When it comes to pharmacy providers of senior care organizations – whether through long-term living facilities or age-in-place programs like PACE – your pharmacy services provider can make or break the success of your organization. At an operational, clinical, and financial level, the quality of your pharmacy partner has a direct correlation to the satisfaction and retention of your onsite staff, the health outcomes of your participants, and the ability for your care teams to focus on care, instead of mitigating issues related to inventory, delivery, or adherence.
We may be telling you something you already know. But you might still be wondering – is my LTC pharmacy services provider doing everything they can?
Whether your contract renewal date is coming up, or several years away – it’s always worth taking a deeper look at what your current partner is bringing to the table. Read on for a closer look at the areas your pharmacy should be leveraging their role to reduce your workload and streamline your operations – or where they may be creating troubled waters.
So, what has your pharmacy provider done for you lately?
Your pharmacy is in a unique position to be a key driver of cost reduction for program participants – by identifying erroneous or ineffective polypharmacy, providing adherence tools that prevent ED admissions for patients managing care at home, and facility-specific preferred medications that strike balance between cost-effective and clinically relevant medications.
Your job as a long-term care program is to provide the best senior care possible. Good care delivery doesn’t allow space for your staff to spend time tracking down missing medications, incorrect dosages, and delayed deliveries. In order to effectively manage medication delivery, whether to your facility or to a participant’s home, private courier networks are a key factor to avoid delivery delays. The right pharmacy partner won’t be using FedEx or UPS to deliver critical medication – only to have it rerouted back to the pharmacy provider when it was already late. Your partner’s shipping logistics are a direct reflection of their commitment to your organization and its success.
Patient prescribing data, medication pricing, reporting, and the ability to communicate with your pharmacy shouldn’t be a game of phone tag or multi-touchpoint process. Your pharmacy provider should be committed to running their service on a platform that integrates seamlessly with your EHR – not the other way around.
A good long-term care pharmacy services provider is committed to working closely with you and your physicians to quickly make changes to new or discontinued medication regimens. They should also be prepared to answer any questions your onsite providers may have – and patients should never be waiting weeks to start a new therapeutic, even when adherence or med pass packaging is in use.
It’s important to find a provider who is in sync with your organization’s needs – and understands where they can add value and save time, money and resources. Maybe you’re just now realizing that you could have a better relationship with a pharmacy services provider – or maybe you’ve been looking to switch for a while.
Since 1996, our team at Grane Rx has the experience of providing industry-leading senior care – with solutions that align with every expectation we’ve set above.
At Grane Rx, we redefine “above and beyond” as just getting started. Schedule time to talk.
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