Tired of messy drug shelves, stocking expired drugs, and saying, “Sorry, Liam, this [essential] medication is currently unavailable”? Pharmacy management software is an elegant solution for managing pharmacy chaos and tackling your drug deliverables in peace. According to the World Health Organization, pharmacy-related errors are all too common, with an associated annual cost of over $42 billion. Between dispensing, patient safety screening, medication management, and more, efficiently organizing pharmacy workflows has always been a problem for pharmacies of all sizes.
While a considerable part of pharmacy work is urgent and fast-paced, manually juggling several tasks can easily become overwhelming. The benefits of a pharmacy management system are limitless, as it handles all the mundane tasks like stocking and expiration control so that you can get the real work done. In this article, you will find out the importance of a pharmacy management system and why it’s a lasting solution for the issues pharmacies and patients face at the point of care.
What is a Pharmacy Management System?
A pharmacy management system, or PMS, is a healthcare system that organizes and automates every step of a pharmacy-patient lifecycle, from prescription review and inventory control to billing, dispensing, insurance, and more, all while playing by the rules. In addition, PMS is a patient-first system that reduces wait time, fixes medication errors, and ensures perfect multidisciplinary treatment for patients. It also provides actionable insights into data points and reduces operational costs, giving your pharmacy a competitive edge over others.
Most conventional pharmacy management systems are designed to seamlessly integrate with EHR systems, pharmacy POS software, e-prescribing systems, and drug dispensing software. This eliminates the old worry of many pharmacies being skeptical about adopting entirely new software.
There are many more benefits of pharmacy management software that can provide guaranteed relief for all your pharmacy-related operational problems. To fully buttress these, we’ve handpicked the top 10 pharmacy management system benefits you should be aware of.
10 Essential Pharmacy Management System Benefits
The essential advantages of a pharmacy management software include:
1. Inventory Management
You can manage stocks effectively and reduce drug overstocking, understocking, and dead stocking. It keeps you and your employees in the loop about your pharmacy’s state of stock in real-time. A pharmacy management system confirms the correctness of prescribed medicines and ensures that drugs are dispensed in the right dosage and amount.
PMS tracks medication transactions and notes which ones are popular at all times, seasonal, infrequently ordered, and so on. This feature prevents you from running out of essential medications, especially in seasons when they are in demand.
Another important benefit of a prescription management system is expiration control. It helps you sort and sell drugs by date and alerts you of medications that will expire soon. Using the pharmacy management system, you can even plan which manufacturer or supplier to order from based on your target deadline.
2. Improved Billing and Insurance
Another purpose of a pharmacy management system is to automate and streamline the otherwise hectic billing and insurance processes. This time-saving feature ensures that claims are quickly and adequately processed and that patients are billed for the right amount. In recent times, this feature has gone pro with possible interfacing with insurance providers, allowing for real-time processing of insurance claims.
3. Reduced Medication Errors
Medication errors are way too common in the pharmaceutical space. With over 100,000 cases a year in the US alone, 35% fall on the wrong prescription or dosage. Automating the medication process allows you to dispense the right drugs at the right dosage and in the right amount.
4. Promoted Quality Care for Patients
The major purpose of a pharmacy software program is to provide quality care and improved health outcomes for patients. The patient-first pharmacy management system offers personalized patient experiences by providing e-counseling, live chat, and feedback to patients who cannot come in person. PMS can also contain educational materials and adherence tools for patients suffering from chronic diseases like diabetes.
5. Automated Health Data and Analytics
Pharmacy management system not only houses relevant health data but also gives you insight into many trends and analytics. Analytical pharmacy reports highlight useful data that can help you strategize your next clinical move.
6. Improved Dispensing and Pharmacy Efficiency
Pharmacy management software is every pharmacy’s best bet for streamlining drug dispensing and increasing efficiency. Instead of spending their precious working hours looking for drugs on shelves, dispensing prescriptions, checking drug interactions, and encoding weird doctor’s handwriting, your staff members can rely on PMS that automates the whole process.
7. Mitigated Fraud in Pharmacy
With fraudulent healthcare activities on the rise, pharmacies need to step up or become complicit. There is a bunch of daily news about patients manipulating prescriptions, health insurance fraud, and more. One of the pharmacy management systems’ advantages is that it can receive e-prescriptions directly from the physicians and also interact with insurance providers for a seamless prescription-billing-dispensing experience.
8. Automated Drug Delivery and Patients Buying Behavior
Remember the saying, “A happy customer is a loyal customer.” A pharmacy management system sorts patient orders and sends emails and alerts about stock-ups and offers, giving them a personalized experience. This is a surefire way of being the people’s favorite and guaranteeing brand loyalty.
9. Streamlined Barcode Labeling
Using the barcode scanning feature of the pharmacy management system, it’s easy as pie to label and sell medications according to their expiration dates. Also, it helps spot shrinkage when theft or loss comes into the picture.
10. Analyzed Patient’s Medical History
Due to strict government regulations like HIPAA, micro-accessing every patient’s data via electronic portals may be impossible for now. However, pharmacy management systems can store and review relevant patient history as it relates to their prescriptions.
Do you want to develop an effective Pharmacy Management System?
Contact now!What are the Main Benefits of Custom Pharmacy Management Software?
You may be wondering, ‘What are the benefits of pharmacy management software with open-source versus custom solutions?’ As a pharmacy owner, your PMS can be the only thing keeping your employees from throwing their toys out of the pram and having a total meltdown.
Without a good pharmacy management system, at best, you won’t get much value for your money. At worst, your pharmacy’s workflow will be drowning in an endless sea of spreadsheets, post-its, and paperwork. If you’re a SaaS provider for PMS solutions, your customer churn rate will be high.
To get your pharmacy tasks out of the door, you may need a customized PMS solution. This is especially true for medium-to-large-sized pharmacies with front stores and websites. If you’re unsure whether a customized or off-the-shelf pharmacy management system is the answer to the problems your pharmacy faces, you’ll need to be clear on its benefits:
1. Unique and Personalized Solution for Your Pharmacy Needs
If your pharmacy is running into problems despite using ready-made pharmacy management software, then you absolutely require a unique solution personalized to your business only. Owning a custom PMS means you can make changes anytime, add new integrations, and implement customer feedback.
2. Improved Patient Satisfaction
It’s a no-brainer that creating a personalized solution improves patient satisfaction and your pharmacy’s credibility. Having a custom pharmacy software is a win-win for your customers and business. It dots the i’s and crosses the t’s of your pharmacy while fostering good customer experience, relationship, loyalty, and retention.
3. Secured System
Ready-made pharmacy management systems are mostly developed using open-source codes, so they are highly vulnerable to hacks and cyberattacks. On the other hand, custom-made pharmacy management systems are closed-source projects only used by your team. If you handle large and sensitive patient data, we don’t recommend using open-source, ready-made solutions for your pharmacy.
4. Integration with Existing Platforms
Using a customized pharmacy management system makes it easy to integrate with certain platforms like EHR, POS, Telehealth, and others. This is a major breakthrough for pharmacy directors looking to incorporate extra functionality into their management systems.
5. Flexibility and Reliability
Pharmacy management software can be tweaked according to the needs of your business. This means you can add or remove features as you so desire. On the other hand, off-the-shelf PMS can’t be manipulated at will.
Langate’s Expertise in Building Pharmacy Management Systems
Go from basic to the best with Langate’s pharmacy management solution. We are a dedicated team of healthcare software developers with a strong passion for building customized and valuable pharmacy management systems for pharmacies that are willing to put their patients first. Prepare to say goodbye to vendor lock-in, outdated design, and poor user experience.
Our process is simple — we’ll analyze your pharmacy needs, come up with a plan based on your budget, and develop a solution that directly addresses your problems. Contact us now to learn about our services.
Conclusion
While it’s true that the digitization of the pharmaceutical industry is a lifesaver, some pharmacies are reluctant to give up their manual business procedures. Others may be confused about which to get between ready-made or custom pharmacy management software. While both solutions provide essential benefits for pharmacies, developing customized software provides a competitive advantage for pharmacies willing to upscale.
Of course, there are also some disadvantages of PMS. However, they happen to be temporary and generally involve the cost and time it’ll take your employees to get used to the system. Similar to every medical intervention, the benefits outweigh the risks.
