Pharmacy Solutions to Combat Modern Operational Challenges

As the world of healthcare grows more complex, so do the challenges associated with running a pharmacy. Rising costs, increased patient expectations, and red tape can all prevent owners from maintaining the success of their pharmacies — but luckily there are new solutions that pharmacy owners can take advantage of to ensure the health of the practices. 

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Modern challenges will require that pharmacy owners think outside of the box to combat these roadblocks and get creative to see meaningful results. 

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Let’s explore some of the common challenges independent pharmacies face today and how innovation can help pharmacy owners face them head-on.

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Understanding Patient Conditions and Reactions at Scale

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Chances are the profits you see per prescription have lowered over the years due to rising costs of business, changing fees from PBMs, increased wages, and many other external factors. This means pharmacies have to take on more and more patients to remain in the black. 

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That’s perfectly fine for big box retailers who simply dispense medications and move on — but independent pharmacy owners want to deliver a much more meaningful experience for their patients and communities. That’s hard to do as you scale up the number of patients you serve. How are pharmacists going to be able to communicate and monitor patients at the level they’d like?

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The Solution: Remote Vital Monitoring

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To serve more patients while still delivering an exceptional level of care, pharmacies can turn to digital monitoring and alerts to stay abreast of patients' conditions. Consider asking patients who need to be more closely monitored to share their wearable health technology’s vital measurements, such as those provided by Apple Watches. This ensures you can easily stay abreast of important information about how patients are doing and how their medications may be affecting their overall health. 

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You can also take advantage of new remote monitoring systems and technology like glucose monitors and inhalers for patients who may need dosage adjustments. When patients use these new systems that report back to their physicians and pharmacists, you all can make patient-centered decisions for care and medication management together. 

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Offsetting the Rising Costs of Running a Pharmacy

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The medications that patients need to stay healthy cost them, and your practice, more than ever before. Pharmacy owners often bear the brunt of these costs in order to keep their communities happy and healthy — but that doesn’t always translate to solid fiscal positions for their practices. 

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So, how can independent pharmacy owners secure their financial standing to keep their doors open, or even grow their practices?

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The Solution: Revenue Diversification

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Pharmacy owners no longer have to rely on dispensing as their only form of revenue. It’s the perfect time for pharmacists to explore new streams of income! Consider expanding your services like managed medication therapy, vaccinations, and point-of-care testing in order to bring in more cash for your practice.

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Beyond purely medical revenue streams, owners can also explore new ways to get people into their storefronts. Package lockers from the likes of Amazon and other attractive, convenient services, like parcel drop-off can get more folks into your locations — which can increase your patient base and OTC sales. 

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Combatting Long Wait Times and Data Entry Time Drains

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The success of your pharmacy is dependent on happy patients and happy staff. Long wait times in pharmacy and tons of valuable minutes wasted on data entry make for disgruntled employees and patients. Fortunately, technology can help easily combat both of these pain points. 

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The Solution: Online Checkout and Signature 

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Modern pharmacy solutions, like Nimble, take the heavy lifting off techs and eliminate long wait times through the power of 24/7, online payment and signatures. By completing checkout 100% online and remotely, patients will spend less time waiting in line and more time having genuine, health-focused conversations with your staff. Employees are also freed from the time-consuming, repetitive task of collecting payment and signatures in the pharmacy.

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In addition, your staff can also spend less time calling in reminders and order updates — Nimble can message patients on your behalf when it’s time to request refills, checkout, and pick up orders from your pharmacy.

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All the solutions we’ve covered today are aimed at giving you more time and more money so you can invest in the things that matter to the success of your pharmacy and ensure better health outcomes for your patients. 

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If you’re curious how Nimble can enable all that, and much more, get a demonstration with our team of experts, today.