IPC Podcast Feature: Expanding Wellness Revenue with Fullscript | TWIRx Special Series

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1:21You are listening to the Global Network of Podcasters dedicated to the pharmacy profession. Welcome to the Pharmacy Podcast Network.

1:56Torx special feature TWRX This week in pharmacy, I'm your host, Todd Urie, founder of the Pharmacy Podcast Network. I met a rock star of pharmacy, someone who's passionate about people's health. More importantly, someone who is passionate about people in general and just helping people. She actually suggested based on me not having breakfast the morning that I interviewed her at IdeaShare 2026 to get a protein shake. and it was the most delicious shake. And because of that, I drank like four more of those. Amla, it's great to have you on Torx. Well, Todd, thank you for having me. Hello, friends.

2:35My name is Amla Tubo and I am the owner of Powell Pharmacy here in Powell, Ohio. And I'm just passionate about elevating pharmacists. We've talked about pharmacists practicing at the top of their license. This is it in action. I'm honored to be on the podcast today. Kelly Stovall, IPC, The reason why I even got to be at Ideashare was because of IPC. Thank you so much for having me. The energy in the booth this year was at a whole other level. I was so excited to see everybody returning guests, people like Amla bringing us stories. Welcome to the show. Hey Todd, it's always so much fun to be on with you and really excited about this group.

3:16My name is Kelly Sobal. I'm Vice President of Pharmacy Services and Clinical Programs at IPC. Christopher, introduce yourself. We got to get into some discussions with you. And by the way, listeners, we're going to have Christopher back because we only got like 17 minutes to go. So we have too much to pack into today's twerks. But Christopher, take it away. Thank you, Todd. Executive Vice President at Fullscript. We're just grateful to be here and super excited about the partnership with IPC and really working with the independent pharmacists. across the nation. Thank you. If you want to read about the business of pharmacy, you want to learn about technicians value.

3:59If you want to learn about how to integrate the inside of pharmacy into your pharmacy operations, I want you to go look up Shannon Battle. I want you to look up her writings on LinkedIn. She is a visionary. You have to come out with a book eventually, Shannon, on some of your experiences and what you've built. Welcome to the show. Thank you, Todd. I'm so happy that our schedules have finally aligned. You know, so I am Shannon Battle. I've been a certified pharmacy technician now for about 15 years. I have my advanced certificate now. And my background is really in chain retail, some closed door, and then independence as well.

4:36So having the chance to work with IPC as the pharmacy services manager, it's really just been a dream. It's nice to be here and to get to speak to that a bit today. Thank you, Andrea. I want you to introduce yourself to the Twerks listeners and tell us what you're most excited about talking with us today. Yeah. Hi, thank you so much for having me. My name is Andrea Kowalski. I am the Director of Clinical Services for Shriver's Pharmacies. We are a multi-store independent in Southeast Ohio. It's a huge honor to be here. I'm kind of like a newbie here. We've been IPC members for years, but I've recently met Emla here in the last year and just have been really inspired by what she's doing.

5:16And I'm just really excited to bring more customized care to our patients. All right. Starting us off, Kelly. IPC does things on purpose. It's based on the experiences of the pharmacy owners out there who are members of the group. They basically prove stuff before they start really accepting it into the inner circle. You introduced me to Fullscripts. Tell us how this came to be. Why is Fullscripts part of this network? You know, we are at IPC, we're member focused. We always want to go out there and find what will help our pharmacies in their patient care journey. And Fullscript really was a perfect fit on that.

6:03We are constantly looking for what may be missing in pharmacy and a couple of things there. One of them is e-commerce. There's not a lot of e-commerce solutions that come through our pharmacies now. And obviously, there's a lot of dollars going to e-commerce. Health and wellness is one of them. And it was so good to find that package here with a company that could help our stores take better care of their patients and also in a different way.

6:35amla you are a pharmacy owner so you're wearing so many hats one of those hats is making determinations about what you're going to spend your money and time on and you are on fire about this organization and what this is doing not only for your patients health and the consultancy that you provide as a pharmacist but more importantly it's it's putting revenue in your in your pharmacy and we need that we need it to grow so talk to us about full script a little bit the way i look at any new project as a pharmacy owner is i have three questions do i enjoy doing this that is the first condition if i enjoy doing it that's a check the second thing does it bring value to my patients does it improve my patients out so nobody wants to jeopardize their health i always remind my patients and if a project is going to improve my patients help and the third question, does it generate revenue for the business that I'm in?

7:29If all these three are solid checks, then I'm embarking on it. And that is why I'm so passionate about using Fullscript at my pharmacy and what really made me just not the supplement wholesale aspect. Okay. That is, you know, secondary to what I use Fullscript for. For me, Journeys has been the kicker. And in my mind, there should be absolutely no independent pharmacy in the US that is not using the journey's platform for Fullscript just to improve their patient care. So it makes what we have been dreaming of on paper come to life to be able to test biomarkers and just fill that gap between direct-to-consumer testing and between the lack of provider space and time.

8:15I missed my primary care appointment because I didn't have the ability to go and it was scheduled six months out. If I were an ordinary patient and didn't have knowledge of the healthcare system, what do I do in six months? But a pharmacist is the most accessible healthcare provider in the US and we're not using that opportunity to truly take care of patients. So this is what Journey's platform on Fullstrip really brings to me. And my goal is to bring it to every independent pharmacy in the U.S. and start with IPC. Yeah. I love it. I love it. Andrea, Andrea, back that up. You're also running pharmacies and what you spend your time and money on, it's crucial.

8:58Yeah. And I mean, so recently too, like I became the director of our compounding pharmacy and, you know, as a compounding pharmacist on top of being an independent pharmacist, you know, we're really accustomed to providing just extremely customized care for our patients. We're creating medications for patients where commercially available products just have fallen short, whether it's dosage form or dose or just availability. So being able to come alongside our patients, specifically I'm thinking like our hormone patients and creating these custom medications for their hormone replacement and then being able to also provide these biomarker testing and these protocols that come along and just really support them just like from like the gut up, you know, like the holistic approach to kind of complement those medications has really been a really big game changer for us and just allows us to continue to create that customized care for our patients.

9:55Thank you so much for kind of setting the stage. The two pharmacy owners most important to kind of kicking off this conversation. I'm bringing this over to Christopher. You had to see this from a whole different perspective. this wasn't about the supplement. This was about building patients for life connected to a community pharmacy and pharmacist who's passionate about people's health in their specific local community. So talk to us about the concept in this whole system. Yeah, for sure, Todd. I think I would say like as we began to grow Fullscript over the years and our entree into like independent and provider groups and health systems really led us to initiatives that Andre and Emla just went through.

10:42And we realized that with the pharmacists, like really on the front end of this and having tools, like we have an AI assist tool, Fullscript Assist, that allows right at the beginning, giving the pharmacist the tools to be able to identify specifically what supplement needs may be necessary. But then also when you add journeys to that, now you're staying in the full life cycle of that patient. So with Andrea and Emla rolling out journeys, they can see from the very beginning, if the pharmacist doesn't have the tools or the goods, AI Assist is there for them. And then once they start utilizing that, and then they also have journeys tied to it, they're taking care of that patient through their entire care journey along the way.

11:26So there's no guessing. Like we said at the very beginning, when we talked about of IPC specifically and what Kelly mentioned, what we're trying to do is really give the pharmacist the time necessary. It's not really about the just like our platform is free platform and we have a revenue model that allows the pharmacist to drive revenue off it, but we're also giving the pharmacist the time it takes to do this and quickly make these decisions, stay connected to the patient through that journey and then continue that care. So it's been really great to partner with IPC and the pharmacists along the way here.

12:05All right. So I want to jump into implementation. Shannon, I think there's AI systems being implemented right now throughout independent community pharmacies to do workflow management, to do even data entry. All of a sudden we start hearing the story, oh, what's going to happen to my pharmacy technicians? In my mind, I'm a pharmacy owner. I'm like, holy smokies, I can now dedicate pharmacy technicians to this entire program. It's a business within a business. These techs can, you know, manage, take over, you know, do some pre, you know, pre-sales. And so talk to us about from your advantage point and seeing this as a pharmacy technician, how do we leverage our staff to fully embrace this?

12:52Well, patients are asking daily for things that likely we don't have on our shelves, the small business owners. You know, with small floor space, we have maybe 50 to 100 SKUs available at any time. And my only options previously were really printed wholesaler catalogs or, you know, one of 10 or 12 different vendor websites that we have to spend a lot of time on. So you don't know what's going to show up. You don't know how long you're going to have it stuck on your shelves if it's not picked up. So, you know, flipping through this catalog and standing there and making the patient or the customer wait for you.

13:25It doesn't look very professional, and none of that process is really beneficial to our time and effort. So with Fullscript, I can give the patient the options right there. We can have the delivery set to their home, and we never had that burden on the shelf. And we can also do reorders, which sets us up for future revenue, you know, as a store owner. I also can have that educated conversation with the patient because all of the resources are available on Fullscript. It's often hard for a technician to help there if they're not familiar with a specific supplement, but Fullscript has all the support where you can stand there and have an open conversation with them.

14:22Kelly, I want to dig deeper into kind of that clinical side for a second. When I start thinking about laboratory and labs, and I hear that as a patient, I probably had blood drawn in the past or a physical, so I kind of get it. Now I'm like, wait a second, this is labs for nutrition. This is labs for what's actually these substances that are going into my body. right out of the gate, there's a higher quality perception about this system than just going to my local big box store and picking up a bottle of a multivitamin or something. There's depth to this. Talk to me about that clinical side of this.

15:06And that's the exciting part of it, right? We're looking at the whole person, not just one part, one symptom. And this is really treating the whole patient. And And I think that's such a movement now. And it's so great to have a platform or an offering like this that allows us to do this. I'd like to, if I can, pitch it to Imla here. We've talked a lot about the patient journeys. If you could just give like a high level. So if there's stores out here watching this and they understand that a little bit better, that would be fantastic because I think that would really be helpful to our listeners.

15:43Yes, Kelly. from the way I look at it as pharmacists, we love data. So, but in the U S I take back, you know, cardiovascular disease kills more people than all cancers put together. So we're actually going to do something as independent pharmacists in our community is working towards prevention of cardiovascular disease. So, and we look at cardiovascular disease and we say, Hey, number one marker is cholesterol. We're measuring cholesterol. Everyone listening on to this podcast today goes to their doctor's office, annual wellness visit, and measures their cholesterol. And we think that's the end of the story.

16:17But a study was done in 136 ,000 people and they all had cardiovascular events, but 50 % of them had normal cholesterols and below the standard 200 that we want for LDL. So we're missing some markers. And these are the markers that we bring to light when we do a journey's panel. So for example, an advanced cardiovascular panel that we run for journeys, my goal is to do this for every single one of my patients. I'm like, if you have a heart, you have to do this cardiovascular panel. Okay. We're going to measure your C-reactive protein, which is your inflammation levels. And if you're listening to this podcast right now, I want you to be able to write down what your HSCRP is.

17:00That's your high sensitivity C-reactive protein. That's your measure of inflammation, systemic inflammation, which is the driver of all chronic diseases and high driver of cardiovascular disease, homocysteine values. Some people have never heard of this marker, but this marker is a cardiovascular marker as well as a marker of cognitive decline. And basic things like LP little A, which was just added to the cholesterol guidelines, APO B marker, which is more significant than the cholesterol values. These are things which we do not miss on the journeys panels. and driving every, I had a patient coming and she said, Emla, my sister just had a cardiovascular event.

17:39She lives in Michigan. We're in Ohio. And she goes, I'm just coming back from there. And the doctor said something about her that measured her LP little A. I don't know what that is. I just need help. I'm freaking out right now. And I said, don't freak out, take a deep breath and we're going to do your journey spanner. We did it. Lo and behold, this woman's LP little A was in the 400s. Mind you, this number is supposed to be below 100. Like I, she, so this is a reason, this is a cardiovascular event waiting to happen. Now we restructure her supplement level. If this is one patient that we help any day at any independent pharmacy, totally worth it in my mind.

18:18And that's so relevant today. I mean, I think there's a movement that understands what we see at the physician, Those normally ordered labs are not all we need. So that's a fantastic view of that. Thank you, Emla. Andrea, do you have any examples or tell us a little bit about your business and how patients have been helped with this program, where you see you could take this as well at your store? Yeah. So like I said, I'm still a newbie. we're still developing our journeys platform, which I will say, like, there are a lot of really great ideas out there. And I know that, you know, there's a million things that we want to do as pharmacists and you go to do it.

19:02And it's just like, it's a ton of work. I will say, like, I have been so impressed with how quick and easy it is to develop like protocols and stuff within full scripts. I mean, I was able to create like an entire oral peptides protocol within just a few hours and it looks like I spent years developing it. So I will say the execution of that has been surprisingly easy. I'm a very busy person and I only have, you know, dedicated amount of time to do different projects and it's been great. So I aspire to be like Emma with the journeys pathways and stuff like that. But I will say like already in our pharmacy, specifically, I mentioned our compounding lab and we have a very strong hormone replacement therapy program.

19:44It's just been really, really cool to be able to, you know, do our normal hormone consults for our patients, but then also have a way to be like, I'm going to send you a link and it's going to have all your hormonal supplement support. And these are the things that we recommend. You put it into the website, it sends them a text. They just click the link, they create a profile and they order it and it gets shipped right to their house. And it's been a game changer patients, it's so easy. They come to us and they just are a mess. They feel like they've just lost control of everything. They don't know what's going on.

20:22They've been told time after time that their levels are normal and they just have to suck it up or whatever. And to be able to provide our service, but then also come alongside them and support them in this other way and truly create these successful outcomes using these supplements has been great. And I fully plan on also doing, like I said, like the journeys pathways where we can do some more in-depth testing from like the hormone standpoint. But then also like I keep thinking down the road, you know, these nutritional deficiencies, like all the different nutritional deficiencies that you get from any medication, like this could be applicable in any way, like all of our diabetic patients who are on metformin or, you know, all these other things, Like there's just such a opportunity for us to provide this more customized care and just convenient.

21:10Like I said, just having a scent right to their house. It's just great. So, yes, that's kind of how I see us using it now and in the future. You said something that really stuck with me is that it really, you really help the patient take more control of their health. And I think that's, you know, if the pharmacy can help the patient feel more control of their health, take more control of their health, then that's a win all around. Well, we know as pharmacists and technicians that our bandwidth only stretches so far. But we still want to implement all of these new programs and we want to support all of the disease states that come across our counters.

21:47So like Andrea said, full script platform with the journeys and the patient handouts, even the nutrient depletion trackers, all of those features really make it easy for us to create our own pathways and have that information at our fingertips. Shannon, how does all this start tying into operations from your perspective? What has your experience been in hearing your clients' success stories? It's really the ease and the use that gives you that empowerment. Like what everyone has already said here, every patient that comes in has some type of health or wellness concern, and that makes for an easy conversation.

22:23It doesn't have to be in-depth. It could be an added comment. You know, we have tons of resources available if you're ever looking to add a supplement to support the exhaustion you're talking about or the joint pain that you're talking about. We can support all of that, whether we order it online or whether we have it in the store. And if you don't see it, there's an online resource. We can order it, have it delivered right to you. You know, those are easy conversations you can have in the drive-thru, at the front register, or even at drop-off when they say, you know, I want this, but I'm afraid of X, Y, Z.

22:54You can support that right then and there. So there's just so many openings to each conversation. And this platform gives all of your staff, technicians and pharmacists, the ability to really use it to its full extent. This is exciting. Christopher, talk to us about your vision for community pharmacy throughout the country. and how that means better people's health, better personalized health. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Todd. I'll tell you this, just listening to the group and the panel here gets me excited. I wanted to clap as folks were talking because I feel so strong about it. And really, in listening and just putting it forward here for the group, that our role and our vision is truly, let's make this easy.

23:40Let's make this simple and give the pharmacist the time that they need. In doing so, we believe and we've seen that you can build much stronger patient relationships. We for sure are proving with clinical data that we're driving better outcomes. And then on top of it, we offer the revenue model. So when you put those things together, that is the vision. Let's just continue to make this easy, build stronger patient relationships, drive better outcomes, and allow pharmacists to earn revenue in, honestly, a clinically proven way because we're taking as much work out of it as possible by bringing the quality supplements, doing the third-party testing and internal testing, and then making sure the commerce components of it are easy to use.

24:29We just want to continue to grow that. Amla, is it that easy? Is it that simple? you're a pharmacy owner. Tell us the truth. What's going on? You know, here's the truth, Todd. Prior to my using Fullscript, patients will walk into the pharmacy and be like, I found a supplement on TikTok. Oh, my sister is using this supplement. Is it a good one? That's usually, if I get paid for every time that a patient came in asking that question, you know, they either bring a picture of it on their phone or they just bring in the bottle and I have to be figuring out, is this a third-party tester supplement? Is this pharmaceutical grade, you know, and that's the time that I don't want to spend.

25:07And I'm not getting paid for that time. So, but now if I don't have it in the store, I have it online on Fullscript. And so at the patient, you, a few clicks and you have it in your home and I don't have to do anything. And I cannot tell you the number of times prior to using Fullscript where I ordered a supplement from, like Shannon was talking about, from the manufacturer, I had several accounts with all the different supplements, supplement manufacturers, have over 10 accounts out there. And you know how much manpower it takes to manage all the logins for this. And then order the supplement, it gets here.

25:46And then the patient goes, actually, I don't want it anymore. And it's sitting on the shelf. I'm just letting the pharmacy owners who are listening to this just feel the feelings right now. But now that doesn't have to happen. So as I'm sending the plan to the patient, the patient gets it directly from Fullscript. And I don't have to touch that. I don't have to worry about shipping. So that's number one easy. And number two easy is the Fullscript Assist. Looking at it, and I have protocols that are already built for me. And this Fullscript has a team of researchers online and a team of engineers who do all the work for us.

26:21And I love easy life. So as a pharmacist, my goal is communicating with the patients. My goal is taking this data, breaking it down into actionable items, you know, to tell the patient what to do. So on Fullscript, I have resources. If I want to, if I say, Todd, you need a probiotic right now. I'm sort of going to Fullscript, type the word probiotic under resources. And I'm going to get a one page out there in third grade language that you can understand. Third grade level for you, what the hell is a probiotic? What is it? Is it measured in CFU or milligrams? How do you put foods that have a probiotic heavy on your plate?

26:55That is already there for me. In two clicks, I can get this printed out in color, give it to you. So it really doesn't get easier than that. As a pharmacy, my goal is I have this toolbox. And in this tool, I have a lot of things that can help you feel better. My line is there's a lot more to health than prescriptions. And that is so true. Top 200 prescriptions in every pharmacy. You have all your statins. You have all your metformin. You have all those things. And these are similar across the country because of our chronic disease states. But every single patient that's taking metformin is being depleted of their B12 levels.

27:30And as pharmacists, are we just letting that be? You know, I will just give it to you. Todd, you've been diagnosed with diabetes. Here's your metformin. Take it with food. Otherwise, it's going to cause diarrhea. Have a good day. And I'll see you in about six months or one year or two years later. And you're diagnosed with diabetic neuropathy. Because I didn't do you the favor of telling you that that metformin you're taking depletes your B12. And I did not recommend you to take a B12 vitamin. And if you took that, it would have protected your nerves and delayed or prevented the diagnosis of diabetic neuropathy.

28:02But guess what I'm going to be doing now? Giving you a prescription for Lyrica, gabapentin, or duloxetine to add to your metformin, which you're already taking because you enjoy taking prescriptions. Not so. But if I'm using Fullscript to the fullest, I'm using the protocols which are on there. There's a drug-induced nutrient depletion protocol on there, which is easy for me, even as a pharmacist, even if I don't know this. What I do is I teach this to other pharmacists. So I know it in my head, I could tell. But if a pharmacist that doesn't know this, you click on full script and the protocol is right there.

28:31You know exactly what to give your patient for that diabetic neuropathy. And you are taking care. Just imagine that this patient is your mother. How are you going to take care of your mother? That's how you're going to take care of all the patients. And are you doing that and generating revenue? How easy do you want it to be? It'd be my full script representative. of all right i'm gonna i'm gonna be i'll be your test subject you'll take me through the whole entire process we'll have to do that on our next uh this week in pharmacy on on the whole story of full scripts and and the and how the rubber meets the road we gotta we gotta move a little bit faster absolutely hey thank you so much uh team for being here today and for giving us the the whole story on full script.

29:17We want to invite you back. We want to break this down. I want to shout out to other pharmacy owners who have gotten involved in this program and what it's doing for the relationships that you're building, patients for life, community support for life. You're already in the community. You're already committed to your community. And those people inside your community are wondering how to make their lives better and how to live better, how to live healthier. Shout out to IPC. Thank you so much for sponsoring today, This Week in Pharmacy. Kelly, can't wait to have you back. It's fun. Thank you, Todd.

29:53We'll talk to you soon on This Week in Pharmacy.

30:11you