With the Phill Box®, independent pharmacies give patients another reason to choose them
Running an independent pharmacy isn’t for the faint of heart. As consolidation swallows up more and more corner drugstores, independents are left to contend with dwindling dispensing fees and narrowed insurance networks.
Yet in 2019, just two years after completing her Doctor of Pharmacy degree, Kaitlyn Sullivan bought the community pharmacy that hired her upon her graduation. Palmer Pharmacy is located in a former coal patch town north of Pittsburgh. It opened in the 1930s and today serves a small rural area.
From left: Bill Palmer (right) inherited the family pharmacy from his father; Bill Palmer stands behind the coffee and ice cream counter at the roughly 90-year-old pharmacy; Sullivan (right) purchased Palmer Pharmacy from Nick Hromika, who owned the store for nearly three decades.
“It just was one of those pharmacies where I fell in love with all the people there, all the community there. It drew me in, and I had fallen in love with it,” Sullivan said.
With her new business, she charged into a fiercely competitive line of work where chains such as CVS and Walgreens reign supreme.
“The biggest challenges are things that I really don’t have a lot of control over,” Sullivan said.
For example, she must live with insurers’ declining reimbursement rates that sometimes do not cover the full cost of a drug. Palmer Pharmacy, therefore, dispenses certain meds at a loss. Some insurance companies leave her pharmacy out of their coverage plans, limiting who can fill their scripts there. Or, they might give preferred status to competing drugstores, allowing those shops to charge patients less out of pocket.
Sullivan said she instead focuses on customers’ in-store experience to give them reasons to come to Palmer.
“One of the things I can control is staffing — I can make sure that I have good customer service, good people, and good training,” Sullivan noted.
She has launched a host of new services at Palmer, including a vaccination program, point-of-care testing, weight management coaching and tobacco cessation counseling.
Palmer Pharmacy also organizes community events. Every fall, its health fair attracts about 100 attendees. Its annual holiday market features photos with Santa, card writing for seniors and about 40 local gift vendors. Through its Saturday reading program, Palmer pairs local children with volunteers and awards the kids with a milkshake or another treat for every book they read. The store makes sure to carry the books of local authors.
The Phill Box®, a sustainable medication container, also gives Palmer an advantage with patients. The paper-based packaging provides an eco-friendly alternative to plastic pill bottles, which are seldom recycled.
Palmer piloted the Phill Box® in early 2022. Sullivan said she wanted to do her part to curb plastic waste, which can infiltrate drinking water and the food chain and take hundreds of years to decompose.
Sullivan said customers reacted positively to the Phill Box®. “I was actually surprised by how many people were even eco-conscious,” she said.
She noted that patients who suffer from arthritis or carpal tunnel syndrome especially appreciate the Phill Box® because its three-step lock works like a button — it eliminates the strain that results from pushing and twisting the lid of a standard pill vial.
See for yourself! Order a complimentary Phill Box® to explore another tool for bringing more customers to your pharmacy.