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24/7 automated pharmacy services to reduce costs and improve employee satisfaction

In 2010, Berkshire Health Systems (BHS) opened their employee pharmacy as part of their comprehensive ‘Wellness at Work’ plan to offer better health services to their 3,500 employees and at the same time save money. BHS realized they needed a convenient yet cost effective way to capture 2nd and 3rd shift employee prescriptions.

September 9, 2014

Hospitals are faced with increasing challenges as their bottom lines continue to be squeezed by lower medical reimbursements, health care reform, and double-digit prescription-rate increases. As hospitals look for ways to save money, the pharmacy is increasingly becoming a place to focus.

Pharmacies make up 10-20% of a hospital’s operating budget and with the increase in generic prescriptions, the potential for 340b drug pricing (which allows health-care organizations to acquire outpatient drugs at significantly reduced prices), and leveraging the use of outpatient pharmacies for employee prescriptions; hospitals can realize significant savings.

Berkshire Health Systems

Berkshire Health Systems is a self-insured, not-for-profit organization and the largest employer in Berkshire County, MA. They serve over 160,000 residents and visitors of Berkshire County and surrounding communities with approximately 3,500 highly skilled physicians, nurses, technicians, other caregivers and support staff.

In 2010, BHS opened its employee pharmacy at Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield, MA. The opening of the employee pharmacy was part of a comprehensive “Wellness at Work” plan to offer better health services to employees and at the same time save money.

Knowing how important capturing additional employee prescriptions was to meeting its goal of increasing prescription volume, BHS looked for solutions to attract more employees to the new pharmacy. Since they could not financially justify keeping the employee pharmacy open overnight, BHS began looking for outside services or technologies to provide 24/7 prescription pick up.

Berkshire Health Systems' solution: the installation of an Asteres ScriptCenter kiosk designed to offer around-the-clock prescription pickup to employees without having to keep the pharmacy open extended hours or add additional staff.

To load ScriptCenter, items are placed in containers, and linked using a barcode scanner. Once items are loaded into the unit, customers can pick up their items 24/7. Customers pay with a credit, debit, or FSA card; the unit can also interface with current systems to offer payroll deduction, loyalty club information, alerts, Flexible Spending Account information and pharmacy services such as order refills or automatic payment. ScriptCenter also offers marketing opportunities such as on-screen surveys and configurable printed coupons. For added security, all customer pickups are recorded with a photo and signature captured.

Cost savings and more

BHS has seen a significant increase in their employee prescriptions filled in-house. Out of the 1700 enrolled in the hospital’s Wellness Program, 70% had their prescriptions filled in-house. ScriptCenter has also allowed the pharmacy technicians at BHS to work in additional value-added areas other than traditional checkout roles, which can be very time consuming.

In addition, BHS was able to recognize cost savings by utilizing discounted 340b drug pricing and, in turn, redeploy the 340b-program savings to the creation of a new program to provide diabetes medications and testing scripts to low-income patients as well as provide low-dose CT lung cancer screening to the community. It is truly a win-win for the hospital, the employees and the community.

BHS Prescriptions Filled

BHS Prescriptions Captured

Asteres Inc. is a San Diego, California-based company that develops secure self-service kiosks for delivery of prescriptions and consumer products worldwide. Asteres’ premier product is ScriptCenter, the first prescription pickup kiosk for retail, healthcare and military pharmacies that allows patients to pick up and pay for their prescriptions even when the pharmacy is closed.