Friday, June 7, 2013

To Compound or Not To Compound...

To compound or not to compound, that is the question.  I've been going over in my head what I can do to attract more customers to my pharmacy.  I keep thinking that I need some kind of hook.  I've tried the whole excellent customer service and family pharmacy angle but the neighborhood I'm in doesn't believe it's worth the extra $5-10 dollars on their copays for using a "non-preferred" pharmacy.  And I don't blame them, a penny here a penny there starts to add up, especially when you take about 6 medications a month.

So I've been contemplating getting into non-sterile compounding.  It seems like a sound idea.  For those that may not know what a compound medication is, it is basically a medication that is specially formulated for the individual which pharmacists create at the store.  It was best described to me by one of my customers, "gourmet pharmacy."  The other thing I thought of getting into was durable medical equipment (DME) like canes, walkers, wheelchairs, etc.  The problem I see with this is that dealing with medicaid is like dealing with an older idiot brother who still thinks he's in high school and takes advantage of you ALL the time.  With the amount of audits and hoops to jump through just to give someone a box of test strips or give a cane, it's just not worth my time and patience.  So I figure I can start compounding.  With no real set prices on custom drugs, the profit potential seems limitless.  And with the majority of insurances not covering them means better margins and less audits.

Hopefully, I'll get some of these people in the door with this because daddy's gotta eat!





8 comments:

  1. Market yourself to the local vets? I get my dog's chemo compounded for her and they deliver it as well. I get charged 10 bucks for delivery, they use a local delivery company. They are 25 miles away, it's much easier for me to just pay the 10 bucks and have them deliver than for me to drive for over an hour

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    1. Yeah, but i heard that vets make a big chunk of their money from dispensing drugs themselves so they are not keen on outsourcing their big money makers

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    2. I started right out of the gate with PCCA compounding with my independent pharmacy. It is a great way to set you apart. I am the go to guy in town because you can solve all sorts of problems with your resources as a compounder. I mostly do transdermal pain meds, hormone replacement and Veterinary compounding. It really has been rewarding to help people in ways that I couldn't before and it certainly doesn't hurt the bottom line. It is nice to be able to set your own prices. With the ever present insurance reimbursement cuts I think compounding is the only thing keeping up my avg script profit. The initial buy in a pretty expensive though and I would shop around for used equipment like an ointment mill and capsule machine on ebay and such.

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    3. I've thought of PCCA but they are hella expensive. I've looked into other training companies and found for about 1/5th the cost I can get about 95% of what PCCA offers.

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    4. Vets don't do their own compounding. It's why I get my chemo for my dog from the pharmacy. I get the NSAID compounded too, because of the dosage. My dog's oncologist has a few pharmacies they work with because so many of the medications they prescribe need compounding.

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  2. I need Midrin. Would you compound that? My pharmacist says it is no longer available. Nothing else helps my migraines.

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    1. Yeah unfortunately Midrin is not available and the individual components of midrin aren't available either, just the acetaminophen

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    2. We compound that all the time. Check around with other pharmacies in the area. Someone should be able to make it

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