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The reservations are made, the flights are booked, and the bags are packed. That’s right: it’s summertime.
The summer season is the time for family vacations, trade shows, and the uber-underrated staycation. However, your pharmacy is the pillar of the community that never sleeps, so you’ll need to handle the summer rush well.
Fortunately, we’ve got some pointers to cool down the blazing hot summer rush. Here’s how you can make the most of the summer season in your pharmacy.
The most important part of vacation planning is creating a clear, actionable plan. Such is the case with your pharmacy, where most of your staff likely has some kind of summer plans.
Encourage your team to let you know about their vacation plans in advance. This will make scheduling easier and the road ahead a little clearer.
Communicate with your staff about them taking extra shifts. The summer rush requires you and your team to make adjustments and fill voids when necessary.
Make the most of the incoming summer rush by communicating with your pharmacy staff. Make the right scheduling adjustments and let your staff know when you need someone to take an extra shift.
It may not be convenient, but these adjustments ensure that your workflow is as optimal as possible.
Patient care goes beyond dispensing medications or administering vaccines. It’s all about setting the best trajectory for their health journeys. Sometimes a thriving health journey is all about making the pickup process as seamless as possible.
Vacations naturally go against the grain. They’re meant to disrupt the usual tempo of life by providing something new — a breath of fresh air.
As great as vacations are, they still disrupt the status quo. They can also disrupt your fill schedules. Chances are your patients are going to request refills in time for their vacation. It’s very likely their insurance plans will deem those refills as too soon.
Let your patients know right away (or send an automated text with a trusty pharmacy software like PioneerRx). Tell them that most insurance plans provide a vacation override that needs the patient’s approval to process it.
To kill multiple birds with one stone, post on your pharmacy’s social media feeds about the summer rush. Kindly suggest to them to request their refills ahead of time and coordinate with their insurance plans, mitigating any headaches at the pharmacy counter.
Early refills disrupt more than your pharmacy’s workflow. Vacations shake up your pharmacy’s inventory in big and small ways.
An early refill changes your pharmacy’s workflow, but what happens if the prescribed quantity changes? What happens if a 90-day fill changes to a 30-day or vice versa?
Though those 60 extra or fewer pills seem innocuous at first, they can lead to a radical change in your workflow. This is especially true when multiple prescriptions are experiencing this simultaneously.
Plan ahead by ordering extra amounts of popular maintenance medications. Put some particular focus on refrigerated items, namely insulin products.
Every pharmacy prioritizes its inventory in different ways. Go with the inventory management method that works best for your pharmacy.
For additional inventory tips, check out our blog, “Your Pharmacy Inventory: 4 Ways to Manage Your Shelves.”
Don’t Forget About Your OTC Products
Let's briefly get out of the pharmacy counter and see check out your OTC products. You already know that your pharmacy’s OTC products are a huge profit maker for your small business.
Take this summer season as way to further leverage one of your pharmacy’s biggest money makers. Showcase some summer-centric OTC products. Whether your patients are going to the beach or traveling overseas, some of the most handy OTC products to showcase include:
Check out the CDC’s “Pack Smart” page for more products you might want to stock up on.
Need to know where to start? PioneerRx’s Reports feature gives you a comprehensive readout of your pharmacy’s OTC products and their financial performance. This kind of pharmacy data can direct your marketing efforts, as well as how and where you stock up on certain medications.
For more profit-driving software features, read our blog, “7 PioneerRx Features to Grow Your Pharmacy’s Profitability.”
With summer now upon us, it’s essential to ensure your pharmacy is able to weather any vacation- or summer-related rush. Both patients and pharmacy staff are traveling, so make sure you have an actionable plan.
Whether it’s with your pharmacy software or the time-honored method of simple communication, put your pharmacy in a place of success this coming summer — then get ready for flu season.
