Ideas to Innovate Your Pharmacy

Virtual Verification: The Answer to Pharmacy Staffing Problems

Written by TelePharm | August 1, 2016

Each day brings more and more tasks for pharmacists and the pressure of an increased workload makes their daily to-do list nearly impossible.


Consider a few of the to-do list of a staff pharmacist:

  • Inventory management
  • MTM and CMR services
  • Specialty drug counseling
  • Focus on medication adherence
  • Medication synchronization services
  • Manage pharmacy staffing schedules
  • Administer flu shots and other immunizations/vaccinations

Asking a pharmacist to engage in these activities on top of reviewing numerous prescriptions/day can lead to frustrations and staff burnout.

The pressure of an increased workload and monthly goals has led pharmacists to focus more on numbers than on delivering personal care. With Virtual Verification, any individual pharmacist in your network can focus on patients in the store without worry of workload build-up. We’re going to discuss how Virtual Verification works to help solve your pharmacy staffing problems. 

Easily staff for clinical activities

If flu shots, vaccinations and other clinical services help generate revenue at your pharmacies (or you would like them to), Virtual Verification is for you. Virtual Verification can take the burden off your busiest pharmacists by sharing the prescription verification workload across all locations. When your busiest pharmacists have more free time they can maximize clinical offerings, shift their focus to the patient and generate more revenue.

Virtual Verification automatically balances peak prescription volumes between pharmacies so the pharmacists are able to shift their focus to the patient.

More efficient pharmacy staffing

Many pharmacies suffer from an inefficient distribution of the workload. As a pharmacy chain of any size, it is ineffective to have the same staffing model in every store because each location handles different prescription volumes. Currently, as prescription volume fluctuates, so do staffing needs. Virtual Verification allows the ability to staff for the averages instead of peak hours. Virtual Verification allows you to maximize your resources and focus on improving patient care.

Whether you’re a pharmacy chain with three to four sites or 1,000 locations across the country, Virtual Verification is the tool that can help convert variable operating costs into fixed costs. Not only will stabilizing labor make you more profitable, it allows your staff to become more efficient so you know what to expect and are able to plan and budget better.

Additionally, sharing the workload creates a virtual network of pharmacists so you can reduce or eliminate the need for relief pharmacists and overlap hours.

Click here to see the 3 main benefits to Virtual Verification.

Recruit and retain quality pharmacists

Besides making your bottom line happy, Virtual Verification also makes your staff happy.

Put yourself in their shoes: as a pharmacist, would you rather work in a hectic pharmacy where you don’t know what your daily workload looks like until you’re almost done for the day? Or would you rather work where the day-to-day workload is more predictable?

As a pharmacy owner/director, you can use your shared workload as a recruiting tool to acquire and help retain quality pharmacists. Make your pharmacy the best place to work by balancing the workload and creating an environment that pharmacists look forward to working in every day.