Shrinking reimbursements.
Direct and indirect remuneration (DIR) fees.
Clawbacks.
Rising labor costs.
For independent pharmacies, there are a lot of forces putting downward pressure on profitability. As a pharmacy owner, perhaps more than ever before, you’re constantly battling forces out of your control.
How do you fight back?
The video below shows how four pharmacists are using pharmacy automation to keep more of their cash.
Click the 'play' button above to watch the video.
How does RxSafe improve a pharmacy’s bottom line? We can tell you all about it on our profit page, but just read a few of the comments below from your fellow pharmacists and pharmacy owners.
“I love the RxSafe 1800; I would recommend it to anyone who asked,” says Mark Mula, owner of Mula Pharmacy & Gifts in Texas. “It's allowed us to be a much more efficient, profitable pharmacy."
Saving labor with improved accuracy & speed
The RxSafe is a proven labor-saving system, which can speed up your filling process and make dispensing more accurate at the same time. That labor savings adds up to hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars per month.
“RxSafe has helped us to be a lot more accurate, a lot faster with our filling functions,” says Mula. “Our RxSafe has actually allowed us to free up a technician, focus on medication synchronization and forecasting of our medication needs. We've increased our business by over 60% over the past year and we haven't had to hire any additional staff.”
"There's virtually no way you're going to make a mistake... the accuracy is beyond anything that you could ask for," says Sheila Webb, pharmacy manager at Schultz & Wroten Pharmacy in Texas.
"Prior to buying the RxSafe we would have three technicians on at a time. Now, we can easily handle the same workload with one to two technicians," says Kevin Reddish, owner of Reddish Pharmacy in Idaho. "Another way that the RxSafe has impacted our business has been our workflow. We're able to turn prescriptions much quicker than we could in the past, with greater efficiency and accuracy."
Extra space means more room for profitable services
The typical pharmacy has its inventory spread across several low-density shelving units, plus room in between the shelves for employees to walk and search for drugs. By comparison, the RxSafe employs high-density storage towers that minimize the amount of space taken up by medications. The robot requires very little room to maneuver, and to retrieve and put away stock bottles.
“The RxSafe has really tightened up our work area and it allowed me to expand into other areas,” says Mula. “It's a less cluttered workflow, everything is centralized to one location; now we have a lot of extra shelving where we can put additional products and medical equipment.”
"We're located in a clinic with very small square footage so we only have about 900 square feet total,” says Reddish. “The RxSafe fit in just fine. For a small footprint pharmacy, one RxSafe tower was all that we needed and it’s done great."
"We've been able to free up space with the RxSafe 1800 in our pharmacy,” says Kevin Faust, owner of J&M Pharmacy in Alabama. “It's freed up areas that we use for bubble packing, compounding and convenience packaging that we do for our long-term care and assisted living facilities."
Eliminating diversion with biometric security
Narcotics security is a top priority for any pharmacy owner. The RxSafe’s locked cabinets and biometric access provide peace of mind, as well as saving owners potentially thousands of dollars in loss due to theft or diversion.
“RxSafe has absolutely helped us security-wise,” says Mula. “It's also helped us reduce our insurance rates. I met with our insurance agent and he wanted to know about automation in our pharmacy. When I mentioned we had the RxSafe he realized that would mean a reduction in our monthly rates.”
"Having the added security benefits of the RxSafe definitely makes me feel more comfortable,” says Reddish. “Having the extra layers of security that the RxSafe offers definitely makes me more comfortable as an owner."
"Prior to having the RxSafe, security really wasn't an issue for us,” says Faust. “But since then we know that our drugs are secure and we know that there hasn't been any diversion of drugs within the pharmacy itself."
Reducing inventory costs with better management
When it comes to running your pharmacy profitably, inventory is like large piles of cash sitting on your shelves. The question is: is that asset working for you… or against you? RxSafe helps answer this question, with real-time data you can use.
“To me, the biggest advantage of using the RxSafe is the inventory control,” Webb says. “It has been a tremendous help in lowering our cost of goods that we have in stock. We’re able to return merchandise including full bottles … that have not been touched and are not moving. The RxSafe report, which takes two seconds to print out, allows to us to send medications back and get credit in a timely manner, without having to walk the shelves, looking at each bottle.”
"The feature that I like the most about the RxSafe is that we have accurate on-hand inventory at all times,” says Faust. “We're able to more effectively manage our inventory since [purchasing] the RxSafe, because we know what we have on hand and what we have available and we have all the medications on hand at our fingertips. We can run a quick report and send back any expires before they expire or short-dated items that we can send back that are not going to sit there and collect dust."
“We're doing a lot of syncing, a lot of forecasting,” says Mula. “The RxSafe helps in those projects because it keeps our inventory low. We know at all times what our inventory is, and we know the expiration date. It works very well with our workflow. The very first time I ran our non-movement report, I sent back $32-$33k back to our wholesaler and received credit the next day. It's definitely allowed us to be more profitable. We do not have inventory sitting on our shelves for 30 days.”
“Before purchasing the RxSafe our inventory turns averaged about 12-14 turns per year,” says Reddish. “Since we installed the RxSafe we've jumped up to about 17-18 turns per year."
The profit equation
All of the above factors -- accuracy & speed, space savings, narcotics security, and inventory management -- combine to form a huge savings: we call it the profit equation.
In fact, using NCPA averages, we’ve calculated that the typical pharmacy can achieve a total first-year cash increase of $161,000 after purchasing the RxSafe 1800. Many of our customers have reported that the system pays for itself in as little as 12 months.
"I believe we did get a return on our investment within the first year, based on labor, accuracy and starting other programs,” says Faust. “All of these things combined really helped us get a return on our investment."
“It has really affected our profit margin because it has freed up our time and allowed us to work on and focus on projects and areas that are very profitable for our pharmacy,” says Mula.
Click here to watch the complete profit video.
To learn more, visit our profit page or call 877-797-2332 today to speak to an automation expert.
