Regional Chain Pharmacy
Impacts Adherence Scores
Learn how an independent pharmacist owner has taken patient care opportunities to the next level and created a relevant financial impact on his business.
Tommy Sharpe, CEO of Crowe’s Management, (top left) oversees U-Save-It and Buy-Rite drug stores in Alabama and Georgia. Buy-Rite has served the community since 1925, and Tommy’s family started U-Save-It Pharmacy in 1978. The Sharpe family manages the U-Save-it brand under Crowe’s Management, and it serves as a neutral accounting company.
Ashley Kunkle, PharmD, (top middle) joined as a co-owner of U-Save-It and serves as Chief Officer of Pharmacy Operations, Crowe’s Management.
Lori McLean, PharmD, (top right), also co-owner, serves as Manager of Pharmacy Operations, Crowe’s Management and Third Party Contract Specialist.
Their strategy has focused on improving patient care outreach, in coordination with health plan services. Together, Sharpe, Kunkle, and McLean share how they enable their associated stores to provide best in class service for their patients by utilizing EQUIPP through pharmacy operations implementation.
Building a Customer-base and Streamlining Adherence
For pharmacies operating in medically underserved communities, patient care begins with outreach and services. Ashley’s pharmacy made a conscious effort to help improve the health of their community. Her pharmacy team began taking blood pressure readings and then became one of the first stores in the area to administer immunizations. As health plans recognized that these services can impact patient health, their involvement in adherence-based programs increased. Ashley brought Lori in to create a strategy focused on reviewing all patients and maintaining their adherence for three measures for a specific health plan using EQUIPP.
Weekly outlier updates from EQUIPP allow Ashley and Lori to see who’s falling behind and allow for quick follow-up to the patient. They review what prescriptions need to be filled and which patients need to be counseled. That information is then sent to pharmacists in the store. The pharmacists are able to focus on those patients that week for outreach so they do not fall behind on getting their medications. Re-counseling may involve explaining the importance of taking their diabetes medication or their blood pressure medication.
“My advice, find a way to be organized with a process. EQUIPP really gives you the tools to do that. Look at EQUIPP’s resources and understand how you’re being reimbursed by each plan. Once you learn that information, you will appreciate the value PQS offers by making sure that a pharmacy can get reimbursement for everything they qualify for.”
“From an organizational standpoint, what we’ve realized is, when you embrace technology such as EQUIPP, it has helped us learn our patient base and helped us manage our inventory more effectively. EQUIPP has been an effective tool for our pharmacies to stay on top of where we need to be as a pharmacy, and it’s been very effective in improving the overall patient care that we’ve given as an organization.”
The Value EQUIPP Brings
“I think the value that EQUIPP brings, in some of these rating scores, is they can tie in measurable ways to practice pharmacy in a healthy way. That’s good for the patient! We want to use technology in an efficient way, but never lose sight of the reason why we want to be here, which is the art of practicing pharmacy.”
harpe emphasizes the value of our pharmacists to their organization. “We’re not going to be a good organization if we don’t have good pharmacists, and so we want to do everything we can from a corporate standpoint to empower our pharmacists to focus on our patients.”
“And if that means we can use organizations such as EQUIPP to help gather the right information to make good decisions and to build our patient’s trust by consistently applying our practice in a way that is best for the patient, we feel like that’s a good direction for pharmacy to go.”
He adds that making their pharmacists accessible to their patients, and providing access to the best information to make proper decisions, will lead to better healthcare outcomes. It improves the industry and makes the pharmacy profession one that is highly respected and highly valued.
Making the Best Use of EQUIPP
“Take the time to sit, read, and try to really understand how these plans are measuring you for adherence.” Lori McLean advises on making the best use of EQUIPP. “From a pharmacy standpoint, you want to focus on the plans that you have a lot of patients in related to your two to three biggest payers. We really focus on those patients to stay adherent.”
Ashley Kunkle recommends that pharmacists take the time to really dive into EQUIPP resources. “You can learn a lot about what plans will reimburse you for the services, many that your pharmacy is already doing, and if you can refine your process so that you make sure, you focus on the patients who may not be compliant, those who are left without their meds for those few days. These patients can really make the difference with these health plans.”
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