How Belmar Pharma Solutions Unified its Pharmacy Network

A NATIONAL LEADER IN PERSONALIZED WELLNESS THERAPIES
Founded in 1985, Belmar Pharma Solutions has become a leader in customized wellness, specializing in compounded hormone therapies for both men and women. Working closely with healthcare providers across the country, their 503A compounding pharmacies and 503B outsourcing facilities deliver tailored treatments to patients in all 50 states.

According to Kevin Burrus, chief information officer for Belmar, the company has grown rapidly in the last five years through a series of strategic acquisitions. While the acquisitions added value to the Belmar portfolio, Burrus says they also introduced new challenges. “Each acquisition came with its own payments processors and pharmacy management systems.” That left Belmar supporting six different pharmacies — some with multiple locations — and two manufacturing facilities operating across four distinct environments.

This fragmented infrastructure created operational inefficiencies and made it difficult to deliver a consistent customer experience. Burrus knew he wanted to create a single environment to support patients and providers across the entire organization — and the first step was to streamline payments processes.

CHALLENGE: MULTIPLE SYSTEMS LED TO REDUCED EFFICIENCY AND INCREASED COMPLIANCE RISK
The disparity in systems across Belmar’s growing network posed several challenges. Some pharmacies were working with outdated platforms that didn’t store customer card information, requiring patients and providers to re-enter payment details for every transaction. Even then, if customers were working with more than one Belmar facility, that meant they could have accounts on multiple systems that weren’t sharing information.

“Customers should have a seamless experience from location to location,” says Burrus. Instead, a single Belmar customer — whether patient or provider — might have to enter their credit card information three or four times. “That’s frustrating for our customers, and it makes reconciliation complicated.”

One approach to overcoming this challenge might be to replicate data from pharmacy to pharmacy, but that wouldn’t eliminate internal efficiencies. “I wanted to create an environment that tokenized card data for each customer, a token that is used across all our locations.” In addition, Burrus wanted to create a central billing profile for each location that can route transactions through more than one bank account.

When Burrus approached his payments solutions provider at the time with his objectives, he found they were not open to helping Belmar create a solution to improve efficiency and deliver a unified customer experience.

SOLUTION: A STRATEGIC PARTNER FOR A SIMPLIFIED PAYMENT ENVIRONMENT
The answer came from one of the pharmacies Belmar had recently acquired, which had been working with Wind River Payments and its gateway partner, TrustCommerce. Wind River Payments specializes in embedded payment solutions for software providers, focusing on the healthcare industry and pharmacy settings.

“We sat down with the Wind River Payments team to talk through all our challenges and everything we hoped to achieve,” Burrus says. The company then demonstrated how its technology and gateway integration could store card information as tokens under a unique customer ID tied to a location, while still allowing those cards to be used at peer locations.

“Knowing that just simplified everything,” says Burrus. “Wind River Payments’ industry expertise was essential. The way they mapped everything out for us allowed me to clearly communicate what processes we needed to put in place with our pharmacy management system provider.”

Even though Burrus knew they ultimately wanted to transition all locations to the Wind River Payments process, he decided to take a phased approach. “Taking this in steps allowed us to tokenize cards, consolidate systems, and migrate locations in small groups to avoid any potential disruptions,” says Burrus.

Wind River Payments also advised Belmar on managing patient HSA/FSA cards during the implementation. “Typically, when you move from one gateway to another, authorization can take as much as a week before cards are fully functional.” This is often due to syncing with SIGIS and verifying or updating Merchant Category Codes (MCCs) in the new system. The result is that patient cards might be declined. “Now we proactively let patients know there might be a slight delay, so it’s not a surprise if an issue arises with their payment,” says Burrus.

“From the tokenization to simplifying payments and reconciliation to navigating gateway changes — Wind River Payments just understands pharmacy operations so deeply that they were able to develop a tailored solution that met all our needs.”

RESULT: A STEP TOWARD A UNIFIED PLATFORM FOR SCALABLE GROWTH
“With Wind River Payments’ help, I’ve been able to achieve what I set out to — tokenizing cards and routing transactions where they need to go,” Burrus says. “This was a critical step toward implementing a single platform and delivering a consistent customer experience for patients and providers alike.”

Key Outcomes:

• Single tokenization: Customers enter card information once, which is then usable across all locations.
• Central billing profiles: Transactions are systematically routed to the correct bank accounts, supporting multiple pharmacy locations across the system.
• FSA/HSA card support: Seamless acceptance with SIGIS registration and proactive gateway transition planning.
• PCI-compliant tokenization: Enhanced security and reduced compliance risk.

Belmar began with its three largest locations, which Burrus says handle the most complex prescriptions. “Now I’ve got a C corporation in Wisconsin and Arizona that share a bank account, and an S corporation in Florida that has its own bank account, all using one payments system.” This led to a significant reduction in overhead because they are no longer managing and paying for multiple systems. It also improved reconciliation processes and made it easier for customers to place orders under one Belmar umbrella.

From his standpoint, having developed and implemented the solution has saved him time personally. “We kept discussing the same challenges and potential solutions over and over again,” he says. “I am so happy we now have a steady state solution that just works — I can’t ask for more than that.”

Belmar plans to merge four more locations, completing the transitions by June 2026. Burrus says that they’ll also start looking at other Wind River Payments solutions, such as card-on-file updating, which systematically updates payment details when cards are lost, stolen, or expire.

“I really like the solutioning we get with Wind River Payments,” says Burrus. “The team is always available when we reach out, ready to answer our questions. It’s refreshing when so many technology companies today have complicated ticketing systems that often leave you feeling lost.” Wind River Payments’ responsive support, deep understanding of the pharmacy industry, and commitment to long-term relationships have made them an invaluable partner in Belmar’s journey.