American Pharmacists Month: Pharmacies Expanding Clinical Services Amid Network, Access Challenges

Despite the vast majority of US pharmacies expressing the desire to expand on their clinical service offerings, many state regulations impede pharmacists’ ability to provide and bill for these services. While businesses like Condo Pharmacy in Plattsburgh, New York, have expressed access and network concerns among their patient population, the pharmacy employees are continuously working to reach more patients and provide personalized care for all patients that seek it.

“We're not able to do everything that some of our peers [and] colleagues are doing, some of the great work. But we're still working hard,” Steve Moore, PharmD, owner of Condo Pharmacy, told Drug Topics. “We've got a great team here at Condo Pharmacy and we're working with both our state society, CPESN, NCPA to update our scope here in New York, and hopefully lots of great stuff to come soon.”

During American Pharmacists Month, Moore joined Drug Topics to discuss his experiences as an independent pharmacy owner and the factors that either support or impede his teams’ ability to provide clinical services. From expansion of immunizations in the state of New York to the continued issues with pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), learn from a pharmacy owner about how his team is dealing with constant barriers and industry developments.

READ MORE: American Pharmacists Month: Pharmacy Collaboration Enables Delivery of Better Patient Care

Drug Topics: What are some of the services or initiatives at your pharmacy that patients in the community seem to hold the most value towards?

Steve Moore: Here in New York, our scope of practice is unfortunately restricted relative to that of our peers in other states. We're not able to do everything that some of our peers [and] colleagues are doing, some of the great work. But we're still working hard. We've got a great team here at Condo Pharmacy and we're working with both our state society, CPESN, NCPA to update our scope here in New York, and hopefully lots of great stuff to come soon.

In the meantime, COVID did move the pharmacy profession forward here in New York. We are doing point-of-care testing. Believe it or not, we weren't able to offer all adult immunizations prior to COVID; we had a list. [Now], we're able to offer more immunizations. That's a very big service for patients, something people seem to appreciate the convenience of coming to a pharmacy for, more so than having to schedule an appointment at a doctor's office that may, understandably, be weeks or months away.

[We’re] working with the state, with the board of pharmacy, and with other stakeholders here to bring test-and-treat to New York. We have it through teaching hospitals right now, collaborative practice agreements, but the rest of us are excited for the opportunity to expand that into the community setting.

I think this time of year, with flu [and] respiratory season coming up, it always hits home. Why go all over the place, when [patients] can visit one spot? Go to a pharmacy, get tested; it's flu, it's RSV, it's COVID. I can get treated in the same spot; just makes a lot of sense for everybody. And I think both our patients and our fellow clinicians—our physicians, our nurse practitioners, our physician assistants, our nurses—they're busy enough. If that's something that pharmacy can do, it's a win-win for all of us.

Drug Topics: On the other side of what services patients value the most, are there concerns that your patients have raised that impact the greater community? If so, how have you and your team gone about addressing those concerns?

Steve Moore: I think, unfortunately, the secret's out that it's not a good time for pharmacy right now. Patients are concerned, not only about what we call enhanced services and all these clinical care services, they're concerned about just getting their prescriptions on time. Do we have access to the third-party plans? Restricted networks: There's a major PBM, Express Scripts, that has pretty much decided it's not going to work with any of the PSAOs contracting with pharmacies independently. Then, if you're not in their pharmacy network, you're not in their MoreThanRx clinical care service network. Patients may not have access to a pharmacy even though there's one down the street.

There is some concern that we've heard from both sides of the aisle about immunizations in particular. I think that's been in the news a lot, for a number of different reasons. People wondered what was going to happen with the COVID vaccine, for instance, what was going to happen with the flu vaccine. We've been able to have conversations. We work with some senior homes and everything. Yes, your patients are still going to be eligible for RSV as they hit that certain age. What's going to happen with COVID? Well, we might not have known that a month ago. We’re starting to get a better idea of what's going to happen as we move forward day by day, and hopefully by this time next month, we're even more sure. But we've got the flu vaccine, the immunization, that's going to happen as normal. We've been able to reassure people as we get our supply.

I think it's been interesting, some people are really anxious to get the shots this year, whereas before they've maybe been willing to wait a little bit longer. We still encourage people, ‘Hey, probably closer to October, you're still a little bit early right now. If you can wait, we'd encourage you to do that just to get you through flu season.’ But I think where we've seen some hesitancy in the past, those people who want to get their immunizations are making sure that they're going to be able to.

READ MORE: American Pharmacists Month Resource Center

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