Enhancing Rx Workflow: Maximizing Medsync Featuring Weston Humphreys, COO of Tyson Drugs
Cash flow is the name of the game right now in pharmacy and one of the best ways to improve cash flow and enhance pharmacy workflow is with MedSync!
In this episode of The Bottom Line Pharmacy Podcast, Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP and Bonnie Bond, CPA sit down with Weston Humphreys, COO and Marketing Manager with Tysons Drugs to go in-depth into getting the most out of Medsync, improving pharmacy workflow, and revenue opportunities in their pharmacy.
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If you prefer to read this content, the video transcript is below:
Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP®: Well welcome everybody to another episode of the Bottom Line Pharmacy Podcast with Weston Humphreys from Tyson Drugs who, Weston, I see you quite a bit out there. I’ve seen you in the NCPA Magazine recently, America’s Pharmacist. I don’t know if that was an older publication I was reading there or not, but anyway, I’ve seen you out there and you definitely help other pharmacy owners, you guys lead the industry in a lot of cutting edge different things. So excited to get you on the podcast today. So with that, welcome and why don’t you give us a little background for the listener of who you are and what you guys do.
Weston Humphreys: Yeah, I think that was actually issued recently. It was kind of featuring what we call the Flip the Pharmacy Sync team, me, myself, Chelsea Anderson and Tiffany Capps. So we’ve gotten to where we’re working really closely together with each other because of the experience that we have at our independent pharmacies, Tyson Drugs and Galloway Sands on Tiffany’s side. But Sync has obviously, I think it’s been a buzzword for quite a while. But now with this cashflow crunch that we’re in, people are finally ready to listen and ready to really dedicate themselves to give it a shot. So I think that’s kind of why, you know, our team as technicians are beginning to gain a little bit of traction, a little bit of popularity because, you know, I think Bob’s been talking about sync for, you know, 10, 15 years plus, you know, and he gets it. But it took, I think it took technicians like myself stepping up and talking directly to other technicians because we’re the ones who are behind the scenes, you know, know, making this stuff happen. So I think the owners are there because, you know, it’s our job to let them be the visionaries. But as the technician, the support staff, our role has really been putting the, putting the work to it and actually making it happen. So.
Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP®: Yeah.
Bonnie Bond, CPA: Yeah, it’s a no brainer. You got to do it.
Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP®: Yeah, it really is. I mean you got to sync. I mean the benefits are just there’s just a whole long list of benefits. Better inventory control better cash flow so on and so forth. What would you say, Weston is the kind of the low-hanging fruit to get started. I mean somebody listening in right now who’s maybe does a little bit of sync, you know, how can they maybe take that to a whole other level? And why would they want to take that to a whole other level? What is it doing there at the pharmacy for you guys?
Weston Humphreys: So I mean, cash flow is the name of the game right now, is it not? So and I like what you said, the low hanging fruit. I think that’s kind of like my ideology is like anything that I do, you know, call me taking shortcuts or whatever, but I’m always looking for like the biggest bang for my buck. You know, I’m quite a tightwad when it comes to cash too. So even in my personal life, you know, I think about the investment that I’m going to make in something, you know, long-term. And I think that’s kind of what we’ve got to think about, like with pharmacy right now. The biggest investment that we have is our inventory. And for years and years, you know, brand name drugs have, you know, account for more than likely 80 plus percent of the inventory dollars sitting on our shelves. So, if I was to say what’s going to make the biggest bang for your buck to dive headfirst into sync, you know where are you going to get the best investment or the return out of out of that investment And it’s going to be those brand name items. I mean we talk about all the time, like, if you really want to get the cash flow benefits, you know, that matter now out of your sync program, if you want to call it that, really focusing on those patients that are taking brand name drugs or just walking the shelves and seeing what brand name drugs are sitting on the shelf and how can you get those patients that are taking those drugs in a med sync model to where you don’t have to keep those drugs on the shelf, you know, 30 days out of the month. So, you know, we talk about kind of figuring out what are your, which drugs are your highest purchased drugs.So, like for us, for example, it was Eloquist. We do a ton of Eloquist at our pharmacy. So, what we did, you know, several years ago is when we really were trying to get our inventory down, we said, well, hey, we’re going to enroll every patient on Eloquist into med sync. And then we’re going to stop carrying Eloquist in the pharmacy. We’re not going to keep it on stock on hand. So what that created was this, you know, this virtual inventory where, you know, when we purchase a bottle of Eloquist, it never touches our shelf because as soon as we take it out of the drug seller, you know, the drug wholesaler tote, you know, we slap a label on it, it right back out the door. So that, that’s kind of, yeah, that’s the best bang for your buck. When we talk about like where to start with MedSync if you’re really trying to crunch and get that cashflow benefits out of it.
Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP®: And I know you mentioned in having that anchor drug, if you will, for a patient identifying what that is, the timing of when to sync them up and kind of everything else goes along with that. I found that pretty interesting kind of key point to consider when you’re doing MedSync there, looking to get started in it.
Weston Humphreys: Yeah. Yeah, and I mean, you I know you said we got like 30 minutes to talk on the podcast and we, that’s kind of like our timeline on the flip the pharmacy, the max my sync session we do each Wednesday. And I’m going tell you, we’ve got hours and hours and hours of different nuances and different situations and, you know, different ways to short fill or anchor a sync date. I mean, we just, I’m blown away honestly, that we’re like two years into this and we keep coming up with new content. But there really is, it’s not that someone can’t learn all the intricacies about sync and get it started today, but it does mean that there’s just endless opportunities to kind of learn how to get better at it.
Bonnie Bond, CPA: Yeah, there’s no reason not to.
Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP®: And when you’re syncing, it’s adjudicating the script you get it the next day. You know, you’re getting it from the wholesaler the next day. You’re filling it and then the patient is picking it up. Is that…
Weston Humphreys: Yeah, yeah. we were actually at our, we got invited to speak at our wholesaler trade show this past year. And of course, we got up on the stage and we said, you know, hey guys, why are we stocking these items on our shelves when our wholesalers are getting it to us by 9 am the next morning? You know, so let them carry your inventory. You don’t have to carry the full inventory. And, I know every one of our drug reps, our wholesaler reps, you know, had to pick their jaw up off the ground when we said that. I don’t know if they’re going to invite us back, but I mean, we just got up there and spoke the truth and the truth is you don’t have to carry this stuff on your shelf when you’re operating in a MedSync model. Yeah.
Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP®: Yeah, it’s the next day ordering. Are you layering technology onto that like a inventory management technology piece, whether that’s datarithm or any of the other pieces out there? I know there’s that kind of layer on top of that, help you maximize reorder points and things like that.
Weston Humphreys: So yeah, so that’s actually kind of where my specialties come in. think, you know, when Bob brought me on full time, I think, you know, I’m not an IT guy, but I know enough about IT and technology to be dangerous. And, when I came in, my, I guess I really wanted to take advantage of all the technology that we have access to. But actually what I found is that a good dispensing software can do all of this stuff. So no, we’re not using any third party service to help manage or lower our inventory. We’re only using the tools and features built into Our PMS. We’re big PioneerRx fans because they’ve got a great software. But there’s other great softwares out there like DataRithm if your software doesn’t provide the features and tools that you need. So I will say we reached out to, I think DataRithm and Inventory IQ. I don’t know if they’re the same company now or not, but they dug into our inventory, and I do think a store that’s got an excessive inventory has an opportunity to work with somebody like that to really jumpstart and really get some cash back in their bank account. But they looked into our inventory, and I think the response that we got was, hey, you guys have got this so tight. We’re not sure that we’re really going to make a huge impact here. So, for our stores, it just didn’t make sense. But for other stores that are really struggling to grasp it, I highly advise, like you know, checking into a third-party service like that. Because I mean, you know, talking about return on your investment, whatever that investment is, if you can get hundreds of thousands of dollars off your shelf, back into your operating budget, you know, that’s got to be worthwhile.
Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP®: Dollars in the bank versus on the shelf.
Weston Humphreys: Yeah. So.
Bonnie Bond, CPA: So, what else are you seeing out there, Weston? Other than that, that’s an obvious one. What are you guys doing to survive in this interesting, independent pharmacy climate these days?
Weston Humphreys: Diversifying has kind of been, you know, our focus over the past several years. I mean, y’all know Bob, he’s an innovative guy. He’s always on the cutting edge of, the new thing. And, you know, they always say, you know, if you’re gonna, if you’re gonna do something well, you can’t, you have to understand what your bandwidth is and not overwhelm yourself. And unfortunately, I think that, you know, Bob for, for Bob, that’s something that he just totally kicks to the curb and he’s, no, we’re going to do it all. You know, so yeah, everything that there is to offer out there that pharmacies are trying to do to bring in some extra revenue, we’re doing it. And I think the reason we’re able to do it is because Bob delegates well. He’s got a large management team, myself included, you know, so that we’re able to kind of delegate all these projects and figure out how to get them all done and do them all well. You know, outside of Sync, I mean, Bob’s been really involved with CPESN for ever since its origination. They’ve got a lot of great, what they call special purpose efforts going on right now that are bringing in non-dispensing revenue dollars. So we’ve got our hands in just about every one that they offer. The billing LTC codes in the combo shop, utilizing a GPO like GeriMed or what’s the other one that a lot of guys up north use?
Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP®: MHA.
Weston Humphreys: Yeah, MHA, you those guys are great to work with. We’ve picked up a lot of extra revenue just on dispensing there. There is an increase to net profit per Rx on those claims. And Bob’s been doing that for a long, long time. We’ve just now within the last few years, like really started focusing on it and trying to enroll more patients into that program. So, I think we are benefiting from that.
Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP®: What about on the, are y’all doing any of the GLP-1s compounding 503B or anything around that?
Weston Humphreys: Oh man, I wish. Mississippi is the opposite of progressive when it comes to these kind of topics…
Bonnie Bond, CPA: Can’t do it.
Weston Humphreys: So right now we’ve been pretty handcuffed on trying to get that revenue. Now we did just open a direct pay primary care clinic downstairs at our pharmacy in Oxford. So we are funneling some GLP traffic through the clinic. just started doing that within the last month. So that’s been a great alternative, but unfortunately the pharmacy in Mississippi were not able to benefit from the compounded GLPs at all. It’s really kind of frustrating.
Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP®: So, I didn’t realize Mississippi was on that list in addition to California.
Weston Humphreys: Yeah, the medical board actually approved it recently and told us, they’re really worried about the sourcing of these products because I there’s a bunch of bad guys in the game. But what it came down to is the medical board says, as long as it’s being sourced properly and it’s getting, then they’re cool with it. So I’m hoping that the pharmacy board releases some updates soon to give us more of an open window there because we really could use it. You would think Mississippi being, it’s got to be the poorest health literate state in the country, right? And the highest rate of diabetes and we have this great product out there, you know, the GLPs and we just have all these restraints, you know, to where patients can’t get access to it. It’s really frustrating.
Bonnie Bond, CPA: Yeah. Hopefully they’ll make some changes with it. Yeah. There’s a lot of benefit there that could help with people of your state for sure.
Weston Humphreys: Yeah, I hope so.
Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP®: Yeah, they got to.
Weston Humphreys: Yeah, I mean, the cash that comes with it, that’s why it’s so frustrating to me because we’re trying to beat this whole PBM model, and the cash market is just growing and growing. And we have this really viable option right here that our state is just not allowing us to have access to. So, it’s frustrating.
Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP®: What other cash base things y’all doing Weston? You got you got the practitioner there in Oxford. Tell us a little bit about that.
Weston Humphreys: Yeah, we hired a nurse practitioner this year. It’s been fun. Obviously I’ve worked in the pharmacy since I was 16. I’m 28 now. So all I know is pharmacy and this has been my first time getting in the medical realm, but I’ve had the opportunity to kind of work alongside our nurse practitioner and kind of help it get jump started. We’re really trying to work on our marketing efforts, but it’s really hard to make someone understand why they should pay out of pocket for medical care when they have insurance. It’s been really tough to make the public understand exactly what we’re doing. But if we can just get people in the door, it’s super easy to make the sale. I mean, people totally understand that, you know, that all the benefits that we have right there are great. But I mean, we’re basically doing, you know, 70 bucks a month and our, it’s a membership model. So we’re a cash pay clinic, but 70 bucks a month. You have unlimited visits and 180 included generic prescription drugs provided by our pharmacies. So it is a separate business from the pharmacy, but we consider ourselves co-located providers. So it’s the pharmacy and the clinic working hand in hand to take care of patients as a whole. So it’s been really, really, it’s a neat model and it’s been really fun to kind of get it kicked off.
Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP®: That’s the big tree medical right
Weston Humphreys: Yeah, yeah. Powered by Big Tree Medical. We’re using a lot of their software and technology and resources. So they’ve been good to work with and really helpful to kind of get this jump started. But at end of the day, it just comes down to can you market it well and provide the good service? And so that’s kind of where we’re at right now.
Bonnie Bond, CPA: The concept is wonderful. I would love to have the opportunity to do that locally for myself and my family. You know, nine times out of ten, you know what your kid’s got. It’s going to be flu or strep or whatever. And to be able go to one place, handle it all, get your script and leave is huge. It would be for me.
Weston Humphreys: Yeah. that’s what we like, so Morgan, our nurse practitioner that we hired, she is absolutely awesome. When she came on board, you know, we had to kind of sell her on the idea as well, because she wasn’t used to this whole cash pay, direct access to a provider. So she’s, she has kind of learned along with us, but she’s obviously sold into it and seeing just how, how much better care we can take care of patients when we don’t have to fool with insurance. You know what I mean? I mean, we can have a patient text in and say, my child’s got an ear infection or something like that. Or a sinus infection is the number one we get. Just text in, hey, got a sinus crud. I got all the symptoms. I know what it is. Can you call me in a Z Pack? And Morgan can say, yeah, no problem. I’ll have it delivered out. So you saved yourself a copay and a visit to the provider just because you’re a member of our clinic. So that’s been kind of really neat. It’s a cool model.
Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP®: You know, these moms, they know their stuff.
Bonnie Bond, CPA: Yeah, they already know what we, what they got.
Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP®: I tell you what, my wife knows everything. You got this, you got that. I’m like, all right, she knows it.
Bonnie Bond, CPA: I know what prescription we need, I just need somebody to call it in and have a bell.
Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP®: Yep, you need this you need that you got that so i’m like, all right, whatever. so Yeah, cut right to it, you know, text the doctor get what you need be on your way
Bonnie Bond, CPA: Hahaha. You know, those are the small things. And I used to think, you we talked to some providers last year, you know, used to think that they’d be upset with it. had a friend that was a doctor and he was like, I don’t, I mean, not that they don’t care, but they don’t, they’re more interested in seeing children or whatever for more complex things. You know, the sniffles and the coughing and the strip and all that. I mean, you know, that’s, that’s.
Weston Humphreys: Yeah, and I think that’s one of the things we worried about is Bob as the pharmacy owner, you know, is he going to be stepping on the toes of these other local docs? The truth is they’re overwhelmed anyway, as it is. know, even the urgent cares are overwhelmed. So no, we didn’t step on any toes by opening a medical clinic.
Bonnie Bond, CPA: Yeah, they’ve got too much of that. Let them handle the big stuff that all of us can’t do.
Weston Humphreys: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, it’s I think we’ve had really great, great feedback in our community on having the clinic in house. So we’re just kind of really working on getting our patient count up right now. I wouldn’t consider that one the quickest ROI in pharmacy right now. But it’s definitely I think a promising revenue stream, you know, once we really get it to the patient load that we want.
Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP®: You got open enrollment coming up around the corner. It’ll be here before we know it. What are you guys doing little differently there this year, Weston?
Weston Humphreys: So yeah, I know the trend is that pharmacies and pharmacists are becoming insurance brokers and finally getting paid to provide part D consults to our patients and help patients get signed up.
Bonnie Bond, CPA: Man, we’re seeing that a lot.
Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP®: We are.
Weston Humphreys: We’ve been doing this for free for so many years and now we’re recognizing that it’s not that crazy to get your broker license and get paid for it. I can’t speak too intelligently about it. Chelsea, my coworker, she’s taking the lead on that project and she’s doing an awesome job. Five to be licensed brokers soon, including Bob. Including Bob, was a big one. Getting Bob to take the test. But no, we’re really proud of that. And I think I’m really hoping that that’s going to be a good source of non-dispensing revenue this next year or so. Yeah, I hear a lot of pharmacies are having success with it. So, you we weren’t the first ones to do it like some of these other guys, but I’m glad that we’re getting on board now. You know, better late than never.
Bonnie Bond, CPA: Yeah, I mean it’s like you said, I you’re already doing it anyway. Might as well get paid for it. The part that you’re doing, I mean it’s kind of a no-brainer.
Weston Humphreys: Right. Yeah, so we’re just now kind of getting all the licensings and everything taken care of, getting our trainings and credentialing. And this will be our first year to actually conduct that service as brokers. In years past, we’ve just conducted the service as Medicare experts, just providing free education. But this will be our first year in the broker realm. So, I’m kind of excited about that one.
Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP®: Another business model to layer on top of everything so…
Weston Humphreys: Yeah, yeah. mean, really, you know, Bob likes to say dispensing the prescription is what engages the patient. It’s what brings people in the door. But what we’ve really focused on over the last several years is what other services can we provide to these opportunities walking in our door to actually start to build the revenue and non -dispensing revenue that the PBMs can’t touch. So
Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP®: And take better care, you know, patient care along the way.
Weston Humphreys: Yeah, we had a meeting with our, a company -wide meeting with our team this morning. And something that I told them was, you your guys’ primary role is not to dispense prescriptions, you know, dispensing that prescription is what’s going to bring the patient in the door so that you can provide your primary role of connecting them with needs that they may have. And we’ve got all the resources now, or a lot of resources at least, that now we can begin to connect some needs, you know, some resources to those patient needs. We’ve got a clinical pharmacist, Austin, who’s conducting diabetes education. It’s billable to Medicare. And he’s also working with a physiatrist to do some other Medicare services this year. we’ve got a lot of opportunities within our Medicare population to start layering some revenue coming up soon too.
Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP®: That’s exciting there.
Weston Humphreys: So, it’s been a crunch this year, but we’re just really hoping that all of this is going to kind of come together in just the right amount of time and really kick off. So a lot of moving parts.
Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP®: Well, you definitely trending in the right direction by branching out and offering these different types of services, because that’s what it’s going to take. sure.
Weston Humphreys: Yeah, I think so. You know, I’ve had other pharmacy owners come and say, hey, what’s the quickest ROI that I can do this year to really get some cash in the account? it’s really tough because we’re doing all these cool, fun, new things. But at the end of the day, I have to say, don’t try that just yet. That’s going to take some investment. It’s going to take time. What you need to do to get the benefit right now is what you can control within the pharmacy. And that’s your cash flow, your inventory, your sync patients. So, I think that’s why sync has been such a hot topic for us this year. I mean we’ve talked to so many new pharmacies and obviously been at the trade shows and presented as well.
Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP®: What would you say is an ideal sync percentage for a pharmacy to get to?
Weston Humphreys: So, we had a talk on this one, trying to think what the title of that session was called…can’t remember, but anyway, it was basically saying like, what percent of your patient should be enrolled in Sync or processed through Sync to get the real benefits out of a Sync model. Because I think what happens is that people try to do Sync and your pharmacy owner is going to assign Susie the technician and say, hey, you’re going to manage the Sync program. And Susie may enroll 50 to 100 patients that she contacts month to month, and they think they’ve got a sync program. But to the owner, you know, he’s paying an extra technician to manage a hundred patients and it’s not making any difference to the pharmacy workflow. So, what we started to tell people is if you had to put a number to it, it’s got to be 50%. 50% of your volume has got to be run through the med sync model. It’s not because that’s the magic number, but the idea is that it’s your normal way of doing business. So, what pharmacies struggle with, I think, is that when you’re serving 5 ,000 patients a month and only 100 of them are being synced and managed through the sync model, those 100 patients are really a pain to the rest of the workflow because you’re doing them differently than the rest of your workflow. But proactive versus reactive is what we like to say. So, what we tell people is like, no, you need the majority of your patients to be running in that model.
Bonnie Bond, CPA: Yeah. That needs to be the norm.
Weston Humphreys: The majority of your business to be proactive, not reactive, then you’ll start getting the benefits. Then you can start making major changes to your workflow and make major shifts to your inventory, your cashflow, your patient care. I think another one of the things we say a lot is MedSync is the foundation of the appointment -based model. I think it sounds really nice, but what does that mean? Well, it just means that If you just change the way that you’re serving your patients and changing the way that the pharmacy operates, you can layer on so many new opportunities on top of that. Because in the reactive model, you’re not in control of anything. just changing, making that shift in your pharmacy workflow, the dispensing workflow, that’s where you start to get some opportunities to really start layering some services on. It’s all about time. I mean, you know, we have pharmacies all the time that say, don’t have the time to do MedSync. I don’t have the time to call patients every month. And I say, well, the patients that you’re saying you don’t have time to make an outbound call to are making inbound calls to you times 10 that you would be doing through MedSync. So, people don’t understand like, I’m going to have to hire extra staff. No, you don’t. When you start to enroll patients in MedSync,
Bonnie Bond, CPA: Yeah, exactly.
Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP®: Yeah.
Weston Humphreys: You start to get these efficiencies, and you get more efficient about taking care of individual patients, that all of a sudden you’ll feel like you’ve lost patients because you feel less busy and you’ve got more time on your hands. And that’s what we see. Every single pharmacy that we train that comes through Tyson Drugs and spends a day with us, every single one is the same exact scenario. They get to that mark, and they think they’re losing patients, when in reality they’re getting efficient. So, it’s really kind of cool to see.
Bonnie Bond, CPA: Yep. Got a little extra time. yeah.
Weston Humphreys: Yeah.
Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP®: You just nailed that on the head there Weston, I mean that was well said It’s a mindset. It’s a whole different mindset. It’s a whole different operation
Weston Humphreys: Yeah. Yeah. And the other thing we get is like, you know, we get a lot of questions on the webinar that we do each week and a lot of them, you know, people will say, well, how do you get your team to do this or how do you get your technician to do this well? I think there again, it’s MedSync is a great model, but it also comes down to running a good business, you know, running a clean mean machine. And, you know, if you don’t have great leadership and a great workflow, you know. Yeah, medsync’s gonna be hard. So.
Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP®: I love it. That was that was great. I got one pharmacy that they’re about million and a half revenue a month and their inventory at the end is like a hundred thousand dollars, $50,000. They are Med Synced to the T. You can imagine where the rest of that inventory is. It’s sitting in their bank account. So yeah, it’s, it’s,
Weston Humphreys: Yeah, right. Well, we, I mean, just in 2018, we had almost a million dollars of inventory between four locations. And, you know, we’re pretty high volume stores. Within the last, what’s it been, six years, we’ve actually gotten all of those same inventories, we’ve gotten them down almost at 250. So, yeah, so, and I’ve got a, you know, I got a pretty little chart that we like to show off and, you know, I think when people see that and they see that amount of money going back into an account, I think that’s when they’re kind sold on MedSync. I don’t know what a new automation robot costs. I know they’re expensive, but how many years have pharmacists gone to trade shows and been so quick to buy one of those machines and invest in that, but they don’t want to invest in something that’s free, MedSync, that’s going to make just the same, if not better, of a return, right? So, which I mean, don’t get me wrong, we love our Parata. But when it really comes down to investing your time and energy into something, you if you’re not doing MedSync, it doesn’t make sense to be doing anything else.
Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP®: So MedSync’s been around such a long time, thanks to Bob, kinda leading that charge long, long, long time ago. I thought most pharmacies were doing MedSync, but it sounds like they’re still not, so.
Bonnie Bond, CPA: There’s people that still aren’t
Weston Humphreys: I don’t know. I mean, we went to the trade show we go to, you know, we’ll kind of ask like, Hey, raise a hand if you’re doing MedSync, if you’ve got over a hundred patients, yada, yada. And I’m always surprised at how many pharmacies admit that I do have a MedSync. I am doing this. I’m trying. And I think, I think pharmacies are really just struggling on how to do it well.
Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP®: Yeah.
Weston Humphreys: And that, that’s where, you know, we’ve really been able to plug ourselves in, you know, me and the Sync team, if you will, to try to teach people the best practice. Where do you go to get best practices on MedSync? So, we really are, over the last two years, we’ve been able to create the best practices and share it on a free open-source platform.
Bonnie Bond, CPA: That’s awesome.
Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP®: So where do you get that if you’re listening in here, where do you get that information?
Weston Humphreys: Flipthepharmacy.com, we record every webinar. It’s open access. You don’t have to be a CPESN member or a Pioneer user to use it. But that’s what we are. Therefore, that’s a lot of the content that we provide and lot of the answers that we can answer, questions that we can answer.
Bonnie Bond, CPA: I love working with some of the startups that I do that the ones that are doing it right, went in, it’s easier obviously when you’re starting from scratch, but they just make it mandatory as much as they can. you know, so those are awesome. So, I mean, they start right from the ground up where everybody’s synced, you know, yep, gotta be.
Weston Humphreys: Mm -hmm. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the real, what you alluded to is exactly right. Like if you’re starting a brand new pharmacy, it makes sense just to enroll every patient in sync every time they transfer in. But I think that what’s been so difficult has been these pharmacies with, like I said, 5 ,000 patients a month that are not doing MedSync. And then they’re trying to like transition within the regular day -to -day business. And that’s what’s so hard. So yeah, yeah. And it takes time.
Bonnie Bond, CPA: Right. To change something. Yeah. Yeah, change is hard. It’s hard for people. Even good change. It’s like, why not?
Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP®: Well, it’s a completely different operation. So, it is hard. I mean, it’s a different mindset, a different, whole way of working. It’s just different all the way around. But the benefits are there. So it’s an investment. It is a commitment.
Bonnie Bond, CPA: And obviously it’s good for patients because it’s adherence. It’s improving patient care like we continually talk about. All of these things, yes, they’re beneficial financially to the pharmacy, but they’re also, the main thing is that they benefit the patient. So, it’s a win -win.
Weston Humphreys: Yeah. Yeah, and I’m glad you said adherence. I’ve run numbers and reports. I like all this data and stuff. I’ve done it for years. And the numbers that I’ve pulled out of our system, I show that we naturally improve patient adherence by like 10 to 15 % just by enrolling them in MedSync. So not doing anything any different, just managing their meds for them, they get more adherent. And you talk about one of the new revenue opportunities we’ve had, our state Medicaid program is actually paying us for certain patients, not all, but certain Medicaid patients, they’re paying us to provide services like MedSync, adherence packaging, and delivery. We’re getting like $45 per service per month. So to do something that we’re already doing, that’s, yeah, that’s been a huge opportunity for us this year that just, there again, it just kind of took off in the last month.
Bonnie Bond, CPA: Again, there’s that free money. Why not?
Weston Humphreys: But I think we billed $2 ,000 worth of claims last month and it’s only increasing every month. So that’s obviously.
Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP®: That’s a big number, 10 to 15%. I mean, that could be saving somebody’s life. I mean, that’s life changing for some people.
Bonnie Bond, CPA: Absolutely.
Weston Humphreys: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Medicare considers 80 % means a patient is adherent to their medications. And the numbers that we have show that when you put a patient in compliance packaging, that number increases to 94 based on Tyson drugs patients. And we have very non -adherent patients in the great state of Mississippi. That’s worth something. Hotty toddy.
Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP®: They are all rebels. Ol’ reb. I’ve been to Oxford once. It was awesome. Love it.
Weston Humphreys: It is, that’s where I’m, I don’t live in Oxford but I’ve been working in Oxford for six years now. So I consider myself a native.
Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP®: Had a good old time in Oxford.
Bonnie Bond, CPA: And I can say that you can, adherence does work, packaging works. I do my own packaging for my husband. It’s not actual packaging, but I put it in a little pill bottle thing, and he adheres to it. If it’s in the, right, if he is, if it’s in the, in the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday thing, he’ll take it. Who knew?
Weston Humphreys: Yeah, it’s compliant packaging. So, believe it or not, we have patients that we learned will take their med packs, as in the monthly pre -sorted packaging, rip it all the way down the whole month, pour all the meds out on the table, and then put them back into pill planters. It was the wildest thing when we understood. And we had more than one patient doing that. So, I don’t know which big surprise, we have patients doing weird things.
Bonnie Bond, CPA: Interesting.
Weston Humphreys: But I mean, we’ve really just seen it all.
Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP®: That’s a head scratcher. That is a…
Bonnie Bond, CPA: That is… that’s a new one for me, yes.
Weston Humphreys: Yeah.
Bonnie Bond, CPA: Wow.
Weston Humphreys: That’s why I say like in good ol’ Mississippi, I’m telling you, if the things that come across our desk, you know.
Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP®: That is…That’s…I don’t mean to laugh, but that’s kind of it’s kind of funny
Weston Humphreys: Yeah, put it this way, if we can keep patients adherent to their meds at Tyson Drugs in North Mississippi with the diabetes and health literacy issues that we have, then these other states that are ahead of the game than us and more progressive, let me see your excuse.
Bonnie Bond, CPA: They have no excuses, yeah. Well there’s always somebody in every group of some kind doing something interesting, I’m sure.
Weston Humphreys: Right. Yeah, we’re really attacking our Humana bonus this year too. That’s something that we’ve always, like we’ve literally, I think in the past we’ve just said, we’re not even gonna try because we failed so miserably at it year after year. And this year, since it’s only advantage patients, we said, hey, this year we’re gonna give it a shot. I mean, it’s only a couple hundred patients and they’re already enrolled in sync. We’re already doing adherence packaging. Let’s give it a shot. And honestly, I’m really impressed at our numbers so far. I’m really excited to see where we are by the end of the year.
Bonnie Bond, CPA: That’s great.
Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP®: That is some big money. I got some clients, and they’ll get $100,000 – $150,000 every year.
Weston Humphreys: So, I had a Mississippi pharmacist owner show me a picture of his check and it was a large amount and that’s what sold me. And it made me think if he can do it, then why can’t we? As high as our sync volume is and he’s in Mississippi too, I kind of asked myself, what’s our excuse? So, this year in January, we said we’re doing this and we’re going to focus on it and make it a priority. And I think we’ve done pretty well so far. So, I’m really excited to see where we are at end of the year.
Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP®: That’s great.
Bonnie Bond, CPA: Yeah. Well, Weston, you definitely got your hands in a lot of different things, which is what you have to do.
Weston Humphreys: Yeah, yeah, we’re busy. For sure.
Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP®: And I know Bob counts on you a whole lot, keep it up. You’re doing great work.
Weston Humphreys: Yeah, like I say, Bob’s been really good to me ever since I was a kid, of course. I’m still here with him. And like I said, he delegates really well. He’s the visionary. He knows what’s around the corner. The management team, me and Chelsea and our HR Sherry, I think we do a good job at departmentalizing and focusing on what our roles are to make sure that all of these projects work well. I don’t think a lot of pharmacy owners have a management team or support staff that they count on. But something that I’ve learned over the last several years is the best run, the most successful pharmacies are ones who have really good support staff because the pharmacy owner can’t do it all. The pharmacist can’t do it all. So, I think I really try to advocate for support staff like myself that are non –pharmacists that you really do play a bigger role in the pharmacy operations than you think.
Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP®: Mm -hmm. Gotta have a good team. In anything, that’s for sure.
Weston Humphreys: Right.
Bonnie Bond, CPA: For sure.
Weston Humphreys: Yeah, and that’s the hardest part about running a pharmacy, honestly.
Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP®: Getting everybody to work together. Yep. Weston don’t want to hold you up anymore Great conversation appreciate you getting on appreciate all you’re doing there Tyson drugs and helping the industry out and speaking with our listeners today, but we hope to have you back on again soon and Thanks again
Bonnie Bond, CPA: Absolutely.
Weston Humphreys: Yeah. Yeah, well, thank you guys for all the we lean on, Sykes. You know, we talk about, I talk about Bob being the visionary and a lot of it is that he leans on his colleagues like, like Ollin. So, so you guys really are a key in why we are successful as well. So, appreciate you guys.
Bonnie Bond, CPA: Thanks, Weston.
Scotty Sykes, CPA, CFP®: We certainly try, we certainly do all we can to help pharmacists out, pharmacy owners out. So, we appreciate that. All right, well, thanks everybody for listening in and we’ll see you next time.
