How to make Pharmacy “The Easy Part” of the patient experience.

Anyone who’s ever been a hospital patient, or patient caregiver, knows that the mental strain of a serious illness can often match the negative impact of the physical trauma. Particularly when an illness is chronic and/or long-term, the stress involved in managing the details and scheduling of appointments, procedures and ongoing prescription care can weigh heavily on a patient’s sense of well-being. It’s a problem that’s even more acute when patients are unable to afford their medications, which is so often the case in communities served by 340B hospitals.

All of which is why on-campus retail and specialty pharmacies offer such great potential for making a positive impact on a patient’s healthcare experience with your hospital — and why the 340B program can play such an integral role in that experience.

Consider this common scenario for a 340B-eligible patient:

Imagine a man who’s just been diagnosed with cancer. If his physician’s hospital lacks on-campus pharmacies, he’s likely to leave the hospital with all of his medication-related questions unanswered. It can easily take the doctor a week to get answers back to him on his care-related questions, and if his pharmacy is a busy chain operation, he’s unlikely to get much help when he picks-up his prescriptions. Worse still, there’s so much else he has to worry about. It’s already overwhelming without the added worry of not fully understanding what his medication protocols will be — much less the added concern of physical impact and side effects. And that’s assuming the patient can even afford his medications.

In-house pharmacists can provide answers now.

An onsite pharmacist can answer that patient’s medication-related questions, while giving him a clear understanding of his prescription protocols — and what to expect from his medicines —before he leaves the hospital. That additional level of patient care and support is even greater when your onsite pharmacy has a robust Meds To Beds program.

VytlOne’s Pharmacist In Charge on the campus of Singing River Health System in Ocean Springs, MS, tells us, “Whenever we deliver prescriptions with Meds To Beds, we follow-up with them after they’ve been discharged — in case they need any ongoing help with their prescriptions.”

An Rx Care Advocate with our pharmacy at RMC Hospital in Anniston describes what she loves about being part of that program: “Getting to spend every day with patients, and getting to know where they come from. Being able to know that they’re going home with their medications, and not wondering if they did get their medications. It’s so reassuring to know that they’re comfortable going home and not worrying about filling their prescriptions. Sometimes the look on their faces is just priceless.”

In-house pharmacists can provide access to financial support.

VytlOne’s pharmacies, particularly in hospitals where we also manage the 340B program, all have multiple financial-support resources they can call for patients in need. Sometimes, we go even further than simply connecting patients with support. Shortly after our pharmacy at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital opened in October 2024, says corporate trainer Becky Clark, “I met a sweet lady battling depression who couldn’t afford her meds, and had no family to help — so we covered her copay from petty cash. As I left the room, I heard her telling her nurse how grateful she was to get this medicine. Honestly, she said, it was saving her life. 

“Later, I was asked to talk to a patient who wasn’t taking his meds, due to the high copays for Entresto, Jardiance and Eliquis. We managed to get all 8 prescriptions filled for $55. His Case Manager was ecstatic.”

Filling prescriptions faster means patients get better sooner.

Admittedly, it’s an obvious conclusion — but still one worth noting, given the importance of a hospital’s healthcare and patient ratings in determining the level of federal support it receives. And the simple truth is, with onsite pharmacies, your patients can often begin treatment the same day — instead of waiting days or weeks for a 340B prescription to be shipped and approved. Which, it goes without saying, gives them a crucial head start in their care journey.

Moreover, as we noted in a previous post, a health system’s 340B program can be tremendously effective in positively impacting its value-based care scores. By ensuring more of your at-need patients have access to affordable medications, 340B can help you significantly reduce readmissions — given the fact that medication-related issues are responsible for some 70% of all preventable readmissions.

In addition to the long-term benefits of initiating medication protocols sooner, there are the immediate needs of patients to consider — particularly after surgery. Our Pharmacist In Charge at Terrebonne General Health System in Houma, Louisiana, points to a key priority of his Meds To Beds team. “After surgery, a patient typically wakes-up within 20 to 30 minutes, and they need their medications right away. Which is why we make those prescriptions top priority. It’s also why the surgery department generates more income for the pharmacy than any other in the hospital, because they know they can trust us to be there when they need us.”

Why you should prioritize your on-campus 340B pharmacies 

As simply stated as possible: On-campus 340B pharmacies mean better outcomes and better incomes. What could be more rewarding than generating more revenue to pursue your 340B health system’s mission in the community, while caring better for your patients?

Onsite pharmacies ensure seamless care coordination for your patients. VytlOne’s retail and specialty pharmacists become an integral part of their hospitals’ care teams, with direct access to physicians, nurses and lab results. What’s more, they facilitate the open flow of patient prescription information among all members of their teams — which eliminates miscommunication, reduces delays, and ensures that patients’ treatment plans stay on track.

In a post we published last year, the Clinical Pharmacist with VytlOne’s Readmission Reduction program at South Carolina’s Conway Medical Center, offers an excellent example of how her role ensures the best possible care and support: “It’s not uncommon for patients to neglect to tell their doctors about all of the medications they’re already taking. Medications that could interact badly with the new meds they’re prescribed at discharge. I’ve been able to identify several potential interaction risks, and then pass-along recommendations to the patients’ physicians. And when you offer that kind of sound prescribing advice, it doesn’t take long for the doctors to know they can count on you as a trusted member of their care teams.”

Simply stated, sending 340B patients to your own pharmacies ensures that their care stays within your health system. Which also means you’ll be able fill and administer most of your 340B prescriptions in-house, rather than outsourcing them to the “Big Three” PBMs (CVS Caremark, Express Scripts, and Optum Rx), where personal patient service is virtually non-existent. 

That said, it’s likely your onsite 340B pharmacies won’t have access to all potential payers and 340B-eligible drugs. At the same time, many patients are loyal to their existing pharmacies, which is also why it’s so important to have as many good contract pharmacy relationships as possible — for additional access in serving patients. Still, if you have a well-run 340B program, one that takes a holistic approach to patient care while optimizing your 340B savings opportunities, you should be able to keep most of your 340B prescriptions within your system. The graphic below illustrates how that holistic approach places 340B at the center of all your hospital’s pharmacy services.

Which is the bigger benefit of 340B: Increased revenue or improved outcomes? 

The answer is Yes! At every one of the 340B health systems we serve, increased revenue is used to extend the mission and ensure better outcomes for more patients — particularly for patients in need. And when all the components of a hospital’s 340B program work in concert to ensure better patient experiences, the impact on their mental well-being can be significant — which, by reducing patient stress, can have a positive impact on the healing process. All that said, we realize pharmacy is only one part of a much bigger caregiving equation — but that doesn’t change the importance to us of our role; a role which often extends well beyond mere clinical support.

A pharmacy technician with our UAB St Vincent’s team in Birmingham put it so well: “One of the most important things I’ve learned,” she says, “is that every single person deserves to be treated with kindness and respect, even when they aren’t being kind to us. After all, we aren’t always seeing people at their best. The moments in my career that stick-out most are times when I’ve served patients who’ve just lost loved ones. All I can do is come-out from behind the counter, hug them, and cry with them, because there’s just no pill to fix that heartbreak.”

With Specialty Pharmacy, every 340B challenge is doubled and multiplied

As we noted in a previous post (Why A 340B Hospital Should Own A Specialty Pharmacy. Why Not.), specialty pharmacies are expensive to own, and complicated to manage successfully. And because specialty medications are so consistently expensive, they’re also subject to the toughest manufacturer 340B restrictions. That’s the downside of a 340B hospital owning an onsite specialty pharmacy. The upside, in addition to the potential to generate up to six times as much 340B revenue as your retail pharmacy, is the even greater level of clinical expertise and support your specialty pharmacy team can bring to caring for your sickest patients. 

There’s also a huge administrative burden your specialty pharmacy team can take off the backs of your providers. VytlOne pharmacists (in both our retail and specialty pharmacies) proactively obtain prior authorizations under their hospitals’ health insurance (or other specialty pharmacy benefit) plans, in addition to providing copay assistance and financial aid — which also removes a major source of stress for patients, while helping them access the medicines they need.

How to make your specialty pharmacy “easier” for patients 

As we’ve noted in multiple posts, including an in-depth roundtable discussion on best practices, specialty pharmacy regulations are exponentially more complicated than those governing retail pharmacies. However, there is no regulation preventing a specialty pharmacy’s Front End space from looking familiar to patients — which is why we make the public spaces in our specialty pharmacies as close as possible to a retail environment; it’s a simple design touch which can offer a strong sense of reassurance to patients already worried for so many other reasons. 

Better care for your patients — 340B or otherwise — starts with Character and Commitment. In her profile post, trainer Becky Clark put it perfectly: “We look for people who have a heart for people. And that’s the way most of our people are. We can teach them a lot of things about the way we serve patients, but you can’t teach character.” 

At the same time, that commitment has to start at the very top of your organization. Becky continues, “Yes, VytlOne is a business, but we don’t have quotas. If there’s one message we make sure everyone hears loud and clear, it’s this: Patients are always our first priority. That never fails to make a positive impression, but you’d be surprised what a change that is from the way a lot of our people have been trained in the past.”

VytlOne is here to help.

To learn more, contact Howard Hall. howard.hall@vytlone.com | 214.808.2700