Latest / Pharmacy Podcast Network / LIVE at RBC 2026 Episode Three | Cardinal Health™ CounterTalk™ Podcast

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LIVE at RBC 2026 Episode Three | Cardinal Health™ CounterTalk™ Podcast · Pharmacy Podcast Network

0:05
Speaker 1: You are listening to the global network of podcasters dedicated
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Speaker 1: to the pharmacy profession. Welcome to the Pharmacy Podcast Network.
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Speaker 2: The Cardinal Health Counter Talk podcast in collaboration with Pharmacy
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Speaker 2: state of the industry, innovative services and solutions.
0:49
Speaker 3: And the future of pharmacy.
0:51
Speaker 4: Join me, your host, Jason Calori, for conversations with pharmacists,
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Speaker 4: Cardinal Health leaders, and industry experts sharing best practices, discussing
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1:10
Speaker 5: Hey, we are CounterTalk Podcast Live here at RBC in Orlando, 2026.
1:15
Speaker 5: My name is Corey. I'm your host for today. I'm
1:18
Speaker 5: here with Jason Kaiser and Alan Mabry. We're going to
1:22
Speaker 5: talk about the future of inventory management. Jason, we'll start
1:25
Speaker 5: with you. Jason, I know you've been in the pharmacy
1:28
Speaker 5: industry for about 25 years, right? Been in a lot
1:31
Speaker 5: of different roles, played a lot of different things, very
1:34
Speaker 5: active in the community.
1:35
Speaker 6: Tell us a little bit about yourself.
1:37
Speaker 7: Started out pharmacy, got out in my early 20s. I
1:41
Speaker 7: worked in a corporate chain world, chain pharmacist for several
1:45
Speaker 7: different pharmacies. Then I kind of climbed the ladder and
1:47
Speaker 7: district manager, all that stuff. Ultimately worked for some innovative
1:51
Speaker 7: pharmacies along the way, and then I opened my own
1:53
Speaker 7: store 23 years ago. Along the way, we opened from
1:58
Speaker 7: scratch and put my house up for saving. I mean,
2:01
Speaker 7: you know, it's one of those risky things, but really
2:05
Speaker 7: learning by fire. I had to learn it myself kind
2:07
Speaker 7: of thing, along with a lot of, you know, networking
2:11
Speaker 7: and help from Cardinal and.
2:12
Speaker 1: Places like that.
2:14
Speaker 7: And then along the way, also just digging into the
2:18
Speaker 7: fine-tuning stuff of business, whether it be PBMs I even
2:25
Speaker 7: got in pharmacy benefits.
2:26
Speaker 6: Which is always fun.
2:27
Speaker 7: Yeah, I got in that business for a while just
2:29
Speaker 7: to kind of disrupt that. And just over time, though,
2:34
Speaker 7: just tried to be the most efficient, high volume, but
2:39
Speaker 7: where we can focus on patient care and all these
2:42
Speaker 7: other mechanics that are so important to cash flow and
2:47
Speaker 7: everything else. In order to fuel that engine, inventory is
2:50
Speaker 7: obviously a huge part of it. So I feel like
2:53
Speaker 7: I've always been good at it, but I feel like
2:56
Speaker 7: that's also a blind spot that a lot of pharmacies
2:59
Speaker 7: have is that they feel like they're good at it
3:02
Speaker 7: and they don't need any assistance.
3:04
Speaker 8: Yeah.
3:04
Speaker 6: So this is a perfect subject for you today. Yeah.
3:07
Speaker 6: So thanks, Jason. I appreciate it.
3:09
Speaker 9: Alan.
3:09
Speaker 5: I know you've been with Cardinal for 20 years now, right?
3:12
Speaker 3: 20 years.
3:12
Speaker 6: 20 years.
3:14
Speaker 5: You're now just part of a new pharmacy inventory management role, right?
3:18
Speaker 5: You've taken this on. I know you've been in quite
3:20
Speaker 5: a few roles. I've had the opportunity to work with
3:22
Speaker 5: you for quite a.
3:23
Speaker 6: Number of years.
3:24
Speaker 5: Tell us a little bit about yourself. What do you
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Speaker 5: want the listeners to know about you?
3:27
Speaker 3: Yeah.
3:27
Speaker 10: So, yeah, I've been with Cardinal for 20 years. Most
3:30
Speaker 10: of that is in inventory management with our legacy system
3:35
Speaker 10: called Sim onto our inventory optimization solution. So- Really, my
3:39
Speaker 10: job is to make sure that I listen to customers
3:42
Speaker 10: like Jason over here, build out requirements, and make sure
3:44
Speaker 10: that we're making our solution as best as we can,
3:47
Speaker 10: and make sure that it's helping and striving toward the
3:51
Speaker 10: goals that our customers are looking for. So it's been
3:54
Speaker 10: a good journey.
3:55
Speaker 6: That's awesome. Thanks for sharing.
3:56
Speaker 5: So we're going to talk a little bit about why
3:58
Speaker 5: inventory matters.
3:59
Speaker 6: Jason, I'm going to start with you.
4:01
Speaker 5: Why is inventory management so important to, I don't know,
4:04
Speaker 5: pharmacy success?
4:07
Speaker 7: I think there's a customer service component to that, having
4:11
Speaker 7: what the patient needs when they need it, patient care component.
4:16
Speaker 7: But the ultimate, it's a cash flow indicator, really. I mean,
4:20
Speaker 7: it's really the key. When I'm training a new pharmacist
4:24
Speaker 7: or a new tech, when we get into the inventory part,
4:27
Speaker 7: I often say this is where the money's made.
4:30
Speaker 2: Yeah.
4:31
Speaker 7: And I've been in inefficiently ran pharmacies that are struggling
4:35
Speaker 7: and can't make payroll, but yet they don't pay attention
4:39
Speaker 7: to the inventory. I think most seasoned pharmacy owners know that,
4:43
Speaker 7: but I don't think they're aware of.
4:45
Speaker 1: How good it could be more than what they're currently doing.
4:49
Speaker 5: So what happens when inventory isn't managed well in a pharmacy?
4:55
Speaker 7: You know, in my history, when I would see come
4:58
Speaker 7: back from vacation, back when I used to do it
5:00
Speaker 7: all by myself, I'd come back from vacation, I would
5:02
Speaker 7: see things on that shelf that.
5:04
Speaker 1: Didn't belong there.
5:06
Speaker 7: And nobody at the time, in my mind, seemed to care.
5:10
Speaker 7: And I remember in the chain world, really, nobody really cared. But,
5:14
Speaker 7: you know, I would pick up an expensive bottle of
5:16
Speaker 7: something and I'd say, hey, this is a used car.
5:18
Speaker 1: Like, we could have bought a new delivery vehicle with this.
5:22
Speaker 7: Bottle that's just sitting here, or I could have gotten
5:24
Speaker 7: interest on it in the bank, or we could have
5:26
Speaker 7: not had to pull on the line of credit to
5:28
Speaker 7: make payroll. And I try to use those kind of
5:31
Speaker 7: examples of how important it is to, if you think
5:36
Speaker 7: of it as a flywheel, if a water mill's scooping
5:41
Speaker 7: up water, I want to get as many scoops of
5:43
Speaker 7: water off that thing as I can. Instead of a
5:46
Speaker 7: slow-turning thing, one scoop a year thing and.
5:50
Speaker 1: A well-tuned inventory system offers you the ability to have
5:56
Speaker 1: more operating capital.
5:59
Speaker 6: So you touched on this a little bit.
6:00
Speaker 5: How does inventory impact cash flow, kind of what we
6:03
Speaker 5: were just referencing, and patient service?
6:06
Speaker 7: Well, you know, it's kind of a dual-edged sword. For example,
6:11
Speaker 7: someone on expensive brand names and a popular one even,
6:15
Speaker 7: you know, like Eloquist or something, you know, where I
6:19
Speaker 7: used to keep 18 bottles on the shelf, you know,
6:22
Speaker 7: because at any point, 18 people could come in and
6:24
Speaker 7: get it. It really incentivized me to put as many
6:29
Speaker 7: of those people, for example, on MedSync and have more
6:31
Speaker 7: patient interaction where we call them ahead of time.
6:34
Speaker 1: Do you need it? You know, when do you need
6:36
Speaker 1: this buy?
6:36
Speaker 7: And where I can bring that eloquence into my store
6:40
Speaker 7: when I want to versus, you just.
6:44
Speaker 1: Assuming everybody's got to have it every day.
6:46
Speaker 7: And so if you think about it from an expensive
6:48
Speaker 7: brand standpoint, I'm pushing that out as far as I can.
6:52
Speaker 7: But that used to be a manual system. And now
6:56
Speaker 7: this is a system that takes a lot of that
6:59
Speaker 7: manual labor out of the way.
7:01
Speaker 1: And it's just a matter of trusting it.
7:04
Speaker 5: Now, have you seen that play out when you think
7:06
Speaker 5: about how that takes care of your patients?
7:10
Speaker 6: How have you seen that?
7:12
Speaker 7: Well, one, I think the more touches with a patient,
7:14
Speaker 7: unless you're just a nuisance, but the more times you're calling,
7:19
Speaker 7: most people appreciate it. Our county is kind of a
7:24
Speaker 7: large area, square mile-wise, and so people drive 15, 20
7:29
Speaker 7: miles to our store. If it's not in stock or
7:32
Speaker 7: you don't have enough, which you have to run a
7:34
Speaker 7: thin inventory these days to make things work, You calling
7:39
Speaker 7: them and saving them a trip or getting them on
7:42
Speaker 7: MedSync and taking care of things for them, obviously they
7:46
Speaker 7: really appreciate it, just building that customer value prop with them.
7:51
Speaker 1: But at the same time, it's helping us.
7:52
Speaker 6: Yeah, absolutely.
7:54
Speaker 5: So for stores that aren't actively managing inventory today, what's
7:59
Speaker 5: the biggest misconception some owners have and maybe why they
8:02
Speaker 5: don't do it?
8:04
Speaker 1: I think there's a couple things.
8:05
Speaker 7: One, they have a— It's maybe a grandiose self-esteem.
8:13
Speaker 3: I don't know.
8:13
Speaker 7: The self-ideation of they're the best at it and nobody
8:17
Speaker 7: else can do it like them.
8:18
Speaker 1: Or it's stuck in their ways. This is the way
8:21
Speaker 1: we've always done it.
8:22
Speaker 7: The second part is the person selling me my drugs
8:28
Speaker 7: is trying to control my inventory. And that seems like
8:33
Speaker 7: a conflict of interest. And so there's this distrust level here.
8:38
Speaker 7: And they're like, well, they're always going to err on
8:40
Speaker 7: the side of order 18 bottles of Eloquence. You know,
8:45
Speaker 7: maybe not to that point, but they probably have that
8:47
Speaker 7: thought across their mind. So it takes longer to trust
8:52
Speaker 7: the system, I think, because.
8:54
Speaker 6: Of those misconceptions.
8:56
Speaker 5: So when you think about inventory management, what opportunities, if
8:59
Speaker 5: someone's not doing it, what opportunities are they possibly missing?
9:04
Speaker 7: Well, they're missing all the things they could be doing
9:06
Speaker 7: besides managing the inventory.
9:07
Speaker 1: So that's one.
9:09
Speaker 7: So, you know, if you're struggling to counsel patients, do
9:13
Speaker 7: clinical initiatives, you know, talk to patients on the floor,
9:18
Speaker 7: whatever it might be, because you're back there behind where
9:21
Speaker 7: nobody even sees you because you're, you know, messing with
9:25
Speaker 7: an audit account or something. You know, I think that's taken...
9:30
Speaker 7: You're a pharmacist. You don't need to be doing that.
9:34
Speaker 7: But again, it makes so much money, you feel like
9:37
Speaker 7: you need to be doing it.
9:39
Speaker 5: Let's talk a little bit about inventory optimization in practice.
9:43
Speaker 5: What led you to adopt IO or inventory optimization? What
9:48
Speaker 5: challenges were you trying to solve in your pharmacy?
9:51
Speaker 1: A couple of challenges. One, I've always been loyal to.
9:55
Speaker 7: I was previously loyal to Cardinal for one of the
9:59
Speaker 7: primary reasons was because of Sim. I felt like I
10:03
Speaker 7: was a Sim expert, but over time, I felt like
10:06
Speaker 7: I was finding gaps in its ability to be truly efficient.
10:14
Speaker 7: I felt like I was policing Sim. And so I
10:17
Speaker 7: began to like, man, we got to come up with
10:19
Speaker 7: something else. The other part is, except for my controls,
10:23
Speaker 7: my pharmacy software system's inventory was off. So I was,
10:27
Speaker 7: in a way, beholden to Cardinal because I couldn't rely
10:31
Speaker 7: on my own pharmacy inventory system to submit the EDI
10:35
Speaker 7: file automatically, which made me super reliant on SIM, but
10:39
Speaker 7: then I didn't like SIM as much anymore.
10:42
Speaker 1: So this I.O. offered the opportunity, one, of.
10:45
Speaker 7: A new platform altogether.
10:48
Speaker 1: I could kind of get rid of SIM.
10:50
Speaker 7: And at the same time, it kind of forced me
10:52
Speaker 7: to get my pharmacy software inventory.
10:56
Speaker 1: Correct, which that needed to happen anyway.
10:59
Speaker 7: So that was probably one of the heavy lifts, but
11:03
Speaker 7: I'm very glad we did that. And now, ultimately, I'm
11:07
Speaker 7: really not beholden to Cardinal, even though Cardinal's doing a
11:09
Speaker 7: better job now with IO than they were with Sim.
11:13
Speaker 6: That's awesome.
11:14
Speaker 5: What convinced you, though? What was kind of the... guiding
11:20
Speaker 5: or your North Star as to why this was worth
11:22
Speaker 5: the change?
11:24
Speaker 7: I think I felt like I had learned through just
11:29
Speaker 7: better leadership, better management to delegate tasks and put people
11:33
Speaker 7: in systems better.
11:35
Speaker 1: But the one I would not let go of was inventory.
11:39
Speaker 7: I felt like I was becoming a procurement purchase inventory.
11:43
Speaker 1: Guy and it was consuming a lot of my day.
11:46
Speaker 7: And I thought, you know, I've got to find something
11:49
Speaker 7: that will lighten my labor load, not so much my resources.
11:56
Speaker 7: And so I took a chance and became one of
11:59
Speaker 7: the beta stores or whatever.
12:01
Speaker 1: And what I enjoyed about that part is they've been.
12:05
Speaker 7: Very responsive in tweaking it, upgrading it, making corrections.
12:11
Speaker 1: So for people coming on board now, it's in a
12:14
Speaker 1: really good spot.
12:15
Speaker 6: That's awesome. Those are great partnerships.
12:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, they were super well to work with.
12:19
Speaker 6: That's awesome.
12:20
Speaker 8: Yeah.
12:21
Speaker 10: And Jason's just like a great person to go out,
12:24
Speaker 10: experience some of the new solution, provide great feedback. Like
12:27
Speaker 10: I was saying earlier, without that feedback, our solution, you know,
12:31
Speaker 10: we need that to be able to be successful.
12:33
Speaker 7: Yeah, 100%.
12:33
Speaker 3: Yeah.
12:34
Speaker 5: Jason, since implementing I.O., what improvements have you seen? Like
12:39
Speaker 5: what's the biggest impact on your business that you've seen
12:41
Speaker 5: so far?
12:42
Speaker 1: Well, I'll give kind of a real-world example.
12:47
Speaker 7: Old pharmacy owner me, when I need to make some money,
12:52
Speaker 7: goes up after hours. You know, we had a big
12:56
Speaker 7: expensive vacation or something.
12:58
Speaker 1: And I'm like, well, I'm just going to go get
12:59
Speaker 1: this inventory right and make some money.
13:01
Speaker 7: And I do that like on a Sunday afternoon or
13:03
Speaker 7: late at night or something, and.
13:05
Speaker 1: I always find money. I always find money. And when
13:09
Speaker 1: I say find money, find inventory, overages and things.
13:13
Speaker 7: I went in last week, two weekends ago, and it
13:17
Speaker 7: was a waste of my time. I couldn't hardly find anything.
13:20
Speaker 7: I mean, I did find a few things, and I
13:22
Speaker 7: corrected some counts, but I was a little disappointed because
13:25
Speaker 7: the money wasn't there.
13:27
Speaker 1: It's already gone. It's already back in my bank account.
13:29
Speaker 1: Does that make sense?
13:30
Speaker 6: Yeah, absolutely.
13:31
Speaker 1: The other part is the forecasting is super accurate. It's
13:38
Speaker 1: way more accurate. In fact— It's coming, and I do
13:42
Speaker 1: need it.
13:43
Speaker 7: But sometimes I just have to make phone calls and go,
13:46
Speaker 7: it's the end of the month.
13:46
Speaker 1: Can you wait until tomorrow? And it's really well done.
13:50
Speaker 7: And they keep adding things to the dashboard also. At first,
13:56
Speaker 7: it's kind of busy and overwhelming looking.
13:59
Speaker 1: Sure.
14:00
Speaker 7: But once you get into some of these reports, like,
14:02
Speaker 7: the main one I watch is my total inventory. And
14:07
Speaker 7: you'll see that, you know, towards the end of the month,
14:09
Speaker 7: I'm trying to whittle it down or whatever. But it
14:11
Speaker 7: goes according to my volume. I'm not getting, like, Sim,
14:17
Speaker 7: another big one. Sim used to, if you filled an
14:20
Speaker 7: expensive drug, but it's kind of rare, but you filled
14:22
Speaker 7: two in one.
14:23
Speaker 1: Week, next thing you know, it wants to keep two
14:26
Speaker 1: on the shelf.
14:26
Speaker 7: Yeah.
14:28
Speaker 1: And this doesn't do that.
14:29
Speaker 7: And there's still some things they're going to do to
14:33
Speaker 7: make it even better, but it's accurately assessing the data
14:38
Speaker 7: it's being given, I guess is a good way to
14:41
Speaker 7: say it.
14:42
Speaker 5: Have you seen an impact on your staff's time? Are
14:44
Speaker 5: they able to do other things now? Yes.
14:48
Speaker 1: One, the returns part of I.O. is also awesome.
14:50
Speaker 7: But that's the second thing that I would– you know,
14:54
Speaker 7: advice would give.
14:56
Speaker 1: I was with IO.
14:58
Speaker 7: I am able to assign this to people that gravitate
15:03
Speaker 7: towards that kind of work. There are actually people on
15:06
Speaker 7: your staff probably that do like it.
15:08
Speaker 1: You just never found out.
15:10
Speaker 7: And so I've got a tech that's super at it.
15:12
Speaker 7: I got a pharmacist that's super at it and it's
15:14
Speaker 7: no longer me doing it.
15:16
Speaker 1: So it's, it's, it makes it possible for.
15:18
Speaker 10: Them to do it.
15:19
Speaker 5: So let's talk a little bit about how forecasted reorder
15:22
Speaker 5: points may have changed the way that you manage your inventory.
15:25
Speaker 6: So has it helped reduce the guesswork?
15:30
Speaker 7: Yes, and if I wanted to guess about it, the
15:34
Speaker 7: information is there for me to look at.
15:36
Speaker 1: So I can go to the usage history, and I
15:39
Speaker 1: can go to that drug, for example.
15:42
Speaker 7: A good example is I had somebody on a 21-milligram
15:47
Speaker 7: version of a drug, And they'd been on it forever,
15:50
Speaker 7: and it timed it just right. Well, it hadn't ordered
15:53
Speaker 7: it yet, but it was about to. So it was
15:56
Speaker 7: on my suggested order.
15:58
Speaker 1: So I went, and I thought, man, we hardly ever
15:59
Speaker 1: sell that. Let me see who's on that.
16:01
Speaker 6: I looked.
16:02
Speaker 1: I looked that patient up, and they changed to the
16:03
Speaker 1: different milligram.
16:04
Speaker 7: It's the one time where it was going to probably
16:06
Speaker 7: order it, but he didn't know they'd gotten a new
16:08
Speaker 7: script for the new strength. But it showed up on
16:11
Speaker 7: my order in time for me to take a look
16:14
Speaker 7: at because you can evaluate it throughout the day. And
16:17
Speaker 7: so it stopped me. You know, that was a manual change,
16:21
Speaker 7: but it was I.O. that prompted me to do it.
16:23
Speaker 6: That's awesome.
16:24
Speaker 5: Let's talk a little bit about secondary supplier integration. Has
16:28
Speaker 5: that improved the flexibility during shortages for you?
16:33
Speaker 7: That is still, because of the secondaries I use, it
16:38
Speaker 7: still has some challenges.
16:40
Speaker 1: And I will say, because I've reached out to the
16:42
Speaker 1: secondaries myself, that is on the secondaries to feed.
16:48
Speaker 7: And Alan can probably say that, verify it, but to me,
16:52
Speaker 7: they're unwilling, and I guess I understand to share the
16:56
Speaker 7: large competitor information.
16:59
Speaker 1: However, even the ones that I manually bring.
17:02
Speaker 7: Into my EDI or into my pharmacy software system, I've
17:06
Speaker 7: got the secondary price in there and the amounts and
17:09
Speaker 7: the NDC and all that stuff, and it shows up
17:12
Speaker 7: in IO as the preferred price. And with the secondary's
17:18
Speaker 7: price in there. So I know that that's not Cardinal's drug.
17:23
Speaker 7: That's the drug I get from the secondary. Does that
17:25
Speaker 7: make sense?
17:25
Speaker 6: Yeah, absolutely.
17:26
Speaker 7: Now, going forward, when they feed it, it's going to
17:29
Speaker 7: tell me that's where I get it from. That's a
17:32
Speaker 7: little bit of a manual process. But in the past,
17:35
Speaker 7: it would be in Sim, for example, but it might
17:38
Speaker 7: say it's $ 850 when it was $ 85. And it was
17:41
Speaker 7: kind of messing your values up.
17:43
Speaker 1: So you want that.
17:44
Speaker 7: actual inventory number and turns and all that kind of
17:46
Speaker 7: stuff to be accurate.
17:48
Speaker 1: And this is far more accurate than SIM.
17:51
Speaker 6: Alan, do you want to, anything you want to add?
17:52
Speaker 10: Yeah, I would just definitely just to, you know, elaborate
17:55
Speaker 10: or go into a little bit more that the things and,
17:58
Speaker 10: you know, Jason, you hit it right on the head, right?
18:00
Speaker 10: Like our, our legacy system SIM, you could track items
18:04
Speaker 10: in there, right? That you might've purchased from another wholesaler,
18:07
Speaker 10: but it was a very manual process.
18:09
Speaker 3: Right?
18:10
Speaker 10: And then the new solution, because, you know, we're a
18:12
Speaker 10: partner with another company, we can get some of those
18:15
Speaker 10: data feeds. Now, obviously, we're working on as many as
18:18
Speaker 10: we can, right? The wholesalers are willing to send it
18:20
Speaker 10: to us. But a good benefit of this solution, too,
18:22
Speaker 10: is that you think about as an owner, I can't
18:27
Speaker 10: see your pricing at all, even though this is a
18:30
Speaker 10: cardinal product to make sure that we have that separation.
18:33
Speaker 10: So you can go in, you can have your price
18:35
Speaker 10: be something, and then we go on the back end
18:37
Speaker 10: and we start looking at our logic on purchasing, like,
18:39
Speaker 10: all right, should we look at best price?
18:41
Speaker 3: Should we do all these things?
18:42
Speaker 10: But that was a very manual process before, and I
18:46
Speaker 10: think it's a lot more streamlined in this new solution.
18:49
Speaker 6: So, Alan, great segue, right? So, thank you for that.
18:53
Speaker 5: What are some benefits or, I guess, around forecasted reorder points,
18:57
Speaker 5: supplier integration that pharmacies may not know about right now
19:01
Speaker 5: or may not see immediately?
19:03
Speaker 10: Yeah, I think Jason hit on a lot of it already.
19:06
Speaker 10: The So a lot of what our forecast algorithms and
19:11
Speaker 10: everything else that the solution is doing now is a
19:13
Speaker 10: lot more, you know, advanced than SIM. So like Jason
19:18
Speaker 10: was saying, in our previous solution, you would adjudicate a claim,
19:22
Speaker 10: and then as soon as it would, you know, it
19:24
Speaker 10: thinks you're one pill below, it's going to try to
19:26
Speaker 10: order that product tomorrow, right, to kind of get you
19:29
Speaker 10: back up. Where this solution is looking at trends of
19:32
Speaker 10: when your patients come in and saying, hey— You might
19:36
Speaker 10: be at, you know, one pill below what you actually
19:38
Speaker 10: technically need, but you're not going to need it for
19:40
Speaker 10: another 27 days or something.
19:42
Speaker 3: In that manner.
19:42
Speaker 10: And then like Jason was saying, the system will say, hey,
19:45
Speaker 10: this is going to pop up and then the system
19:49
Speaker 10: will go through. and it has different algorithms for like
19:51
Speaker 10: fast moving items versus.
19:53
Speaker 3: Like slow ones.
19:54
Speaker 10: Like, do you just need it in time? So it's
19:56
Speaker 10: a lot more robust. And that's going to help make
19:59
Speaker 10: sure that You know, individuals like Jason don't have to
20:02
Speaker 10: spend all day, like, monitoring the suggested order. And, you know,
20:07
Speaker 10: it's doing what it should be doing versus having to
20:09
Speaker 10: spend all the time where you should be spending your
20:11
Speaker 10: time with your patients.
20:13
Speaker 5: I mean, you talked a little bit about trends, right?
20:15
Speaker 5: So what kind of trends are you seeing across pharmacies
20:17
Speaker 5: that are currently using or maybe are going to use IO?
20:22
Speaker 10: Yeah, the biggest trend, and it's a little bit of
20:25
Speaker 10: a gut punch, like, for our customers that were already
20:28
Speaker 10: on SIEM. And you already saw inventory reduction, but then
20:31
Speaker 10: moving over to our new solution and seeing, like you said, Jason, before,
20:35
Speaker 10: there was very little inventory to return back.
20:40
Speaker 3: It's so streamlined.
20:42
Speaker 10: So I would see that part of our customers that
20:45
Speaker 10: are on our current solution moving over, that's that realization,
20:48
Speaker 10: like a huge amount of cash flow coming back. And
20:51
Speaker 10: I think for the ones that have never been on
20:52
Speaker 10: inventory management, it's a very eye-opening, you.
20:56
Speaker 3: Know, solution and thing to see.
20:59
Speaker 10: Um, and then I think you also stated this too, Jason, it's,
21:01
Speaker 10: it's a little bit of a control thing. Like you
21:03
Speaker 10: got to give up control a little bit to be,
21:06
Speaker 10: to be able to trust the system, uh, and you know,
21:09
Speaker 10: understand what it's, what it's doing.
21:11
Speaker 6: That leads me to a really good question. So Jason,
21:14
Speaker 6: when you talk about control, right?
21:16
Speaker 5: Pharmacists may be like, do I have a control of
21:18
Speaker 5: their inventory and those things? What, what, what would kind of, um,
21:23
Speaker 5: I guess advice would you give a pharmacist who maybe
21:26
Speaker 5: doesn't want to give up that.
21:27
Speaker 6: Control that Alan was just talking about?
21:30
Speaker 1: Well, from a financial.
21:31
Speaker 7: Standpoint, if that's the carrot they need, I mean, if
21:34
Speaker 7: they're not doing this, it's a large swath of money
21:38
Speaker 7: that they could put in their pocket. They could probably
21:43
Speaker 7: reduce their inventory six figures and put that money right
21:46
Speaker 7: into their bank account. So that's one incentive to do it.
21:49
Speaker 7: The second thing is the actual cash flow part. and
21:52
Speaker 7: that is, you know, your money's being spent on payroll
21:57
Speaker 7: and things that should be spent on and not, oh, no,
22:00
Speaker 7: where's our money?
22:01
Speaker 1: It's trapped on this slow wheel.
22:05
Speaker 7: When I think about when I talk to a consultant
22:08
Speaker 7: or I'm in a peer group about things, people kind
22:11
Speaker 7: of throw out their.
22:11
Speaker 1: Numbers sometimes and turns is one of them. You know,
22:15
Speaker 1: they want it in the 20s. You know, that's good
22:18
Speaker 1: and I mean, you can get in the 40s and
22:21
Speaker 1: 50s on turns.
22:22
Speaker 7: I mean, you need the more volume helps, but it's
22:25
Speaker 7: amazing amount how low our actual inventory is to our
22:29
Speaker 7: volume and the amount of turns we get. And I
22:33
Speaker 7: used to brag when I was on sim that our
22:36
Speaker 7: turns were, you know, around 30.
22:38
Speaker 1: And I was very proud of that. And it's it's
22:40
Speaker 1: higher than that. It's like really high.
22:42
Speaker 6: Wow, that's awesome. This question is coming to both, and Jason,
22:46
Speaker 6: we'll start with you.
22:47
Speaker 5: What would you say to a pharmacy that is hesitant
22:50
Speaker 5: to move away from SIM to inventory optimization?
22:55
Speaker 7: The biggest one may be the person that quit SIM
22:59
Speaker 7: and went back to the old way, and that may
23:02
Speaker 7: be the hardest sell, but if you were frustrated with
23:07
Speaker 7: SIM or felt like you were.
23:09
Speaker 1: Having to do too many manual things.
23:11
Speaker 7: To SIM to doctor it or police it, That is very,
23:15
Speaker 7: very rare in IO. I can't say that during the
23:19
Speaker 7: beta testing we weren't, you know, doing some things. But
23:22
Speaker 7: once they get your data and that long trend line
23:26
Speaker 7: and they can look back far enough, it works.
23:30
Speaker 1: There's a point to where almost every other day you're going,
23:32
Speaker 1: this is getting better. This is getting better.
23:34
Speaker 7: You know, it's getting, you know, and then as you're
23:36
Speaker 7: doing that, you're also getting your own inventory better, like
23:39
Speaker 7: more accurate. It's, you know, some of it's your fault
23:41
Speaker 7: because your lisinopril says it's negative a thousand.
23:46
Speaker 5: Jason, what's the biggest difference that you're seeing right now
23:48
Speaker 5: between Sim and IO? Like if you were to tell
23:50
Speaker 5: a pharmacist one big thing that you're seeing, what would
23:54
Speaker 5: it be?
23:54
Speaker 7: Um, I would describe SIEM as wonky, and I would describe.
24:04
Speaker 5: I.O.
24:05
Speaker 1: As almost more real-time. In fact, you can see it
24:08
Speaker 1: in the latest data feeds and everything. So it's really good.
24:12
Speaker 7: I think the reporting is actually going to get a
24:14
Speaker 7: lot better. I think there's some things they're working on.
24:17
Speaker 7: So the returns are way better. Versus if you're a
24:22
Speaker 7: person that does returns through Vantus, That is wonky.
24:27
Speaker 1: I.O., your own I.O., returns through I.O. are very easy.
24:31
Speaker 6: Nice. Alan, what about you?
24:34
Speaker 10: So I think if we look at, you know, maybe
24:37
Speaker 10: it's a, you know, a pharmacy owner that has been
24:42
Speaker 10: walking the shelf, you know, for most of their time
24:45
Speaker 10: and not really invested in inventory management. That's because there's always,
24:49
Speaker 10: and I think you might have... said this Jason but
24:51
Speaker 10: there's people think that hey I've got this process nailed
24:54
Speaker 10: down right and then what we usually do even in
24:58
Speaker 10: like sim you come in you start seeing these all
25:01
Speaker 10: these opportunities for returns for increasing your cash flow well
25:06
Speaker 10: IO takes it to the next stop I think to
25:07
Speaker 10: me it's give it a chance Right. Go in, see
25:11
Speaker 10: if you could do you know, do you have the
25:12
Speaker 10: right reporting? Do you have the things that you know,
25:15
Speaker 10: does your pharmacy system let you know, like, hey, are
25:18
Speaker 10: there missing pills somewhere? Because there's reporting in the solution
25:21
Speaker 10: that will let you know if there's potentially divergence. Right.
25:24
Speaker 10: Like and that's something that you need to understand. So
25:28
Speaker 10: to those that are hesitant, I would say let's talk.
25:31
Speaker 10: Let's go through it. Let's see where your visibility into
25:33
Speaker 10: your inventory is or maybe, you know, what is the
25:36
Speaker 10: biggest challenge that you're facing right now? as it relates
25:39
Speaker 10: to your, besides, you know, headcount, but your biggest capital.
25:44
Speaker 6: Thank you. I appreciate it.
25:46
Speaker 5: Jason, what, looking back, what's been the biggest surprise during
25:49
Speaker 5: this transition?
25:53
Speaker 1: How freed up I've been.
25:54
Speaker 7: I didn't think I would be this freed up, but
25:59
Speaker 7: I hardly have to touch it anymore. And I was
26:02
Speaker 7: spending two or three hours of my day in some
26:05
Speaker 7: form or fashion, either purchasing things, you know, trying to
26:10
Speaker 7: find product or dealing with returns or what are we
26:18
Speaker 7: going to do about, you know, I just spent a
26:20
Speaker 7: lot of time on it. And now I've got to
26:22
Speaker 7: find something else to do.
26:24
Speaker 6: I don't know, like take care of patients.
26:25
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
26:26
Speaker 11: That's right.
26:27
Speaker 5: So, Alan, let's talk a little bit about how McKesson
26:30
Speaker 5: supports customers through this type of transition.
26:32
Speaker 6: And what role does AMC play?
26:36
Speaker 3: So....
26:37
Speaker 10: I think Order Insight is the solution that we're working with, right?
26:41
Speaker 10: So that's the third party's solution. They are our partners
26:46
Speaker 10: in creating the solution. We work with them on all
26:49
Speaker 10: their different enhancements. But we also have, like, in the
26:53
Speaker 10: whole scheme or idea of, like, say you sign up
26:56
Speaker 10: for the solution and we move forward, we have dedicated
26:59
Speaker 10: teams that do training. We also have our own account
27:02
Speaker 10: managers that After training's completed, like, you know, someone will
27:05
Speaker 10: reach out to Jason all the time. So there's a, like,
27:08
Speaker 10: we hold your hand through the whole process to make
27:11
Speaker 10: sure that you're very comfortable and you're ready to go.
27:13
Speaker 10: I think the biggest thing, too, is getting your PMS
27:16
Speaker 10: ready to go, right? And we'll try to help, like,
27:19
Speaker 10: but there's only so much stuff we can do.
27:21
Speaker 3: But, you know, we'll try to be a part of
27:22
Speaker 3: that process.
27:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the heavy lift that you need to do anyway.
27:26
Speaker 1: Just get it done, get it out of the way.
27:29
Speaker 1: I'll second the support, though. I mean, they pick up
27:31
Speaker 1: the phone.
27:32
Speaker 7: You could tell them, I don't understand or I can't
27:35
Speaker 7: find something in this system.
27:37
Speaker 1: One, they'll walk you through it, you know, very quickly.
27:39
Speaker 7: But if there's an actual thing you want, like, I
27:43
Speaker 7: wish it would do this, they're in that wheelhouse of,
27:49
Speaker 7: I think we can throw that on the next suggested,
27:54
Speaker 7: you know, revamp or whatever.
27:55
Speaker 1: Yep. Alan, what is an AMC?
27:58
Speaker 10: Yeah, good question. So it's an account manager. Within Cardinal,
28:02
Speaker 10: we love our acronyms. So it's an asset management consultant.
28:07
Speaker 10: So obviously, their biggest asset is their inventory. So they're
28:11
Speaker 10: an account.
28:11
Speaker 3: Manager that literally is trying to make sure.
28:13
Speaker 10: That you're getting the best benefit out of the solution
28:15
Speaker 10: that we're providing.
28:17
Speaker 6: But what do customers need to think about? I guess,
28:21
Speaker 6: what should they expect during this process?
28:24
Speaker 10: I think what we were kind of referring to before
28:26
Speaker 10: is just a lot of hand-holding Because what we want
28:29
Speaker 10: to make sure is, like, on day one, that you're actually, like,
28:32
Speaker 10: you're ready to go, that inventory is correct, you understand
28:35
Speaker 10: what's happening, and then you actually have that support line. So,
28:38
Speaker 10: you know, besides even our AMCs and our training staff,
28:41
Speaker 10: on the solution, we have something.
28:43
Speaker 3: Called, like, it's our assistant. So if there's a question,
28:46
Speaker 3: you can chat with us.
28:48
Speaker 10: Like, we're trying to make sure that, you know, you, like,
28:51
Speaker 10: on day one, you're as comfortable as possible, you know, like,
28:54
Speaker 10: understanding and relying on the solution that, you know, we're
28:57
Speaker 10: We're trying to make sure that your inventory is good and.
28:59
Speaker 6: Your ordering is good. So, Alan, great segue right into
29:04
Speaker 6: this next thing.
29:05
Speaker 5: Are there any special inventory optimization promotions running right now
29:09
Speaker 5: at RBC?
29:09
Speaker 7: There is.
29:10
Speaker 3: There is. I'm glad you asked.
29:13
Speaker 10: For our current SIEM customers that haven't moved over to
29:17
Speaker 10: our new solution, if you actually sign up here or
29:20
Speaker 10: before the end of the month and go live by
29:24
Speaker 10: November 30th, you'll actually get to keep your SIM pricing
29:27
Speaker 10: for a year. And then for our new SIM, like
29:29
Speaker 10: our new customers, our new IO customers, if you sign
29:32
Speaker 10: up at the show or before the end of the
29:34
Speaker 10: month and go live by November.
29:36
Speaker 3: 30th, you will get two months credited. of service fees.
29:41
Speaker 6: That sounds like a good deal.
29:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. So, yeah.
29:45
Speaker 10: If any questions, I hope people come over and we
29:47
Speaker 10: can talk about inventory optimization.
29:50
Speaker 6: Let's just stop by the booth.
29:51
Speaker 3: Yes, please.
29:51
Speaker 6: Sounds good. Jason, so we're going to wrap this up.
29:54
Speaker 5: So, Jason, tell me a little bit about if you
29:55
Speaker 5: could leave a pharmacy owner with one inventory management lesson.
30:00
Speaker 6: What would that be?
30:04
Speaker 1: That you can.
30:06
Speaker 7: Find a champion or two that can take this off
30:10
Speaker 7: your plate.
30:11
Speaker 1: But it's more possible than ever when you have a
30:15
Speaker 1: system that helps you do that.
30:19
Speaker 7: Instead of trying to find another shelf walker, you actually
30:25
Speaker 7: find somebody that can control the system and If you're
30:28
Speaker 7: older owners like us, you might find that that younger
30:31
Speaker 7: tech's a lot better at it than you are.
30:33
Speaker 6: Right. Absolutely.
30:35
Speaker 5: Alan, what's the one thing you'd like listeners to remember
30:38
Speaker 5: about inventory optimization?
30:41
Speaker 3: I think the one thing, that's a good question.
30:45
Speaker 10: We're here to help, I think is the one thing
30:47
Speaker 10: I hope people walk away from.
30:49
Speaker 3: Or if they walk away.
30:50
Speaker 10: And maybe it's something that they're not 100%.
30:53
Speaker 3: Sold on, please reach out to us, right? We would
30:56
Speaker 3: love to have that conversation.
30:57
Speaker 10: Sometimes, you know, it might not be a good fit,
30:59
Speaker 10: but we'd like to talk through it and see if
31:01
Speaker 10: we can actually help you out.
31:03
Speaker 6: Jason Allen, thank you for joining us today. I appreciate it.
31:06
Speaker 5: Inventory management is one of those areas that may operate
31:08
Speaker 5: behind the scenes, but it has a tremendous impact on profitability. efficiency,
31:14
Speaker 5: and also patient care. We appreciate it. I appreciate you
31:18
Speaker 5: sharing your time and your experiences with us today. Have
31:21
Speaker 5: a good rest of the day.
31:22
Speaker 3: Thanks. You're listening to Cardinal Health's Live at RBC 2026
31:30
Speaker 3: Recap Show. Stay tuned for the next interview starting now.
31:34
Speaker 9: This is Samaki Korfius with the CounterTalk podcast coming to
31:37
Speaker 9: you live from beautiful Orlando, Florida, here at RBC 2026. Today,
31:43
Speaker 9: we're exploring CGM fulfillment and the massive opportunity for independent
31:48
Speaker 9: pharmacies to support diabetic patients. Joining me today is our
31:53
Speaker 9: expert guest, Mike Carmody, VP of Continued Care Pathway, who
31:57
Speaker 9: has an incredible 20-plus year career in pharmacy, DME, and
32:03
Speaker 9: Medicare Part B.
32:04
Speaker 11: Welcome, Mike.
32:05
Speaker 3: Thank you very much, Samaki. It just means I'm old.
32:08
Speaker 3: That's it right there.
32:11
Speaker 11: No, not at all.
32:12
Speaker 9: I tell you what, why don't you start by giving
32:14
Speaker 9: us a quick overview of your background.
32:17
Speaker 11: Tell us what you like to do for fun when you're.
32:19
Speaker 3: Off the clock. Oh, boy. All right.
32:21
Speaker 8: So a little bit of background about myself. Married for
32:25
Speaker 8: 22 years, have 13-year-old twin boys.
32:29
Speaker 3: So they certainly keep us busy. Twin boys. Oh, man,
32:32
Speaker 3: it's a blast.
32:34
Speaker 8: We always say that first year was challenging, but after that.
32:38
Speaker 7: And a blur.
32:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, nothing but fun. Very proud of TJ and Quinn.
32:43
Speaker 3: So I got to give them a shout out. Quinn's
32:45
Speaker 3: in the podcast all of a sudden, so he might
32:47
Speaker 3: actually listen to this. Wonderful. Yeah.
32:50
Speaker 8: But for fun, my wife and I love to go
32:53
Speaker 8: to concerts.
32:55
Speaker 3: Our favorite band is a band called Fish. Oh, yeah.
32:58
Speaker 8: We saw them three times last weekend, which was literally
33:02
Speaker 8: my 280th. time seeing them.
33:05
Speaker 3: That's incredible. That's always my fun fact I like to
33:08
Speaker 3: throw out.
33:09
Speaker 1: Yeah.
33:10
Speaker 8: But yeah, outside of that, yeah, I've been working in
33:12
Speaker 8: the pharmacy industry for 22 years.
33:14
Speaker 3: Started a company called.
33:17
Speaker 8: Alwyn Data in Asheville, North Carolina. A gentleman named Murray
33:21
Speaker 8: Lyle started that. His brother Mark started ERX Network. We combined,
33:25
Speaker 8: got acquired by MDON, which then became Change Healthcare. So
33:30
Speaker 8: I was with them for 17 years doing Medicare Part B,
33:34
Speaker 8: DME billing, commercial medical billing, and about seven years ago
33:40
Speaker 8: moved to advanced diabetes supply.
33:42
Speaker 3: Okay.
33:43
Speaker 8: A gentleman named Mark Howard and Tim Cady started that,
33:48
Speaker 8: and we had worked with them over the years doing
33:51
Speaker 8: audit work for a lot of our chain customers from MedBee.
33:54
Speaker 8: And they saw this opportunity with CGM that, you know,
33:59
Speaker 8: back in 2019, pharmacies pretty much didn't even spell CGM
34:04
Speaker 8: back then.
34:04
Speaker 3: It was that new. But these two guys.
34:07
Speaker 8: Saw that, you know, this was going to be, you know,
34:10
Speaker 8: the new technology and it was going to be life-changing
34:14
Speaker 8: for diabetic patients.
34:15
Speaker 3: And they nailed it.
34:17
Speaker 8: So they called me and were like, listen, you know,
34:20
Speaker 8: community pharmacy is going to have a real struggle with
34:24
Speaker 8: navigating all of the Medicare Part B rules.
34:26
Speaker 3: Because back then, I mean... You weren't jumping through hoops.
34:29
Speaker 8: You were jumping through hoops that were on fire with
34:31
Speaker 8: like a shark chasing you.
34:32
Speaker 3: Like it was crazy.
34:34
Speaker 11: That's a visual.
34:35
Speaker 5: Yeah.
34:35
Speaker 8: And so, you know, we decided, okay, let's figure out
34:39
Speaker 8: what can we build that's in workflow and make it
34:42
Speaker 8: as easy as possible for community pharmacy to basically offshore
34:48
Speaker 8: it to us. This is all we focus on. They
34:51
Speaker 8: can focus on, you know, the clinical interactions that we
34:54
Speaker 8: all want our pharmacists to, you know, truly you know
34:57
Speaker 8: integrate with us as patients um we'll do all the
35:01
Speaker 8: heavy lifting and and you know figure it out from
35:04
Speaker 8: there so we created you know what is now called
35:06
Speaker 8: continued care pathway sure we'll get into it a little
35:09
Speaker 8: bit but um you know just a a remarkable uh
35:14
Speaker 8: you know time over since 2019 yeah.
35:17
Speaker 9: No that's amazing what a journey you know that's incredible
35:21
Speaker 9: mike But let's dive right in. So advanced diabetes supply,
35:25
Speaker 9: it has really set the standard in mail-order diabetic supplies.
35:29
Speaker 9: So how did ADS become the leader in this space?
35:34
Speaker 8: Yeah, so Mark and Tim, you know, they had been
35:37
Speaker 8: in the diabetic supply world for decades. about 10 years,
35:40
Speaker 8: I think, before they created ADS. And the reason why
35:44
Speaker 8: they created it was they just saw an enormous lack
35:47
Speaker 8: of customer appreciation at the companies that they were at.
35:52
Speaker 8: They really wanted to focus on what is the best
35:55
Speaker 8: way that we can deliver these products to the home
35:58
Speaker 8: for our patients and give them exemplary service. And so
36:02
Speaker 8: the two of them in Carlsbad, California, In this tiny.
36:07
Speaker 3: Little strip mall over a church, actually.
36:14
Speaker 8: One of them was doing the shipping. The other was
36:15
Speaker 8: doing the selling. They would fill the boxes themselves. And
36:19
Speaker 8: they ended up being successful.
36:22
Speaker 3: And then building the company over time.
36:24
Speaker 6: That's incredible.
36:26
Speaker 3: They only focused on diabetic supplies. They knew their lane.
36:28
Speaker 3: They were going to stay in it.
36:30
Speaker 8: And over time, they built what became a fantastic company by.
36:36
Speaker 3: focusing on the patient, you know.
36:39
Speaker 8: Well before Amazon and all that stuff, making sure that
36:42
Speaker 8: it got to the home. And, you know, patient always
36:46
Speaker 8: come number one. So, you know, we've lived with that
36:49
Speaker 8: mantra ever since.
36:51
Speaker 11: That's a great story right there.
36:53
Speaker 9: So when did Cardinal at-home solutions acquire ADS, and what
36:58
Speaker 9: was the strategic draw for Cardinal?
37:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, so.
37:02
Speaker 8: April 1st of last year was when it officially was signed.
37:08
Speaker 8: So we found out probably about fall of the prior year.
37:13
Speaker 8: But the exciting thing about that was the culture. The
37:18
Speaker 8: culture of Cardinal and the culture of ADS blended so well.
37:23
Speaker 3: And we were appreciative that Mark.
37:25
Speaker 8: And Tim and Bill Mixon, who was our CEO at
37:28
Speaker 8: the time, looking out for, you know, not only the patients,
37:32
Speaker 8: but looking out for, you know, the people that work
37:34
Speaker 8: at the company themselves, that it was going to be
37:37
Speaker 8: a good fit. And, you know, Rob Schlisberg, our president
37:41
Speaker 8: at At Home Solutions, and Anthony Alvarez.
37:43
Speaker 3: Who's our SVP and GM, you know, they got to
37:46
Speaker 3: know the team.
37:47
Speaker 8: And, you know, when it comes to At Home Solutions,
37:51
Speaker 8: we're always looking, what is the best way to be
37:53
Speaker 8: able to service that patient in their home?
37:58
Speaker 3: Which, if You were paying attention to this podcast. That's
38:02
Speaker 3: exactly what ADS did.
38:03
Speaker 8: So not only was the culture the right fit, but
38:06
Speaker 8: also the message in the business. Anthony and Rob, they
38:12
Speaker 8: know what they're doing, without a doubt, when they're looking for,
38:15
Speaker 8: you know.
38:15
Speaker 3: The right fit for other companies. But, man, it's been
38:19
Speaker 3: a wonderful ride. Not easy. And as Anthony always says,
38:24
Speaker 3: if it were easy, it'd already be done. Very true.
38:27
Speaker 11: Wise words.
38:28
Speaker 3: Yeah.
38:28
Speaker 8: So we roll up our sleeves. You know, I smile
38:31
Speaker 8: every day. Rob always says, you know... It's his favorite
38:34
Speaker 8: job on earth. It's the best place to be. And,
38:36
Speaker 8: you know, not just kissing his rear end. I agree completely.
38:41
Speaker 8: You know, been doing this for a while, been through
38:43
Speaker 8: acquisitions in the past that are nowhere near as, you know, enjoyable.
38:48
Speaker 8: Doesn't mean it's easy again, but, you know, when you
38:51
Speaker 8: work with people that you truly, you know, get along
38:54
Speaker 8: with and.
38:54
Speaker 3: Respect, you know.
38:56
Speaker 11: It makes it worth it.
38:57
Speaker 3: Yeah. You can't trade that for anything.
39:00
Speaker 11: Completely agree.
39:01
Speaker 3: Yep.
39:01
Speaker 9: So how will this integration impact the daily lives of
39:05
Speaker 9: diabetic patients across the country? And then what milestones has
39:09
Speaker 9: the team achieved over the past year?
39:11
Speaker 8: Yeah, so when it comes to the patients, there were
39:15
Speaker 8: challenges being a smaller company, right? First being it was
39:19
Speaker 8: three-day delivery because we were either shipping out of Carlsbad,
39:23
Speaker 8: California or out of Doral, Florida, like in the Miami area.
39:27
Speaker 8: What At Home Solutions brings is 12, well, 11 current
39:32
Speaker 8: distribution centers around the country, with one more currently being
39:36
Speaker 8: built in Sacramento, California. So we went from three-day to
39:40
Speaker 8: next-day shipping.
39:41
Speaker 3: Oh, wow.
39:41
Speaker 11: What a jump.
39:42
Speaker 3: And in this day and age, if it's not next day, right? It's,
39:45
Speaker 3: you know, people are thrilled. That convenience they want to know, right? Yeah.
39:48
Speaker 3: Another thing that was.
39:50
Speaker 8: You know, we had some contracts, you know, obviously Medicare
39:53
Speaker 8: Part B, which is what, you know, Continued Care Pathway
39:56
Speaker 8: focuses on, but commercial medical, Medicare Advantage, stuff like that.
40:01
Speaker 3: With at-home solutions and.
40:04
Speaker 8: The Edgepart group that is part of that, they had
40:06
Speaker 8: contracts that were complementary to what we had. So now
40:10
Speaker 8: we've got over 90% of the covered lives where we're in-network.
40:15
Speaker 8: So for a patient from an out-of-pocket standpoint, it's, you know,
40:19
Speaker 8: odds are 9 out of 10 times we're going to
40:21
Speaker 8: be able to provide.
40:21
Speaker 3: The best out-of-pocket cost.
40:23
Speaker 11: Oh, that's amazing.
40:23
Speaker 4: Yeah.
40:24
Speaker 3: So, you know, those are two of the big things.
40:27
Speaker 8: You know, some milestones that we're working through now, I'd say,
40:31
Speaker 8: you know, with the companies all coming together.
40:35
Speaker 3: There's disparate systems.
40:36
Speaker 8: So we're now working towards the integration onto one new system,
40:40
Speaker 8: Bright Tree, that the entire company is excited about. Our
40:44
Speaker 8: patients will be excited about it because it's just going
40:46
Speaker 8: to streamline.
40:47
Speaker 3: The process even more. Improve efficiencies. Yeah, exactly.
40:51
Speaker 8: You know, so it's been fantastic. You know, certainly everybody
40:56
Speaker 8: has growing pains on any integration. You know, but everybody's being,
41:00
Speaker 8: you know, as cognizant and respectful of that as possible.
41:05
Speaker 3: The future is only going to be brighter, I think,
41:08
Speaker 3: for the patients out there.
41:11
Speaker 8: Just being able to get the cost of goods as
41:13
Speaker 8: low as we can for them, as well as getting.
41:17
Speaker 3: Those products to the patient as quickly as possible.
41:19
Speaker 11: That's amazing, Mike.
41:20
Speaker 9: And now, I will say, a little birdie told me
41:23
Speaker 9: you had some hot news right off the press.
41:26
Speaker 11: Sounds like that was a couple days ago.
41:27
Speaker 3: I believe so.
41:29
Speaker 8: There may have been a press release that went out
41:31
Speaker 8: on Tuesday that announced um you know we're in a
41:35
Speaker 8: contract to be signed after all the regulatory approvals and
41:39
Speaker 8: things like that where um adapt health uh diabetes care
41:43
Speaker 8: is going to be joining the cardinal at home solutions
41:48
Speaker 8: team um you know so that's 225 000 lives i
41:52
Speaker 8: believe that we'll be adding uh to our group Very
41:56
Speaker 8: excited to meet that team. Again, regulatory approval, all that.
42:01
Speaker 8: It's going to be a while before that deal's done,
42:04
Speaker 8: probably early next year. But we also acquired Strive Medical.
42:10
Speaker 8: They have about 20,000 patients. They focus on the urology
42:14
Speaker 8: aspect of.
42:15
Speaker 3: Healthcare, ostomy as well, some wound care, stuff like that.
42:18
Speaker 8: So Again, kind of going back to Rob and Anthony,
42:21
Speaker 8: they've got a vision that they had before they acquired
42:25
Speaker 8: ADS about what they.
42:26
Speaker 3: Want this group to look like.
42:28
Speaker 8: And all of these acquisitions just fit squarely into being
42:33
Speaker 8: able to get the products to the patients at their homes.
42:37
Speaker 3: In the most efficient manner possible.
42:38
Speaker 11: Sounds like some great new partners.
42:40
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah. No, we're incredibly excited about it. And, you know,
42:44
Speaker 8: we're probably halfway through our integration of ADS. The neat
42:47
Speaker 8: thing about Strive and Adapt is the platforms that we're
42:52
Speaker 8: moving to, they're already on. So, you know, certainly hoping
42:55
Speaker 8: that they're going to bring that expertise to us as
42:57
Speaker 8: well and maybe speed up, you know, that integration aspect.
43:02
Speaker 8: So there's a ton to be excited about right now.
43:05
Speaker 8: I know.
43:06
Speaker 11: I keep seeing you smiling over there.
43:08
Speaker 8: I mean, it's amazing, you know, just to think about
43:11
Speaker 8: where we were a couple of years ago and.
43:13
Speaker 3: Where we are now. Congratulations.
43:15
Speaker 8: You know, the most exciting part is where we're going
43:17
Speaker 8: to be, just rolling up those sleeves, getting to work. And,
43:20
Speaker 8: you know, we always just think about what can we
43:23
Speaker 8: do better for the patient. And all of these things
43:26
Speaker 8: are just going to make it, you know, that much
43:28
Speaker 8: more fruitful for everybody.
43:29
Speaker 11: Absolutely. Well said.
43:31
Speaker 9: Well, let's shift gears a little bit to continuous glucose
43:35
Speaker 9: monitors or, of course, CGMs. Can you give us a
43:39
Speaker 9: high-level overview of the CGM landscape and the major manufacturers
43:44
Speaker 9: in the space? Yeah, sure.
43:45
Speaker 3: So, you know, if you were watching the World Cup
43:48
Speaker 3: over the last... Who wasn't, right? Exactly. A few months.
43:52
Speaker 8: I'm sure you saw a couple advertisements for CGM here
43:55
Speaker 8: and there. You know, it's Dexcom and Abbott certainly are
43:59
Speaker 8: the two big players there, and You know, we're Switzerland.
44:03
Speaker 3: We work with both, you know, very nicely.
44:05
Speaker 8: We appreciate, you know, the partnership with both of those companies. And,
44:09
Speaker 8: you know, what they're doing from a technological standpoint is just,
44:13
Speaker 8: you know, astounding. You know, when I think back to
44:15
Speaker 8: Mark and Tim starting ADS and just pricking fingers, you know,
44:19
Speaker 8: six times a day, things like that. And now, you know, any,
44:24
Speaker 8: you know, school nurse or parent or any caregiver can
44:29
Speaker 8: get an update, you know, on their phone, you know,
44:31
Speaker 8: about what's going on with whoever the patient might be,
44:34
Speaker 8: whether it's a child or elderly, you know, parent, things
44:37
Speaker 8: like that.
44:38
Speaker 3: It's absolutely amazing. And, you know, God only knows what,
44:41
Speaker 3: what they've got up their sleeves next. Right.
44:44
Speaker 8: So it's, it's, It's literally life-changing for the patients that
44:49
Speaker 8: can get onto CGMs. Certainly, we need the payers, I think,
44:53
Speaker 8: to hopefully allow more based on their policies.
44:58
Speaker 3: And that's going to come over time, just naturally, like anything.
45:01
Speaker 8: More studies and things of that nature, just showing that
45:05
Speaker 8: You know, the folks who are on CGM and are
45:06
Speaker 8: adherent to it are just seeing their lives improve that
45:10
Speaker 8: much more, which is going to lower costs for hospitals
45:12
Speaker 8: and doctors and just the entire health care ecosystem.
45:16
Speaker 11: Chain effect.
45:17
Speaker 3: Exactly. Exactly.
45:18
Speaker 8: So, yeah, we're excited to see what they got coming
45:22
Speaker 8: in the future as well.
45:23
Speaker 3: And we'll be, I think, very well positioned to.
45:26
Speaker 8: You know, assist those manufacturers and be able to get
45:29
Speaker 8: those devices to the patients in the best manner possible.
45:32
Speaker 11: Absolutely.
45:32
Speaker 9: Well, you know, we've talked about this a little bit, fulfillment,
45:37
Speaker 9: it's notoriously tricky. What are the biggest insurance coverage challenges
45:42
Speaker 9: that your pharmacies face across, you know, PBMs, commercial medical,
45:46
Speaker 9: and even Medicare Part B?
45:48
Speaker 8: Yeah, so with Medicare Part B, it's gotten better over time.
45:54
Speaker 8: When we first started, you know, essentially you had to
45:57
Speaker 8: be testing four times a day.
45:59
Speaker 3: There were a bunch of other hoops that you had
46:01
Speaker 3: to jump through.
46:02
Speaker 8: Now it's down to if you're on insulin, Medicare Part
46:08
Speaker 8: B will cover CGMs. Or if you have one of
46:12
Speaker 8: two types of hypoglycemic events. So in your medical records,
46:16
Speaker 8: if you have three instances of hypoglycemic events.
46:19
Speaker 3: That are actually notated, then you qualify. Okay.
46:22
Speaker 8: Or if you have one hypoglycemic event which involves a
46:26
Speaker 8: third party, which I take as, you know, probably an
46:29
Speaker 8: ambulance had to come to your house type thing.
46:31
Speaker 3: Yeah. those all qualify you for a CGM for Medicare
46:35
Speaker 3: Part B.
46:35
Speaker 11: Oh, they do?
46:35
Speaker 3: Okay.
46:36
Speaker 6: Yep.
46:37
Speaker 3: And then when it comes to commercial.
46:38
Speaker 8: Medical and Medicare Advantage, a lot of them follow, you know,
46:42
Speaker 8: kind of CMS's lead for MedBee. Others kind of come
46:46
Speaker 8: up with their own processes. So at our company, we
46:50
Speaker 8: have a great RCM team that's always checking benefits and
46:53
Speaker 8: knowing what each policy means. And if there's prior office involved,
46:58
Speaker 8: we manage that for the patients and take care of that.
47:01
Speaker 8: So we're doing everything we can to make sure within
47:05
Speaker 8: the compliant world, obviously, that we're able to get every
47:09
Speaker 8: qualified patient that CGM to change their lives.
47:13
Speaker 11: And always keeping a finger on the pulse and welcoming
47:15
Speaker 11: that feedback. Exactly. Here on the ground.
47:17
Speaker 9: Yep.
47:17
Speaker 8: And we have folks that go to the Hill and
47:21
Speaker 8: are doing everything they can to fight for the patients.
47:24
Speaker 3: To get more access out there. Anthony was just there,
47:27
Speaker 3: I think, two weeks ago meeting with congressmen. Wow. Advocating.
47:31
Speaker 3: We do all we can.
47:32
Speaker 8: Yep.
47:33
Speaker 11: That's great, Mike.
47:34
Speaker 9: Now, are medical records always mandatory for claim submission? And
47:39
Speaker 9: how does competitive bidding affect the CGM pharmacy market?
47:43
Speaker 8: Yeah, so when it comes to the medical records, it
47:45
Speaker 8: used to be that, yeah, you had to, you know,
47:48
Speaker 8: have all.
47:48
Speaker 3: Of it and be able to submit and things like that.
47:51
Speaker 8: These days, though, we get the medical records to make
47:55
Speaker 8: sure that, you know, we're compliant. CMS is not afraid
47:58
Speaker 8: to do an audit or two from time to time.
48:00
Speaker 8: So you got to have your I's dotted and your
48:03
Speaker 8: T's crossed. So as part of our process, you know,
48:06
Speaker 8: we explain to the patients up front, hey, we're going
48:08
Speaker 8: to be reaching out to the doctor today. making sure
48:11
Speaker 8: that we get the medical records and things of that nature,
48:13
Speaker 8: and we're going to review them.
48:14
Speaker 11: Doing everything we can.
48:15
Speaker 3: Yeah.
48:16
Speaker 8: Now, the problem is, since we went live with Continued
48:19
Speaker 8: Care Pathway October 1st of 2019, we've had over 175,000
48:21
Speaker 8: patients that we've taken care of. Wow. Problem is, only
48:27
Speaker 8: 49% of them have actually qualified.
48:30
Speaker 3: So the doctors are writing the prescriptions.
48:32
Speaker 8: They're not necessarily following what Medicare's policies are. So while
48:37
Speaker 8: it's not required to submit the medical records, we do
48:41
Speaker 8: have to check. And we even do that for test
48:43
Speaker 8: strips as well because Medicare has their policies around that,
48:46
Speaker 8: whether it's overutilizing or.
48:48
Speaker 3: Following what those... what those policies are.
48:51
Speaker 8: So, you know, it's an extra step, which most patients,
48:58
Speaker 8: when they go to the pharmacy, you know, we're used
49:00
Speaker 8: to just walking up, getting our medication, everything's run right there.
49:04
Speaker 3: You know, the pharmacy gets paid, that kind of thing.
49:06
Speaker 8: This is a little more doctor office type thing where
49:10
Speaker 8: it takes a little bit longer and.
49:12
Speaker 3: You know, things of that nature.
49:13
Speaker 8: So, you know, when we request the medical records, the
49:16
Speaker 8: medical assistant has to go and do that after, she
49:19
Speaker 8: or he has been working all day long taking care
49:22
Speaker 8: of patients. Now they've got a stack of paperwork that
49:24
Speaker 8: they've got to go through. So we understand it's a
49:27
Speaker 8: very difficult process, and we try to share that with the.
49:29
Speaker 3: Patients as much as we can.
49:31
Speaker 11: Be as forthcoming as possible.
49:32
Speaker 8: Exactly. Now, as far as competitive bid goes, that's a
49:37
Speaker 8: whole new ball of wax that CGMs got put into
49:41
Speaker 8: that category. It's going to go into effect January 1st
49:45
Speaker 8: of 2028. So, you know, time.
49:47
Speaker 3: Flies these days.
49:48
Speaker 11: It'll be here before we know it.
49:49
Speaker 3: Exactly.
49:50
Speaker 8: Less than 18 months, it's going to be live. So
49:52
Speaker 8: the way that they have it structured, by the end
49:55
Speaker 8: of this year... Any company who's interested will have to
49:59
Speaker 8: submit their bid. And late 2027, we're going to find out,
50:05
Speaker 8: you know, who the 8 to 10 providers are across
50:08
Speaker 8: the country.
50:09
Speaker 3: You have to be able to mail to all 50 states.
50:12
Speaker 8: There's a laundry list of criteria that they're going to
50:16
Speaker 8: go through, you know, to make sure that the 8
50:19
Speaker 8: to 10 companies that win are truly qualified. They had issues,
50:24
Speaker 8: you know, 10, 15 years ago when they did this.
50:26
Speaker 8: for diabetic test strips, where not every company that won
50:31
Speaker 8: really should have won. So they're doing a good job
50:33
Speaker 8: this time of being able to vet everything out. Cardinal
50:39
Speaker 8: At Home Solutions, we feel we're in a good place
50:43
Speaker 8: to put in a bid that we think is going
50:46
Speaker 8: to be able to position us as one of those
50:49
Speaker 8: 8 to 10. Um, certainly the acquisition of that advanced
50:52
Speaker 8: diabetes supply and, and, um, you know, uh, our new,
50:57
Speaker 8: new partners are going to adapt, are going to be, um,
51:00
Speaker 8: hopefully even more well positioned, but you know, you never know. Uh,
51:04
Speaker 8: we're going to do the best that we can with
51:05
Speaker 8: those bids and, uh, hopefully next year when we talk, uh,
51:09
Speaker 8: maybe we'll, we'll.
51:10
Speaker 3: Know that we're, we're one of the eight to 10.
51:12
Speaker 9: Now, will any of that affect that 49% number that
51:16
Speaker 9: you're talking about?
51:18
Speaker 8: You know, it's going to be interesting because I think
51:20
Speaker 8: the doctor's offices are still going to be sending the
51:24
Speaker 8: prescriptions to the pharmacies. And then, you know, we're the
51:28
Speaker 8: only company that does this. So, you know, hopefully they'll
51:31
Speaker 8: be sending the, you know, those referrals to us. And
51:35
Speaker 8: I would hope by that point that maybe the physicians
51:38
Speaker 8: are following the.
51:39
Speaker 3: Policy a little bit more.
51:40
Speaker 8: And, you know, always hoping that, you know, we can
51:44
Speaker 8: increase that 49 percent. But Ultimately, what we created Continued
51:48
Speaker 8: Care Pathway for was to make it as easy as
51:51
Speaker 8: possible for the pharmacies to get those patients over to
51:54
Speaker 8: us so they can focus.
51:55
Speaker 3: More on their clinical interactions.
51:57
Speaker 8: And doing the things that they truly were trained for
52:00
Speaker 8: in pharmacy school, not having to fight for medical records
52:05
Speaker 8: and do faxing and all the dirty work that we
52:08
Speaker 8: have to do behind the scenes to make it as
52:12
Speaker 8: efficient as possible.
52:13
Speaker 11: No, absolutely, Mike.
52:14
Speaker 9: Well, you know, and speaking of hurdles and those lines,
52:18
Speaker 9: you know, given all those complex hurdles that they're seeing,
52:21
Speaker 9: how does, in your space, how does that HDS solution
52:26
Speaker 9: step in to make life easier for the independent pharmacies
52:29
Speaker 9: and their diabetic patients?
52:31
Speaker 8: Yeah, so the way that we set it up, we
52:33
Speaker 8: would essentially give the independent pharmacy a payer sheet. They
52:38
Speaker 8: would set up just like any other insurance plan in
52:41
Speaker 8: the pharmacy management system, right? Ben and PCN goes to
52:45
Speaker 8: our technology partner, ScriptCycle. When they send that transaction over,
52:50
Speaker 8: we get a nightly feed from ScriptCycle that says, okay,
52:53
Speaker 8: here are all the patients, here's all the different pharmacies,
52:57
Speaker 8: and we load it into our system. When it comes
53:00
Speaker 8: to the pharmacy itself, once they send that transaction over,
53:05
Speaker 8: essentially they're done because if the patient qualifies, we're going
53:08
Speaker 8: to be doing the refills, we reach out to the patients,
53:10
Speaker 8: 14 days before the sensors expire, make sure that they're
53:15
Speaker 8: ready for their refill request and give.
53:17
Speaker 3: Us that approval.
53:20
Speaker 8: So it's pretty seamless at the pharmacy. A lot of
53:25
Speaker 8: our partners have said, A, it's the easiest integration of
53:29
Speaker 8: a new program that they've ever had because once we
53:31
Speaker 8: get the implementation done, all it is is three test
53:34
Speaker 8: transactions and they're finished.
53:37
Speaker 3: You know, at that point, we run with everything.
53:40
Speaker 8: And then I never thought this would be a compliment,
53:43
Speaker 8: but certainly any pharmacy out there will.
53:46
Speaker 3: Understand this in that no news is good news.
53:49
Speaker 8: Because not only the staff, but the patients themselves, if
53:52
Speaker 8: something's not going right, certainly in our day and age today,
53:56
Speaker 8: nobody's afraid to bring up something that isn't making them happy.
54:01
Speaker 8: So we get compliments all the time that, no, we
54:05
Speaker 8: never know that that program is even going. We see
54:08
Speaker 8: the volume. We know that the staff's using it. We
54:11
Speaker 8: see the patients are coming to us. But the fact
54:13
Speaker 8: that nobody says anything and it's just working as it should,
54:17
Speaker 8: That's the best compliment that we can get.
54:19
Speaker 3: We're incredibly proud of that. Oh, you should be.
54:21
Speaker 1: That's amazing.
54:22
Speaker 3: Thank you.
54:23
Speaker 9: So remind me, how long has the solution been in
54:26
Speaker 9: the market? And then what kind of real benefits are
54:29
Speaker 9: your partner pharmacies seeing?
54:30
Speaker 4: Yeah.
54:31
Speaker 8: So October 1st, 2019, we went live. Since then, it's
54:35
Speaker 8: been 175,000 plus patients. We have over 11,000 pharmacies around
54:39
Speaker 8: the country that utilize us. Everything from, you know, certainly
54:43
Speaker 8: independent pharmacies to largest box retailer in the country and
54:49
Speaker 8: everything in between.
54:50
Speaker 3: And, you know, we're very proud of that.
54:52
Speaker 8: It's a solution that can fit into any workflow in
54:56
Speaker 8: any type of pharmacy. You know, as far as the
55:01
Speaker 8: future goes, you know, with competitive bid, you know, we
55:05
Speaker 8: certainly think that you know, the need is going to
55:08
Speaker 8: be there for this type of solution. So I think
55:10
Speaker 8: we're well positioned for that. You know, it's been a
55:13
Speaker 8: slow growth over time. Certainly COVID slowed some things down.
55:18
Speaker 3: For everybody, yeah. Yeah, exactly.
55:20
Speaker 8: But at this point, one of the most amazing things
55:22
Speaker 8: that I see is, you know, I've been on the
55:25
Speaker 8: road traveling a ton for seven years. Now pharmacies are
55:30
Speaker 8: coming to us because their friends, their partners, their colleagues
55:34
Speaker 8: in the industry are are now saying, you know.
55:37
Speaker 3: What a valuable service this is at.
55:40
Speaker 8: No cost, you know, which, you know, certainly in today's
55:43
Speaker 8: day and age with margins as slim as they are
55:45
Speaker 8: is incredibly important. That provides a true benefit to their
55:50
Speaker 8: patients and frees up their staff, like I said, to
55:53
Speaker 8: do more of those clinical interactions that they went to
55:56
Speaker 8: school for, which is what, you know, you and I
55:58
Speaker 8: as patients do. That's what we want. I don't want
56:00
Speaker 8: my pharmacist having to go through all the paperwork and
56:03
Speaker 8: do all the fighting that we have to do. I
56:05
Speaker 8: want them focused on trying to figure out how you're
56:08
Speaker 8: going to make Mike Carmody a healthier person, which is
56:10
Speaker 8: not the easiest task out there, for sure.
56:14
Speaker 1: I'd love that.
56:16
Speaker 9: So does a pharmacy need a Medicare Part B provider
56:20
Speaker 9: number to utilize this? Are CGMs the only product the
56:24
Speaker 9: solution can handle?
56:25
Speaker 3: No, that's a great question.
56:27
Speaker 8: It's actually for either those that do have a provider
56:30
Speaker 8: number or those that do not.
56:32
Speaker 3: And even if you do.
56:33
Speaker 8: Have a provider number and you have accreditation for diabetic supplies,
56:38
Speaker 8: which now is incredibly costly, and what we are seeing
56:42
Speaker 8: in the industry is a lot of pharmacies, whether they're
56:46
Speaker 8: some of the largest chains or even just a one-store
56:49
Speaker 8: independent pharmacy.
56:50
Speaker 3: They're starting to exit it because the rebates aren't there
56:52
Speaker 3: anymore for test strips.
56:54
Speaker 8: With competitive bid coming for CGMs, it's going to, like
56:58
Speaker 8: I said, only eight to 10 providers around the country
57:00
Speaker 8: are going to be able to provide that. So it
57:04
Speaker 8: just makes sense, I think, from not only financial levels,
57:07
Speaker 8: but from workflow levels, you know, to be able to
57:11
Speaker 8: utilize continued care pathway. So we're, you know, I think
57:14
Speaker 8: we're well positioned for that. And it's certainly helpful, you know,
57:17
Speaker 8: to the industry. And we, you know, kind of going
57:20
Speaker 8: back to, you know, Tim and Mark starting ADS on
57:23
Speaker 8: focusing on customer service, what myself and Madison Highland on
57:27
Speaker 8: our team and the other folks on the Continued Care
57:31
Speaker 8: Pathway team, what our mantra has always been is we
57:36
Speaker 8: want to provide the best customer service available, but we
57:39
Speaker 8: also know that our partners do that on.
57:41
Speaker 3: A day-to-day basis, face-to-face with those patients.
57:44
Speaker 8: So we want to take that level of service to
57:47
Speaker 8: another level. We never want someone going into one of
57:51
Speaker 8: our pharmacy partners and saying, why did you send me
57:53
Speaker 8: to this company? Like, what on earth is going on there?
57:56
Speaker 8: That's the most, you know, hurtful thing that, you know,
58:00
Speaker 8: could hit me in.
58:00
Speaker 3: My soul, right? Because that is not at all why
58:03
Speaker 3: we built this.
58:03
Speaker 8: And, you know, certainly why Cardinal at Home Solutions, you know,
58:07
Speaker 8: why we do everything together is to focus on that patient.
58:10
Speaker 9: It sounds like you're looking to do everything you possibly
58:13
Speaker 9: can to make your customer happy.
58:15
Speaker 3: Exactly.
58:16
Speaker 8: I mean, they're the ones who are having to go
58:18
Speaker 8: through life with, you know, a very difficult diagnosis. The
58:21
Speaker 8: last thing that we want to do is add any
58:23
Speaker 8: more stress and complexity to that patient's life. Doesn't mean
58:28
Speaker 8: healthcare is not complex. That's why we have our jobs,
58:33
Speaker 8: I think, because we're trying to struggle through as best
58:36
Speaker 8: we can every day to work through those complexities. And
58:39
Speaker 8: we try to present it to the patient as, listen,
58:43
Speaker 8: This is a very difficult process, but don't you worry
58:46
Speaker 8: about it. We do that behind the scenes. Thousands of
58:49
Speaker 8: us that are part of Cardinal at-home solutions. So we
58:53
Speaker 8: try to take that stress away from them and just
58:55
Speaker 8: make sure that that delivery gets there on time when
58:58
Speaker 8: they need their devices.
59:00
Speaker 11: That's wonderful.
59:02
Speaker 9: Well, so if a pharmacy is ready to sign up, Mike,
59:05
Speaker 9: they're ready to do it.
59:07
Speaker 11: How do they enroll and what's the implementation? timeline look like?
59:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's very easy to enroll.
59:13
Speaker 8: First of all, if you're here, come see me over
59:16
Speaker 8: in the clinical services group over there at D5. But
59:20
Speaker 8: if you're not here, you can certainly go to Advanced
59:23
Speaker 8: Diabetes Supply website. You can easily access our form that.
59:29
Speaker 3: You can go in.
59:30
Speaker 8: It'll send an email to myself or Madison, and we'll
59:33
Speaker 8: be able to get in touch with you immediately. The
59:36
Speaker 8: implementation timeframe is a day. It's literally that simple. We'll
59:41
Speaker 8: reach out to you. We'll give you the payer sheet.
59:43
Speaker 8: If you can load it in, great, that day. We
59:46
Speaker 8: just want some of your demographic information so we know
59:49
Speaker 8: what pharmacy you are so we can be reporting and
59:51
Speaker 8: things of that nature. We'll give you three test claims
59:54
Speaker 8: to run. Once you pass all three test claims, you
59:56
Speaker 8: can start.
59:57
Speaker 3: Sending us patients and we're live.
59:59
Speaker 8: Like I said, one of the easiest implementations in the industry.
1:00:03
Speaker 3: Without a doubt.
1:00:04
Speaker 1: Can't beat that.
1:00:05
Speaker 9: Well, this has been incredibly informative and I can just
1:00:09
Speaker 9: see the.
1:00:10
Speaker 11: Passion coming off of you when you talk about this.
1:00:13
Speaker 9: If you were to leave these listeners with one thing
1:00:17
Speaker 9: about your business.
1:00:18
Speaker 3: What would it be?
1:00:19
Speaker 8: We care about the patients. We're all in this together.
1:00:22
Speaker 8: This is what we're here for. If you're a pharmacist,
1:00:25
Speaker 8: this is what you went to school for. I appreciate
1:00:28
Speaker 8: it as a patient. I know how hard you work.
1:00:30
Speaker 8: We're here to make your life easier as well.
1:00:33
Speaker 3: As do the best that we can for diabetic patients.
1:00:35
Speaker 6: In the country.
1:00:36
Speaker 3: Awesome. Thank you, Samaki.
1:00:38
Speaker 11: Wonderful.
1:00:38
Speaker 9: Well, Mike, thank you for joining us and laying out
1:00:41
Speaker 9: such a clear roadmap. Listeners, if you want to bypass
1:00:45
Speaker 9: the insurance hurdles and start scaling your CGM business, Be
1:00:49
Speaker 9: sure to go check out the Continued Care and ADS
1:00:51
Speaker 9: booth before the Expo Hall closes today. And just thank
1:00:55
Speaker 9: you for tuning in to Counter Talk today. Have a
1:00:58
Speaker 9: wonderful rest of RBC 2026, and we'll see you over
1:01:02
Speaker 9: at Universal Studios tonight.
1:01:04
Speaker 3: Thank you so much.