Productivity is a vital ingredient to success in any business. But how can companies boost it? Rather than spending hours searching for drugs on shelves, deciphering weird doctors’ handwriting, and managing medication expiration dates manually, pharmacies can rely on pharmacy management software. It automates the process and increases efficiency.
Automated Billing and Insurance
Whether you’re an independent pharmacy or part of a large chain, pharmacies deal with a lot of data. A prescription management system can increase efficiency, accuracy, and customer satisfaction at a minimal cost. A good pharmacy management system also automates tasks to save time and reduce mistakes.
From checking the e-scripts for the correct information to sending the electronic script directly to the pharmacy’s inbound queue, a pharmacy management system’s automation features improve workflow and reduce technician workload.
This allows staff to focus on patient interactions and build relationships. Pharmacy software has automated tools to check if a new or existing prescription is eligible for insurance. It also can track medication histories, which helps with drug recalls and medication adherence.
Using a pharmacy management system to manage rejected claims, process on-hold prescriptions when they expire, and follow up on new Rx requests to physicians is critical to reducing dispensing errors and improving the bottom line. Some PMSs even include services like Medication Synchronization and built-in HIPAA-compliant texting for easy patient outreach.
Automated Prescription Refills
In addition to enabling consumers to get their medications quickly, PMS makes the entire experience of getting prescription refills simpler and more secure. PMS can also alert customers of medicines nearing expiration so they can make plans to purchase them.
It manages medication transactions based on previous purchases to identify which ones are popular at different times of the year or season. The digitized process allows you to keep track of the status of online prescriptions – Approved, fulfilled, Cancelled, or pending, with the situation changing as the work operation takes place. This reduces complexities and helps pharmacists perform their jobs effectively. It also helps them focus on generating high revenue and expanding the pharmacy business.
Real-Time Inventory Management
Boosting productivity, this pharmacy software automates stock counting and keeps track of inventory. Besides, it provides information on which medicines are selling well, which are seasonal and prone to expiration. This helps determine a strategy for ordering suppliers’ products for better performance. Moreover, it eliminates the need for staff members to spend most of their time searching for drugs on shelves.
This saves valuable working hours and frees the pharmacist to interact with and assist customers. Besides, it supports receiving e-prescriptions directly from doctors and interfacing with insurance providers to provide a seamless prescription-billing-dispensing experience for patients.
Real-time inventory management is an essential feature for pharmacies. If a customer wants to purchase a product that is out of stock, it can leave them with an unpleasant shopping experience. This can negatively impact your customer loyalty and even your social media engagement. With a real-time inventory system, you can quickly adjust the supply to match demand and avoid losing a sale. This also helps you avoid overstocking and wasting money on unnecessary storage costs.
Medication Error Prevention
Medication errors are one of the most frequent causes of preventable medical harm and result in extra healthcare costs. To minimize medication errors, practices should consider implementing electronic drug prescription systems (e-prescribing). These systems eliminate illegible handwriting and automate screening for drug-drug interactions, allergies, duplication of therapy, etc. They also facilitate the electronic transfer of prescriptions to the pharmacy and can automatically check if a medication is in stock.
Another method of reducing medication errors is to ensure that a pharmacist reviews and double-checks all orders before dispensing. This includes checking the original prescribing source, verifying that the patient’s demographic information is correct and that the order has been properly written. This can help to reduce mistakes made by illegible handwriting and sound-alike names.
Practices should also consider establishing an office culture that promotes open communication among all team members so that any potential errors are reported immediately. Additionally, a system that allows staff to review and compare previous transaction records of medications, including their popularity, to identify any patterns should be implemented.
Mobile Apps
With e-prescriptions being increasingly used, pharmacies need to streamline their drug dispensing process. A pharmacy management system does just that, automatically reordering medications and managing inventory to prevent overselling and underselling. This helps boost productivity and ensures patients receive the proper medication dosage every time.
The system also allows pharmacies to track and analyze their previous transactions, which gives them data on the most popular medicines in a particular season or month. They can manage their stocks by closely monitoring medicine expiration dates.
Conclusion
While most apps were originally offered for general productivity, public demand has caused rapid expansion into different categories such as mobile games, factory automation, GPS and location-based services and order tracking. A few even allow full-functional emulation of old home computers or even mainframes from several decades ago.
Choosing the best app for your business can be challenging with various options. However, the right pharmacy management software can help you maximize productivity and stay ahead of your competitors.
