Pharmacy Strategies to Improve Revenue & Patient Care
The COVID-19 pandemic increased the visibility of the pharmacy world and the complexities of medication production, distribution, and safety. But it also revealed a larger truth: pharmacy is at the intersection of healthcare revenue, quality and safety.
In the latest episode of our Pharmacy Innovators podcast, we sat down with Dr. Majid Tanas to discuss how the practice of pharmacy is evolving and what the future looks like.
As the Chief Pharmacy Officer and Vice President for Pharmacy Services at Legacy Health, a 1,200-bed health system in Oregon and southwest Washington, Dr. Tanas has extensive experience in outpatient pharmacy, specialty pharmacy, ambulatory infusion centers and USP compliance. Here are three key takeaways from our conversation with him.
1. Pharmacy leaders must help the C-suite understand that pharmacy is not just an ancillary service—it’s a key driver of revenue growth.
Pharmacy has quickly grown as a key revenue generator for health systems in recent years. But too many healthcare leaders still hold on to the outdated view that pharmacy is just an ancillary service.
“As a profession, we must push back on the term ancillary,” says Tanas. “We touch every patient who comes into our facilities. So we need to put our stake in the ground and say that we are pivotal to the organization’s success and to the care of our patients. We need to be seen as a bottom-line contributor.”
In many organizations, pharmacy leaders still aren’t part of the revenue conversation. But Tanas insists that driving revenue discussions and being at the decision table are important ways to advance the practice – and increase financial results.
2. Healthcare needs to be redefined as an all-encompassing ecosystem, with the patient at the center of everything we do.
According to Tanas, today’s biggest challenge in healthcare is that our ‘why’ needs to move from an inpatient focus to one that encompasses the whole patient experience.
“Think about Apple,” he says. “Whenever you’re within the Apple system, things just work. And in my experience, when you have the EHR as the backbone of patient health care, you’re really allowed to see the continuum of care and make sure the patient is receiving the best care across that continuum.”
That’s why Tanas believes that organizations who decide to outsource services are missing out on a critical opportunity. If a patient visits an outsourced outpatient pharmacy, for example, they are taken out of the health system’s ecosystem. And this prevents an opportunity for the organization to build a deeper relationship with them.
“Health systems need to ask the question, ‘How do we become all-encompassing?’” Tanas says. “When you look at the market, it’s shifting. We have a new generation of health consumers who are expecting to order online and have things shipped to their door. So, how do we change from being a service that is waiting for patients to come to us, to one that meets the patient where they’re at?”
3. When health systems expand their pharmacy services, they’re also deepening patient relationships – and the value they gain far outweighs the cost.
When specialty pharmacies first emerged over a decade ago, healthcare leaders knew little about them. So, it was easier to hand them off to a third party rather than build their own internal service. But today, that perspective is changing.
“Having [specialty pharmacy] within your organization really enables you to have transparency of care, and to coordinate that care,” says Tanas. “And that’s really the missing part of patient care. We want those quick interactions that drive the revenue, but we forget that really, the patient and our relationship with them is what’s going to drive the value.”
In the past, Tanas has encountered healthcare leaders who’ve become skittish when they see the high costs of specialty pharmacy drugs. As a result, they’re reluctant to increase their drug budget to accommodate an internal specialty pharmacy program.
“I often have had to remind our finance colleagues to look at the revenue line as well,” he says. “And it’s covering that expense. That really then drives the value and the benefit of the specialty pharmacy model.”
And there’s opportunity to apply the same model in the outpatient pharmacy realm as well. If health systems can establish a clinical presence in the ambulatory world, they can benefit from the transition from high acuity to lower acuity, while still maintaining the relationship with the specialty or outpatient pharmacy.
“This is a canary in the coal mine for healthcare to wake up and realize there’s an opportunity here that we may not be taking full advantage of, especially if you’re a 340B organization,” says Tanas.
Looking for more insights and advice?
Listen to the full podcast episode.
Visante helps health systems accelerate their financial and operational performance. With our deep expertise and innovative solutions, we can drive significant value by optimizing your health system pharmacy program. Contact us at solutions@visante.com or call (866) 388-7583 to learn more about how we can support your organization.