Latest / Pharmacy Podcast Network / The Power of Patient 1st Care in Pharmacy and PBM Reform Progress | TWIRx

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The Power of Patient 1st Care in Pharmacy and PBM Reform Progress | TWIRx · Pharmacy Podcast Network

0:01
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Speaker 1: the Pharmacy Podcast Network.
1:07
Speaker 2: You are listening to the global network of podcasters dedicated
1:11
Speaker 2: to the pharmacy profession. Welcome to the Pharmacy Podcast Network.
1:40
Speaker 3: Hey, and on this weekend, Pharmacy coming to you live.
1:44
Speaker 3: It's Friday. I'm glad it's Friday, March. What is a
1:48
Speaker 3: sixth March?
1:49
Speaker 4: Sixth?
1:50
Speaker 3: I want to welcome a friend of mine, somebody that
1:53
Speaker 3: is a fellow Marketer, fellow person and communications has been
1:57
Speaker 3: a member of the Pharmacy Podcast Network for some time now,
2:00
Speaker 3: I can't remember exactly how long, but Austin Murray, Welcome
2:03
Speaker 3: to twerks.
2:06
Speaker 5: Absolutely, Todd, thanks so much for having me on. Always
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Speaker 5: a pleasure to sit down and talk with you. Even
2:12
Speaker 5: outside of the podcast, we have a lot of conversations,
2:14
Speaker 5: so it's always good to see you.
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Speaker 3: Absolutely, And today you are You're in Orlando right now
2:22
Speaker 3: down at the Atrium X conference.
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Speaker 5: Yep, So I am in Orlando this week for the
2:31
Speaker 5: ahrim X conference. That's the conference by doctor Nicolett Matthew
2:34
Speaker 5: and Atrium twenty four Dottie, that whole platform. And this
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Speaker 5: is the second year they're doing this. Really exciting. Last
2:42
Speaker 5: year I went, I loved the format, loved how they
2:46
Speaker 5: come up with topics. You know, they let the pharmacy
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Speaker 5: owners come up with the topics on the spot that
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Speaker 5: they want to talk about. And so this year I'm
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Speaker 5: excited to see what the challenges are that they're dealing with.
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Speaker 3: Was so excited to go to the inaugural one that
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Speaker 3: Nicolette put on.
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Speaker 4: It was the one of the most.
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Speaker 3: Interesting pharmacy conferences I've ever been to. It's still not
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Speaker 3: to the level like that I get the vibe from
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Speaker 3: HLTCH Health or I get from vibe that they're taking
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Speaker 3: other things to the next level. They're using dynamic LCD
3:21
Speaker 3: boards everywhere, they're interacting on the social media live where
3:25
Speaker 3: you can see people talking about, you know, issues that
3:28
Speaker 3: you're like tracking, and so I think that pharmacy conferences
3:32
Speaker 3: are almost there. But Nicolette is a pioneer in that
3:36
Speaker 3: because she's stretching the standard conference and she's kind of
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Speaker 3: taken it to a next level. So I'm very upset
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Speaker 3: I'm missing the second atrium X because my daughter got
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Speaker 3: the lead in Matilda and she's in the senior senior
3:52
Speaker 3: class play and she's only in eighth grade. So I
3:55
Speaker 3: had to be in Pittsburgh for that.
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Speaker 5: Oh you can't miss that. You gotta you gotta go
4:01
Speaker 5: to that. So absolutely understandable that, yeah, you're you're going
4:06
Speaker 5: to that over ahrim X. One thing I will say
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Speaker 5: to kind of touch on what you said about hrim
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Speaker 5: X a little bit, you know, I like to compare
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Speaker 5: it almost to like a mastermind. So it's It's really
4:18
Speaker 5: cool because it's it's less about the Hey, let's go
4:21
Speaker 5: to this session to get this CE and talk about
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Speaker 5: the or learn about this topic, and more about it's
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Speaker 5: more interactive and more about you know, what is the
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Speaker 5: how can I take my pharmacy truly and ask people
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Speaker 5: that are also doing it really well to the next level.
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Speaker 5: So it really is like that Mastermind experience, but a
4:40
Speaker 5: little bit on a larger scale.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, And and shout out to Bruce Nelan from being
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Speaker 3: a Pharmacy Podcast Network member for quite some time. His
4:52
Speaker 3: insights through Pharmacy Crossroads is just incredible. He is going
4:57
Speaker 3: to that event being powered by Dispensed Dispensed Times. Shout
5:04
Speaker 3: out to Josh Paristani, one of our Pharmacy fifty most
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Speaker 3: influenced people. And Josh is such a behind the scenes
5:12
Speaker 3: He's like a he's a pharmacy marketing ninja and he
5:16
Speaker 3: like he always wants to stay behind the scenes and
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Speaker 3: pool levers and I love what he does. So he's
5:22
Speaker 3: going to power up Pharmacy Crossroads and then Bruce is
5:26
Speaker 3: really going to dive into what's happening how it's impacting
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Speaker 3: community pharmacy, and I love being part of that you
5:32
Speaker 3: know what my dream is. I've already told you about
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Speaker 3: this Austin, so listeners, you're more than welcome to act
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Speaker 3: on this. But we think of how many conferences are
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Speaker 3: happening per year that pharmacists should have representation at in
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Speaker 3: some capacity or something. I attend between eight and twelve
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Speaker 3: conferences per year, and that's really too many. It's very
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Speaker 3: stressful in our family, it's disruptive, but nonetheless I really
5:57
Speaker 3: want to be there. I think it's important one to
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Speaker 3: take what doctor Adam Robinson has done. He's our coverage
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Speaker 3: for the Cardinal Health RBC, and I want to give
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Speaker 3: a shout out to our network as well as to
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Speaker 3: the rest of our listeners that we should be covering
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Speaker 3: more conferences and we should have pharmacists talking with other people,
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Speaker 3: and pharmacists and people that aren't even pharmacist technicians for
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Speaker 3: goodness sakes. So I do want to grow the coverage
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Speaker 3: of what we're bringing so that people that are tuned
6:29
Speaker 3: in through podcasts and can say, holy crap, I should
6:31
Speaker 3: have I should have been involved, or maybe I can
6:34
Speaker 3: take action, or maybe I can partner with somebody. But
6:37
Speaker 3: that's the importance of all this is it's to bring
6:40
Speaker 3: the best of the best together. So I'm so glad
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Speaker 3: that you're going because you always have a good post
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Speaker 3: conference perspective to really bring some highlights. So talk to
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Speaker 3: us about what PSYCHS is going to be doing there
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Speaker 3: and what you're hoping to achieve.
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Speaker 5: Well, you know, we're you know, we'll obviously we've got
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Speaker 5: our or booth that we'll have there. I think one
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Speaker 5: of the things that is my goal, and this isn't
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Speaker 5: just strictly for Atrium X, but for every conference, is
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Speaker 5: you know, what are those kind of maybe obvious but
7:15
Speaker 5: also not so obvious challenges that pharmacies are facing. It's
7:19
Speaker 5: easy to look at an agenda like card like RBC
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Speaker 5: or thought Spot and kind of see like, okay, they
7:26
Speaker 5: have all these CE sessions planned out. You know, we
7:29
Speaker 5: know in general what the challenge, what the challenges are, reimbursements,
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Speaker 5: cash flow, things like that. But what's I love about
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Speaker 5: Atrium X is it kind of approaches they kind of
7:41
Speaker 5: look at challenges that maybe aren't covered at some of
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Speaker 5: these major conferences, and those are the kind of conversations
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Speaker 5: that I love to have because you know, that's when
7:50
Speaker 5: you can really start to dig deep into what pharmacy
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Speaker 5: owners are also facing outside of you know, the traditional
7:57
Speaker 5: challenges that they're facing as well, So that's kind of
8:00
Speaker 5: the most exciting part. What I'm looking forward to the
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Speaker 5: most about atri Max and what we're going to be doing.
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Speaker 5: There is going to a lot of these playing these
8:09
Speaker 5: on the site sessions that they're going to be hosting,
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Speaker 5: so that'll be excited.
8:15
Speaker 3: Hey, I want to shift gears and I want to
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Speaker 3: share with the listeners. If you're watching us live streaming
8:23
Speaker 3: on LinkedIn or YouTube, that's great. You'll be able to
8:27
Speaker 3: to show you what we're about to show you and
8:29
Speaker 3: discuss some marketing. Going to shift the gears to marketing
8:33
Speaker 3: and a shout out to the National Community Pharmacist Association
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Speaker 3: the NCPA. We absolutely think that this campaign that Austin
8:46
Speaker 3: and I, you and I, we've already kind of talked
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Speaker 3: about this, but I want to share this with our listeners.
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Speaker 3: This is a national campaign, This is a national message.
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Speaker 3: It's going to be pushed out to the public about
8:58
Speaker 3: about pharmacy.
9:00
Speaker 4: Take a listen. What do you love about mail order pharmacies.
9:04
Speaker 3: I love it when my hemorrhoid medication gets mistakenly delivered
9:07
Speaker 3: to my neighbor.
9:08
Speaker 6: I love not being able to talk to a human
9:11
Speaker 6: when I have.
9:11
Speaker 5: A question, please remain on the line.
9:14
Speaker 7: I love it when my prescription is delayed or does
9:17
Speaker 7: it show up at all.
9:19
Speaker 2: At your locally owned independent pharmacy, you get the personalized,
9:23
Speaker 2: friendly service you deserve.
9:25
Speaker 7: Visit your locally owned independent pharmacy today.
9:28
Speaker 3: All right, listen, I've been around in pharmacy since two
9:31
Speaker 3: thousand and four Austin, and I've always wondered, why in
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Speaker 3: the world isn't the APHA in the state pharmacy associations
9:41
Speaker 3: and the NCPA, and for goodness sakes, let's just take
9:45
Speaker 3: take money from every single association in the entire country
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Speaker 3: to do specific campaigns to educate our public about what
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Speaker 3: the truth is about how pharmacy care impacts your life
9:56
Speaker 3: number one. Number two, how best to get access to
10:00
Speaker 3: that care based on the fact that you're probably not
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Speaker 3: digging into some of the best pharmacists that you can
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Speaker 3: have in your community, which is going to come from
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Speaker 3: independent pharmacy. Independent pharmacy versus I mean, I love chain.
10:14
Speaker 3: I don't want to see change shut down. When right
10:16
Speaker 3: Age shut down, it was horrible the impact that it
10:18
Speaker 3: had on the nation the closings of pharmacies is having
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Speaker 3: a huge impact, but the cream of the crop of
10:27
Speaker 3: stories that I've heard from people being cared about has
10:30
Speaker 3: come from independent community pharmacies.
10:35
Speaker 4: Yeah.
10:35
Speaker 5: Absolutely, And I think that there's a big opportunity right now.
10:40
Speaker 5: You know, there's a lot of frustration around chains and
10:44
Speaker 5: you know, your CBS, Walgreens, a lot of frustration around
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Speaker 5: wait times and the level of care that you get.
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Speaker 5: And this is something that independent pharmacies have always thrived at,
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Speaker 5: you know, outperforming these chains is level of service areas
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Speaker 5: of care that they can get into that CBS and
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Speaker 5: Walgreens either can't get into or won't get into, right.
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Speaker 5: I mean, we've you know, we've I've heard you talked
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Speaker 5: about this and we've talked about this and SISE a
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Speaker 5: lot is long term care, at home, clinical services, all
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Speaker 5: these other areas of care that the big chains can't
11:16
Speaker 5: get into. And you know, one of the things that
11:20
Speaker 5: I think is a big opportunity right now. NANCPA has
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Speaker 5: this national campaign that they're rolling out and the positioning
11:28
Speaker 5: and the messaging that they're sending across this fantastic which is,
11:32
Speaker 5: you know, are you sure that as a consumer you
11:35
Speaker 5: actually enjoy these things, and I love that because I
11:38
Speaker 5: think pharmacies right now, you know, I know one of
11:41
Speaker 5: the benefits with this campaign is that you can kind
11:43
Speaker 5: of get targeted custom ads based on your pharmacy. I
11:47
Speaker 5: think this is a great opportunity to kind of double
11:49
Speaker 5: down on that increase exposure where you know, within a
11:53
Speaker 5: three mile radius you've got this ad coming out. You
11:56
Speaker 5: can market your pharmacy within a three mile radius and
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Speaker 5: into that increase exposure that you're already getting from this campaign,
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Speaker 5: kind of market some of those other additional services because
12:07
Speaker 5: you know, NCPA is casting a broader net here, which
12:10
Speaker 5: is fantastic, and so as a pharmacy you can kind
12:13
Speaker 5: of lean into that and you know, showcase that you
12:17
Speaker 5: have clinical services, showcase that you have long term care
12:20
Speaker 5: at home, things like that that are these areas of
12:23
Speaker 5: care that you know, consumers maybe they don't know that
12:28
Speaker 5: they had available of at an independent Yeah.
12:32
Speaker 3: In the show notes, you will see the link to
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Speaker 3: the to the press release that came out this week
12:37
Speaker 3: in Pharmacy, and that was the NCPA launches multimillion dollar
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Speaker 3: national ad campaign to promote independent pharmacies. Let me just
12:46
Speaker 3: make a comment about this real quick. The timing, I'm
12:50
Speaker 3: not sure if it was purposeful. If it is, then
12:52
Speaker 3: they're freaking geniuses and I think maybe they should take credit.
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Speaker 3: But the timing of leasing this campaign Austin, with the
13:03
Speaker 3: heat and fire and the and the the exposure that
13:08
Speaker 3: we're finally putting on in PBMs and educating the public
13:14
Speaker 3: of what the hell a PBM is, what it does,
13:17
Speaker 3: what it does well, what it does horrible. All of
13:19
Speaker 3: a sudden, Mark Cubans in front of Senate and the
13:22
Speaker 3: Senate Josh Harley, you know, Hartley's going Harley Howley, Harley,
13:27
Speaker 3: what's his name, Josh, It's Harley.
13:29
Speaker 4: Yeah.
13:30
Speaker 3: I mean he's starting to take you know, the teeth
13:32
Speaker 3: and Buddy Carter and like, oh my goodness, like Jake
13:35
Speaker 3: Auchenclous like they're getting their face completely, like it's going
13:40
Speaker 3: to be a whole Like they get the crap beat
13:42
Speaker 3: out of them. So now we have this campaign that
13:46
Speaker 3: it's funny to watch, it's humorous, it's educational, and it's
13:50
Speaker 3: bringing attention that you're going to have someone watch this
13:54
Speaker 3: campaign and they're going to be like, why do I
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Speaker 3: go to CBS and stand in you know, the long
14:00
Speaker 3: freaking line. I feel like I'm at a you know,
14:03
Speaker 3: a fast food Wait, why is fact? Why would I
14:06
Speaker 3: treat my health like fast food? I should go to
14:09
Speaker 3: the homegrown cooked pharmacy care services that that's in my hometown,
14:15
Speaker 3: knowing that when I'm supporting them, I'm supporting the community's
14:19
Speaker 3: jobs and there's more of an impact and there's a
14:21
Speaker 3: story to this. So the timing of this, what do
14:24
Speaker 3: you think? You think it's it's freaking on, you know,
14:26
Speaker 3: the planets aligning.
14:28
Speaker 5: I think it's good timing. I don't know if it's
14:30
Speaker 5: necessarily planned or I know that n CPA was you know,
14:34
Speaker 5: when we had Doug on our podcast. We've he's come
14:37
Speaker 5: on our podcast several times, but I know this was
14:40
Speaker 5: something that had kind of been talked about for a
14:43
Speaker 5: little bit and they announced that the NCPA show that
14:45
Speaker 5: they were launching this branding campaign. A lot of that
14:49
Speaker 5: was with the I think the excess funding that they
14:53
Speaker 5: had from the original big PBM push that they had.
15:00
Speaker 5: What I will say about the timing is there's a
15:03
Speaker 5: big shift, especially with the younger market. I know people
15:06
Speaker 5: in my age bracket that there's a big shift towards
15:10
Speaker 5: preventative health and towards holistic health. You know, you mentioned
15:15
Speaker 5: earlier about pharmacies and kind of they're more exposure of
15:19
Speaker 5: them at trade shows. One this past year was a
15:22
Speaker 5: FORM which is a trade show that's all about holistic health.
15:27
Speaker 5: It's about you know that, that all around wellness. And
15:32
Speaker 5: when we had Nico Lett on our show, she talked
15:34
Speaker 5: about how she saw several of her pharmacy clients that
15:38
Speaker 5: had boots at these trade shows. So a lot of
15:40
Speaker 5: the national GLP compounders, a lot of the national weight
15:45
Speaker 5: loss compounders that she works with, were at this show.
15:48
Speaker 5: And what I think that indicates. I think that indicates
15:52
Speaker 5: one an opportunity for pharmacies, local pharmacies to get more
15:55
Speaker 5: into that holistic health where you've got these younger people
16:01
Speaker 5: that are prioritizing more of their health, they're prioritizing more
16:05
Speaker 5: of that preventative care, and as a pharmacy you can
16:07
Speaker 5: kind of lean into that a little bit more. And
16:10
Speaker 5: I think it also shows just you know, like I mentioned,
16:13
Speaker 5: where the market is kind of shifting. So I think
16:16
Speaker 5: this is a great opportunity and great timing for this
16:19
Speaker 5: campaign to kind of come out to showcase people like
16:22
Speaker 5: not only are you not only are you standing in
16:25
Speaker 5: line at CVS for this prescription. But you know they're
16:30
Speaker 5: also not prioritizing your health the way that an independent
16:33
Speaker 5: would and really getting you back to a more functional
16:39
Speaker 5: and better state of health that you're in, which actually
16:42
Speaker 5: helps lower overall health care costs.
16:45
Speaker 3: True, and I want to defend our CVS pharmacists that
16:49
Speaker 3: might be listening right now are CBS technicians. You're forced
16:55
Speaker 3: to act and you are forced to operate the way
17:02
Speaker 3: the metrics are set up in the CVS health system
17:04
Speaker 3: and pharmacy output system. So it's not like the pharmacy
17:10
Speaker 3: tech or the pharmacist on staff, especially the pick the
17:13
Speaker 3: pharmacis that are in charge. They have so much stress
17:16
Speaker 3: on them to perform. I mean doctor Katie Forbes, she's
17:19
Speaker 3: one of our pharmacy fifty most influential people, I think
17:22
Speaker 3: two years in a row, and she's now been featured
17:25
Speaker 3: on another big podcast. I can't remember the name of it,
17:28
Speaker 3: but it's huge. It's a consumer podcast, and she's saying, listen, like,
17:33
Speaker 3: it's not the CVS pharmacist team's fault that they put
17:38
Speaker 3: there's so much pressure put on them to perform strictly
17:43
Speaker 3: for output and profit. They don't give a shit the
17:45
Speaker 3: policy within CVS Health's ecosystem, those upper upper people who
17:51
Speaker 3: have a legal responsibility to their boards, to their board
17:56
Speaker 3: and to the shareholders to perform in a most profitable
18:01
Speaker 3: way possible. They don't give a shit about the grandmother
18:06
Speaker 3: who has a rash that through mail order. Nobody's looking
18:10
Speaker 3: at her rash. It's getting worse, it's getting read. She
18:12
Speaker 3: shows up at the pharmacy to pick up her whatever medication,
18:17
Speaker 3: and now the pharmacist looking at her, says, WHOA, Like,
18:20
Speaker 3: what is this rash that you have. Let's take a
18:22
Speaker 3: look at this. Let's slow down for a second. Let's
18:25
Speaker 3: let's put some you know something on it, and then
18:27
Speaker 3: let's get a prescription for whatever that is.
18:31
Speaker 4: To help you.
18:31
Speaker 3: Like, nobody's doing that at CBS. Well, and I agree
18:35
Speaker 3: with you, Todd.
18:36
Speaker 5: You know, I don't know how, I don't know what
18:39
Speaker 5: kind of TV you watch, but I've been really fascinated
18:42
Speaker 5: with The Pit, which is as an HBO series, And
18:46
Speaker 5: this isn't a pharmacy exclusive challenge. This is an all
18:51
Speaker 5: healthcare system challenge where there's all these different performance metrics
18:56
Speaker 5: that people have to hit and it comes you know,
19:00
Speaker 5: you're you come into an environment where you really want
19:03
Speaker 5: to focus on patient care and focus on you know,
19:07
Speaker 5: like I said, elevating that patient experience, but you're forced
19:11
Speaker 5: to to perform a certain way, and you're forced to
19:16
Speaker 5: perform for that profitability, which leads into you know, some
19:20
Speaker 5: of the opportunities in terms of messaging around what's next
19:23
Speaker 5: for PBM orform. I think for independence right now, one
19:26
Speaker 5: big opportunity is shifting the message to you know, here
19:31
Speaker 5: the gaps in care that we can help fill that
19:37
Speaker 5: maybe are not being taken care of at like a
19:40
Speaker 5: larger chain. And because a lot of these these rural areas,
19:45
Speaker 5: you know, the independent pharmacy is all that they have.
19:48
Speaker 5: You know, they they might have an urgent care or
19:50
Speaker 5: they might have a smaller hospital system, but you know,
19:53
Speaker 5: the pharmacist as the one of the most trusted providers
19:56
Speaker 5: in the area. And so I think there's a big
19:59
Speaker 5: opportunity now to kind of change the narrative of Okay,
20:03
Speaker 5: you know, we've got this PBM reform that's passed. You know,
20:06
Speaker 5: here are other things that independents do as well that
20:11
Speaker 5: you know, these areas of care that we could help film.
20:13
Speaker 5: I think you get a lot of congressional leaders to
20:16
Speaker 5: listen to that message and tune into it.
20:19
Speaker 4: On HBO Max. There's a program.
20:22
Speaker 7: Not a Pharmacist, And if you watching the Pit, you
20:25
Speaker 7: know that a clear character on the Pit has been missing,
20:29
Speaker 7: which is an ey pharmacist. And word on the street
20:33
Speaker 7: is that they did have a pharmacist.
20:34
Speaker 4: On this episode this week.
20:36
Speaker 7: So let's watch, and I do have some thoughts about it.
20:40
Speaker 7: I want to start off this video by saying, first,
20:42
Speaker 7: I'm overjoyed to see a pharmacist character on the Pit.
20:45
Speaker 7: If you know me in real life or follow me here,
20:48
Speaker 7: you know that I've been advocating for a pharmacist on
20:51
Speaker 7: the Pit forever. And I even got to attend a
20:56
Speaker 7: season two screening with FIGS and I was able to
20:58
Speaker 7: print out this article that a lot of EDIE pharmacists
21:01
Speaker 7: put together and I thought it is so well written.
21:03
Speaker 7: It's called the Missing Piece in the Pit, a call
21:06
Speaker 7: for emergency Pharmacist Representation. I printed it, brought it, put
21:10
Speaker 7: my email phone number, contact information, wary work and talk
21:16
Speaker 7: to the HBO Max team. Offer them even to help
21:20
Speaker 7: in any way, allow them to shadow me for a shift.
21:23
Speaker 7: That way they could see what a real day to
21:26
Speaker 7: day of a Edie pharmacist would be like, so, I'm
21:29
Speaker 7: glad to see that there is a pharmacist character this season.
21:33
Speaker 7: And let's now get into my thoughts.
21:36
Speaker 5: Medications are locked up in the.
21:37
Speaker 3: PS the PBS is getting unlocked by a clinical pharmacist,
21:40
Speaker 3: Doctor Megan Nord.
21:41
Speaker 5: I got your back this.
21:42
Speaker 7: The first thing I noticed is that they introduced the
21:45
Speaker 7: pharmacist as a clinical pharmacist, which I think is also
21:49
Speaker 7: a huge controversial topic in itself because I do think
21:53
Speaker 7: that any pharmacist is a clinical pharmacist. We all went
21:56
Speaker 7: through a Doctor of Pharmacy program to get this. Agree
22:00
Speaker 7: So I.
22:01
Speaker 3: Think I'm excited about that big, big news for clinical
22:06
Speaker 3: that she says clinical pharmacists, but pharmacists in general. It's
22:09
Speaker 3: going to get more exposure the team. You know, there's
22:11
Speaker 3: going to be a child out there. It's going to
22:13
Speaker 3: be in the eighth grade. They're going to love science.
22:15
Speaker 3: They're into stem, they're into technology, but they don't want blood.
22:18
Speaker 3: They don't like you know, they want to be a
22:20
Speaker 3: doctor without the blood. And sure enough, the pharmacists is
22:23
Speaker 3: finally going to be represented that these people are out
22:26
Speaker 3: here doing some badass things.
22:28
Speaker 5: Well, I want to touch on something that she mentioned
22:30
Speaker 5: in the video that kind of want to emphasize a
22:33
Speaker 5: little bit more about how, you know, the character gets
22:36
Speaker 5: introduced as a clinical pharmacist, and what's controversial about that
22:40
Speaker 5: is that all pharmacists are clinical. This is something that
22:44
Speaker 5: we see with you know pharmacies that we're talking to
22:48
Speaker 5: is a lot of pharmacists want to practice at the
22:50
Speaker 5: top of their license so they can already do those
22:53
Speaker 5: things that you know that gets introduced in the show.
22:59
Speaker 5: The hurdle there is how can they get more into
23:03
Speaker 5: that and how can they service their community a little
23:05
Speaker 5: bit more so. I think I thought it was really
23:07
Speaker 5: interesting that she brought that up because that's a trend
23:09
Speaker 5: that we see.
23:11
Speaker 3: That's a shout out to doctor Leslie who you can
23:15
Speaker 3: follow her on Instagram. It's at Leslie farm d. I
23:21
Speaker 3: follow her on Instagram. She's got a really big following.
23:24
Speaker 3: She's a I would consider her a social media influencer
23:26
Speaker 3: for sure, and we need more of those. I think
23:29
Speaker 3: Pharmacy fifty, I think there were six pharmacists that were
23:33
Speaker 3: social media influencers that came from like the TikTok and
23:36
Speaker 3: the Instagram world, and it goes to show you that
23:40
Speaker 3: everything is changing. We're seeing people perform taking place. We're
23:44
Speaker 3: seeing the NCPA finally put out really well done commercials
23:49
Speaker 3: to the public. We're seeing the APHA do some things.
23:51
Speaker 3: We're seeing our state of pharmacists associations starting to do
23:55
Speaker 3: patient driven and I'm like, wow, Like this is all
23:58
Speaker 3: happening at the right time. To truly build the profession
24:02
Speaker 3: of pharmacy the way that it needs to get paid,
24:05
Speaker 3: it needs to have pharmacist representation, but then I want
24:08
Speaker 3: pharmacists spilling out into other things that aren't necessarily directly pharmacy,
24:13
Speaker 3: but definitely healthcare.
24:16
Speaker 8: Yeah.
24:16
Speaker 5: Absolutely, And I think that's what's next, Todd. I think
24:19
Speaker 5: the way that things are shifting, it's shifting more towards
24:22
Speaker 5: that clinical per se model, where you know, pharmacists are
24:27
Speaker 5: going to have more opportunities now to practice at the
24:30
Speaker 5: top of their license. I know some states have many
24:33
Speaker 5: states have started to recognize pharmacists as providers, and so
24:37
Speaker 5: that helps fill that health care need and that access
24:41
Speaker 5: to healthcare in these communities. So I think that's where
24:45
Speaker 5: things are kind of going next. And so it's exciting
24:48
Speaker 5: to see.
24:50
Speaker 3: Hey, today's episode of This Week and pharmacy is sponsored
24:54
Speaker 3: by Psychs and Company. We are very appreciative of the
24:57
Speaker 3: support that Psychs has given to the Pharmacy podcast network,
25:02
Speaker 3: the expertise of Scottie and the podcast team, the bottom
25:07
Speaker 3: Line Pod, Bottom Line Pharmacy Podcast Master, the Margin Podcast.
25:11
Speaker 3: Talk to us about your podcast content. What's happening coming
25:15
Speaker 3: up in the rest of twenty twenty six.
25:17
Speaker 5: Sure, So we've got a couple of great episodes. You know,
25:20
Speaker 5: this releases on Friday, So you know, this week we
25:24
Speaker 5: had on an infusion consultant. So what she does is
25:28
Speaker 5: she consults different infusion pharmacies, whether you're a startup or
25:32
Speaker 5: you're a little bit more established. You know, she helps
25:36
Speaker 5: with their business operations, staffing, things like that. We've also
25:39
Speaker 5: got an episode coming up next week with the n CPA.
25:43
Speaker 5: We had doctor Hashozbach and Mark and Mark from the
25:49
Speaker 5: in CPA on our show to talk a little bit
25:51
Speaker 5: more about, you know what independent for what the NCPA is,
25:55
Speaker 5: how it got started, the history kind of the stuff
25:57
Speaker 5: that they do. We really get in to the nuts
26:00
Speaker 5: and bolts there. In terms of what's coming up with
26:03
Speaker 5: the podcast, We've got a lot of great guests coming up.
26:07
Speaker 5: We've got some on AI compliance, which has been a
26:11
Speaker 5: really hot topic in terms of you know, how can
26:13
Speaker 5: I integrate artificial intelligence into my pharmacy but also stay compliant.
26:19
Speaker 5: And you know, we've got a couple of different shows. Obviously,
26:23
Speaker 5: we've got our flagship podcast, the bottom Line Pharmacy Podcast,
26:26
Speaker 5: and then we've got the Pharmacy Ownership Podcast, which talks
26:29
Speaker 5: a little bit more about buying starting selling pharmacies. And
26:35
Speaker 5: we've got some content with Master the Margin as well,
26:38
Speaker 5: which is a little bit more of the granular accounting
26:40
Speaker 5: side of things. We talk about three forty B accounting,
26:43
Speaker 5: you know, the balance sheet, things to look for, stuff
26:46
Speaker 5: like that. So really exciting stuff on the on the
26:51
Speaker 5: podcast side of things and on the content side.
26:54
Speaker 3: All right, so please go tell Nicolette and the team
26:59
Speaker 3: that I said have an amazing show. I'm sure it's
27:03
Speaker 3: going to be. I can't wait to hear from Bruce.
27:05
Speaker 3: I can't wait to hear from you. Would love to
27:07
Speaker 3: have you maybe even come back and tell us how
27:10
Speaker 3: things went. But excited to have you on twerks today.
27:14
Speaker 3: Thank you once again for so much of your support,
27:16
Speaker 3: and have a good time in Orlando. Get some son,
27:19
Speaker 3: get some of that vitamin D.
27:21
Speaker 5: I'll try to if I'm not, if I'm not stuck
27:23
Speaker 5: inside the four walls of the hotel, if I can
27:26
Speaker 5: actually get out of the door, I will. I'll get
27:28
Speaker 5: some sun. So absolute thank you, thanks for being on yep,
27:34
Speaker 5: thank you.
27:47
Speaker 1: Feeling lost with the complexities of pharmacy accounting.
27:50
Speaker 9: In pharmacy today, there's so many different variables and issues
27:55
Speaker 9: that impact the pharmacy, books, records, accounting, the profitabilities, so forth.
28:00
Speaker 9: There's different components of pharmacy that have its own nuances
28:03
Speaker 9: from an accounting standpoint, and so it's it's tricky, there's
28:07
Speaker 9: no doubt about it.
28:08
Speaker 1: Ready to take your pharmacy to the next level, but
28:10
Speaker 1: don't know where to start. Psychs and Company is here
28:13
Speaker 1: to help, introducing the RX Assessment. With the RX Assessment,
28:18
Speaker 1: the pharmacy CPAs and advisors at psykes will do a
28:21
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28:24
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28:27
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28:29
Speaker 9: If you're interested in, you know, working with a team
28:32
Speaker 9: who understands the industry and how the accounting and tax
28:35
Speaker 9: should really be in a pharmacy, this is this is
28:39
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28:41
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28:44
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28:47
Speaker 1: With Get the financial check up your pharmacy needs and
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28:53
Speaker 1: five to two four eight two seven six four four.
29:11
Speaker 4: Hey there, hey there, hey there, hey there.
29:13
Speaker 3: Now on this Week in Pharmacy, I'd like to welcome
29:17
Speaker 3: one of the Pharmacy fifties most influential people in pharmacy,
29:21
Speaker 3: and this has become an international awards program and reach.
29:27
Speaker 3: But I'm so excited to have Mark Duman on the
29:30
Speaker 3: show on twerks. Mark, it's so good to see you.
29:33
Speaker 6: It's great to be here.
29:34
Speaker 10: Thank you very much, and thank you for accepting people
29:36
Speaker 10: with strange Scottish accents.
29:39
Speaker 3: No, in American culture, that's actually cool because we immediately
29:45
Speaker 3: think of how Hollywood has propped up any any person
29:50
Speaker 3: speaking with a British or a Scottish or some accent,
29:56
Speaker 3: you always seem to be more intelligent, so you have
29:59
Speaker 3: that to your advantage.
30:00
Speaker 10: Well, we did say American culture, which we joke is oxymeronic,
30:03
Speaker 10: but that's another story.
30:05
Speaker 6: Let's not go there.
30:06
Speaker 4: That's another podcast.
30:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, to start out, Mark, I want to say
30:11
Speaker 3: congratulations that you were recognized on a global level. So
30:16
Speaker 3: when I started the awards program, I barely I didn't
30:20
Speaker 3: even get one hundred votes that first year. I think
30:22
Speaker 3: we got like eighty five or something, and it was
30:24
Speaker 3: kind of embarrassing for me because I'm like, maybe this
30:27
Speaker 3: isn't going to go anywhere.
30:28
Speaker 4: But last year we had.
30:31
Speaker 3: About three thousand votes in participation and now this year
30:35
Speaker 3: we had over sixty four hundreds, so it doubled our
30:39
Speaker 3: international reach. I think we had four people that were
30:43
Speaker 3: international superstars and pharmacy. So that's just saying something that
30:48
Speaker 3: pharmacy is changing, the pharmacist roles changing. And when I
30:51
Speaker 3: started to creep on you and stock your profile, I
30:55
Speaker 3: realized that now I understand based on your background, why
30:59
Speaker 3: you may this list. But you're very humble. So just
31:03
Speaker 3: share with our listeners you know, a little bit about yourself.
31:07
Speaker 7: Yeah.
31:07
Speaker 10: Well, I'm surprised I made the pharmacy list because I
31:09
Speaker 10: came off the pharmaceutical register a good few it could
31:13
Speaker 10: be even eight years ago, and they did try to
31:15
Speaker 10: get me back on for COVID and I said, no,
31:17
Speaker 10: it's probably more dangerous, and I don't think you have
31:19
Speaker 10: a training budget large enough to make me safe in
31:21
Speaker 10: a dispensary and talking to patients directly. So I do
31:25
Speaker 10: feel humble to be on a list and to be
31:27
Speaker 10: internationally recognized. I'm not quite sure why, but it may
31:31
Speaker 10: be to do with the fact that I sort of
31:33
Speaker 10: have taken pharmacy at a very different level and a
31:36
Speaker 10: different approach, and I think I'm very much about putting
31:39
Speaker 10: patients and people before medicines, and that really has been
31:43
Speaker 10: my career. I remember sitting in Aberdeen in nineteen ninety
31:47
Speaker 10: before maybe you and many listeners were born, and it
31:51
Speaker 10: was the prize giving in Robert Gordon's there's only two
31:54
Speaker 10: schools of pharmacy in Scotland, one in Aberdeen and one
31:57
Speaker 10: in Glasgow. And being a Glasgow boy, wonderful parents wanted
32:00
Speaker 10: the full university experience and wanted to go away from home,
32:02
Speaker 10: so went up to Aberdeen, which is a three then
32:06
Speaker 10: a three four hour train journey, so it was pretty
32:08
Speaker 10: far away, like in the true North of Scotland where
32:11
Speaker 10: everybody we are guilt and tartan or plaid as you
32:14
Speaker 10: would say. And anyway, I was sitting in the prize
32:17
Speaker 10: giving in fourth year because at that time Scotland, England
32:20
Speaker 10: was a three year degree.
32:21
Speaker 6: We were a four year degree and almost have been.
32:23
Speaker 10: And someone said the pharmacy practice price has gone to
32:27
Speaker 10: Mark Dooman. And I was sitting in a drunken stupor
32:29
Speaker 10: or a hangover or both and said, wow, Markdoman's won
32:33
Speaker 10: the prize and they were like, you're Mark Dooman. Oh yeah,
32:35
Speaker 10: yeah right, And I didn't know then, why am I
32:38
Speaker 10: telling that? We anecdote because that really was this sort
32:40
Speaker 10: of golden theme that has run through my career.
32:43
Speaker 6: And by all means, please look me up on LinkedIn.
32:46
Speaker 10: I won't bore the audience with that whole journey. It
32:48
Speaker 10: would take twenty minutes, but suffice to say I did
32:51
Speaker 10: the pharmacy thing. I enjoyed the pharmacy thing. I get
32:54
Speaker 10: ridiculed by my dispensary support staff for wanting to talk
32:57
Speaker 10: to patients about medicines taking and not just no their address,
33:02
Speaker 10: and really was into trying to make people embrace not
33:06
Speaker 10: so much their disease, but the way to live with
33:09
Speaker 10: their disease and with their conditions, as opposed to be
33:12
Speaker 10: a deficit and not to be able to be an
33:13
Speaker 10: asset and that's what's followed my career. So I went
33:16
Speaker 10: to a think tank called the King's Fund and worked
33:18
Speaker 10: a lot and shared decision making. In ninety seven set
33:20
Speaker 10: up the Patient Information Forum. Prior to that, i'd actually
33:24
Speaker 10: worked with Cerner, your big electronic health record system, which
33:27
Speaker 10: I believe it's twenty six sites now in the UK.
33:30
Speaker 10: Trying to anglicize a multi American database was quite funny.
33:35
Speaker 10: It went way beyond spelling Eastrodum with an O and
33:39
Speaker 10: finding that a sitominifen was not the same as paracetamol.
33:43
Speaker 10: And then I went to BBC and did a bunch
33:45
Speaker 10: of stuff there around behavioral change. I went into telecoms,
33:48
Speaker 10: I went into traditional Chinese medicine, which really rocked my
33:52
Speaker 10: RCT is the gold standard of evidence approach, and I
33:55
Speaker 10: think for me, the big lesson in all of this
33:57
Speaker 10: Todd is to realize and recognize one's own subjectivity. We
34:03
Speaker 10: see the world as we are, not as it is,
34:06
Speaker 10: and you need to listen twice as much as you speak.
34:08
Speaker 10: And that makes you a better clinician, It makes you
34:11
Speaker 10: a better parent, it makes you a better spouse, and
34:13
Speaker 10: it makes you a better person. And I think too
34:16
Speaker 10: often we listen with the intention to answer, and having
34:21
Speaker 10: brought up and still trying to bring up five kids.
34:24
Speaker 6: The three older.
34:25
Speaker 10: Ones will tell you, Dad, listen never and now I
34:28
Speaker 10: don't speak, so I don't think a parent anymore. But
34:31
Speaker 10: the two ones seem to be two younger ones seem
34:33
Speaker 10: to be delighted with that. So I think it's a
34:35
Speaker 10: really important trait, which is if we listen to people
34:39
Speaker 10: and we let them in, we will be better clinicians.
34:42
Speaker 10: And I think that's where pharmacy can really step out
34:46
Speaker 10: on its own. We are in this country at least
34:49
Speaker 10: readily accessible. We don't need to book appointments, we have
34:52
Speaker 10: counseling rooms. Get out from behind the dispensary and talk
34:56
Speaker 10: to people, you know, make a difference, you know, talk
34:59
Speaker 10: to people, don't talk to medicines.
35:02
Speaker 6: I love that.
35:02
Speaker 3: I love that, and that kind of folds us into
35:05
Speaker 3: I wanted. I wanted to tell our listeners about you
35:08
Speaker 3: have an entire initiative behind the scenes that plugs into
35:12
Speaker 3: a lot of the things that you do, which is
35:14
Speaker 3: the attitude of illuminating what the patient is going through
35:19
Speaker 3: and what they feel in healthcare from their perspective. So
35:25
Speaker 3: tell and if you're watching us live on YouTube or
35:28
Speaker 3: you're watching us on LinkedIn. You'll see on your screen
35:31
Speaker 3: if you go to illuminate dash Pe and dot com,
35:37
Speaker 3: it's the website that it kind of describes what is
35:40
Speaker 3: this illuminate but share this, share this with our listeners.
35:44
Speaker 6: Yes, thank you, Tod. This is one aspect of what
35:46
Speaker 6: we do.
35:46
Speaker 10: We developed this about ten years ago and have used
35:50
Speaker 10: it with about ten different organizations. Pharmaceutore companies, some provider organizations,
35:54
Speaker 10: some med tech companies, the Royal College of Surgeons we
35:58
Speaker 10: did some work with them on it and it's very
36:00
Speaker 10: it's about everybody talks about putting the patient at the center,
36:04
Speaker 10: but do we really walk it? And what this does
36:07
Speaker 10: is has SIVEN domains eighty six indicators and helps mainly
36:12
Speaker 10: now pharmaceutical company life science companies to not just look
36:17
Speaker 10: at corporate reputation and look at their advocacy work, important
36:20
Speaker 10: as that is, but this looks across the entire piece
36:23
Speaker 10: and says where are you performing through internal interviews and surveys,
36:28
Speaker 10: some deep dives into brands if appropriate, where do you
36:31
Speaker 10: really walk the talk of putting the patient at the center?
36:35
Speaker 10: And where do you need to walk a little bit quicker,
36:37
Speaker 10: a little bit faster, or even walk it all. It
36:39
Speaker 10: covers a whole asset life cycle from R and D
36:43
Speaker 10: right the way through to disease awareness campaigns and patient
36:46
Speaker 10: support programs, you know, through commercial and we've worked with
36:50
Speaker 10: some of the big companies that are on the website.
36:52
Speaker 10: And it's whether it's illuminate or any other tool, I'm
36:56
Speaker 10: not really bothered, but just measure what you do, measure
36:59
Speaker 10: the impact. And I think one of the things we
37:01
Speaker 10: need to be asking our patients is not just do
37:04
Speaker 10: you take your medicine, but how can I support you
37:07
Speaker 10: to be more engaged in your own health care? How
37:10
Speaker 10: can you do more self care and more self management.
37:13
Speaker 10: And I fifteen years ago, you know, contracted in inverted
37:16
Speaker 10: commas inherited thanks Dad, but also my own lifestyle type
37:20
Speaker 10: two diabetes.
37:22
Speaker 6: I remember when my GP, my general.
37:23
Speaker 10: Practitioner, my family physician as you say over there, said
37:26
Speaker 10: to me Mark, you've got diabetes.
37:29
Speaker 6: You know, you're too fat.
37:30
Speaker 10: And I was like, but Door, you're fat too and
37:32
Speaker 10: you don't have diabetes, you know, And he was like, well,
37:35
Speaker 10: I'm not genetically predisposed.
37:37
Speaker 6: I said, well, don't be so quick to judge.
37:39
Speaker 10: You know, so even within that delivery of the diagnosis,
37:42
Speaker 10: there's stigma. And he's a lovely doctor. But again it's
37:45
Speaker 10: back to we see the world as we are, not
37:47
Speaker 10: as it is. And I think you still I think
37:51
Speaker 10: call it retail pharmacy. We call it community, and I
37:54
Speaker 10: think that says a lot beyond just a word. Retail
37:57
Speaker 10: pharmacy shouldn't just be about the money important as we
38:00
Speaker 10: get paid and recognized for what we do, but it's
38:02
Speaker 10: about a sense of community. Can I go to my
38:04
Speaker 10: pharmacist and ask about my medicines? Can I ask about
38:08
Speaker 10: my condition? Can I ask about prevention? What is social prescribing?
38:12
Speaker 10: We're the social determinants of health.
38:13
Speaker 6: How can I do more?
38:15
Speaker 10: Supported by my medicines and supported by my pharmacy.
38:19
Speaker 3: It's interesting you pointing that out because we don't say
38:24
Speaker 3: independently owned retail pharmacy. We say independently owned community pharmacy.
38:30
Speaker 3: But then if you go over to the more corporate driven,
38:33
Speaker 3: they're the ones that say retail pharmacy. And it shows
38:37
Speaker 3: a contrast between big chain pharmacy and the privately owned organizations.
38:45
Speaker 3: And even though there's wonderful pharmacists that work in the chains,
38:49
Speaker 3: that Meanwhile, there's a lot of times that they're held
38:53
Speaker 3: hostage to metrics into getting volume out instead of quality healthcare.
39:00
Speaker 3: Low down for a second and freaking listen to what
39:02
Speaker 3: the patient has to say and be more empathetic and
39:05
Speaker 3: more understanding about what they're going through. And those big
39:08
Speaker 3: corporate chains, you know, they're not set up that mail
39:13
Speaker 3: order environment that is just shipping lick lick, lick the label,
39:18
Speaker 3: slap it on the package and get it out the
39:20
Speaker 3: door so that we can charge more money. That's that's
39:23
Speaker 3: not what healthcare is, yeah, and.
39:26
Speaker 10: It's definitely not what I don't think pharmacy should be.
39:28
Speaker 10: But again, we need to be paid for that recognition
39:31
Speaker 10: of going beyond licking, picking and sticking. And I don't
39:36
Speaker 10: know if some of us want to or some of
39:37
Speaker 10: us don't want to, and I think some companies do,
39:40
Speaker 10: some companies don't. And and the issue is often that
39:43
Speaker 10: we will try to claim some turf. I mean in
39:45
Speaker 10: the UK or in England specifically, we're now taking on
39:48
Speaker 10: seven minor ailments, which is relieving again the primary care
39:52
Speaker 10: burden or at least passing it to community pharmacy. And
39:55
Speaker 10: we can do these things, but I think what might
39:58
Speaker 10: change Todd and I'm not sure sure over that side
40:01
Speaker 10: of the Atlantic how quickly. But we talk enough whole
40:03
Speaker 10: lot about value based healthcare and value based outcomes. And
40:07
Speaker 10: this is, this is going to upset many of my colleagues.
40:10
Speaker 10: But I'm a little bit embarrassed to be part of
40:12
Speaker 10: a profession which is in most cases the last person
40:16
Speaker 10: to see the medicines taker, or in fifty percent of cases,
40:20
Speaker 10: the medicines taker, not I e. You know, fifty patients
40:25
Speaker 10: aren't taking medicines as prescribed. And I'm the last person
40:27
Speaker 10: I've seen I get paid anyway. Pharmaceutical companies get paid anyway.
40:32
Speaker 10: If we truly want value based health care, we need
40:35
Speaker 10: to close And I don't even like the word adherence
40:37
Speaker 10: because it passes the buck to the kit, to the
40:39
Speaker 10: to the patient. Oh it's your fault, you've been non adherent.
40:42
Speaker 10: You not in child. We need to take responsibility as
40:46
Speaker 10: a profession for that. The industry needs to take responsibility.
40:49
Speaker 10: The payers, providers and policymakers need to close the gap
40:53
Speaker 10: and really start looking at adherents. And I would like
40:56
Speaker 10: to see an industry And this is let's hope Trump
40:59
Speaker 10: doesn't hear this, but I'd like to see an industry
41:01
Speaker 10: that is paid when the outcomes that were submitted in
41:05
Speaker 10: the trial match those real world evidence data that's coming
41:09
Speaker 10: off of the wearables and the patient records that we
41:11
Speaker 10: all have.
41:12
Speaker 4: That's wild.
41:13
Speaker 3: That's a great idea because you have the ability to
41:16
Speaker 3: capture data through through wearables, through some of the things
41:20
Speaker 3: that are coming from documentation. We have pharmacists who are
41:25
Speaker 3: becoming much more holistic in spreading and in combining the
41:30
Speaker 3: pharmacological with you know, nature and food is medicine. And
41:35
Speaker 3: but yeah, I think the outcomes target. Maybe it's not
41:39
Speaker 3: the full payment, but maybe it's like either a bonus
41:44
Speaker 3: or it's like the rest of the payment, like some
41:46
Speaker 3: of the payment you're holding hostage. But if you could
41:50
Speaker 3: have that circle, closed loop circle in place where pharma
41:56
Speaker 3: wasn't getting the money up front, but they're getting a
41:59
Speaker 3: partial part of the money until it comes full circle
42:03
Speaker 3: where the clinician, the physician, the pharmacist and all of
42:07
Speaker 3: a sudden, we have thirty days of data or ninety
42:09
Speaker 3: days of data or twelve months of data where we're
42:12
Speaker 3: showing positive outcomes happening in this patient's life. And that
42:17
Speaker 3: would encourage communications and it would encourage patient engagement, like
42:24
Speaker 3: you're like illuminates spells out with insights and owning it,
42:28
Speaker 3: you know, owning the what this does, and then of
42:31
Speaker 3: course the impact, and then that encourages innovation because you
42:36
Speaker 3: know as well as I do, Mark that there's a
42:38
Speaker 3: lot of parts of the jigsaw puzzle of healthcare that
42:43
Speaker 3: haven't changed in thirty years because they don't want to change,
42:47
Speaker 3: and that's not conducive to better healthcare.
42:52
Speaker 10: Yeah, I mean we really need to I think take
42:54
Speaker 10: the medicine's taking topic, adherents, persistence, compliance, whatever term we
42:59
Speaker 10: want to call it, and really move beyond publishing papers
43:02
Speaker 10: and doing pilot stuff.
43:04
Speaker 6: There's a there's a.
43:05
Speaker 10: Global group called ESPICOMP, but I think maybe four or
43:07
Speaker 10: five hundred people. They're beginning, I believe, to bring patients
43:10
Speaker 10: into the work that they do. But I don't know
43:13
Speaker 10: what their currency is. Is their currency publications, is their
43:16
Speaker 10: currency solutions? Is it the adoption of these solutions, et cetera,
43:20
Speaker 10: et cetera. And I think we really need to begin
43:22
Speaker 10: to look at the medicines taking or medicines experience, and
43:26
Speaker 10: you know, I take.
43:30
Speaker 6: Medicines.
43:31
Speaker 10: I have seven or eight pens sitting in my fridge
43:33
Speaker 10: at the moment, all of which are the last dose
43:35
Speaker 10: in them. The medicine itself is better than the previous
43:38
Speaker 10: medicine I was on, but the delivery system stinks. So
43:41
Speaker 10: when we develop medicines and we develop you know, selling
43:43
Speaker 10: gene therapies, and we're asking parents and patients to use
43:46
Speaker 10: much more complicated devices, could we please develop these with them,
43:50
Speaker 10: I think that's absolutely key. There was an Italian foundation
43:53
Speaker 10: I believe a couple of months ago that has just
43:56
Speaker 10: one either EMA. I think it's approval for a medicine
44:01
Speaker 10: that was developed by parents. So we're beginning to see
44:04
Speaker 10: that patient. Yeah, it's different. You know, we don't only
44:09
Speaker 10: have to wait for pharmacutal companies to develop medicines and
44:12
Speaker 10: biotech companies.
44:14
Speaker 6: Parents, you know.
44:15
Speaker 10: Driven by that desire to cure and to alleviate pain,
44:19
Speaker 10: can get involved too, you know, So stop seeing as
44:22
Speaker 10: passive recipients and bring us in active participants and you know,
44:26
Speaker 10: even the old blister peck. And again, I think it's
44:28
Speaker 10: different in the States in terms of dispensing that everything
44:31
Speaker 10: here in the UK is blister packs and I will
44:34
Speaker 10: the medicine that I take every morning and every night
44:37
Speaker 10: to keep me going, I'll cut my fingers once every
44:40
Speaker 10: three months, so I get a neutral, if not negative
44:43
Speaker 10: experience of what is a very beneficial product. Because we
44:47
Speaker 10: don't think about the wrap around medicines experience. We think
44:50
Speaker 10: about the economies of scale and pharmaceutical production lines over
44:54
Speaker 10: the patient experience. So I think we need to think
44:58
Speaker 10: a little bit differently, and I really call on pharmacy
45:00
Speaker 10: and pharmacists to begin to put the patient and the
45:04
Speaker 10: person before the product. I think we're in a great
45:07
Speaker 10: place where we're accessible, we can communicate, we know about medicines,
45:11
Speaker 10: and if you don't have the confidence in terms of communications,
45:14
Speaker 10: or in terms of health coaching, or in terms of
45:16
Speaker 10: behavior change, go do a course, you know, speak to your.
45:20
Speaker 6: Public health colleagues.
45:22
Speaker 10: Let's get out there from behind the dispensary and from
45:25
Speaker 10: behind the counters.
45:26
Speaker 6: And I'm sure many are.
45:27
Speaker 10: Doing it, and it's really build that community spirit and
45:30
Speaker 10: bring you know, that role of pharmacy into into being
45:34
Speaker 10: a key player and improving outcomes and healthcare. I think
45:36
Speaker 10: I'm going to stand for election.
45:38
Speaker 11: That sounded great, Yeah, and have you Let's talk about
45:43
Speaker 11: that for a second, because have you ever been part
45:45
Speaker 11: of the.
45:47
Speaker 3: Royal College of Pharmacy or one of the because we
45:50
Speaker 3: have the PHA in the States where it's like leadership
45:54
Speaker 3: is changing. We're seeing a lot more usage of digital health,
45:58
Speaker 3: and we're seeing a lot more patient in in you know, involvement,
46:02
Speaker 3: and we're starting to also see that it's not just
46:05
Speaker 3: about the association, it's more about kind of supporting the pharmacist.
46:10
Speaker 4: But what kind of insights.
46:14
Speaker 6: Don't get me started?
46:17
Speaker 10: Yeah, I so I've tried a couple of times. I've
46:20
Speaker 10: given up, I think, and they're really not going to
46:24
Speaker 10: like me for this, which is why I've never been
46:26
Speaker 10: given like a fellowship of the Royal Pharmacy Society first
46:28
Speaker 10: of all Royal Colleges is a new idea and is
46:31
Speaker 10: currently being defined, and I've sort of walked away from
46:34
Speaker 10: it all. It just became very political, with lots of
46:38
Speaker 10: different organizations fighting for who owned the pharmacy spot, trying
46:42
Speaker 10: to bring them together, getting excited if the word pharmacy
46:45
Speaker 10: or pharmacist appeared in a white or a green paper.
46:48
Speaker 10: And I just don't really think we ever had the voice,
46:51
Speaker 10: or maybe we have now, but I don't listen to it.
46:53
Speaker 10: And I'm sorry, but I've just become quite disenfranchised with
46:56
Speaker 10: the sort of internal political fighting about who owns the farm,
47:00
Speaker 10: say label, And I'm sorry to say that, but so
47:04
Speaker 10: I've not stood for office, I've not got involved. I've
47:07
Speaker 10: just worked much more from a point of view of
47:09
Speaker 10: putting the person and the patient before the pharmacy and
47:12
Speaker 10: the pharmacist. And that's what I'll continue to do in
47:15
Speaker 10: my own small way, whether it's through Illuminate, whether it's
47:18
Speaker 10: through the consulting work we do primarily now with life
47:20
Speaker 10: science companies. I've reached out to a few pharmacy chains,
47:24
Speaker 10: but to be honest, pharmacy in this country, and I
47:26
Speaker 10: believe in yours, is really struggling to have any money
47:29
Speaker 10: to do sort of innovative work. And back to the
47:32
Speaker 10: bean counting. You know, sadly money talks, and we can
47:35
Speaker 10: talk about innovation and person centered care, but ultimately you
47:39
Speaker 10: need to keep the lights and the wheels on, and
47:41
Speaker 10: that's often defaulting to the quantity not the quality service.
47:46
Speaker 3: So in the United States, Mark probably know this, but
47:49
Speaker 3: there are only a few states throughout the United States
47:53
Speaker 3: that view pharmacists as providers and that they're going to
48:00
Speaker 3: be compensated in or paid by some of our government
48:03
Speaker 3: systems and some of our reimbursement structures like Medicare they
48:07
Speaker 3: call it Medicare Part D for example. And as a
48:13
Speaker 3: so in the United States, it's only our physician that
48:16
Speaker 3: from a universal perspective, at least from the national perspective,
48:20
Speaker 3: that they're considered a quote unquote provider of healthcare and
48:24
Speaker 3: they are paid as such as providers. And I think
48:28
Speaker 3: that the turf war is number one is stupid because
48:31
Speaker 3: it's not patient focused. But I think the recognition of
48:37
Speaker 3: pharmacists as providers, it's not about the politics of it,
48:42
Speaker 3: at least from my perspective. It's it's more about let's
48:45
Speaker 3: get out of the way of the expert so that
48:48
Speaker 3: they that the nerdy, the nerdy pharmacist that wants to
48:51
Speaker 3: get crazy into the pharmacological for specific disease states, they
48:55
Speaker 3: can really take the time to dial in to the study,
48:59
Speaker 3: into the follow up under the pharmacogenomics, into the you know,
49:02
Speaker 3: all of this data that's available to really dial in.
49:05
Speaker 3: So in the UK, are pharmacists viewed as the same
49:11
Speaker 3: level as your as your GPS.
49:14
Speaker 10: Yeah, we're definitely providers and again you know we have
49:16
Speaker 10: we have really the sort of four areas. We have
49:18
Speaker 10: community pharmacy or retail as you call it in some cases,
49:21
Speaker 10: we have hospital pharmacy who are really up there in
49:24
Speaker 10: terms of clinical pharmacy, implementing solutions, looking at prevention of
49:30
Speaker 10: side effects, reducing polypharmacy, all that sort of stuff. And
49:33
Speaker 10: really I think carry the clinical flag probably a little
49:36
Speaker 10: bit more than our community colleagues. And again I'm not
49:38
Speaker 10: painting everybody. There's community colleagues who are amazing and really
49:42
Speaker 10: get their clinical stuff and intervene. Likewise, I'm sure you
49:45
Speaker 10: know there's hospital colleagues who prefer to do the dispensing bit,
49:48
Speaker 10: et cetera, et cetera, and the production side. But we
49:51
Speaker 10: also have academic pharmacies in the teaching bit, and we
49:53
Speaker 10: have industrial you know, people pharmacy and the industrial side.
49:56
Speaker 10: And then there's lunatics like me that have done none
49:58
Speaker 10: of the four, played with two or three of the four,
50:00
Speaker 10: and then gone often done something completely different. But yeah,
50:04
Speaker 10: we're very much providers. And back to that medicine experience.
50:08
Speaker 10: The thing I hear most sadly, really sadly, because hospital
50:13
Speaker 10: pharmacy here, they're brilliant, they're fantastic educated. Air you die
50:18
Speaker 10: often very communicative individuals. But what I often hear patients
50:22
Speaker 10: saying is, oh, how to wait ages for my discharge medication?
50:26
Speaker 10: And I think to myself, guys, I don't know what
50:28
Speaker 10: the processes are in hospitals.
50:30
Speaker 8: I don't know, but do me a favor.
50:32
Speaker 6: Just get that sorted.
50:33
Speaker 10: You know, that is back to licking, picking, sticking, and
50:36
Speaker 10: forgive me if they need to do lots of checks
50:38
Speaker 10: and there's not sufficient capacity to do that. And I
50:40
Speaker 10: no longer understand the clinical processes and the governance and
50:43
Speaker 10: the safety issues involved. But it's horrible to be out
50:47
Speaker 10: socially and people say, oh, you're pormously. It's the people
50:50
Speaker 10: that keep you waiting. It doesn't add to our professional image.
50:54
Speaker 10: You know that the supply side should be the basics.
50:58
Speaker 10: Just get it right and give us time and money
51:00
Speaker 10: and support to do the service type of stuff, because
51:04
Speaker 10: that's where we really add value. I mean, I think
51:06
Speaker 10: in California, and this may be wrong, but I think
51:09
Speaker 10: there's ATMs and maybe in other states where you can
51:12
Speaker 10: get your medicines dispensed. We're not quite at that stage
51:15
Speaker 10: over here. But if we don't add a function and
51:19
Speaker 10: a service, then I think ultimately we could be commoditized
51:23
Speaker 10: out of business.
51:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, the the will call bins that sometimes there's one
51:30
Speaker 3: called it's a kiosk called something like Pharmacy twenty four
51:34
Speaker 3: or something like that. But you can bed this into
51:36
Speaker 3: the wall of your pharmacy building and then a patient
51:40
Speaker 3: could come up. They might get a text or they
51:43
Speaker 3: might get a QR code, and then they could scan
51:46
Speaker 3: it onto the you know this apparatus or the system.
51:50
Speaker 3: It would pull up the order they put in their
51:52
Speaker 3: credit card. That it kind of verifies some things that
51:54
Speaker 3: this is really this person or face recognition or I
51:57
Speaker 3: forget what the technology is. But that doesn't bother me
52:02
Speaker 3: of thinking there's pharmacists out there or pharmacy businesses out
52:06
Speaker 3: there that might say, oh, automation and artificial intelligence are
52:10
Speaker 3: going to take away the dispensing. And from my viewpoint
52:14
Speaker 3: my opinion watching pharmacy now for over twenty years, it's
52:18
Speaker 3: not really about the physical dispensing per se. Once the
52:21
Speaker 3: checks are done, once the safety is checked, once it's
52:25
Speaker 3: really about the impact of that specific medication on the individual,
52:29
Speaker 3: especially the long term. If it's just like a you know,
52:33
Speaker 3: there's patients out there who will take a medication an
52:35
Speaker 3: antibiotic for a very short period of time and then
52:37
Speaker 3: that's it. They're not on medications, well great, they should
52:40
Speaker 3: be talking to their pharmacist about preventative things and start
52:44
Speaker 3: dialing into custom supplements or the way that you're living,
52:48
Speaker 3: or nitric oxide or whatever it is. But if you
52:52
Speaker 3: are on a regimen, a medication regimen, it shouldn't just be.
52:57
Speaker 4: A set it and forget it.
52:58
Speaker 3: It should be like, hey, let's check on this patient,
53:01
Speaker 3: I don't know, once a month in some cases, once
53:04
Speaker 3: a quarter in other cases, once a year maybe in
53:07
Speaker 3: some other cases, but really dialing deep into maybe doing
53:11
Speaker 3: a saliva check, or doing a blood check, or doing
53:14
Speaker 3: something that gives more data and more access to that
53:18
Speaker 3: clinical pharmacist, which I think every pharmacist is a clinical
53:22
Speaker 3: pharmacist where they're really getting super serious about the individual
53:27
Speaker 3: patient so that we stop this fast food madness of
53:31
Speaker 3: just collecting the fee and getting the next prescription. And
53:35
Speaker 3: that's that's the reason that the United States is in
53:37
Speaker 3: such a mess because we allowed our insurance organizations to
53:42
Speaker 3: dictate medicine instead of the position and the pharmacist dictating medicine.
53:47
Speaker 3: We allowed our we allowed our insurance people to take
53:50
Speaker 3: it hostage.
53:51
Speaker 6: I think it's three levels.
53:52
Speaker 10: For me, Todd, I think it's how can we whether
53:55
Speaker 10: we're in community or hospital pharmacy wherever it may be,
53:58
Speaker 10: or even in the industry. You know what I doing
54:00
Speaker 10: as a pharmacist in order to a help patients better
54:04
Speaker 10: self manage their medicine and their surrounding conditions. So how
54:07
Speaker 10: can I empower them to do more and be less
54:10
Speaker 10: reliant on the system. Secondly, can we help them to
54:13
Speaker 10: self care? Because even better if you know, there's an
54:15
Speaker 10: opportunity not to have to get on medicines, which then
54:18
Speaker 10: segues very nicely into prevention. You know, and if I
54:21
Speaker 10: would need to be on anti diabetes medication, if probably
54:24
Speaker 10: thirty years ago, i'd had a little bit more support
54:27
Speaker 10: around by health, psychology and emotional eating stuff. You know,
54:33
Speaker 10: that doesn't make certain pharmacitic companies happy, but you know
54:35
Speaker 10: it would make the providers happy, and it.
54:37
Speaker 6: Would make me happy.
54:39
Speaker 10: So I think we need to begin to especially with
54:42
Speaker 10: obesity and all these things, we need to begin to
54:44
Speaker 10: think about, you know, not a cure for every what
54:47
Speaker 10: is it a pill for every ill or a cure
54:49
Speaker 10: for every ale. I think we need to begin, Yes,
54:52
Speaker 10: we're paid that way, but how do we We used
54:54
Speaker 10: to have healthy living pharmacies here, which maybe still exist.
54:58
Speaker 10: But as I said, I'm not so much into the policy.
55:00
Speaker 10: It seems to have gone off the boil. And I
55:03
Speaker 10: do think there's something about come on, guys, let's get
55:05
Speaker 10: out there and do more. And again we need to
55:08
Speaker 10: think about how will that be funded. But I think
55:11
Speaker 10: there's some innovative programs out there and really to think,
55:14
Speaker 10: as I said earlier about let's think person, then patient
55:18
Speaker 10: and then made this in that order, not the other
55:20
Speaker 10: way around.
55:22
Speaker 4: I love it. Mark.
55:23
Speaker 3: I want to just let our listeners know that Mark
55:26
Speaker 3: is active, not as active as I am. I think
55:29
Speaker 3: I'm on probably three to four hours a day, but
55:33
Speaker 3: you're on LinkedIn. You're on this LinkedIn system. It's a
55:36
Speaker 3: really good use of getting a few points out. It's
55:39
Speaker 3: also really wonderful for networking with other people that are
55:42
Speaker 3: thinking your way of kind of bringing that patient into
55:46
Speaker 3: the focal point and in the center of everything. But
55:48
Speaker 3: if you're looking at the screen, if you're following us
55:51
Speaker 3: on YouTube or something, you'll see Mark is available on LinkedIn.
55:56
Speaker 3: I'll put his link, his LinkedIn link inside of our
55:58
Speaker 3: show notes. But you have to promise me Mark that
56:01
Speaker 3: you'll come back to twerks and we can dig into
56:03
Speaker 3: other things.
56:04
Speaker 4: Bring me something controversial. We love.
56:06
Speaker 3: We love controversy. It makes for better listening.
56:10
Speaker 6: Okay, I try to do my best.
56:13
Speaker 10: I think there's possibly something around the how do we
56:16
Speaker 10: change the system to be focused on medicine's taking not
56:19
Speaker 10: just medicine's dispensing.
56:21
Speaker 3: Absolutely, absolutely, Hey, thank you so much Mark for being
56:25
Speaker 3: on twerks. We we also want to say, once again,
56:28
Speaker 3: congratulations for making a list that was that your votes
56:32
Speaker 3: came from people that believe in you and think that
56:35
Speaker 3: you're making a difference and see you as an influencer.
56:38
Speaker 3: And like there's Spider in the Spider Man movie. Is
56:42
Speaker 3: Peter Parker's uncle said, with great power comes great responsibility.
56:46
Speaker 3: And I think with great influence comes great responsibility. So
56:51
Speaker 3: putting you on the spot to be responsible and continue
56:53
Speaker 3: doing what you're.
56:54
Speaker 10: Doing, I will try and thank thank you, Thank you
56:57
Speaker 10: for the ego boost and or maybe not so much
57:00
Speaker 10: comfort eating tonight, so thank you for that.
57:03
Speaker 11: Yeah, hey, we'll be right back with more tws.
57:22
Speaker 1: This episode is sponsored by Independent Pharmacy Cooperative widely known
57:26
Speaker 1: as IPC, established in nineteen eighty three. IPC is the
57:29
Speaker 1: nation's largest group purchasing organization owned by independent pharmacy with
57:34
Speaker 1: a mission of maximizing the success of community pharmacists. IPC
57:38
Speaker 1: works to provide members with access to effective programs and
57:41
Speaker 1: services designed to enhance profitability for independent pharmacy.
57:46
Speaker 5: Read more about our mission.
57:47
Speaker 1: By checking out our website at ipcrx dot com. That's
57:51
Speaker 1: ipcarx dot com.
58:17
Speaker 3: A special friend of mine on twerks, fellow pharmacy industry Maven,
58:23
Speaker 3: and now, unfortunately Laura, I have to also put the
58:28
Speaker 3: term veteran one of the veterans of pharmacy in a
58:33
Speaker 3: fellow Pittsburgh doctor Laura Mark. Welcome to Turks.
58:36
Speaker 2: Thank you, and thank you for having me.
58:38
Speaker 8: Yeah nice.
58:41
Speaker 3: Just for some background, well, doctor Laura Mark from Decane
58:46
Speaker 3: University grew up in Butler County just like me, and
58:50
Speaker 3: our mothers were like best friends through high school and
58:55
Speaker 3: my mom or your mom or both of our moms
58:59
Speaker 3: were in each other's weddings or wedding something like that.
59:02
Speaker 3: So it's just a small, small world. But that's another reason.
59:07
Speaker 3: I mean, there's a reason you're here, and that's great,
59:09
Speaker 3: but another reason on top of you being here is
59:13
Speaker 3: is to be able to see there's some legacy here
59:16
Speaker 3: and how I've watched you and your career in pharmacy
59:19
Speaker 3: grow and it's just cool.
59:21
Speaker 4: So welcome, Thank you.
59:24
Speaker 2: It's been nice to see us growing together too as well,
59:27
Speaker 2: and all the great work you're doing and promoting pharmacy.
59:30
Speaker 2: So really appreciate that time.
59:32
Speaker 4: Absolutely absolutely so.
59:34
Speaker 3: You are the vice president of basically the entire pharmacy
59:39
Speaker 3: operations that has anything to do with Alleghany Health Network
59:43
Speaker 3: in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, one of our largest health systems in
59:47
Speaker 3: the entire area, and it's growing and it's growing. And
59:50
Speaker 3: the reason why I'm so excited to feature you today
59:53
Speaker 3: is HN is opening a new pharmaceutical distribution center in
59:58
Speaker 3: Jackson Township, which is Zilly and Opal, which is literally
1:00:01
Speaker 3: where I grew up Seneca Valley School District and I
1:00:05
Speaker 3: have friends and so many memories of Zilly. To think
1:00:10
Speaker 3: that this technology and this opportunity is coming to that
1:00:13
Speaker 3: sector of Butler County, it's an exciting announcement.
1:00:17
Speaker 12: It is very nice.
1:00:18
Speaker 2: So, yes, we have a twenty thousand square foot pharmacy
1:00:23
Speaker 2: that has opened, and we have multiple functions in this
1:00:26
Speaker 2: area at this location, so we have our central phil
1:00:31
Speaker 2: pharmacy and our central distribution center too as well. We
1:00:35
Speaker 2: house our central prior off team and our refilled team here,
1:00:39
Speaker 2: our medicine program MEDA, Adherents and packaging, our call center
1:00:44
Speaker 2: for specialty and retail pharmacies, and then also our specialty team,
1:00:48
Speaker 2: so a lot of things that are happening here. We
1:00:51
Speaker 2: also have our central distribution team which really supports our
1:00:55
Speaker 2: inpatient pharmacies and what we're trying to do around struct
1:00:58
Speaker 2: shortage of mitigation and anything from a centralization so five
1:01:03
Speaker 2: H three B purchasing, RFID tagging. We also do some
1:01:09
Speaker 2: things that we're going to do for our inblatory surgery
1:01:11
Speaker 2: centers and really exchanging some of their work hards and
1:01:15
Speaker 2: tray exchange. So there's a lot of things happening here
1:01:19
Speaker 2: in Zillion Noble.
1:01:20
Speaker 8: When we're very.
1:01:21
Speaker 3: Excited about it, there's just basically we're all humans and
1:01:26
Speaker 3: things are so different were we just have different tastes
1:01:30
Speaker 3: and life things. So there's some of us like myself
1:01:33
Speaker 3: and obviously you, that I wanted to stay in relatively
1:01:38
Speaker 3: in the same area because I liked it even though
1:01:41
Speaker 3: our weather's crappy and where our springs are getting too
1:01:44
Speaker 3: long and it's just gray outside. Although it's warm today,
1:01:48
Speaker 3: it's so it's it's nice. But some people want to
1:01:52
Speaker 3: stay home, right, some people want to grow up and
1:01:56
Speaker 3: just like, hey, I like calm, I'm gonna stay here.
1:01:58
Speaker 3: That's the exciting part for me to hear that someone is,
1:02:03
Speaker 3: you know at Butler Butler School High School.
1:02:07
Speaker 4: There, they love stem there there.
1:02:11
Speaker 3: They'd like to go the technician route because they found
1:02:13
Speaker 3: out their friend was a pharmacy technician, or they want
1:02:16
Speaker 3: to go to the pharmacist route because they they've learned about,
1:02:19
Speaker 3: you know, the opportunity. Now there's an expansion of opportunity
1:02:23
Speaker 3: right in Butler County where it's involving what is happening
1:02:27
Speaker 3: in the future of pharmacy. What part of that is
1:02:30
Speaker 3: automation technology AI to talk to us about what opportunities
1:02:35
Speaker 3: you think that is. It's going to affect impact the
1:02:38
Speaker 3: next five to twenty years in Butler County.
1:02:42
Speaker 2: So we're very excited about the automation that we have
1:02:45
Speaker 2: here and the technology, but there's still opportunities from a
1:02:51
Speaker 2: it's really taking our pharmacists and our technicians and letting
1:02:55
Speaker 2: them work at the top of their license or their
1:02:57
Speaker 2: top of their practice too as well. So that technology
1:03:01
Speaker 2: that we have in place really does help to support
1:03:04
Speaker 2: that and the piece that we really like. So we're
1:03:08
Speaker 2: using some even with our central priorit team and our
1:03:11
Speaker 2: refill team, some AI in our epic platform in our
1:03:15
Speaker 2: EHR and helping that and then with this technology that
1:03:19
Speaker 2: you're showing right now, this really helps us. You know,
1:03:24
Speaker 2: instead of technicians counting by five, they can really be
1:03:28
Speaker 2: or ten whatever they can be focusing on filling prescriptions
1:03:35
Speaker 2: for patients getting them out the door. This has really
1:03:39
Speaker 2: helped us to support our hospitals. One of the things
1:03:46
Speaker 2: that we had and the reason why we built this
1:03:48
Speaker 2: is because we were at capacity at our retail sites, at
1:03:50
Speaker 2: our locations, at our hospital based retail pharmacies. This has
1:03:57
Speaker 2: helped and allowed our pharmacists on site in our technicians
1:04:00
Speaker 2: to really focus on meds to beds program and discharge prescriptions,
1:04:05
Speaker 2: discharged counseling to patients, our med history program, so instead
1:04:10
Speaker 2: of focusing on the fulfillment where our robotics could actually
1:04:14
Speaker 2: do that. As you illustrated, this really does help for
1:04:19
Speaker 2: again our professionals to work at the top of their
1:04:22
Speaker 2: license and their practice we're meeting and calling for patients
1:04:26
Speaker 2: on a regular basis. They're a center field dis coordinating
1:04:29
Speaker 2: all of their prescriptions, answering any questions that they might
1:04:33
Speaker 2: have versus just that technical.
1:04:36
Speaker 3: Piece, Lara, is this extending medication management post hospital stay
1:04:45
Speaker 3: and now assuring an adherence situation. Are you baton handing
1:04:51
Speaker 3: this off to a community kind of environment or are
1:04:55
Speaker 3: you able to keep your patient tied in and how
1:04:59
Speaker 3: does that work from from an extension of care.
1:05:02
Speaker 2: Well, that's what we're really excited about is that by
1:05:04
Speaker 2: this capacity, even from our meds to beds program, sometimes
1:05:08
Speaker 2: it was a feel the prescription and go home, and
1:05:12
Speaker 2: then we didn't fill those prescriptions subsequent for those patients.
1:05:19
Speaker 2: But we'll be really able to keep those patients and
1:05:22
Speaker 2: be able to help them. We're really excited about our
1:05:25
Speaker 2: med Adherence packaging and our MEDSINC program that if we
1:05:29
Speaker 2: identify patients that have trouble with medication adherence, we can
1:05:33
Speaker 2: enroll them in that program so they can have those
1:05:37
Speaker 2: prepackaged for them and then they can get them on
1:05:40
Speaker 2: a regular basis. So I think we probably have about
1:05:42
Speaker 2: four thousand patients already in our med SINC program and
1:05:46
Speaker 2: they're very excited about that because it's sort of automatic
1:05:49
Speaker 2: for them, unless they have a question, they'll get those medications,
1:05:54
Speaker 2: and again it makes it easier for them.
1:05:57
Speaker 4: That's cool, very good.
1:05:59
Speaker 3: Well, so I know that one part of your position
1:06:05
Speaker 3: in thinking is always like, Okay, what's next to stay
1:06:08
Speaker 3: ahead of something, to stay ahead of the needs of community,
1:06:12
Speaker 3: or stay ahead of the needs of what the hospital
1:06:14
Speaker 3: system and the pressures that probably come down on pharmacy
1:06:17
Speaker 3: a lot of times. But is there anything that you're
1:06:20
Speaker 3: looking to the future to expand on that you kind
1:06:22
Speaker 3: of already proven. As a matter of fact, the facility
1:06:25
Speaker 3: in Butler County right now, it's up, that's running, it's
1:06:28
Speaker 3: doing what it's doing. What's that taught you about expansion
1:06:32
Speaker 3: and the ability to grow.
1:06:36
Speaker 2: We're very excited about this facility here because if you
1:06:40
Speaker 2: show the space, it's very open, so there's no walls.
1:06:42
Speaker 2: And that was one of the lessons that we learned
1:06:45
Speaker 2: from other places who have similar facilities, is don't build
1:06:50
Speaker 2: walls because everybody ends up taking down walls. So there's
1:06:54
Speaker 2: really the opportunity to expand from a fulfillment. This also
1:06:58
Speaker 2: supports we have to pharmacist lead clinics where if our
1:07:06
Speaker 2: patients or providers need help from the more high touch
1:07:10
Speaker 2: for pharmacists, they can refer them into that clinic and
1:07:14
Speaker 2: that clinic has a higher touch appointments with with our pharmacists,
1:07:22
Speaker 2: and then we also fulfill those prescriptions too. And what
1:07:25
Speaker 2: we really like again about that is that it really
1:07:28
Speaker 2: helps that ohll complete circle of transitions of care, coordinating
1:07:34
Speaker 2: it that patient's medications throughout not just their acute stay,
1:07:38
Speaker 2: but also from an outpatient perspective.
1:07:41
Speaker 3: To well, I just want to say congratulations. I know
1:07:46
Speaker 3: how much work that you've put into this. This is
1:07:50
Speaker 3: this is a whole new chapter, but I mean you've
1:07:53
Speaker 3: brought together this is the original story that I'd love
1:07:56
Speaker 3: to I'd love for you to come back and tell
1:07:58
Speaker 3: us again, but to bearing together. I forget how many
1:08:03
Speaker 3: over a dozen I think, so many different hospital systems
1:08:06
Speaker 3: that you helped to kind of merge together when hen
1:08:09
Speaker 3: was doing what they were doing, and how costs and
1:08:13
Speaker 3: containment and expansion and continuing education and support and connection
1:08:19
Speaker 3: to EHR and like, oh my gosh, Laura, like you know,
1:08:22
Speaker 3: bravo to what you've what you think over the years,
1:08:26
Speaker 3: and like I said, I've been documenting it based on podcasting.
1:08:30
Speaker 2: But we have a great team and so I'm very
1:08:32
Speaker 2: fortunate to work them on a great team of pharmacists, technicians, leaders,
1:08:38
Speaker 2: and then really also a support team from our leaders.
1:08:41
Speaker 4: So I really appreciate that absolutely.
1:08:44
Speaker 3: All Right, Well, we have to have you back, maybe
1:08:46
Speaker 3: coming down to the studio sometime and bring your crew
1:08:49
Speaker 3: back and it'll be fun. But thank you so much
1:08:52
Speaker 3: for being on twerks today, Laura.
1:08:55
Speaker 12: All right, thank you again. All right by seeing you.
1:09:15
Speaker 4: Hey there, welcome back to the works.
1:09:18
Speaker 3: I have a special guest from the great state of Pennsylvania,
1:09:22
Speaker 3: my state of Pennsylvania, Eric Pucy.
1:09:25
Speaker 4: Eric, I haven't talked to you in sometime. It's so
1:09:27
Speaker 4: good to see.
1:09:28
Speaker 8: You same here. Really appreciate you giving me a call.
1:09:31
Speaker 3: Absolutely. So big news came out this week in pharmacy.
1:09:36
Speaker 3: I'm reading from the Spotlight Pennsylvania dot org once once
1:09:40
Speaker 3: again that Spotlight PA dot org and the headline says
1:09:44
Speaker 3: drug plan middleman face new oversight push as Pennsylvania pharmacies close.
1:09:50
Speaker 3: And this article kind of digs into some of the
1:09:54
Speaker 3: things that are happening within Pennsylvania and the PBM reform
1:09:59
Speaker 3: bill that is also mentioned and you were quoted in
1:10:01
Speaker 3: this article, so I wanted to reach out to you
1:10:03
Speaker 3: and get an update from you. What's happening in the
1:10:06
Speaker 3: state of Pennsylvania right now in regards to PBM reform.
1:10:11
Speaker 13: Well, we were very active in getting a something that's
1:10:14
Speaker 13: called Act seventy seven in state of Pennsylvania finally put
1:10:18
Speaker 13: into place essentially a year year and a half ago,
1:10:23
Speaker 13: and many of the reforms actually did not become active
1:10:27
Speaker 13: until January first of this year in twenty twenty six. However,
1:10:32
Speaker 13: the way the law was written, it.
1:10:38
Speaker 6: It was being.
1:10:38
Speaker 13: Taken care of, or it was being the enforcement of
1:10:43
Speaker 13: it was left to the insurance Department, and the insurance
1:10:49
Speaker 13: Department first of all, determined that they did not have
1:10:52
Speaker 13: jurisdiction for approximately seventy to eighty percent of the insurance
1:10:58
Speaker 13: plans that were not physically located in the state of Pennsylvania.
1:11:03
Speaker 8: Well, that only left about twenty.
1:11:05
Speaker 13: To twenty five percent of the plans that they had
1:11:09
Speaker 13: any enforcement capability of. And by enforcement, they obviously that
1:11:14
Speaker 13: was very limited in what they can do as well.
1:11:17
Speaker 13: So they are in the process of trying to do
1:11:21
Speaker 13: some of the studies. They're doing some long term studies
1:11:24
Speaker 13: on pricing. They're doing on many transparency issues that.
1:11:28
Speaker 8: They're following up on.
1:11:30
Speaker 13: However, we need to have some teeth to that law,
1:11:35
Speaker 13: and the only way that we can basically get that
1:11:38
Speaker 13: is by having the Attorney General of the state have
1:11:43
Speaker 13: that enforcement capability and have the ability to enforce what
1:11:49
Speaker 13: is on the books, and to add some other stipulations
1:11:53
Speaker 13: that will make it a little bit more difficult. One
1:11:55
Speaker 13: of the major there's a couple different components of the
1:11:59
Speaker 13: new version or the updated version. The primary is the
1:12:02
Speaker 13: primary part is to really get that enforcement capability, having
1:12:08
Speaker 13: somebody that can actually not only just make.
1:12:10
Speaker 8: A suggestion, but actually do something about it.
1:12:15
Speaker 3: So we also heard last week that the state of
1:12:18
Speaker 3: Tennessee is pushing that PBM should not be able to
1:12:22
Speaker 3: own pharmacies. It doesn't make any sense. You can't be
1:12:25
Speaker 3: the insurance provider and then choose your own pharmacies and
1:12:30
Speaker 3: then lock everybody else out based on reimbursement, based on
1:12:34
Speaker 3: pricing opportunities, based on steering patients to specific pharmacies. It's
1:12:41
Speaker 3: stark law. I don't understand why we've even gotten to
1:12:44
Speaker 3: this point. How can you allow an insurance company to
1:12:49
Speaker 3: be the there's no checks and balances.
1:12:52
Speaker 4: There's no auditing when you have that model.
1:12:55
Speaker 3: So do you think Act seventy seven do you think
1:12:58
Speaker 3: that this goes far enough?
1:13:01
Speaker 8: It doesn't at this point.
1:13:02
Speaker 13: And again, one of the goals of this new legislation,
1:13:06
Speaker 13: if we were able to get it up and running,
1:13:09
Speaker 13: is that it will it will add to the prohibition
1:13:13
Speaker 13: of having the large PBMs, and that would be primarily
1:13:18
Speaker 13: cvs not having the ability to own their stores in
1:13:23
Speaker 13: the same jurisdiction as the PBM. Other states have already
1:13:28
Speaker 13: initiated this. Arkansas would be one, Tennessee is the other.
1:13:33
Speaker 13: There's probably three, or actually there's more states than that
1:13:36
Speaker 13: that have actually either already enacted this stipulation.
1:13:41
Speaker 8: It's in the courts. It was immediately appealed. The litigation
1:13:45
Speaker 8: is going on.
1:13:48
Speaker 13: It will probably take some time, obviously before this finally
1:13:50
Speaker 13: gets adjudicated whether it will actually come into fruition. But
1:13:56
Speaker 13: other states have already approved it, so the legislation is there.
1:13:59
Speaker 13: So of this is to get Pennsylvania on board, get
1:14:03
Speaker 13: it on the books. They'll challenge it, of course they will,
1:14:06
Speaker 13: but the important thing is that it's there because again
1:14:09
Speaker 13: having the same PBM as you mentioned, having directing all
1:14:14
Speaker 13: of their a lot of their business to their own stores.
1:14:17
Speaker 13: It's not only a conflict of interest, but is that well,
1:14:21
Speaker 13: in my personal opinion, it is antitrust as well. That's
1:14:27
Speaker 13: another whole issue that of course has been adjudicated for
1:14:32
Speaker 13: the last twenty years. And again the PBMs have always
1:14:35
Speaker 13: won on that particular issue.
1:14:37
Speaker 8: But you know, that is an.
1:14:39
Speaker 13: Issue that it keeps on coming up, and that's one
1:14:42
Speaker 13: of the reasons why they're looking at PBM, looking at
1:14:45
Speaker 13: the models that they are and do they now have
1:14:48
Speaker 13: that monopoly too, and will they be able to go
1:14:53
Speaker 13: ahead and perhaps split it up in some way. Again,
1:14:57
Speaker 13: these are all things that are on the horiz but
1:15:01
Speaker 13: again they need to happen, and they need to happen fast.
1:15:05
Speaker 3: The access to pharmacy care throughout any state, not just Pennsylvania,
1:15:11
Speaker 3: would be completely opened up where you would say, hey, listen,
1:15:15
Speaker 3: it's okay to be an insurance provider. If you want
1:15:18
Speaker 3: to be a PBM, you know, do your PBM stuff.
1:15:22
Speaker 3: I think that there's auditing to be done in PBM
1:15:25
Speaker 3: reform that splits hairs and starts to get into the details. However,
1:15:31
Speaker 3: when it comes to operating pharmacies and being the same owner.
1:15:36
Speaker 3: You're this, you're the insurer, you're the PBM, your pharmacy
1:15:39
Speaker 3: benefit manager. You own pharmacies that limits your patient base
1:15:47
Speaker 3: to getting access.
1:15:48
Speaker 4: And when you have.
1:15:51
Speaker 3: Let's say twenty five pharmacies from downtown Pittsburgh, let's pretend
1:15:58
Speaker 3: and you start drawing a circle out and you get
1:16:01
Speaker 3: two miles out, and you get five miles out, you
1:16:04
Speaker 3: get ten miles out. I don't know how many pharmacies
1:16:07
Speaker 3: you would say was in that circle, but it's definitely
1:16:11
Speaker 3: less when you start going out into rural areas of
1:16:15
Speaker 3: the Great State of Pennsylvania, into the Poconos, or into
1:16:19
Speaker 3: parts of Lancaster County or something where the only pharmacy
1:16:24
Speaker 3: for miles and miles is an independently owned pharmacy that's
1:16:28
Speaker 3: set up, it has clients, that has patients that have
1:16:32
Speaker 3: an insurance that they can't even use properly, or it
1:16:35
Speaker 3: gets rejected or it's pushed to mail order, and they're
1:16:39
Speaker 3: not getting the hands on services that make quite a difference,
1:16:42
Speaker 3: especially in disease states that are chronic. So the ending
1:16:47
Speaker 3: of this article, it says that the proposal will try
1:16:51
Speaker 3: to address where the court cases involving PBMs taking place
1:16:55
Speaker 3: with the lawmakers saying that residents should not be forced
1:16:59
Speaker 3: to travel across the country to defend their access to
1:17:04
Speaker 3: essential medical care, and that their legislation would require PBMs
1:17:09
Speaker 3: to appear in the Pennsylvania courts for any cause of
1:17:14
Speaker 3: action arising from conduct within Pennsylvania, and that PBMs would
1:17:19
Speaker 3: be prohibited from directly owning a pharmacy license in the state.
1:17:25
Speaker 3: And then it goes on to say, critics of that
1:17:28
Speaker 3: type of relationship say it gives an unfair advantage to
1:17:32
Speaker 3: PBM affiliate pharmacies. I don't understand the wording. Whoever wrote
1:17:37
Speaker 3: this article, they obviously don't understand it. They use the
1:17:40
Speaker 3: word critics of this type of relationship. They don't understand.
1:17:45
Speaker 3: It shouldn't be a critic, it's a fact. So when
1:17:48
Speaker 3: you have an insurance company it owns the actual pharmacies,
1:17:53
Speaker 3: and they start building stipulations of what you can do
1:17:56
Speaker 3: either inside that network, what drugs you're getting, what flexibility
1:18:01
Speaker 3: is given to the physician, what flexibility is given to
1:18:04
Speaker 3: the treating pharmacist that's tracking the patient's care and treatment.
1:18:10
Speaker 3: So a shout out to this, you know, to this
1:18:13
Speaker 3: author of this article with with this matter of fact,
1:18:15
Speaker 3: I'd like to reach out to the mister Ed mc
1:18:20
Speaker 3: mayhon man at a man, I mean, longtime writer, awesome writer,
1:18:26
Speaker 3: but I just want to flag his writing and saying, listen,
1:18:29
Speaker 3: this is the There isn't there shouldn't be two sides
1:18:33
Speaker 3: of this. It's critics means there's two sides. Hey Eric,
1:18:38
Speaker 3: you're being a critic of this, or hey Todd, you're
1:18:40
Speaker 3: being a critic of this. And I'm like, dude, like
1:18:43
Speaker 3: you guys don't understand that isn't in anyone's best interest,
1:18:47
Speaker 3: no matter, no matter. The only best interest it's in
1:18:50
Speaker 3: is that stockholder of CVS Health, you know, in CVS
1:18:54
Speaker 3: Health PBM. It's it's not it's not even an invest
1:18:59
Speaker 3: efforts of of getting pharmacy care out. For example, you
1:19:03
Speaker 3: know rock on Walgreens, they're they're not owned by a PBM.
1:19:07
Speaker 3: So you know, Bilgier, try to survive or try to
1:19:11
Speaker 3: to thrive in whatever area you are, your business is
1:19:14
Speaker 3: being crushed by this PBM slash pharmacy ownership model.
1:19:21
Speaker 13: No, it's a situation that obviously, pharmacy deserts are a fact,
1:19:26
Speaker 13: they are reality. They do exist not only in Pennsylvania,
1:19:29
Speaker 13: of course, but throughout the country. And again, these laws
1:19:33
Speaker 13: are designed to give our patients more more flexibility and
1:19:38
Speaker 13: getting the services.
1:19:39
Speaker 8: That they need.
1:19:40
Speaker 13: We know that independent community pharmacy and some and some
1:19:45
Speaker 13: smaller chains they they're able to provide services that the.
1:19:50
Speaker 8: Big chains that are left when there's only a few.
1:19:53
Speaker 13: Of them, they cannot provide because of the volume of
1:19:58
Speaker 13: scripts that they're doing. They don't prove by the services
1:20:01
Speaker 13: that we are able to provide our patients. And that
1:20:04
Speaker 13: really is the bottom line, is that our patients deserve better.
1:20:10
Speaker 13: It's not based on just price. It's the convenience, it's
1:20:13
Speaker 13: the service, it's all of the auxiliary functions that our
1:20:19
Speaker 13: community pharmacies can provide to our patients.
1:20:22
Speaker 8: And that's really the bottom line. And that's what this
1:20:25
Speaker 8: whole thing is about.
1:20:26
Speaker 13: Trying to keep our doors open, trying to keep our
1:20:30
Speaker 13: pharmacies running so we can provide better, good human services.
1:20:37
Speaker 3: And having a model ERIC that's in place that encourages
1:20:40
Speaker 3: the new owners to have reason to open new pharmacies
1:20:45
Speaker 3: in places that we've seen a collapse in pharmacy care
1:20:49
Speaker 3: and that's throughout the entire.
1:20:50
Speaker 8: Country, no question about it.
1:20:52
Speaker 4: Build a re.
1:20:53
Speaker 3: Embursement model that puts everyone on a level playing field
1:20:58
Speaker 3: and gives an entrepreneur an opportunity to build a pharmacy
1:21:03
Speaker 3: care business in a community that you have to drive
1:21:07
Speaker 3: five miles, ten miles, twenty miles away, where it's not
1:21:10
Speaker 3: on a bus line, in order to back up more
1:21:14
Speaker 3: public health services, and that should be tied into reimbursement,
1:21:18
Speaker 3: that should be tied into state medicaids, that should be
1:21:21
Speaker 3: tied into encouraging that we do more pharmacy services. And
1:21:26
Speaker 3: we see that the macro economics of the current PBM
1:21:30
Speaker 3: model has crushed pharmacy care throughout the nation, there's no.
1:21:35
Speaker 13: Question, and those services, we need to be reimbursed for
1:21:38
Speaker 13: those services. And again, the state of Pennsylvania, it has
1:21:42
Speaker 13: enacted some of those payment models on the Medicare and
1:21:47
Speaker 13: that shoot me on the Medicaid side and on the
1:21:50
Speaker 13: managed MCO side, on the managed care side, and there
1:21:55
Speaker 13: is some availability of extra revenue coming in, but it's
1:21:58
Speaker 13: a long hard process to try to get that not
1:22:01
Speaker 13: only set up, but it implemented into our pharmacies. But
1:22:04
Speaker 13: that is a separate issue, the reimbursement models. When we
1:22:10
Speaker 13: go back to the original Act seventy seven, when I
1:22:13
Speaker 13: mentioned that the Insurance Committee Commission is working on studies.
1:22:17
Speaker 13: That is the main study that they're working on.
1:22:20
Speaker 8: It is now. I was able to get all.
1:22:23
Speaker 13: This information from a Foyer request from the department, from
1:22:29
Speaker 13: the Insurance Department, and the study is ongoing.
1:22:32
Speaker 8: There is action going on.
1:22:34
Speaker 13: They've had committee hearings, but the study is not going
1:22:38
Speaker 13: to be done until at the earliest summer of twenty
1:22:42
Speaker 13: twenty six.
1:22:43
Speaker 8: So this is a nine month.
1:22:45
Speaker 13: Study that's looking at whether it be NATE Act plus
1:22:48
Speaker 13: cost about plus a fee.
1:22:51
Speaker 8: Or whatever model.
1:22:53
Speaker 6: It has to be different.
1:22:54
Speaker 8: The model has to be changed.
1:22:56
Speaker 13: We can can no longer continue to be paid on
1:22:58
Speaker 13: AWP and aw KEY minus, which is a fictitious number
1:23:03
Speaker 13: to start. It's crushing, crushing the independent community pharmacies, it's
1:23:08
Speaker 13: crushing every pharmacy.
1:23:11
Speaker 3: Absolutely, Eric Pucy with better health pharmacy and wellness out
1:23:16
Speaker 3: of is it Offhant Elephant Olephant, like the like the actor, Oliphant, Oliphant, Eric.
1:23:25
Speaker 3: This has been great to have you on twerks. Hope
1:23:28
Speaker 3: to have you back soon. Thank you so much.
1:23:30
Speaker 8: You've bet anytime