Bootstrapping Using Services from North Carolina: Ateb CEO Frank Sheppard (Part 6)

Frank Sheppard: The other part of it is the reorganization of pharmacies. Traditionally, pharmacies are focused on filling prescriptions and are very reactive to patients coming in for that purpose. We’re doing things to make a lot of pharmacies more proactive, so instead of waiting for patients to engage them, we’re trying to find ways to enable them to proactively manage their workload. That’s one of the things that pharmacists, in particular, are always excited about. They can control what’s happening in their pharmacy. It, ultimately, opens up enough time for them to be very active to their patients. We’ve turned the model upside down.

A good example of how we do that is we’ve developed a program called Time My Meds, which works with and helps pharmacies synchronize prescriptions so that all their maintenance prescriptions can be ready at the same time every month. Typically, a patient may take four or five or more maintenance medications. They are likely filling those in three or four visits to the pharmacy every month. We help them organize so that instead of having to fill a prescription for a patient three or four times a month, they may be able to fill all those prescriptions at the same time each month. It’s easier for the pharmacy to prepare them and it’s also easier for the pharmacy to see everything that’s happening with that patient.

It creates a win for the patient. It creates a win for the pharmacy because they’re helping patients achieve better healthcare outcomes. They’re helping patients fill more prescriptions, which is still the lifeblood of how a pharmacy survives.

Sramana Mitra: What does that translate into in terms of financials? How do you charge for this and how does that impact your growth in the last five years?

Frank Sheppard: In order to be successful, we chose to change our model from licensing for solutions like IVR to pay-as-you-go. The newer ones that we’ve been doing over the last three to five years have all been all pay-as-you-go. The reason we’re doing that is it really helps keep us and the pharmacy completely aligned. Our bet is we can work with the pharmacies to get them successful and in doing so, we can create a very healthy pharmacy business for them. We can get rewarded with payments for how they service patients better.

This segment is part 6 in the series : Bootstrapping Using Services from North Carolina: Ateb CEO Frank Sheppard
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