Big data is big business. For close to 70 years, businesses have been using data analytics to make better business decisions. By collecting data and analyzing it, they were able to look at what they had done and the effect it had on their business, then develop strategies using that knowledge. They were able to turn hindsight into insight.
Today, pharmacies are doing the same thing.
Data analytics can change the way you look at your business. With pharmacies, you can analyze the pharmacy data your PMS is already gathering and find all sorts of opportunities. Want to increase your profits? Hoping to improve patient adherence? You might find the key in your data.
Here are a few ways you can make business intelligence and pharmacy analytics work for you:
Improve Your Pharmacy’s Profitability by Finding Missing Refills
Missing refills is revenue lost. You can use pharmacy analytics to find which prescriptions in your system have missed their refill date. Once you have that list of prescriptions, sort it by profitability. While the margins on prescriptions aren’t as high as they once were, there are still quite a few out there that are highly profitable. Prioritize your patient calls around those. If you only have 15 minutes a week to call about missing refills, make sure they’re a very profitable 15 minutes.
Discover Which Drugs You’re Selling at a Loss
The average pharmacy fills around 200 prescriptions per day. In areas with higher populations, pharmacies can fill two to three times that many. And while you may know the costs of the most popular prescription drugs, it’s unrealistic to think you could remember the margin on every product you offer. That’s why we have data reporting.
Once you identify the drugs you’re selling at a loss, you have a few options at your disposal to try to turn that negative into a positive:
- Try to find an alternate manufacturer for that drug that will cost the pharmacy less
- Call the patient’s physician and see if there is an alternative to the drug that will either cost less or have better reimbursement
- Look at the difference between a 30-day fill and a 90-day fill to see if there is a difference in reimbursement
Improve Adherence by Focusing on Missing Patients
Patients stop coming to your pharmacy for different reasons. Sometimes, they take their prescriptions to a different pharmacy. Sometimes they forget to refill their prescriptions, particularly if it’s not a maintenance medication. Other times, they make the choice to stop refilling their prescriptions, which could lead to dangerous outcomes. If a regular patient hasn’t been by in a couple months, or if one of their prescriptions has gone unfilled, it might be good to give them a call.
While there are a number of reasons a patient could choose to stop taking their medications, the two most common reasons are cost and side effects. If cost is a factor, you might be able to work with your patient and find a cheaper alternative. If side effects are an issue, then you can possibly recommend a medication with more manageable side effects, or offer supplements and other over-the-counter treatments that can help.
Business intelligence and pharmacy analytics enable pharmacists to truly work smarter, not harder. Analyzing your pharmacy data reveals patterns that can help you increase your store’s profitability and improve your patients’ medication adherence. Trust us, it’s worth a second look.