Community Link by GoodRx | TWIRx

0:03Are systematic reviews taking months? There's a better way. Nested Knowledge is an AI-powered evidence synthesis platform built specifically for life sciences teams working under tight timelines. From literature search to metadata analysis, everything happens in one place. Smart Screener evaluates thousands of studies against your criteria in minutes. Smart MA Extraction pulls quantitative data from tables and builds your analysis automatically. Smart Critical Appraisal assesses bias using established frameworks like JBI and SIGN, with full transparency into every decision. The result? Publication-ready Prisma diagrams, forest plots, and critical appraisal visuals, all traceable, all auditable, and all generated from a single platform.

0:51Whether you're in medical or regulatory affairs, health economics, and outcomes research, Nested Knowledge helps you produce rigorous evidence synthesis in days, not months. Ready to see how it works? Visit nested-knowledge.com to schedule a demo. Nested Knowledge, the standard in evidence synthesis.

1:18This episode of This Week in Pharmacy is sponsored by GoodRx. GoodRx is the leading platform for prescription savings in the U.S., helping patients access affordable medications while supporting a stronger future for retail pharmacies. In today's rapidly changing retail marketplace, independent pharmacies are navigating increasingly complex reimbursement models and competitive pressures. In response, GoodRx launched CommunityLink, a Birect contracting model that provides independent pharmacies with predictable pricing and favorable economics across both brand and generic medications. For brand medications like GLP-1s, independent pharmacies can access GoodRx's manufacturer-funded savings programs, offering fair, sustainable reimbursement so that business owners can continue to fill these high-demand prescriptions.

2:13For generic medications, Community Link uses a NADAC-based cost-plus model, giving pharmacies clearer visibility into margins and reducing surprise reimbursement outcomes. GoodRx Community Link helps you serve your patients more sustainably. While continuing to deliver the trusted local care your community relies on. To learn more, visit goodrx.com slash community link. Good Rx is not insurance.

2:49You are listening to the Global Network of Podcasters dedicated to the pharmacy profession. Welcome to the Pharmacy Podcast Network.

3:23special episode of this week in pharmacy i am so excited i'm not excited about july going too fast It's already the 24th of July. I'm kind of like putting the brakes on. The back to school talk has already started and I put my fingers in my ears and I'm like, la, la, la, la, la, no, I don't want that to happen. But welcome one of my special friends, Tom DiPietro, Dr. DiPietro from DiPietro Pharmacy, one of our Pharmacy 50 most influential alumni. Tom, I don't know if you realize, but you are now a Pharmacy 50 alumni for life. It's an honor to be back with you, Todd. I always enjoy your presence and running into the ad show.

4:07So it's an honor to be here today to talk about, you know, something that I feel is very important for my colleagues to hear about. So such a great topic. Look forward to the discussion today. I'm looking forward to it. We have a special guest in the studio with us from GoodRx, head of retail network, David Graziano. It is so good to see you. Thanks for being here on TORX. It's fantastic to be here. Super excited. I like the opportunity to spend some time with Tom and obviously, Todd, the work that you're doing for the industry, getting information out to community pharmacy and really strengthening the connection between those independent organizations is fantastic.

4:49Appreciate the opportunity to be here with you today. I feel like Tom and David, this isn't all a hands on deck effort. And all three of our organizations, a communications company, a servant leadership organization to the people, public health delivery, and a technology platform that is really dialed into strategy and pricing and assistance of making sense of it all. independent community pharmacy is in a state of a crossroads and the next generation independent community pharmacy owner is going to be getting paid for things that aren't necessarily dispensing fee it's going to be consultative consultancy and diabetes or hypertension or someone that wants to understand their, you know, their issues and fertility or whatever it is.

5:47But the pharmacist, if I wanted to be a pharmacist, this is the time and the life and the history of pharmacy to be a pharmacist because of that clinical that's going to be finally pulled out of them much more than it used to be. And, you know, the future of what that means for healthcare. I think this is a good this is a good part of our history of being in the pharmacy industry. And you guys have been a part of this for quite some time. And the independent community pharmacy has been, has been at the heart of so many communities throughout the country and with pharmacy deserts and things that are happening and the plate tectonics of PBM reform.

6:31David, this is so good to have you here. I want to open it up to you and, and just let you share with the listeners from your, from your heart, what it means to get behind all of these organizations, these 17 ,000 plus throughout the nation and working to support them with GoodRx Community Link. Yeah, thanks for that, Todd. I think there's no better place to have the connection with a healthcare provider than the pharmacy. 12 times a year, 15 times, you know, in some cases, multiple, multiple times a year, you're getting in front of someone who is highly skilled, highly able to do the work that is healthcare, well beyond that one or two-time visit that you might make to your primary care, and the skill with which those community pharmacists are able to engage, spend the time, do the consultation, do the work that goes beyond counting, right, and actually be able to deliver healthcare in a meaningful way while still also running a business at the same time.

7:40I think it's wildly different than chain pharmacy that might have a headquarters, that might have multiple front doors. You know, when you get down to it and you have one front door, maybe a couple, you know, they're doing, they're running in both directions at the same time, right? They're sort of, you know, or burning the candle at both ends. Pick your idiom that you want to use. But the work that they are doing to support their community is so impactful. Part of the reason why we wanted to be to ensure that we were investing in or spending the time with those 17 ,000 plus community pharmacies to ensure that they were solvent over time.

8:18So that the business side of it and the health care side of it could both be successful. And I think for us, it was something where we knew there had to be a breaking point or a time where we said, look, we're going to lean in. And that time has been over the past year or so where we've really said there is an effort that we had to stand up to really support it because the challenges are there's a myriad of challenges out there. And we knew that we could play a role and wanted to help. Again, the health care part of it, pharmacists do really. How can we help support the business so that they can stay in business?

8:57statewide i love that setting i love kind of the stage the the the worldview of where good rx is coming at and what this means for um for pharmacy owners and tom that's where the rubber meets the road for you and and that's where you're able to interpret what this really means and in the end And just as a side note, Tom and I talk on the phone once in a while and meet up at PPA, the Pennsylvania Pharmacists Association, has been on several of our shows, obviously involved in advocating for influencers and building the next gen pharmacist, as well as students work. I could go on and on about you, Tom, but he called me and he's like, did you hear about this community link from GoodRx?

9:46And I'm like, no, um, you know, as a PR organization, as a news organization, we get pharmacists calling in tips all the time and it's, it's awesome. So having a friend like Tom to reach out to me and say, this is a game changer for what we're going through. And it really gives us the platform to begin relationships with patients for life. Like this isn't a one and done thing. This is like, hey guys, we have a partnership now with GoodRx and what we're doing. So Tom, tell us from your perspective, what is this system? What is this program? Yeah, I mean, for us, you know, I come across it online.

10:28I'm like, I don't really know much about it. As a pharmacy owner, I'd be transparent. Didn't have a good taste in my mouth about GoodRx. But I said, hey, if it's able to possibly help my patients, I'm always willing to look into it, right? So explore it. And it sounded too good to be true. It's a transparent, fair reimbursement contract, giving us access not only to discounts for generic drugs, but then also unique offerings with brand drugs. So, you know, when you look at the challenges of operating independent pharmacy for the past 14 years, there's a million issues, right? But the only one that matters at the end of the day is the profitability of my store.

11:21I am a business, and unfortunately, I need money and I need profit to pay my employees. Now, that is a word not many people want to ever talk about in health care. And I understand it gets a little bit uncomfortable. But the reality is, is if you want service, you need profit because you need to pay a person to offer that service, right? So you look at fair reimbursement and then access, access to discounts that if Tom DiPietro wants to call the brand maker of drug X and I say, hey, I want to cut a deal with you, they're going to laugh at me, right? So like being brought in on an opportunity that some of my patients literally didn't think that they could get here because they see it on national TV.

12:07I have to go here. I have to go here. So to answer the question in a short way, the community link for GoodRx for our pharmacy component, it gives us very fair, clear reimbursement and access to discounts that we otherwise would not have. And oh, by the way, there's no charge. So shame on the pharmacy owner who's not willing to at least look into it to see if it benefits to their patients, because it has tremendously benefited many of our patients, over 600, in fact. And Tom, I'm just going to step in for a second, Todd, on that, because I think what's really great about the offering is we put out the contract and sort of stand up the offering on behalf of the pharmacy.

12:59But now I live in New England, but I have a little bit of Missouri in me, right? When it comes to show, not tell, look, I want you to sign up for it. If you don't use it ever again, I mean, a pox on both our houses for not showing you the value. But the flip side of it is the opportunity to run the claim. You're going to see your reimbursement come back as a pharmacist, you're going to see the value that you're getting on those 125 plus brand drugs, everything from GLP-1s to cardiovascular offerings, mental health, Clomid, Dexcom, I mean, a host of really high cost in many cases, drugs, high cost therapies that can get in the hands of a patient, help them get on therapy efficiently.

13:43And you're still going to be paid a fair reimbursement for it. I just want you to run the claim. Go run it. And then if it's wrong, please hit me, you know, David.Graziano at GoodRx.com. I'm willing to have that conversation with you directly. And we'll figure out how to fix whatever the case may be if something shows up incorrectly. I love how it's set up the way it is. It's a clean slate in that relationship that you're building and supporting with independent pharmacy owners who are already vested in their communities. Their heart is already part of that community. This is where their kids go to school.

14:21This is where they go to church. This is where they're serving their communities. So having that kind of support, here's what I'm excited about. And I look at this from a marketing perspective. That's just the way my brain works. And I'm not the clinician like Tom, and I'm not the contractual expert and designer of programs like this, like you are, David. So from a marketing perspective, the infrastructure that GoodRx has set up over the years, the brand that's already known, okay, and now you're able to co-market alongside with independent community pharmacies that this is available to their community now.

15:01There's already reputation out there. There's two different views on anything, really. You have that consumer view, and then you have that insider's view. And the insider's view, you know, sometimes is what it is and sometimes they don't match. This is a match opportunity. This is an opportunity to use this. What did I say when I did my introduction? The introduction was this is the beginning of that relationship of a lifelong patient who is looking for advisement on what the next steps are in their health, that they just went through this. They just lost all this weight and now they're preparing for that next stage.

15:40Guess what? Hello, pharmacist. Pharmacist's got labs now and we've got EHR connection and we're ready to take this to a next level. So David, that's what I'm excited about. I'm excited about the preparation that GoodRx has made and now it's an opportunity for you guys to capitalize because of all that branding that you did in gaining the patient's trust and understanding, hey, this is a savings opportunity for you. And now that you bring the independent community pharmacy into it. Yeah, Todd, I'm a recovering marketer myself. And so I do love the efficiency of the offering as well, right? So efficiency and transparency, what you see is what you get, the price is what you can expect.

16:21And again, the confidence on the insider side, if I'm using insider to be pharmacist and pharmacy owners can now feel confident because they are under contract, They are clean. And we put the terms in the black and white, if you will. So back now to my current role, working through contracts with organizations. It makes it, again, clean and easy. And now you're not having a pharmacy tech just saying, all right, here's what we'll take on that because I want to price match something. I'm going to run it at cash. And ultimately, the pharmacy has no additional reimbursement on the backside. We clean all that up, right?

17:04We sort of tie it neatly in a bow, which again, if I'm thinking, you know, Tom, and I don't know if you want to speak about this, but it does give you confidence that regardless of what's happening at the counter, while you might be sitting in the office at that moment, you can be confident that it is going to land at the price you're expecting. There's no surprises. And I think that's the part that, again, makes me excited to see more organizations, more pharmacies. I'm going to use the word take advantage. But what I mean is, you know, sign on to leverage this as a tool for those instances where you have prior off for those instances where you have someone who's on a step therapy that they're just not going to complete.

17:46Like, how can we get someone on therapy so that it's doctor, patient, pharmacist, and it's all tied together clean and neatly. Yeah. And Dave, what you said, I mean, we would have a workflow within a workflow. And let me explain that. Get a prescription, type the prescription, you fill the prescription, the patient picks the prescription up. The explosion of GLP drugs created us to make a workflow within a workflow. What I mean by that, you get the GLP prescription, maybe you're going to make five bucks, maybe you're going to lose 30 bucks. So when we recognized that that was going to happen in the marketplace, we said, whoa, we're not going to go out of business here by just filling underwater claims all day.

18:25We're going to have to put in some sort of secondary workflow where all of our GLP prescriptions would then get printed, go in a basket. In the basket, then they would get reviewed. Do we fill it or could we not sustain to fill it? The ability to be able to turn our brain off and know when that patient calls and says, hey, I want to get this prescription. I want to use this offer. I know immediately, my staff knows immediately, we're going to be able to take care of the patient. Why? Because we have a fair contract. We have access to the medication and we are their pharmacy and they trust us. So the pressures of operating a pharmacy are many, but when you could remove that financial barrier as the answer to the customer looking, could you fill my prescription?

19:16When I don't have to think about that question, it immediately removes that hesitation of, well, what if I get paid under$50? What am I going to tell Mrs. Jones? It's out of stock again? So like the ability to be able to remove that from the workflow and just go back to having one workflow is a game changer, it's rewarding, and it's right for the patient, it's right for the pharmacy. Whenever you have a scenario that the patient wins and the pharmacy wins, you have a win-win situation here. And it just alleviates so many of those other burdens that are already on our brain as the pharmacy owner for the day.

20:02If I'm not here, last week I was on vacation with the kids, I don't have to be worried about losing$50 on prescriptions because of this in motion. Yep. David, I want you to dig in a little bit to the community link that providing predictable pricing, providing favorable economics in your two ways, and that is the generic and the brands. Can you give the pharmacy owners listening in, give them kind of an explanation of that? So it's a cost-based model, right? So it's cost plus. And so you have your ingredient cost, you have a dispensing fee, and then there is an admin fee for us administering the program on your behalf.

20:39That all gets paid at the counter. This is on your generic claim. So generic claim comes in. Again, if it's$10 ingredient cost, we'll use$10 for a dispense fee just for the example's sake. And then a$5 administrative fee. Patient then hands you$25. You dispense medication. They walk out and they stay happy. That's on your run-of-the-mill, your atorvastatins, your sort of standard generic claim. Then you have these brand offerings. So again, 125-plus brands have signed on with us where we actually effectuate the buy-down on behalf of the brand. So on the back end, what happens is the patient's going to pay a fee.

21:22Again, we'll use$149, the Fandeo, or the, excuse me, we'll use the$149 price associated with tablet GLP-1s for the first couple months, right? That$149 is coming from the patient. The rest of the funding, so again, if it's a, forgive me, I don't know the number off the top of my head, but we'll call it$1 ,000 for the cost of that drug today. The rest of that reimbursement flows from the brand to us and then to the pharmacy directly in a payment. So the pharmacy is made whole for that GLP-1 or whatever that high-cost brand medication is that's associated with the program. They are happy, and the patient's happy because they get access at their community pharmacy, at their local home, without having to be said, out of stock, you're going to have to go somewhere else.

22:14the likelihood of potentially losing that family or that basket of prescriptions that travels along with that patient could end up going somewhere else. So in this case, you're actually gaining access to brand medications and being able to dispense them in a way that does, again, make business sense for the community pharmacy. Tom, you are a really good marketer yourself. the brand that you've built, DiPietro's Pharmacy, that logo is known everywhere. It's even known outside of the great areas that you're covering, Philadelphia and greater Philadelphia. So talk to us from that perspective. I got excited and kind of got the cart in front of my horse in what I was talking to you about.

23:03But talk about how are you going to take advantage of this from a marketing perspective to bring your existing clients in and educate them, but better yet, start really even expanding your business. Yeah, and we've been able to do that. I mean, just as Dave has referred to the$149 price, let's not be surprised. Everybody is looking for that, right? And they are wanting to acquire that price. They don't know where they could do it. We literally just put out a simple graphic weight loss starting at 149 marketing messages wise. Once that call happens, patients are like, oh, my God, I thought I had to go to a big box store to pick it up.

23:44Or I thought I had to go direct through the mail to pick it up. So as that education is happening in my backyard, the doctors are being made aware that we we could honor that same price. You know, so with that being said, month over month, we continue to pick up patients. Preparation for this, I ran the report, we have filled over 600 plus GLP prescriptions per patients in my community. Now, my community, albeit we're in Northeast Pennsylvania, my pharmacy is in a town of 15 ,000 people. So it's not like I'm in New York City, right? So so many people would be like, well, Tom, you're so busy because you're where?

24:23I'm in Scranton. So like if you take care of the customer and you take care of the patient, you know, they will find their way to you. However, you need tools, right? So I, as a pharmacy owner, need tools in my shed. The community link is that tool for this patient. Not having that, I wouldn't be able to help. Think about this. If I didn't have this tool, I wouldn't be able to help over 600 people in my community. That in itself tells you something about the dysfunction of the healthcare system that we all operate in. Whoever's to blame, it is what it is, right? We are where we are. So how do we move forward and help our patients and our communities get healthier?

25:15That's awesome. And, you know, this has given us that access. So most certainly we've picked up many new customers. We've helped existing customers that have been buying it online, you know, and look at the patients want the medication and patients will get it. It's a matter of where, when and how. I'm excited. I want, David, tell our listeners, if you're listening on your Apple, on Spotify, on your podcast player, and not on video, tell us, our listeners, where can we learn more about this program if I'm an independent pharmacy owner? Sure. I would say, you know, you can always use your AI du jour to find us.

26:05If you can say GoodRx Community Link. You can also Google it. but then goodrx.com slash community link can get you there as well. So it's, and you're pulling up the site. It really does give you a direct link. You can get the primary information, much of what we've already discussed today, but it'll start you in the process. You put in your MPI information. We'll start spitting back contracts to you, and you get that, you know, within a day. You'll have a contract in your inbox. That, I don't want to say it's not, it shouldn't be redlineable. It's clean, clear, easy to digest. You can see all of the information printed in black and white.

26:43And I have team members that actually work day in and day out with community owners. One's actually a former community, a community pharmacy owner himself. And so he can speak the language of because he lived it. You know, the the pharmacy owner walked them through the experience and help them digest it. And within I think it's a week to two weeks, give or take, we'll have you online ready to roll and start processing claims. So it's not a process that's going to be long and drawn out. It should be something that you can see, sign and start adjudicating, you know, start pushing claims through the system in an efficient manner.

27:22We're not trying to create new hurdles and new barriers and require you to, you know, engage lawyers and all that kind of it's really should be something that is digestible and easy to understand. We're not I was going to say, you know, we're not solving a major problem, but we are solving a major problem for the independent pharmacy. Right. I'm not putting a man on the moon, I guess is what I'm saying. But what we are doing is making something we're offering something that is easy for a pharmacist, pharmacy business owner to leverage and ultimately get in the hands of patients, which is obviously the part that we all care about the most.

28:01I think. Be sure to check out goodrx.com forward slash community link. I'm going to have a link to the link. I'm going to have, wait, let me see that. I'm going to have a link to the, to the community link in the show notes. And if you can say that fast three times without it stumbling all over saying that, um, you get a prize, um, maybe a good rx t-shirt or something. No, I don't know. Hey, Tom DiPietro promised me that you'll be back on twerks because every time you come on the show, you're bringing good information. You're bringing, I'm a glass half full guy. So I love the hope that we have that there, there's a change, you know, it's, I want, I want community, I want independent pharmacies to win.

28:46Right. And for the past 14 years, I've made that my mission locally. I've created a good network of independent owners locally on a state level. You know, you try to continue to chip away at that. But at the end of the day, you need to provide value to your customers. Our customers are searching for transparent pricing at our stores. This unlocks that, right? So what's insightful is when you pull up that start now page, it literally asks you for six, seven pieces of information. You get the contract, like Dave said, this is not a gotcha moment, right? This is, hey, here's a pathway forward for us to work together in a very clear, transparent matter.

29:37Forget about history, right? We can't solve history, but what we could solve for is today. You open the contract, you sign the contract, you fill a prescription, you make money, the customer's happy, you're happy. What more do you want? What more could we do? So when you're a pharmacy owner and you're looking for answers. You know, what's frustrating to me is they get their emotions in and they tell me about what happened in the past. And that's not today. So the important part is that Community Link is offering a pathway for your community and you. I mean, the words are just beautifully put there because it is a link to the community and your pharmacy.

30:18To not take advantage of this is just a disservice to your community. David, if you're headed to the NACDS Total Store Expo, I definitely wanted to say hello to you there. Tom, I'm not sure if we're going to meet up at, are you going to NCPA 2026? I will be. The one that's on my radar now is Sancora next month. So I haven't gotten too far down the line yet. With three kids, it's hard to project what's going to happen tomorrow. Let's catch up at Syncora Thought Spot. We will be there. We'll be there as podcast press. And I always love having you on the show, Tom. Shout out to you, David and the GoodRx team.

31:02Thanks for being on twerks and thanks for making this investment in independent community pharmacy. Appreciate the time. Thank you very much, Tom.

31:14Thank you.