A higher vision for Rite Aid pharmacy
Health care is transforming, fundamentally and forever. And pharmacy has to change with it. Recognition of that reality has made Rite Aid’s now-former pharmacy leader one of the industry’s leading advocates for a new and broader role for pharmacists.
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Over the past decade, Robert Thompson has championed a higher level of practice for the company’s more than 11,000 pharmacists, driving the adoption of new, pharmacy-based clinical and preventive-health initiatives at Rite Aid, while recognizing that prescription dispensing today remains a critical piece in terms of revenue generation for any drug store retailer.
“We completely believe that ultimately pharmacists, like other providers in the healthcare system, will be paid based on their ability to drive outcomes,” Thompson told Drug Store News. “We believe that ultimately that’s the direction our industry and profession is going to go, and we’re already seeing it come to fruition in certain areas. So for the last several years, we’ve adopted the mantra, ‘No outcome means no income.’ We’ve kind of shouted that message from the rooftops to get people to understand that the business model of pharmacy today is going to change.”
To that end, Thompson said, “we’ve worked very hard to prepare our pharmacists, and we will continue to do that so they will be the best-in-class at driving clinical performance. That’s a tall order for everyone involved, but we certainly believe we can do that. Our goal is to have our pharmacists working to help drive those outcomes.”
The company, he added, is working “to enable our pharmacists to be able to deliver expanded services to their patients” in two basic categories.
“One is prevention, including the immunization program and the information pharmacists can so readily provide to help patients do the right thing to prevent illness or understand how to get well faster, and stay healthier longer,” said Thompson. “The second is all about compliance and adherence ... ensuring that the therapy is appropriate, that the patient understands the necessity of the therapy and that the patient will maintain their therapy. So that if they’re suffering from an illness they get well sooner, hopefully stay well longer, and as it relates to chronically ill patients, that they prevent hospital readmissions or more complications due to the complexity of their diseases.”
Thompson said the company’s pharmacy team recognizes the challenges associated with transitioning the current pharmacy model to a reimbursement system that’s based more on successful patient outcomes, while maintaining the massive revenue stream generated by high volumes of prescription dispensing. “There’s still a lot of work to do, because pharmacists still spend the majority of their time in dispensing activities, and they have to balance their time between dispensing and being able to spend quality time with the patients who need them the most,” he acknowledged. “We as pharmacy leaders have to create the systems, the processes, the technology and the support to enable our pharmacists to do that, and we’ve been working on that as well.”
“Ultimately, we believe the payment model is going to change, and we know it needs to change to reflect the pharmacist’s value in the overall healthcare system,” he said. “That’s where it needs to go, that’s what we want to see happen, and we’ve been working very hard to try to do that and be prepared for the future. Our pharmacy leaders and our team have done a great job in driving this message, and we’re working very hard every day to bring it to fruition.”