It’s 2024. By now, we know that clinical services are the future of pharmacy. Your pharmacy likely offers all the basics: point-of-care testing, immunizations, and chronic care management. Maybe you offer a niche service — a travel vaccine service here, a diabetes management program there.
However, if you’ve been considering spicing up your services, there’s no better time than right now. New services can help you reach niche patient populations and set yourself apart from competitors.
Not sure where to start? These RedSail pharmacists can give you inspiration, with an array of new, innovative, and — of course — profitable services.
As pharmacists continue to focus on wellness, new technologies offer new opportunities. Take it from Kathy Campbell. As CEO of Medicap Pharmacy, she has spent years creating “a culture of health” in her Owasso, OK pharmacy.
For Kathy, that culture is created by prioritizing patient nutrition, weight management, and most recently, body composition testing.
Kathy works closely with InBody USA, a body composition technology company that measures health metrics like weight, BMI, percent body weight, and skeletal muscle mass.
Rather than calculating these numbers with a rough formula, InBody scans allow Kathy to get personalized insights into her patient’s health and tailor their treatment plans accordingly.
The profit margins don’t hurt, either. As Kathy explains on an episode of the Beyond the Scripts Podcast, body composition scans are a cash, fee-for-service offering for her pharmacy.
Since starting the service in 2015, Kathy says, “It’s generated, conservatively — added revenue — at least half a million dollars.”
Learn more about Kathy’s experience with InBody by watching the full episode.
In 2024, many pharmacists are taking a more holistic approach to health, and April Seagal is no exception. April owns the San Diego-based Remedy Holistic Pharmacy, which offers a range of services — including pharmacogenetic testing, micronutrient testing, microbiome testing, and most recently, herbalist consultations.
For $79, patients can meet with a certified herbalist at Remedy to “assess [their] needs or concerns and […] come up with an herbal, nutritional, and lifestyle protocol in order to support [their] health and well-being.”
These consultations, usually an hour long, give April and her team an opportunity to engage with patients, which she says, can “open doors for both your pharmacy and their health.”
Typically, protocols include dietary changes, lifestyle changes, herbal products, nutritional supplements, and complementary therapies. April also schedules phone call follow-ups to ensure the protocols go as planned.
With RedSail’s technology, she’s able to streamline the service. April, a dedicated PioneerRx user, says, “I love that PioneerRx is engaged and a growing company that continually invests in improving the system and coming up with much-needed upgrades and features.”
Learn more about April and her holistic approach to pharmacy on the PioneerRx blog.
For many patients, quality vitamins and supplements are an important part of treatment plans. Rather than pushing prescriptions, Easton Bryant, Owner of North Century Pharmacy in Columbia, KY, capitalizes on supplements.
When he first decided to focus on supplements, Easton says, “We had a huge section of brand-name [products], and I got rid of all of them. It was about a $4,000 retail value that I got rid of, but I made the decision to go in on higher quality, bioavailable, professional formulas.”
Easton worked with a private label to create North Century-branded supplements, which allowed him to put his stamp of approval on products and acted as a marketing tool for the pharmacy.
Easton continues, “When patients walk out of here with our branded bottle, they can’t go to Amazon or Walmart or wherever else and get the same thing. It creates loyalty.”
Today, North Century Pharmacy offers 10 private label vitamins and supplements, along with a few other professional formulas. The best sellers, according to Easton, are Omega-3, magnesium, probiotics, and vitamin D3 plus K2.
He also offers custom supplement packs, called NCPaks, that can be shipped across the country.
To learn more about Easton’s experience, read the PioneerRx blog or watch this short clip from the Beyond the Scripts Podcast:
As we learned from Kathy Campbell, the best way to treat patients is to know their individual metrics. Aside from body composition technology, another way to do this is through nutrigenomic testing.
Like pharmacogenomics, nutrigenomic testing lets pharmacists see patients’ unique nutritional needs and tailor their treatment plans.
Jade Fricks, Owner of Fricks Pharmacy in Milton, FL, has been an advocate for this service since day one. As Jade says, “[All of our services] help people live a healthier lifestyle. We want to be people’s healthcare destination when it comes to health and wellness.”
Nutrigenomics, then, are a part of making Fricks Pharmacy that destination.
Patients can come to the pharmacy and take a quick cheek swab. Fricks Pharmacy will send it off to a lab, and after the results are back, they schedule a consultation with patients.
At the consultation, Jade and her team work with patients to develop “a personalized diet, vitamin and supplement regimen, and physical activity recommendation.”
For Jade, this is what the future of pharmacy looks like.
As she says, “Pharmacists really have to position themselves for that next generation. It’s exciting. I don’t view it as being scary. I view it as, ‘Oh my goodness, there are so, so many opportunities.'”
Learn more about Jade and her nutrigenomics journey on the PioneerRx blog.
With all the emphasis on human health, we’d be remiss to forget our furry friends — and thanks to services like veterinary compounding, your pharmacy can treat patients with two legs and four.
If you already offer compounding services, veterinary medicine can be a simple but impactful way to expand. Take it from Meg Lamb, Owner of Sand Run Pharmacy and Fellow at the American College of Veterinary Pharmacists (ACVP).
Meg and her team have been offering veterinary services for decades, starting with companion animals like cats and dogs, then moving from everything from whales to penguins to lemurs.
Reflecting on her time doing veterinary compounding, Meg says, “It was a lot of trial and error, and there was a learning curve with it. Animals aren’t just smaller or larger versions of humans. There are a lot of things that humans can tolerate that animals can’t, so we have to be more restrictive when dealing with animals than we are when we’re dealing with humans.”
The most common conditions Meg treats are hypothyroidism (especially in cats), infections, skin conditions, and behavioral issues. Dosage forms include everything from liquids to suspensions to topicals to transdermal medications.
If you’re looking to get started with veterinary compounding, Meg has some advice: “You can start with basic compounding, then you can transfer that knowledge into veterinary practice and go from there.” Training from ACVP or PCCA can get you up to par in your veterinary knowledge.
Learn more from Meg and the team at Sand Run Pharmacy on the PioneerRx blog.
If you’re looking to expand your clinical practice in 2024, don’t just stick to the same old services you’ve always offered.
Find your niche, think outside of the box, and take some inspiration from these RedSail pharmacists. Clinical services can be the gateway to making a stranger a patient for life. The process doesn’t have to be hard.
As Jade Fricks says: “It comes down to finding your niche and what you’re passionate about […] You have to stand out as the expert in [your niche], and then people will seek out your services.”
