The Pennsylvania Pharmacist Association's Annual Conference Post Show | Part Three (Finale)

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You are listening to the global network of

podcasters dedicated to the pharmacy profession. Welcome to the pharmacy podcast network.

Welcome to the Pennsylvania Pharmacist Association's annual conference post show,

presented by the pharmacy podcast network. In this three-part series,

we bring you exclusive interviews from the conference, held February 20th through

the 22nd at the Hilton Harrisburg. You'll hear real conversations with industry leaders,

including Dr. Kyle McCormick, John DeJames, the American Pharmacist Association CEO,

Dr. Michael Hogue, and many more. This series is proudly sponsored by Value Drug Company

in the Pennsylvania Pharmacist Care Network, PPCN. As they celebrate their tenth

anniversary of advancing pharmacist-led patient care across the Commonwealth.

Cole Hanson, Value Drug Company here at the PPA 2026. It's so good to have you on the show.

Yeah, thanks for having me. You and I were talking before we started up and it's like,

you're up behind the scenes administrative leader in the marketing field and now I'm throwing

you on a podcast. It's just like, Nicole, get out of it. I like to play behind the scenes. I'm not

out in front usually yet. You do a really good job. I want to say as a fellow marketer,

the communications that coming out of Value Drug and you're very passionate about it,

the stories that you're actually you're telling. Let's start there. Pharmacy is changing.

I entered pharmacy 2004. It's massively different than when it was. But communications and marketing

is also changing. And how do you see technology? How do you see transparency? How do you see

marking in general since you started in probably marketing in the yesterday years? How do you see

a change? Well, I think you really have to start meeting people where they're at. So they got a

lot of things thrown at them every day, you know, whatever platform, social media, everything that

they're going at. They got a lot of people showing them, you know, come here or this is what you

need to do. But we're really bad as a profession, I think, of actually telling people what we do,

like who we are, like the services we offer, where we're at. It's just not something that, especially

in the independent world that we've been very comfortable with. So it's becoming crucial to get

out in front of this because now people have so many choices and things are becoming all about

convenience. So really in the independent industry, we need to start thinking about some other

ways to engage, some other ways to meet those needs and become that, you know, more focused,

one-stop shop, convenient place where people know they can go, you know, within their communities

within, you know, easy access. So at value, we've been really trying to promote more of the

let's start pivoting and thinking what else we could be doing, you know, outside of that dispensing,

where you can fill some of those gaps in your community that, you know, they may not, they'd be

struggling to, you know, figure out. But yeah, so we're trying to, you know, work with them to

get a little bit more open-minded and understand that it needs to start happening and get

yourselves out there a little bit more and let people know, you know, where you're at and what you

offer. So the warehouse, the infrastructure, the technology value has now positioned itself for

growth and expansion and to support community pharmacies who are these high performing pharmacies

that are doing things that aren't traditional. But now that you have that infrastructure,

let's talk about some of the interesting programs that you guys are coming up with to really

accentuate the power of our community pharmacies. Yeah, so I think a lot of people just think

wholesaler and, you know, that's where I purchased my drugs, it's a line item on my P&L.

But we have a whole different, my department here. So we are a group of pharmacists, you know,

that come from the bench on the ground. And our whole goal here is to create these programs that

kind of help them pivot into more of those non-dispensing revenue-generating opportunities that,

you know, grow outside of that just, you know, lipstick and poor type of model. So currently the

big focus that we have right now is really around the whole, in Pennsylvania at least, is around,

you know, scope of practice, the provider status, you know, starting to operate at the top of

your license and more focus on those clinical-based services that might be bringing more of those

patients into your pharmacy, you know, that can help with dispensing on that side. But also,

you know, kind of supplement some of those other revenue-generating opportunities that,

you know, can help when dispensing really, we know is not going to be the do-all-endell here.

True. Next five years. Doesn't that play right in Nicole with PPCN too? Yeah. And like,

what they've done and how they've grown. We just celebrated 10 years here at the Pennsylvania

Pharmacist Association, a celebration of 10 years of the PPCN, and you guys are aligned with that.

Yep. Yeah. So we were one of the original supporters of that whole program. I know 10 years

ago, I remember them coming in. We support that at value drug. So we supplement a lot of those,

you know, costs and things like that for our pharmacy. We have a very large majority of our

members that are PPCN pharmacists. So that is also part of the support that we offer, you know,

on the ground for them is, you know, part of that more clinical service, revenue-generating

opportunities. Our team out on the ground helping them, you know, develop some of those supports,

workflows, et cetera to kind of get those off the ground. So, yeah, we play very much hand in hand

with them as well. And PPCN is highly involved in that. So I've heard from several people that

work with the pharmacy schools. We had an interview with Wilkes Pharmacy School. Jonathan was

talking about communication as a new emphasis and focus for pharmacy students to understand

that communication is going to become a big part of their job. But I think of our independent

community pharmacies and understanding they got to keep their communication up. So social media,

I hate it when I love it. I hate it because you got to do it. I love it because it does bring me

connections with my listeners. It brings me connections with my clients. It helps me to

generate new clients because they're seeing what we're doing. It's probably a love-hate relationship

for you too. But talk to me about social media and how it's evolved over the years.

Yeah. So I mean, we still have guys out there that don't even have a website, you know. So it's

becoming more and more critical to be able to be found. So whether that's even just simply a

website claiming your space on Google or really getting out there and just setting up a Facebook

page for your pharmacy profile, a place where you can actually, again, meet them where they're at.

So they're not going to come in to you. It's really what it comes down to. It's all about,

you know, what are my options, what's convenient, what are the services there that I'm going to be

able to be offered. And unfortunately, unfortunately, social media is really the best way that they

can get out there and access, you know, more of those individuals and like communicate what they

have going on. But again, our, you know, independent pharmacy, it's not really their comfort zone,

just like mine. Like I were pharmacists, we're not, we don't like to be out there, you know,

promoting and everything that we're doing. It's just not really in our nature. But it's at that

point where, you know, education to the general public. So they know their options and understand

what's going on. It's going to be the, you know, crucial factor in us surviving here for the next

five to ten years. So the Cole Hansen here at PPA 2026. This has been awesome to get you on the

show. This can't be your last podcast. You promise me you're coming back. I will. I will come back.

I promise. Yes. Thank you. Hey, thanks.

Kyle McCormick, Brandon Hansen, Opelus, both here at the PPA 2026. I can't believe I said

2026, making me feel old when I met both of you. I think you were either P2s or P3s. Yeah.

Yeah. It was definitely around that time. About 15 years ago. You rep, Brandon,

reped my shirt, RX rated. Yes. I still love that picture. That's like one of my, you're in your

hotel room at probably a PPA. And you guys, you guys have been superstars since your, since

your college years. My wife made a quilt, one of those like t-shirt quilts or had one made.

I love that. And it's like pharmacy t-shirts over the years from when we were students.

And I swear about half of those are pharmacy podcasts and are t-shirts. But yeah,

RX rated is definitely on there. So I'm going to start with Kyle. I like talking to you

yesterday. We weren't obviously mic'd up. But I made a comment to you and you like, you kind of

shot it right down, which was awesome. I mean, you just stand, you stand in the position of being a

true pharmacist. And I said to you, are you doing things for cash? Are you bringing in like

vaccine clinics or contraception? And you were like, stone cold. You're like, no, I'm a,

I'm a pharmacist. Like I'm going to, and that was awesome. But that was a real powerful statement

of the impact and the freedom that you have as a cash-based pharmacist and a pharmacy. So talk

to us about that. Yeah, no, it's a little controversial. Because as pharmacists, are we smart enough to

do other things? Are we capable of doing other things? Could we learn additional skill sets to

do additional things? But if I think of what uniquely is a pharmacist from a legal perspective,

it's, you know, I can counsel, I can do final check on prescription drugs. If we're talking about

doing, you know, vaccines, point of care testing, that's not uniquely a pharmacist. So I'm not saying

pharmacists can't do that. I'm saying that it's not medication expert. And so if I think

my role as a medication expert is making sure that each patient I care for gets the right

medications at the right time, they're safe and effective for the patient. And so that's where

my singular focus is. I'm not saying, you know, pharmacists can't or shouldn't do anything else.

I think a lot of the desire to do other things comes from the past 25 years of decreasing

reimbursement for doing what we do as pharmacists. Being that final check, being making sure

patients get safe and effective medications, when they're no longer paid for that service,

we have to seek outside services. So now, instead of doing, you know, one thing really well,

we're trying to do too many things and doing none of them as well as we could if we just focused

on one thing. And so that's really what has really kind of woken me up since being a

hospital's pharmacy is realizing there's no shame in being a pharmacist. Yeah. In fact, I love

being a pharmacist more now than I ever have because I get to singularly focus on prescription

drugs, making sure people are on safe and effective medications and can afford them and all that

stuff. So I use the love giving vaccines too. So it's kind of like weird to like say, I don't want to

ever give another vaccine in my life. Not because it wasn't fun. It's just I filled my brain with many

things that weren't prescription drugs. Yeah. And the more I focus on prescription drugs, the more I

can be better at. So listeners, if you don't realize I'm talking to two entrepreneurs that are both

cash-based pharmacies and with that once again comes a tremendous amount of freedom that you just

don't have to put up with with many pharmacists are experiencing nationally. Brandon, talk to us

about that freedom, talk to us about that power. Yeah, sure. So it's, you know, going off a kind of

what Kyle said, you know, thinking about the service at the point of dispensing that all pharmacists

provide and now have to provide, you know, it's if we were to put a label on it, it's really,

I think of it as that drug utilization review or the the DR that has to be done. And all pharmacists

everywhere, whether dispensing or in a pharmacy or somewhere else and they're reviewing medications,

you know, that's the process of what you're doing. I think what we decided to do was really just

we understand that there's a value to that and we will not accept payments whether direct

from patient or otherwise below what that value is or at least our cost to provide that service. So

you know, from a patient standpoint, I'm trying to get in the weeds of that is a little hard for

them. I think at least now initially to understand they just want to know what the final price is.

So our ability just to say here's our cost of the drug with what our fee is that we're going to

charge to do that drug utilization review on every medication that we dispense gets you to this

final price. You know, it's it's really just we refuse to perform services for anything less than

what our value is. Now, you know, I would love very pharmacy, you know, six years in they're probably

in a position while they'll never have to consider reviewing a contract or something to contract

ever. They have that much sustainability and freedom in the appetite from patients is there.

We've hit that point of sustainability, but you know, there are

populations and patients that I would love to provide care for. Unfortunately, the contractual

arrangements that they're under either from the government or from their employer don't

appropriately value pharmacists for the services. So once they do, you know, I would consider what

what those rates are in participating those arrangements, but until that time comes on

totally fine with and in our communities growing too. We've hit our sustainability point getting

close to two years now and they'll afford our X. The freedoms there that we get to make those

decisions and those decisions aren't made for us and patients love it. I think they they don't

really care too much about like again, these nuances and these things that that happen. They just

know that they're getting a great service better than what they can get anywhere else. It's affordable

in their minds and even if it is a high price, it's high value and they're willing to pay that price.

How long does it take? Like I would think if I'm a pharmacy in the in the tradition of using

contracts, PBMs and I wanted to shift, would that be harder than starting brand new pharmacy

right as cash-based? Would it be hard? Which one's harder to do? Starting, you know, brand new or

trying to shift off the sauce? Yeah, so I think shifting is harder. I mean not even just with

the pricing methodology and the contract, but even whenever I used to do business coaching to

independent pharmacies in a prior life, even trying to change workflow from traditional reactive

refill methodology to one or more of a proactive, med-sync model. You know, a lot of basement flip

the pharmacy, your CPS and program was about, it's about helping to reframe patient expectations

of something new and I just think it's an easier lift to do that, to set those expectations when

you're a brand new pharmacy versus trying to convert from the old way to the new way. So whether it's

a cash-based or a cost-plus model, whether it's changing your workflow, I believe that it's an easier

lift when it comes to framing those expectations when you're a new pharmacy because then they expect

something new and different versus when you're trying to implement something new and you're

existing pharmacy, you still have those patients that maybe like it the way that it was even though

you're trying to do things better for them and you're always fighting with that, how things always

were, versus trying to refuse that expectations to how you want to build it. I don't know. Yeah Kyle,

how did you educate your community? What blueberry was doing and get them to bite?

Yeah, I mean, our marketing is just education, like you say. And the easier thing about starting

fresh versus transitioning is strictly that you have no mixed messaging. You have no mixed

education. It's very singular and so your message is you are better off not using your insurance

for non-injurable things. I don't say it that way for patients. Usually I make the analogy of

car insurance. Now I use the analogy of I'll just say, hey, do you have car insurance? Yeah,

do you ever hope do you have to use it? No. Life insurance. You hope to have to use that. No.

Homeowner's insurance. Are you looking forward to meeting your deductible this year? No.

Why are you so excited to hit your $1,100 deductible debt? Do you not think it's like every other

insurance product? And so reframing what insurance is meant to be, reframing what happens when you

use insurance for things that are small minor that shouldn't be insured. It really just helps

to make it make sense because we're hit with so much messaging around health insurance that

you can't live in America without it. You can't stop as way too unaffordable. It's like no, actually

it's cheaper. Almost always to be uninsured. I know that's from a point of privilege or whatever

you want to say, but I can help somebody a lot more. I even live life, the uninsured life.

We have insurance, but I try my best to never have to use it. That's the message is like

walking people through the thought process of like it's like every homeowner's

project you're thinking, do I get out my home insurance card? In fact, people don't even carry

their other insurance cards with them. This is, you just are overly used to how things have been,

and so it's really just breaking that mental framework. I think our nation has been

lured into thinking that they always have to pull that insurance card out for everything,

and once they listen to you and understand the freedom that it gives them to,

especially the relationship between their provider, goodness sake, there's no barrier for

for anything. It's an enlightening feeling and conversation and expression, especially when

patients come to our pharmacy and we're going over all their medications, whether they're

filling prescriptions with us or not, just so again, we're doing what every pharmacist does,

comprehensive drug reviews and drug utilization reviews, so whether we're filling it or not,

it's still our responsibility to check those things. We don't need a claims-based system to check

for interactions or anything like that to keep patients safe, but the moment the patient says,

like, oh, do you need my insurance information? I'm like, no, we don't need it.

Or my papers are like, no, we don't need that.

January 1 comes around and they're texting us, like, hey, you got to do insurance, and I was like,

yeah, that's great. That's great. Good deal for you. They're like, oh yeah, that's right.

You don't care, I'm like, yep, but I'm happy for you. We take care, you no matter what your card says.

Sorry, sorry, there's a really long social media post and the response is like, sorry

that happened to you, or I'm happy for you. I don't know how the response, but it's like

new insurance. Sorry, or, yay, I don't know. I said when we first started talking, I met

both of you through the PPA when you were students for goodness' sakes, and now you're on the board,

like, you've come a long way, and talk to me about leadership now at the board level for the PPA.

Yeah, sure, so PPA has been great. We've been involved ever since we were students at the

University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy, and I think now, again, just to be in this position,

it's a real honor, and now it's President-elected, the Association, and Kyle is going to, you know,

fights, or is Vice President now, looking at this weekend. I think we're just really excited,

obviously, for many years, a lot of things that we see in healthcare and a lot of things that

we've seen in pharmacy that we don't like and need change. You know, Kyle was the first one that

kind of jump in with his colleagues, the start of pharmacy that does something different,

and a lot of people that said, you know, he was nuts, and it couldn't be done, and here we are

six years later, and, you know, just as busy taking care of patients, as any other pharmacy out

there, and, you know, inspiration for us to get involved, and open our pharmacy doing the same

thing for Rx. You know, just really looking forward to help lead the Association into, again,

fixing healthcare, and fixing things for pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, future pharmacists,

we just want to make sure everyone is surviving and thriving in their lives of being in this

pharmacy journey and taking care of folks. So I know for me, you know, personally, while I may

have some strong opinions on how things happen or should be happening in pharmacy, I feel like

that's going to be the guiding star, just making sure we can do as leaders of the Association

anything to help pharmacists, future pharmacists, and those supporting pharmacists to be able to

survive and thrive to take care of folks in their communities and do what they do. I think the PPA,

I mean, Brandon would probably agree with me that it was very formative, transformative,

in my view of pharmacy. I mean, absolutely. I think about not so much, I mean, the organization is

the people, and the people here, from all the people, you know, that were up in front of the stage

with us this morning, the two birthday boys, Rob Mayer and Brandon here, you know, the whole

value drug team that's so involved with PPA as well, the podfather. You know, you think back to the

early days of our experience, you know, it's Brandon wearing podfather t-shirts, right? Yeah.

So I think it's a very important organization, and I think if I look to the next five years,

there's a lot of transformation happening. And so I don't want to, I want the PPA to be as strong as

possible during that transformation, because it's the past five years alone have been, more has

happened in the past five years of pharmacy. You might even argue the past three years of pharmacy,

maybe even the past six months of pharmacy years, but then has happened probably in the preceding

20 years of pharmacy, since like Medicare Part D. So the pace of change is just unparallel,

and so I think that, you know, that gives us a lot of challenges, but also a lot of opportunity.

And I think my main takeaway or my big hope is for people to realize that we can't

just wait for other people to fix things for us. I shouldn't want other people to solve my problems,

because that takes agency away from me. If I have that mindset of like somebody also fix it,

if I have that mindset of like, you know, legislators will fix my problems, or the government

should fix my problems, that's mentally saying I have no agency to fix things myself.

So I think in pharmacy, we've really, in healthcare, you know, we have that,

that's the problem of healthcare. Other people should solve my health problems.

Other people should solve the industry problems, and that's not how you get real change.

And so I think, as I look to the next five years, the next three years,

it's restoring that of what can each pharmacy owner do for themselves, for their communities.

How can they make change directly, not relying on other people? And that'll make them stronger,

that'll make their community stronger, and then they won't be subject to the whims of the next

policy maker, the whims of the next, you know, change of, you know, wholesale or requirements,

things like that. So it's building that foundation is hopefully the goal.

Yeah, I think that transformation is going to have a home, and that home's going to be PPA.

For sure, it's awesome. Well, proud of both of you. I feel like the old man,

with the three of us standing around his table right now. But it's true, because the young is

like 15 years ago. I don't know. Man, I aged 15 years. I don't think Todd did.

Well, that's good. I get good genes, but thank you guys for being on the show.

This has been exciting. Can't wait for for the next gathering. I got to see you guys at

some other conference coming up, and I'm very proud of you guys. So congratulations,

and we are working. And thank you for your leadership for the PPA.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you for everything you do for us.

Absolutely. Thank you. Always will.

This is Carrie Truman. I'm with Alina Rex, and we are listening to The Pharmacy Podcast.

Hey, Aline, our ex. It's been kind of a mystery to me. What this organization is about.

I appreciate you being on the show here at the PPA 2026. Thank you.

Carrie, tell me about the organization Don Meredith, and I have been connected on LinkedIn

for goodness gracious, probably 15, 20 years and making me feel old. And he's been with

several other organizations that I kind of learned from him, and he brought a lot of attention to

what Alina Rex is. However, you guys are a different PSAO than what I remember back when I was

in the wholesale business to talk to me about Alina Rex. Well, Alina Rex is dedicated to supporting

community pharmacy as you're aware, and our mission is quite simple actually. It's to provide

innovative solutions and support to help ensure that pharmacies are existing long-term and that

their businesses are sustainable. And we are different from every other PSAO out there. We're

the largest independently PSAO with over 5,100 members. Our membership spans across the United

States, we're in all 50 states, as well as Puerto Rico. What many people don't know is that

Alina Rex is structured as a public benefit LLC, which means that we operate for profit, but we

also are intended to produce a public benefit for community pharmacy. So our structure signals

a fundamental commitment to placing the pharmacies interests first. And that's really key.

One of the other things that really differentiates Alina Rex is that we offer the freedom to choose

their own wholesalers and buying groups, which for our pharmacy, that's extremely important,

especially when cost pressures are relentless. That kind of brings up something. I wanted to ask

you a question. Back in the day when I was trying to help run a buying group, we had to use a

specific PSAO that was associated with the wholesaler, and now you can kind of use Alina Rex without

having to have a wholesaler connected to it. Talk to us about the kind of the freedom of what

your members are able to do versus someone that has to be locked into a specific wholesaler.

We know a lot of the PSAOs do require pharmacies to use their own drug purchasing. However,

with Alina Rex, we believe that businesses need to have their own independence when it comes to

their buy-slide. It gives them control over their business. And that's really important, especially

in today's world when there is so much coming at community pharmacies. We want to make sure that

they're in the best seat in order to make sure that their business is being responded to as

vigilantly as possible in order to run smoothly. All right. One of the things that you guys do that

was really interesting. We're here at the PPA 2026, and I saw it on your table, was the RX Protect.

And that's an audit protection. Talk to us about how that works.

Audit Protection Program. We're helping pharmacies to minimize their audit risk and protect

their bottom line. We're doing this so it's more of a double edged approach. When a pharmacy has

an audit, typically they will come to Alina Rex for help. So we actually do a complete mock audit

prior to their audit in order to make sure that we're uncovering any discrepancies that may need

to be addressed prior to them having the PVM come in to do the audit. So for them, it's really

lessening the number of red flags that they're going to have. Our goal is always going to be a

$0 recruitment. And I feel like Alina Rex has done that extremely well. In many, many cases,

we, the pharmacy, the PVMs, are recouping nearly $0 from our community pharmacies.

We also give our pharmacies a high risk audit report every week. And that is designed

to pull out any red flags that a PVM may see. And that gives the pharmacy an opportunity to make

changes year round so that they're always audit ready year round.

Carrie, thank you so much for being on the PPA 2026 post show. We really appreciate your insights.

Thank you.

Penn, medicine, out of, is it Philadelphia? Philadelphia, yeah.

So filled up in New Jersey, we have in both area. Yeah, we're in Pennsylvania, New Jersey.

Introduce yourself to the listeners here listening to the Pennsylvania Pharmacist

Association's 2026 potion. Hi, Nish Kaz Baker and the Vice President and Chief Pharmacy Officer

for Penn Medicine were a seven hospital health system that expands across Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

All right. So how has pharmacy evolved over the years that you've been involved with Penn

Medicine? So I've been a Penn Medicine for 30 years. And when I first started,

I wanted the smaller hospitals that was a 300 bed. I was the first pharmacist that was actually

on the floor. It's an infectious disease pharmacist administering an antimicrobial stewardship program.

And so today we're looking at probably somewhere around 750 pharmacists across seven hospitals.

These pharmacists work in multiple settings. So everything from oncology to transplant,

infectious disease to critical care, emergency room, addiction medicine, which is a new area for

us in the last five years or so. We have pharmacists in the ambulatory care settings, so they see

patients in our physician clinics. And we have a very robust, retail and specialty pharmacy that

offers some wraparound services that really help our patients stay on their medications,

adherent to their medications that we're pretty excited about. How do you think pharmacist

are expanding in the health system pharmacy? I've seen pharmacists who are now becoming the

neonatal specialist for pediatrics. I've seen ones that are now becoming the go-to emergency medicine.

So talk to us a little bit about the future role. Yeah, I think in the next five years, you're

going to see more influence of artificial intelligence, more technology. I think pharmacists

are going to be involved a lot more in data analytics. So kind of the big data of Apple watches

and patient monitoring and diagnostics, also precision medicine. So at some point,

you know, I envision the pharmacists are going to be 3D printing medications, one pill that has

all their medications in it that's targeted and customized for that patient and not kind of

the same medication and that multiple patients are getting any longer. Yeah, they have the new

device that is a compounding machine that does non-stero and you plug in from the pharmacy management

system, what you want and all of a sudden that compounds the medicine, like that's that's nuts.

Yeah, I think the future is amazing and I think one of the things is that we have to make sure

we're training our workforce now in pharmacy schools on the job to know about that technology

and kind of be able to change change management, you know, kind of learn new technologies because

this is going to be the way of the future. The world of healthcare is so competitive, the world

of pharmacy and health system pharmacy, so competitive, it's the people that make the difference.

Someone like you that's been in it for 30 years that you can actually help to accelerate younger

pharmacists' careers, dial them into something that they're passionate about doing. What gets

you're excited to keep going? What makes you excited about pharmacy? You know, my favorite

statement is I do what I love and I love what I do and I teach a lot of students that, you know,

if you like what you do, you don't really work a day in your life and so you have to passion

for the profession, you have to have passion for the patients you take care of and at the end of

the day, you know, you're really helping patients and so it's such a satisfying to see the patient

reactions to pharmacists and practice. And I thank you so much for being part of the PPA

post show here for 2026. I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Hi, this is Mark Pilkinton with Pharmacy Profiles and you're listening to the pharmacy practice.

Mark, welcome to the Pennsylvania Pharmacist Association 2026. How are you?

I'm doing outstanding. Well, I'm seeing you here. I love your booth. Looks great. Talk to us

about pharmacy profiles. How does that fit into the new age of pharmacy as we're going from

strictly to dispensing what it was 10, 20 years ago to now pharmacists are evolving in their roles?

Yeah, thanks, Todd, for asking and thanks for having me. pharmacy profiles is a credentials

verification organization certified by NCQA to provide credentials to health plans for pharmacists.

So think of your physician when you go to your physician and your medical benefit. They're either

in network or out of number. Well, to get in network, physicians have got to provide credentials

to a health plan. This says this is who I am. This is where I'm licensed. I don't have any sanctions

and a lot of other things. So we do that for pharmacists. In order for a pharmacist to be able to

build a health plan, they've got to be enrolled with a health plan. We facilitate the award.

This goes far beyond your ICD number. What's that acronym called of the license number of a pharmacist?

Well, that would be an NABP. NABP, yeah. It's far beyond that. Well, the NABP number is central

to how we collect our data. So if a pharmacist comes to pharmacyprofiles.com,

logs and creates an account. They will give us three pieces of information. They give us their name,

their NABP profile number, and their month and date of birth, which is their pen for the

profile. We go to 14 different primary sources and pull in all of their credentials data for them

for free. That's incredible. So are you connected with the schools of pharmacy in order to extract

some of that? No, actually, we're owned by the American Pharmacist Association, but we're connected

to 14 primary sources, which includes NABP, the CPE monitor, DEA, NCPDP, all of the other acronyms

that you can think of in pharmacy. We're connected in one way or the other. Either we have an API

where we're pulling in the data or we go and we scrape data from them and pull them in.

Mark, this is a necessary piece of what the profession is going through for assurance and

validity, and I like it. So I appreciate you sharing while we're here at the PPA 2026.

Well, thanks for having me, Chad. Good luck. Thank you.

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Justin, welcome to the show. How are you? I'm doing well today. All right. So PrimRX has been a client,

a very favored client of the pharmacy podcast network for years now, and the intelligence

that comes from your team. I got to go to your first conference, your user conference that just

happened. What was that in October? My goodness gracious. It was a few months back. Yeah, it was

a fun time. But the reason why I wanted to have you on the show is one of the things I'm most

impressed about what PrimRX has done in involving pharmacy management platform, allowing pharmacy

owners to do multiple different things, grow their long-term care at home business, grow their

vaccine business. But PrimRX's marketplace and market is really kind of cool. Talk to us a little

bit about how that's making a difference for pharmacy owners. Yeah. So with PrimRX market, it's a free

website platform where you can purchase drugs, discounted pricing. We have everything. We have

over 40 plus suppliers. These guys are authorized drug distributors to pharmacies all across the US,

even in Puerto Rico as well. And what they provide is just a more buying power to the pharmacies.

Obviously, there's a lot of expensive drugs out there. And to save money, it's like

helpful. You really can help the pharmacy kind of put that money back into their pockets, put it

elsewhere, whether it's the staff, exploit other options, opening up a new pharmacy, and really

just can just help them long-term like just save money over time. I like the fact that the workflow

doesn't get, it doesn't skip a beat. So if I'm a pharmacist, I get a prescription that I'm

loading in. I can load in the NDC and sure enough, if you want to activate market, you could turn

that on right at that point to see if you don't have that in stock or if you want to purchase it,

what the price would be at the time. I think that's really innovative. Yeah. And with the integration

we did into our PrimRX software, it's very helpful to our software users. Right in the workflow,

you don't have to go with the different pages as you're filling prescriptions, you'll be able to

see pricing from our market. All right. Are you a Pittsburgh Stealer fan or a Eagles fan?

Unfortunately, I'm actually a New York Giants fan, so... Because we're in the downtime right now,

but the CFL's coming up, the Canadian football league is going to be heating up here in May and June.

My godson is going to be playing for the red blacks. Wow. It'll be really interesting to see him

in May or June, but Justin, this has been good to see you here at the PPA 2026.

Why do you support the Pennsylvania Pharmacist Association? Well, I'm from Pennsylvania. I'm from

Westchester, Pennsylvania, so I love coming back home. Obviously, this is a great time. You get to

meet a lot of people in the area. And Pennsylvania's big state, so people come in from all obviously

Pittsburgh, all other areas within Pennsylvania. Yeah. And I mean, it's really nice of them.

Got a lot of nice people here and just kind of just getting into the nitty gritty of the industry and

what people are kind of needing at this time. Yeah. All right, Justin. Thanks for being on the show.

Of course. Thank you for having me.

Guess who showed up at the Pennsylvania Pharmacist Association annual meeting. It's Dr. Michael

Hogue from the APHA. It's so good to see you. Thanks, Todd. Good to be here.

And I want to just start right out. We're so excited about APHA. You're even more excited

about it because it's in it's on your side of the of the country this year in Los Angeles. But

tell us when is the APHA's annual? Yeah, the APHA annual meeting is happening on March the

27th through the 30th in Los Angeles. And this year, something that has not happened before ever

that I know of. Well, at least not in my my professional career. We're holding our meeting

together with the California Pharmacist Association so that it'll be a state pharmacy association

meeting combined with the National Pharmacy Association meeting. So, you know, I really think

it's going to be one of the most unique opportunities for people to network and build careers and do

their professional development. The opportunities are going to be great.

Oh, Michael, we so much appreciate you stopping by the PPA. Talk to us about what's happening in

the pharmacy profession. What's your most excited about? Well, I tell you, I think in Washington

right now, people are finally starting to get it. They're starting to understand what it is

that pharmacists do and the value we add to the system. And, you know, I have some great conversations

recently with Dr. Oz and his team and they're really genuinely interested in having pharmacists

in primary care roles and changing the payment model and the payment systems so that there's

actually time for pharmacists to do that because, you know, we've been in this cycle that's been

really hard taught for folks to deal with that, you know, you're your volume driven based upon,

you know, poor reimbursement rates and that means that you don't have the revenue to have the

staffing that you need to be able to provide care. And that puts us in a crisis of conscious. And so

I'm optimistic that, you know, we've got some folks right now at CMS who are interested in changing

the payment paradigm. And I think, you know, I'm very optimistic that we're going to get some real

policy change to happen that's going to result in pharmacists being able to do what it was that we

wanted to do all along, which is just take care of our patients. We're also demystifying to the

public of how pharmacy gets paid and we're kind of pulling back the covers of the mystery of

what the heck of PBM is. And you got representative Jake Aachenklaus who comes on the news and he

describes it articulate, but he also describes it where I can anyone can understand it with a 12th

grade, you know, under education that where the lights are finally going off in the public's head

saying, wow, this doesn't seem right that pharmacy is kind of being held. It is. It's being held

hostage because of the way that things have gotten paid for. And that's why I'm seeing the

tsunami of change finally taking place. Yeah, you know, we've been we've been talking a lot

about how pharmacies have been closing over the last four or five years at record paces. But you

know, what I think is resonating right now with folks in Washington and in state houses across

the country is that when a pharmacy closes, it's not about not having another access point for

the pills in the bottle. Because I mean, let's face it, you could potentially get the pills in the

bottle from Amazon or you could get it from, you know, another pharmacy through the mail or

delivered, you know, from Walmart or somewhere else. I mean, it could become from anywhere.

So getting the pills in the bottle is really not what we lose when we lose a pharmacy in a local

community. We lose in many cases the trusted healthcare provider that is the pharmacist. And

I think consumers are starting to wake up to say, oh my God, what have we done? What's happened

here? And people are saying, let's pump the brakes. We've got to fix this situation because we cannot

afford to lose this trusted healthcare provider in our local community. And that aha moment is

starting to happen. Now I just pray that it happens fast enough in every state around this country

to be able to say, okay, look, what pharmacists provide that's a value is their service and those

services need to be compensated. We wouldn't expect anyone else in the healthcare system to provide

service for free. We shouldn't expect pharmacists to do it either. So let's compensate them for what

the value that they're adding, which is that service. So, you know, I'm hopeful that that's what's

where we're headed and what's going on now. Dr. Michael Hogue, I very much appreciate how busy you

are that you've got to stop by and say hello and sharing your thoughts on the PPA 2026 host show.

Thank you. Thanks, Todd.

Rapping up the Pennsylvania Pharmacist Association's 2026 meeting, one and only Vicki Elliott here,

CEO of the PPA. So good to see you. Hi Todd, thanks so much. I think you give me a lot more credit.

That maybe I deserve, but it's a pleasure to be with you today and appreciate, you know,

you stepping in to be our on-site press, working with a couple of our partners to get you here. So

thank you very much, really appreciate that. Well, thank you. All right, this is my home association,

so I like coming here, talk to me about this event, talk to me about the excitement because

it's buzzing right now. It is buzzing. So this is our premier event that are, you know, a big event

each year. We try and bring, you know, practitioners, students, faculty from across the state to our

meeting to meet with each other. Here's some really contemporary hot topics, get some required CE.

We just had our mandated child reporting CE this morning. I had to miss it because actually I

was teaching students, our government relations program, getting them ready for a legislative day

coming up on April 14th, which was fun as well. Great turnout. We have about 40 students in there

who are all ready to meet us for a legislative day. And then here I stand in our exhibit hall where

I just kind of hear all the interactions and people reconnecting or connecting, you know,

finding about what's new on the market, what services and technology our vendors can provide,

and students learning about kind of what the future looks like. So it's pretty exciting here.

It is. Pennsylvania Pharmacist Care Network is celebrating its 10th anniversary.

Many of us internal to Pennsylvania are constantly. We're very biased, but we're leading, you know,

managed care, really, in pharmacy. Talk to me about that. Talk to me about why is Pennsylvania so

successful with the PPCA? It's the collaboration. So it has been amazing 10 years. I've only been

here for five of it. And I'm so grateful. I get to say that Pennsylvania, you know, it's PPCA's

our partner at PPA. I have colleagues reach out to me to say, what's the, what's the magic sauce

of Pennsylvania? How do you guys, you know, you're working so well together. Not every state has

their CPSM aligned with their state. Sometimes it's almost competitive. And I'm like, oh,

you're missing such an opportunity. But it's really the people that came before us. We heard it last

night at their 10-year reception. What a great party they pulled together. And just the history

that Dr. Raghivni shared, Dr. Leon, you know, who have been steady board members. And the message was,

it's everybody who came together at the beginning. Colleges, PPA, CPSN, the commitment of the PPA

board at the time that continues. And again, I just, I get to bask in it. These are hardworking

group of people. Our pharmacies are in it to win it. We're really blazing trails. We're

payer programs are concerned. And I don't think it's a bias. I think we have shown that we are

ahead of the curve when it comes to what we're doing in Pennsylvania with our, with our care

network. With that, I do want to give a shout out to listeners. If you are a Pennsylvania pharmacist,

if you're in the business of pharmacy in Pennsylvania, why should we join the Pennsylvania pharmacist

association? Because we are the leading organization in Pennsylvania. We boast our ability to represent

everybody. We had an independent owners forum yesterday. And I know that we get the reputation

only about community pharmacy, but we're not. We've got a group of health system pharmacists

and their current inventory care pharmacists coming together this afternoon to talk about

topics that are near and dear to their heart. These are two groups that have existed somewhat

separately in PPA. We've got some great leaders, Darren Mench over at Jefferson Health, Frank

Conzeman now over in the Penn system who have been willing to kind of come together and talk

about some areas of concern or opportunity that are near and dear to both. And some that,

you know, once looking at the other one needs to have more information about. So they're convening

this afternoon. Our student network is always so strong here at PPA. We have representation for

all seven schools. They were all at the OTC competition last night. I think up until the near end,

I think it was ahead. Wilts pulled it out in the bonus round. And I wasn't in the room,

but I heard the cheers down the hall. And I saw them later. And everyone's like, they couldn't

believe it. So just just the camaraderie, the connections we make and our ability to kind of

just bring pharmacy together here. It's a lot of fun. I think you should be proud because

I interviewed Kyle McCormick and Brandon Antelopolis. When I first met them, it was at the Pennsylvania

Pharmacist Association and they were both P2s. And I met them, I want to say, as kids,

and now they're board members. Like that's a success story in and of itself.

It's a huge success story. And I get to hear some of the stories about, you know, their

antics and friendships and things from pharmacy school. But, you know, they were leaders then,

and now they're just better leaders now. And I get to work with how fortunate. And then we get

to both. We have both of the cost plus pharmacies in Pennsylvania represented on our board, you know,

so they can bring their learnings and understandings to the conversation, you know, and help other

to be find a different way to do this. But they are also bringing the concerns and the issues

for their patients. And we just had a conversation yesterday about how we can help them in that space

as well. So this is the place to make it happen. You know, bring your enthusiasm, bring your practice,

bring your knowledge, bring your concerns. We're here to try and fight the good fight and help

everybody out. The mixture of companies in the exhibit hall right now is amazing. Lily,

Moderna, CBS held, Walgreens, the schools of pharmacy. There's such a strong mixture of the

technology platforms that are here. It's just, it's just amazing to see that there's such a good

mixture this year. And I was very impressed. I'm so excited. Our premier sponsor, Alana,

Rex is here. Yeah. A couple of folks say, wow, how'd you get that? A line called the office,

Diane Powell on my team made the connection and said, we've got an opportunity and they jumped on

it. And they couldn't be happier. I just talked to them a few minutes ago. So just they're brand new to

us. So really exciting. The technology you mentioned. I listen to one of the stations here.

Docs stations here. TJM Labs is here. He did a demonstration here in the hall last night. What a,

what a really neat technology. Yeah, where it's right. You know, the ability to really expedite

that workflow in a pharmacy and kind of get your hands off of some things you don't need to have

your hands on. Brilliant. Just brilliant. You know, a lot of smart people are bringing technology.

And this is the audience they want to talk to and they're here talking to them.

Vickie Elliott, Pennsylvania Pharmacist Association, 2026. It's a wrap. It's been been very proud to

be here and thank you for having the pharmacy podcast here's press.

Our pleasure. Thanks for being here Todd.