Maximizing Reimbursement With McKesson Solutions
Emily Flaugher, Vice President and General Manager of Health Mart Atlas and Atlas Specialty at McKesson, sat down with Drug Topics to discuss McKesson solutions that help independent pharmacists maximize reimbursement.
While independent pharmacists are currently facing revenue issues within a dynamic pharmacy market, Emily Flaugher, Vice President and General Manager of Health Mart Atlas and Atlas Specialty at McKesson, said that if community pharmacists can use a combination of McKesson’s resources at their disposal, they will be able to reclaim a maximized amount of reimbursement dollars and fully execute on opportunities for profitability.
In an interview with Drug Topics, Flaugher discussed the McKesson solutions that can help independent pharmacists maximize reimbursement and take the stress of focusing on profitability away from pharmacy owners. Three of the key solutions that help pharmacists execute profitability goals are McKesson’s pharmacy services administrative organization (PSAO), Health Mart Atlas, and tools like McKesson Reimbursement Advantage and Provider Pay.
“Health Mart Atlas is doing a lot of investments to try to make sure we can make it easier for pharmacies,” Flaugher explained. “I think it's really important that our pharmacies have the time to dedicate to their patients and community, what's really most important to them.”
McKesson offers some key solutions to help pharmacists maximize profitability goals. | Image credit: Andrii Zastrozhnov - stock.adobe.com
“What we can do from a partner perspective is figure out ways to make it easier [for pharmacists] to understand their contracts. We've invested in a lot of digital solutions to make sure that they can have a one-stop-shop for things like financial insights, reporting, and resources,” she added.
READ MORE: Implementing a Year-Long Vaccine Program Helps Community Pharmacies Increase Profits
But, Flaugher stressed, it’s important to take advantage of the tools that McKesson offers in unison.
“All of these solutions that we're talking about—Health Mart Atlas, the PSAO, [McKesson Reimbursement Advantage], and Provider Pay—are best utilized when they're all intertwined together,” Flaugher said. McKesson can provide pharmacists with the solutions they need “from a core PSAO perspective—with operational credentialing, contracting, and customer support,” as well as add-on solutions that can help pharmacists ensure that they’re operating in the most efficient way possible and “maximizing your reimbursement and revenue opportunities and getting every dollar you’re owed through reconciliation.”
In a session focused on maximizing reimbursements and minimizing labor spend, Marilyin Siayap, RPh, MHA, director of pharmacy at WellPower, discussed her experience using McKesson solutions. In particular, Siayap focused on McKesson Reimbursement Advantage and Provider Pay, and how McKesson has made reimbursement seamless for independent pharmacies.
“We started using [McKesson Reimbursement Advantage] and it has made it a lot easier. I have a monthly call with my rep Deborah, and she goes through all the reports for both pharmacies and tells me, ‘You know, you could use a better [national drug code] for this one,’ or, ‘Check your package size on this one, these don't look right,’” explained Siayap. “[These are] things that we wouldn't have seen unless we spend a lot of time doing it [ourselves].”1
Siayap’s first-hand experience using McKesson’s various solutions has really allowed her to focus on her patients. “To me, it’s worth saving time and stress. We have enough to be stressed about right now,” she added.
With the McKesson Reimbursement Advantage tool, McKesson provides its customers with a representative to work together on new initiatives and introduce more opportunities for maximizing profits. The representative starts by assessing almost every aspect of the partnered pharmacy’s business. Then, that representative will make an on-site visit to the pharmacy and work with the owners to create an extensive plan to increase revenue and ultimately take the slack away from pharmacists trying to simultaneously run a business and provide valued care.
On-site representatives will also discuss market trends, review pharmacies’ reporting, and prepare owners for audits—facilitating business operations that pharmacists may be unfamiliar with.
Siayap also detailed her experience with McKesson’s Provider Pay service, a reconciliation solution for pharmacies to seek and establish a platform to receive the maximum reimbursement they are owed.
“With Provider Pay, they look at all of our reimbursements. They match [them] up to make sure we're getting reimbursed,” Siayap explained. This was another task that Siayap and employees were doing themselves, but quickly realized that utilizing McKesson’s resources “makes [things] a lot easier.”
Ultimately, these investment in solutions “is what’s really going to set our McKesson pharmacies apart,” Flaugher said. “One single solution is valuable, but if you have all of them in the mix, we’re all partnering together at a broader McKesson level to make sure they’re hitting on those different parts of your business so that [pharmacists] can focus on what’s most important, which is their patients and community.”
READ MORE: McKesson ideaShare 2024 Coverage
