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School’s out, vacations galore, and planes are ready for takeoff.
The summer season is obviously the best time for family vacations. And when it comes to vacations, planning is an absolute must.
Such is the case with pharmacy work. Patients are going out of town and doctors are going on vacation, disrupting your chaotic yet reliable workflow.
The summer rush hits all businesses in unique ways, and your independent pharmacy is no exception.
Though the road ahead is rockier than usual, your pharmacy can still provide exceptional patient care. The sun will be shining, and so should your independent pharmacy.
Here’s how to handle the blazing hot summer rush in your independent pharmacy.
Your patients and doctors aren’t the only ones who are putting their feet up this summer. The summer is the time to go on vacation. That means parts of your pharmacy staff (and even yourself) likely have a trip lined up.
Communication is key in all aspects of pharmacy work, especially when it comes to vacation time.
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 restorative as vacations are, they still disrupt the status quo. In this case, they disrupt 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 if the insurance denies the claim. Inform them that most insurance plans provide a vacation override, but need the patient’s approval to go through with it.
Post on your pharmacy’s social media feeds about the impending summer rush. Tell them to request refills ahead of time and coordinate with their insurance plans. A denied prescription claim should not be the reason why Mr. and Mrs. Smith miss their flight to Venice.
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 small business.
Pharmacy work can be complex. Maintaining a steady workflow during peak business hours is complex. Meeting vaccine or fill quotas is complex. Every corner of the pharmacy industry requires great urgency and painstaking attention to detail.
The summer rush can be overwhelming, so it helps to remember to do the basics right.
Pharmacy work is indeed complex, but the solution to many problems is remarkably simple: do the simple things extremely well. That fill queue isn’t taking care of itself. The only way that queue and long customer lines go down is if you work on one thing at a time.
During peak hours, assign your staff to certain stations.
Have your fill maestro take care of that mountain’s worth of prescriptions. Your customer service savant should be handling the checkout line or drive-thru. Visual verify and four-point prescriptions when necessary. Make sure you’re not putting callers on hold for too long.
The summer rush will cause an influx of higher fill counts and sales, requiring your pharmacy staff to be on its A-game (like it always is). Simply put, do the work and do it exceedingly well. The rest will take care of itself.
Your pharmacy is only as efficient as software. Your pharmacy software system plays a key role in your independent pharmacy’s success. It can turn the tide during the summer rush, flu season, or other times of seasonal madness.
Luckily, you have PioneerRx on your side.
As you already know, PioneerRx is full of features and capabilities that further enhance your pharmacy’s workflow. Whether it’s our med sync programs, integrated point-of-sale, or enhanced pre-check station, PioneerRx can help lighten your workload without sacrificing quality service.
As we mentioned earlier, complex processes sometimes require simple solutions. PioneerRx achieves simplicity through its comprehensive features and capabilities, turning the summer rush into a walk in the park.
Visit our “Pharmacy Software” page to learn more about PioneerRx’s capabilities.
The incoming summer rush can feel like a tidal wave of additional work. Extra fills, countless vacation override requests, and a seemingly endless fill queue often make up these summer months.
Manage the summer rush by doing what you’ve always done best: providing swift but masterful patient care. Pharmacy work requires diligence and urgency, expediting a patient’s health journey to greater and healthier heights.
Look after your pharmacy inventory, delegate tasks, communicate plans of action with your team, urge your patients to request refills ahead of time, and let PioneerRx enhance your workflow.
Before you know it, that summer rush will be a thing of the scorching hot past.
