Category Ed Educational Series Grow Rx Sales Reduce Risk Q & A - Brief Article

Drug Store News: Why should retail pharmacies reconsider workers' compensation claims as valuable streams?

Brian Anderson, Working Rx: There are many plusses. Realize that work camp claims are worth close to $5 billion in annual prescription sales. They account for between 3% and 7% of overall medical claims, and about 5% of overall retail pharmacy volume. This is some of the most profitable pharmacy volume of all.

Drug chains miss out on substantial reimbursement rates when they refuse to fill work camp claims. Fee schedules set by the states are more profitable for pharmacies than the vast majority of managed care plans. Patients who have work camp claims are often part of a pharmacy's normal customer base, and deserve to be treated with consistency. Claims are anything but isolated; rather, they're a source of high-margin growth.

For instance, employees in the construction, manufacturing, restaurant and transportation industries are largely affected; nearly 40% of them will suffer a work camp injury during their careers. And so will a considerable percentage of people in practically every field. Savvy retailers want to please them as regular customers who visit their pharmacies and frontends; some might even want to emphasize their work camp efforts at stores located where these industries prevail.

This is true for large chains, regionals and independents who differentiate themselves by accepting work camp and making it known within their communities. Working Rx even helps retailers identify potential clients in their local trading areas and market to them.

Filling work camp claims is painless now, thanks to Working Rx's work camp system that runs on all major pharmacy system platforms. Forget the old days of high risks and denied eligibility, excessive labor costs and frustrated customers. There's a new era in this lucrative sector because Working Rx offers programs that enable retail pharmacies to easily capitalize on this significant, stable, high-profit revenue base.

Drug Store News: What performance gains can I expect from participating with Working Rx?

Anderson: Basically, Working Rx enhances pharmacy profitability by making participation in the lucrative workers' compensation arena much easier. We do this primarily in three ways.

First, Working Rx reduces a chain's administrative burdens at headquarters and in stores. Multi-state chains that do work comp on their own must know the patchwork of fee schedules and requirements that vary state-by-state. Working Rx makes this disjointed regulatory environment seamless-regardless of where a customer moves, where service is rendered, where a claim originates, or even the type of claim.

Second, Working Rx mitigates the risk associated with workers' compensation. We assume all or part of the payment risk, depending on which of our programs the chain selects. For example, Working Rx will assume all risk on adjudicated, verified claims and guarantee payment to chains on specific dates. We also offer a lower-cost program where we share collections risk with the retailer. Yet another alternative is to have Working Rx customize a program for an individual chain.

Third, Working Rx lowers the amount of time and effort required to process a workers' compensation prescription. This, in turn, enables the pharmacist to process more prescriptions and decreases the number of work comp prescriptions that are rejected by the pharmacist.

These three components work together to increase work comp pharmacy volume. For example, using the Working Rx system, an 86-store chain was able to increase work comp volume from less than 100 claims per month to more than 1500 claims per month in just six months. This not only increases pharmacy revenue, but also helps generate valuable foot traffic throughout the store.

Drug Store News: How will Working Rx affect my pharmacists?

Anderson: They'll love it because it reduces pressure. Working Rx greatly streamlines the claims process to the point where pharmacists or technicians only have to ask patients for brief information: name, social security number, date of birth, date of injury, and employer's name and phone number. That's all.

Managing work comp with Working Rx is quick, efficient, pays well and brings lucrative growth to the pharmacy. There's never a patient co-pay, so pharmacies don't have to collect a dime from customers.

This improves work environments by simplifying what pharmacists must do at the point of customer contact. That makes a difference to pharmacists, who are in short supply and heavily recruited.

Working Rx also brings pharmacists an opportunity to expand their roles as patient advocates, to counsel and to create new revenue streams.

When Albertson's rolled out the Working Rx program, it did so using an internal tagline of "fast, friendly service that increases each store's bottom line." Their pharmacists and technicians are our most ardent supporters. Physicians like it too because their work comp patients can get scripts filled easily, and customers like that they have no out-of-pocket expense.

Drug Store News: How can I begin associating with Working Rx? What investments and training are required?

Anderson: No cash outlays, equipment, pharmacy space or additional resources are needed to begin processing work comp claims with Working Rx. Moreover, Working Rx does all the training retail pharmacies need, at no cost and at their convenience. Working Rx has a network of trainers who cover and support retailers in every state; most are former pharmacy technicians who are familiar with all major pharmacy management systems.

We train concisely and clearly. Introductory guidelines for pharmacists and technicians are a single page, then Working Rx does one-on-one training at stores, retrains as necessary, runs 800-number call-in sessions and offers training videos.

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