
39:52
Speaker 9: initiative two years ago. Right, somebody said, how did you
39:56
Speaker 9: know Kennedy was going to be Secretary of HHS when
39:58
Speaker 9: you launched that whole is and the role that nutrition plays,
40:03
Speaker 9: and we're doing, you know, a lot of nutrition consoling
40:06
Speaker 9: in our stores because we represent drug stores, food and
40:10
Speaker 9: mass and a lot of those are the largest retailers
40:13
Speaker 9: in the country and on the grocery side. But the
40:18
Speaker 9: drug stores are doing screenings and doing all kinds of
40:20
Speaker 9: things and doing baseline data analysis of for folks. So
40:26
Speaker 9: it's really, really, really exciting right now. We're right at
40:30
Speaker 9: the right place because we have to break the paradigm
40:33
Speaker 9: and that's what we're seeing here. These are a bunch
40:36
Speaker 9: of paradigm busters. From my perspective, their disruptors in terms
40:39
Speaker 9: of what we can do. And they understand because one
40:43
Speaker 9: thing we gave retail pharmacy gave about three hundred and
40:46
Speaker 9: eighty million COVID shots and I think we open it
40:49
Speaker 9: seemed to me we opened the country as fast as
40:51
Speaker 9: we closed with COVID and that is because of what pharmacy.
40:55
Speaker 9: Did you know, we were yelling at the Biden administration saying,
40:58
Speaker 9: give us a vaccines, don't send it the governors.
41:01
Speaker 4: We modeled it.
41:02
Speaker 9: We could do one hundred million shots in thirty days
41:05
Speaker 9: and that's what we did. Incredible, So it's great, So
41:08
Speaker 9: everybody understands that the American people value their pharmacies. So
41:12
Speaker 9: it's just as you can tell, it's really exciting for
41:15
Speaker 9: any time for any CDs in the industry.
41:18
Speaker 3: All Right, if listeners are listening in, they didn't get
41:20
Speaker 3: to attend, they didn't get to come to San Diego.
41:24
Speaker 3: Talk to us about the event. How did Total Store
41:27
Speaker 3: x W go this year?
41:28
Speaker 9: Well, really, really well. We have a large the largest
41:31
Speaker 9: percentage of retailers at this meeting that we've ever had
41:35
Speaker 9: a third of the third of the attendees. And when
41:38
Speaker 9: retailers come to suppliers come and our associate members come,
41:41
Speaker 9: so that's really encouraging as well. And there's a lot
41:44
Speaker 9: of new people here they've never one thing about TC.
41:48
Speaker 9: We have two major meetings. We have our annual meeting
41:50
Speaker 9: in April and then we have Total Store Expo in August.
41:54
Speaker 9: And at this meeting, we have a lot of entrepreneurs
41:56
Speaker 9: and a lot of people that are new to this
41:59
Speaker 9: Indian street and new to any CDs, and they come
42:02
Speaker 9: here and we help them. It's not a competitive thing.
42:05
Speaker 9: We want every one of these companies to succeed, even
42:08
Speaker 9: though they may be competitors on the floor. But we
42:10
Speaker 9: do everything we can to embrace them and encourage them
42:15
Speaker 9: and make introductions with retailers or whatever customers they want
42:18
Speaker 9: to meet. And that's what's really exciting about the whole thing.
42:21
Speaker 9: It just continues that, as I said, we have paradigm
42:24
Speaker 9: you know busters here, right, and they all realize that,
42:28
Speaker 9: they all they all understand that, and it's pretty extraordinary.
42:32
Speaker 9: And you know, I've been doing association with for a
42:34
Speaker 9: long time as you very well know. And that's what
42:36
Speaker 9: I love about it because you can change entire industries
42:41
Speaker 9: through an association because they represent everybody they and they
42:45
Speaker 9: check their competitive differences at the door and they come
42:48
Speaker 9: into the ballroom or they come in our boardroom that
42:50
Speaker 9: I'm responsible for the board, and they do check their
42:54
Speaker 9: differences at the door and say, how can we unite
42:56
Speaker 9: together to grow the industry and to make it more
43:00
Speaker 9: relevant to the American people. And they're doing it and
43:03
Speaker 9: that's what the value of associations.
43:05
Speaker 3: I love it all Right, An A CDs Total STOREXPO
43:09
Speaker 3: twenty twenty six. Where are we going?
43:10
Speaker 9: We're going to be in Boston. We alternate back and
43:13
Speaker 9: forth become Boston and San Diego, two great cities. So yeah,
43:16
Speaker 9: we'll be there in August next year, and we're excited
43:18
Speaker 9: to come back.
43:19
Speaker 3: Well, I can't wait to be back and be among
43:23
Speaker 3: the superstars in our chain pharmacies throughout the nation. But
43:26
Speaker 3: I want to say a special thank you to any
43:28
Speaker 3: CDs for making us part of the show. We love
43:31
Speaker 3: being here and I always like ending the three part
43:35
Speaker 3: series with an interview from Steve Anderson, So thank you.
43:38
Speaker 9: Thanks, I'm glad to have you here. See you in Boston,
43:40
Speaker 9: if not before, see in Boston. Yeah,