AI Pricing Tools and Technology in the Pharmacy

Drug Topics® talks with pharmacy owner Jeff Harrell about AI pricing tools and technology in the pharmacy.

Lauren Biscaldi: All right. So, can we just start with having you introduce yourself?

Jeff Harrell: Hi, my name is Jeff Harrell, I am an independent pharmacy owner based out of Long Beach, Washington. We have about 26 locations in 3 states, Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.

LB: So, first question is what has helped drive your interest as pharmacist in the adoption of technology, especially AI, in the independent pharmacy space?

JH: So, I realized many years ago that we as independent pharmacists do a really poor job at pricing our cash price prescriptions. We take into consideration a lot of emotion, we're not really looking at the market data, and our pricing can be all over the board. And I noticed that as our location started to grow that the pricing at each pharmacy was very different and really controlled by whoever the pharmacist or the technician was that was entering the data, and so I found this product with Prescryptive, this AI pricing model that we have rolled out and it is really basically helped us become more accurate I should say in our pricing of cash prescriptions. You know it uses artificial intelligence to look at market data as well as where we are at you know, on an average kind of curve so to speak. So, we started adopting that AI product recently and it's working out very well for us. It takes the emotion out, you know, and technology is… I've always said, you know, people lie data doesn't, you know, and they don't mean to lie, it's just if you don't count it quantitative and you don't know. And so, the AI product really maximizes the data and puts it in as accurate as it can be when you're out pricing for cash prescriptions for your patients.

LB: The emotion piece is really interesting, can you go into that a little more? Because I wonder, you know, independent pharmacist have such a good relationship with so many of our customers. I know I have with my independent pharmacists, what is that like?

JH: Absolutely, yeah, so the emotion piece of it is, you know, we do have that relationship with those customers and patients and neighbors and friends. And oftentimes, you know, they'll get a prescription and if they don't have insurance, we'll just go five bucks, or four bucks or three bucks or try to you know, compete with a chain is your mindset but you haven't really done the research on that drug. You know, it could have gone up in price it could have gone down in price. And so just basically picking a number out of a hat and throwing it at a pricing scheme is what the majority of independents do. I mean, there are some real sharp ones that are using their pharmacy management systems to dial in their pricing structure, but to what I've seen as we've grown to 26 locations is that's not the case in very many pharmacies. And so that emotion piece is, is you're feeling sorry for, or you're connected to, and you're pricing it at below market and you're leaving, you're leaving dollars on the table.

LB: Can you talk a little bit about how you're utilizing Prescryptive’s AI optimized pricing within your pharmacies and what benefits you’ve seen with that system thus far?

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