Combine Workflow, Will Call, and Point of Sale to Create Efficiency 4

Written and published by Ross Snyder – Foundation Systems, Inc – 801-785-7720 – help.fsi.us.com

What if

What if you could process prescriptions, put the “ready to pick up” prescriptions in a bag with a number and associated barcode, in numeric order? What if all prescriptions for the same patient could be in the same bag? What if all prescriptions for a family could be in the same bag? What if you could access a numeric bag system from your Point of Sale and drop all of the prescriptions from one bag right into your sales transaction? What if your customer suddenly had a little more time for counseling from the pharmacist? What if the customer doesn’t want or need to be counseled, and needs to get on their way without any pickup delays? What if you could get a report of prescriptions ready to pick up for longer than 10 days, maybe 14 days so medications can be returned to stock? What if you could let your customers know their prescriptions are ready to pick up? What if you could go even further, remind your customers they have prescriptions still needing to be picked up?

What if you could read this article, comment below, request a quote, and get 50% off the price of the software for will call and point of sale? Keep reading to find out more!

I’m going to answer the “what if”s. All of you reading this use FSI’s pharmacy software in some fashion. Some of you reading this use FSI’s workflow, Will Call, and/or point of sale modules, but not to their full potential, or maybe not all three together. However, some of you didn’t know you can integrate all of this into one smooth transaction to get the prescription typed, filled, verified, from the counter to the bag, accurately and safely to the customer picking up. Fill, verify, bag, check-out, with one signature for pickup and credit card when it’s all done.

Is This Your Pharmacy

When the prescription is dropped off, it gets typed into the system, adjudicated, and a label and/or monograph are printed. The medication is counted and the prescription bottle is labeled. The prescription is put into a tote and passed down the counter into a cluster of other typed and toted prescriptions. It’s been a while, the pharmacy has been busy, the customer is needing to know when to pick their prescription up. The customer calls for status and there is chaos, everyone starts looking because they remember seeing the name somewhere. After about five minutes of wasted tech and pharmacist time searching, the customer gets the answer. The customer is usually told the prescription is ready and they can pick it up any time, then the follow-up question about the other prescription they dropped off yesterday. The reality of this, the one prescription was found in the middle of the counter chaos, not verified, and the pharmacist is now counseling a customer with a lot of questions. By the time the pharmacist gets to the prescription in question, he forgets about the one filled yesterday, bags the current prescription and throws it into the alphabet soup, all ready to be picked up!

Then the check-out process, when the customer shows up, they watch as a clerk, tech, or pharmacist rifles through an alphabetic nightmare on the shelf or hanging up, trying to find several prescriptions filled at different times for one customer or someone else in their family. Even better, “Anyone seen ‘Joe’s’ prescription for ‘drug name’?” Whoa! why don’t you tiptoe into the HIPAA violation zone as you scramble to locate the prescription? Meanwhile, your customer sits and wonders how much time you spend looking for everybody’s prescriptions yelling out names and medications for all to hear. Maybe next time, you won’t have this issue with this customer, because they went to your competition! Don’t let this happen to you or your customer!

What about finding several prescriptions sitting in the alphabetical mess on the shelf, filled and ready to pick up six months ago? Talk about MONEY DOWN THE DRAIN! Not just lost inventory, but fines from insurance companies. Most of your insurance contracts have a requirement of medications being returned to stock within a certain amount of time, usually 14 days.

The Process is Simple to Understand

I have been doing what I do for a long time. Over the years, some of the most successful pharmacies I have been to have implemented a workflow with a defined fill and verify process. Some of the workflow processes have been very simple, some very complex. No matter the complexity, from the time a prescription is received to the time the prescription is ready to pick up, the pharmacy staff can easily find where every prescription is at. A defined workflow leading to will call with access from point of sale gives your pharmacy an accurate, safe checkout, leaving each customer time for counseling or get out the door quicker.

Create efficiency by simplifying your pharmacy, use the tools you have available. We have talked about how wholesale ordering can help your pharmacy’s bottom line. The tools I am speaking of in this article workflow, Will Call, point of sale can do the same thing. Not only that, creating some counter and process organization can be motivating for the pharmacy staff and your pharmacy customers.

Another tool we will be discussing soon is OBM and OBC (Outbound Messaging and Outbound Calling). Will call has a great link to OBM and OBC to let your customers know their prescriptions are ready to pick up. Then, maybe a few customers haven’t picked up their medication, OBM and OBC can remind your customers several times, right up to the point of you returning the medication to stock. There are some really nice automated aspects of OBM and OBC you can take advantage of, but we’ll discuss that later. Just one more tool to make your pharmacy the best it can be! With everything discussed, think about MTM and maintaining “star ratings” for your pharmacy.

What to Expect and Implementation

I don’t want too much sugar poured on this topic. You should know there will be some learning curves. If you want your pharmacy to succeed in today’s market dominated and controlled by the “BigBox” pharmacies and the padded pockets of big PBMs, your independent/community pharmacy had better implement some tools to keep your pharmacy staff and your customers happy.

Using FSI’s workflow, Will Call, and point of sale as one fluid process is going to boost your pharmacy status, here is what you need to know.

Implementing workflow will take about one day for almost everyone at your pharmacy to get the hang of. There is no purchase required to implement and configure workflow. Technicians and pharmacists work from a queue with the ability to work on all prescriptions for the same patient without missing one. Pharmacists and technicians can see how many scripts are in each queue, at a glance. Find out how long prescriptions take to process from one queue to the next. Use reports like this to fine-tune the process. Workflow would be configured to feed right into will call.

Implementing will call. You will need to have a bag rack installed and the hang-up bags. A lot of you reading this already have the rack and the bags but in alphabetical order. Decide how many bags you will need to start with. The average is 500, some start with 250 and work up, very few start with 1000. This will be a small purchase of software, hang-up rack hardware, and hang-up bags with numeric/bar-coded stickers. You will have to enter your alphabetical mess of ready-to-pick-up prescriptions into a newly created, organized, numeric order. 500 prescriptions can be done in about an hour with two people working on it. Will call has a reporting system allowing you to locate prescriptions on the shelf for X amount of days. This allows for timely return to stock saving your pharmacy money! Along with this is a configuration giving you the ability to fine-tune your will call. Also, you get financial reports regarding what you have currently in will call, ready to pick up.

Implementing point of sale is going to be a little more of an investment. You have two options, the full point of sale package and a limited point of sale software. Both have full access to the pharmacy system to pull prescriptions from will call. The limited version will not have a retail item database.

Some of you already have FSI’s point of sale but you are literally working with a dinosaur and before you know it, the point of sale legacy version will see it’s sunset. A lot of FSI customers using FSI’s point of sale are already using the enhanced version. All-in-one computer, touch screen capable, chip/ApplePay/tap to pay credit card processing with full HSA/FSA capability. Point of sale will drastically change your checkout process and freak your staff out! But still, bringing on the tough love only lasts a minute. The average pharmacy implementing FSI’s enhanced point of sale only takes one maybe two days to become familiar with.

If you are brand new to point of sale, don’t worry, you have options for installation and training. FSI has amazing technicians, if you choose, you can have a technician on-site to install and train. This would be a good time to configure workflow, set up will call, and install point of sale, then tie it all together. You can do remote walk-through installations, but please have patience with yourself, we will. Training can be done virtually using ScreenConnect or we can do a Zoom call and get the face-to-face interaction, it’s almost like being there! If your pharmacy is close to a hotel close to the beach, or a big theme park, our techs prefer the physical on-site visit, Zoom isn’t going to cut it. For remote walk-through installs, our techs have even turned to FaceTime so they can see what you are seeing and better assist in connecting computer equipment. Whatever you decide, FSI will accomodate!

Conclusion

Whatever you decide after reading this, one thing should be clear, you need workflow, will call, and point of sale. Invest in the future of your pharmacy and put it together! Make your pharmacy run smoothly and efficiently and keep your customers coming back. Don’t hesitate to call or email me any questions about setting up your process today!

Please comment below, share what you know or questions you have.

Don’t Wait Too Long! Get 50% Off Now!

If you leave a comment below by July 9th, 2021, you can implement any of this for 50% off the cost of the software! Your quote must be dated on or before July 9th, 2021. You don’t have to purchase now, you just need to claim your 50% off before it’s too late. Each quote is good for one month from the day it is prepared for you. Comment below or ask a question, then ask for a quote at the end of your comment.

Here is a price breakdown so you know what to expect on your quote.