Expanded access to Good Neighbor Pharmacy premier level brings business-growth tools to more independents

LAS VEGAS — One of the biggest announcements that Good Neighbor Pharmacy president David Neu made at AmerisourceBergen ThoughtSpot 2015’s General Session was that the company’s premier level suite of products and services would be expanded and now made available to its customers across all software platforms.



At the core of the Good Neighbor Pharmacy premier level, the company's highest level of services to support Good Neighbor Pharmacies, is the newly enhanced and renamed Elevate Provider Network, which enables and informs most of premier’s offerings, from reconciliation services to customized business coaching.



“Through the Elevate Provider Network, we now have access to all pharmacy system data, with the exception of one or two, but the vast majority of pharmacy systems are eligible for this,” Good Neighbor Pharmacy VP Chrissy Lane told Drug Store News following the General Session. “This is significant for us because we will now have the ability to help so many more of our independents through business coaching, merchandising and some advertising resources that we really couldn't offer them before.”



Among the Good Neighbor Pharmacy premier level offerings are pre- and post-edit services that can reduce submission errors and optimize reimbursements, as well as cloud-based reconciliation and payment management services. In addition, Good Neighbor Pharmacy premier customers can use a mobile app to access a daily summary of Central Pay deposits and updated CMS Star ratings, as well as InSite and InSite POS, which is aimed at driving front-end sales.



All of the data from these offerings are shared with Good Neighbor Pharmacy’s business coaches — professionals who range from former pharmacy operators to industry veterans and coaches with business backgrounds — to help pharmacists enhance their business at every stage.



“We have the privilege of having the customer's dispensing data through our InSite proprietary tool, and the beauty in that is that we have data on every single claim that is adjudicated,” Good Neighbor Pharmacy national director of business coaching and pharmacy ownership Jennifer Zilka told Drug Store News. “As a result of transmitting that data, we also are able to capture patient age, patient name, patient gender, zip code and a lot of good demographic info as well.”



With this information, pharmacists who are burdened by the daily work of fulfilling patient needs can think more about the important work of running a business.



“Business coaching was born of the need that our pharmacists expressed to us for needing help,” Zilka said. “They are on such a tight time constraint. … They work the counter filing scripts 60 hours a week, and that doesn't give them time to focus on what's important about their business.”



One example of the potential growth for Good Neighbor Pharmacy premier members who undergo business coaching is Paulsen’s Pharmacy in Portland, Ore., which also had its store revamped through Good Neighbor Pharmacy’s Pharmacy Transformation Services. As a result of these efforts, the store saw a 20% increase in front-end sales and a 50% increase in Good Neighbor Pharmacy product sales, as well as a decrease in suspect claims.



According to Lane, the Pharmacy Transformation Services are another promising component of the Good Neighbor Pharmacy premier level — especially given that it was launched a year ago at ThoughtSpot 2014.



“We have great results that we've seen over the past year, and unless a pharmacy is a member of Good Neighbor Pharmacy at the premier level, they don't have access to Pharmacy Transformation Services,” Lane said.



But the transformation at Paulsen’s — which Zilka said is a good representation of the average coaching client — wasn’t solely the result of the store’s facelift, but also a consequence of its owners putting in the ongoing work of growing their business with its coach’s suggestions. Paulsen’s outcomes lend credence to Zilka’s comparison of the business coach’s role to that of a personal trainer, in that clients who take their coach’s suggestions to heart and put in the ongoing work can see big results.



“If you can get up every morning and get a couple of things chipped off your list, you will definitely see benefits to the health of your business," Zilka said. “We can't do the push-ups for you. ... We'll just help guide you there and make sure you do those push-ups.”