Interview with Bob Cordier
President & CEO
Bates Pharmacy & Medical Supply | Spokane, WA
Founded: One of Spokane, WA’s oldest pharmacies. Founded in 1942.
About Bates: Bates is a medium‐sized, independent pharmacy servicing 1400 LTC beds, with the remaining business in retail and DME.
Pharmacy Information System: QS/1 PrimeCare
Servicing: Retail, Long‐term Care (LTC) and Durable Medical Equipment (DME)
How they use DocuTrack: For retail, LTC, DME and with their medical clinic.
WHY THE NEED FOR A WORKFLOW & DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT SOLUTION?
Bob Cordier, the President and CEO of Bates Pharmacy, was looking for a way to “manage paper efficiently with the coming of Medicare Part D.” They had realized that down the road they would need “more justification of exactly why we filled prescriptions.” They also had a challenge in the state of Washington where they “had a pretty nasty audit where at one point we were asked to write a check for $7 million based on just documentation. With the pain we went through on that audit, we were determined to find a more efficient and effective way of managing the stacks and piles of paper that came flowing into our pharmacy on a daily basis. After a fair amount of research, we ended up with the DocuTrack solution.”
IN WHAT WAYS HAS DOCUTRACK IMPROVED YOUR BOTTOM LINE?
“There is no question” we have seen increased productivity and more orders processed per staff member. “One of the things it has allowed us to do is take on growth in our business without adding additional staff. It has clearly provided efficiency.”
“The time it takes to complete an audit is infinitesimal!"
We have “clearly” seen a cost savings. “If you are more productive you are going to ultimately end up with a cost savings. The other potential cost savings is keeping prescriptions paid for, which ties back to the whole audit piece because that process is so simplified. The labor going in to tracking down documentation is nothing like what it was in the past; plus the items that are a challenge because of the difficulty with coming up with appropriate paperwork is just non‐existent now. There clearly is a cost savings associated to both.”
“Compliance is tremendously better than it has ever been. From the standpoint of prescription retention, you go from the potential of writing a check for $7 million dollars to pretty much chuckling and laughing anytime there is a challenge because we can now pull this up so quickly.”
HOW WAS THE IMPLEMENTATION PROCESS AND TRAINING FROM INTEGRA?
“My opinion is that it was very good. We had a great trainer and we have a great customer service person in our account manager. She was very on top of what our needs were. She came in, listened to us and took the time through implementation to hold our hand. We had many individuals who were very anxious about not having that piece of paper in their hand to validate their value for the day. She was able to walk people through and do individual training when necessary. I thought the training and support was great.”