Pharmacy Owner Feedback, March edition

By Matt Tompkins, Director of Marketing & Member Engagement

March 29, 2024

As a member owned cooperative, our members are our owners, and we take every opportunity to listen, learn, and share their concerns and solutions for the benefit of others.

What’s working?

What’s not working?

Where are they struggling and need assistance?

This month instead of visiting individual stores we attended some key meetings and conferences so we could meet with a variety of owners from all over the country. We met new store owners, seasoned multi-store owners, pharmacists looking to start their first store, and committed single store owners. Each owner offered valuable insights into the challenges they face and the opportunities they are creating.

Matt Tompkins and Ron Andus at Pharmacy Ownership Workshop in Dallas

In late February into March, we attended the NCPA Multi-Location Conference in sunny southwest Florida, a welcome break for many northerners. Also, at the end of February Scott Wittnebel and Carl Mizell attended the Michigan Pharmacists Association meeting. Ron Andus and I attended the Pharmacy Ownership Workshop in Dallas in mid-March, also put on by NCPA. The IPC executive team and board members flew into Washington DC to meet with members of congress to be a voice for independent community pharmacies.

What we heard from owners seems to boil down to three themes:

Optimizing your business has never been more important.
The time is right to stand up and be heard.
Even with the negativity throughout the industry, there is opportunity.

Let’s dive into the specifics.

Optimizing Your Pharmacy Business

Know your pharmacy’s financials.

The number one theme throughout the two days at the NCPA Pharmacy Ownership Workshop was how critical it is to your business to know and understand your financial statements to ensure you are making the right decisions for your business. A few months ago, we hosted a webinar with Owen BonDurant and Tim Clark of Independent Rx Consultants on some of the key metrics you should be paying attention to. During the pharmacy ownership workshop in Dallas Ollin Sykes and Bonnie Bond of Sykes & Company, PA, shared the importance of reviewing your financials once a month with your accountant. Taking that a step further during conversations I had that weekend with both owners and the accountants in the room the key takeaway for me was having an accountant who knows pharmacy! Whether your numbers are good or bad, going up or going down, you need someone who will ask you the right questions, the industry specific questions that will help you make the right decision. For example, if your gross profit is low, an accountant who understands pharmacy, and has helped hundreds of other owners, can guide you to recognize profitable revenue that makes sense for your store. An accountant who doesn’t understand pharmacy can only tell you what’s on paper and cannot provide any solutions or guidance. If you currently use a family member or the local CPA who doesn’t understand pharmacy, now is the time to explore your options. You need a pharmacy accounting expert on your side.

Do the fundamentals well.

Here at IPC we are helping stores become future-ready. We have cutting edge programs and solutions to offer, and we are assuming, that you are already doing the fundamentals well. As a buying group and secondary wholesaler, we impact our members fundamentals with competitive pricing and strategies to maximize your supply agreement, the number one cost for your business. For example, while visiting IPC members in Michigan who are feeling the cash crunch, Scott Wittnebel and Carl Mizell spent time helping owners understand their actual costs and how managing their supply agreement and when and where to leak will help save cash immediately and bring in more cash in the form of rebates. If you would like to learn how to optimize your cash, here is a link to our Purchasing Strategy blog. If you prefer it has simple form to request a personalized analysis.

Your operation, how you and your staff manage your business, needs to be optimized as well. The core system that successful pharmacy owners said was fundamental and “you must do” was having an effective, repeatable, and scalable med sync program. You’re probably saying to yourself that you have been hearing this for a decade…and it’s hard! Of course, both are true, and it works! It works to help improve adherence. It works to help optimize your staff. It works to make your pharmacy more efficient (more proactive, less reactive, and more predictable) and more profitable!

There are a number of resources out there that can support your med sync implementation and for our members we can support you as well. Just let us know that you are interested in getting it up and running and we’re here to help.

The time is right to stand up and be heard on PBM Reform.

At the Michigan Pharmacists Association meeting in February one consistent message we heard was that owners are seeing that there is more traction around PBM reform and now more than ever it is time to get involved and let your voice be heard.

There’s a groundswell now that people are seeing PBM reform in the dockets, people are seeing it in the news, and they’re really starting to understand that they need to use their voice and speak up and speak out.

Carl Mizell, Regional Director with IPC

In March IPC conducted our fly-in in Washington DC which was covered extensively in our blog post last week and you can read it here. I wanted to share a couple specific insights and actions you can take that our board members shared as independent pharmacy owners.

One, there is more awareness about the PBM issues, which means we are gaining traction, and the timing is right for us to collectively get involved and maintain or even accelerate the momentum.

I think legislators have gotten a lot more knowledgeable of the PBM issues. It seemed like almost everyone we spoke to was very knowledgeable and recognized it as a problem.

Chris Darling, IPC Board Chair, Darling’s Pharmacies, Warren, PA

Now that legislators are aware we need to act, and one simple way is to invite local, state, and federal legislators into the conversation and invite them to your store. They are looking for the photo op, they want to be seen in the community listening to their constituents. You get time to speak with your representatives who can make a difference when the time comes. It is also an opportunity for you to invite local media into your store and get some free press.

I think engaging with elected officials, not being intimidated to share what’s happening because we’re the experts in what’s going on in our pharmacies. They’re open to hearing it, they want to know what’s happening, and they want to know what’s happening to the patients in their communities.

Vicki Einhellig, IPC Board Vice Chair, Good Day Pharmacies, Loveland, CO

There is opportunity in pharmacy.

We can get sucked into the news that talks about pharmacies closing or we can look at it as the opportunity we have been waiting for.

If you have been wanting to expand, now may be the right time. Clearly define how you want to expand. Do you want to buy a store, buy files to add to an existing store, or open a new store in a pharmacy desert?

If there is one thing we know to be true about independent pharmacy owners, it is that they recognize that they are in this industry together to serve patients and are always willing to help each other. Reach out to an owner you know who has bought a store in the last year or two to ask questions and get the answers you need to know if expansion is right for you. We can help you make connections too. Call your Regional Director or our Pharmacy Services team to ask for an introduction.

Opportunity doesn’t always have to be adding more stores to your organization. It could be expanding products and services within your store. What services do your patients need that you can provide? What products pair well with the demographics that you serve?

This is one area where IPC is really leading the industry. Carl shared with me what the feedback was from MPA about his conversations around our new Digital Health and iCare+ initiative, “Our digital health platform I think is a game changer for a lot of members and that definitely got a lot of people’s attention in the booth. People were very interested in alternative revenue streams.”

Over the last year we have been presenting opportunities for you to add new products, expand services and do both profitably. Our members can leverage our vetted vendors in our Vendor Advantage Network and our Pharmacy Services and Business Consulting team to get the guidance you need to take that first step.

It was another informative month, meeting with pharmacy owners all across the country, members of congress, and key stakeholders. We will continue to stay on top of the industry, share our findings with you, and provide you with actionable next steps to make your patients and your pharmacy healthier.

We want to recognize some of our partners and vendors who supported the NCPA events in Florida and Dallas and the Michigan Pharmacists Association meeting in Detroit. Thank you for being active participants in helping independent pharmacies create sustainable businesses!