How an Onsite Pharmacy Can Enhance Your Benefits Strategy

If you’re a benefits leader for your organization, you may feel like you’re walking a fine line when it comes to making decisions for your population. You have to balance providing high-value benefits at low costs and staying compliant with federal regulations, all while remaining competitive in talent recruitment and retention. 

When you’re trying to juggle all of those things – productivity, transparency, quality, satisfaction, and value – medication spend and pharmacy experience become top-of-mind challenges for leaders. As drug prices rise, retail pharmacy locations close, and wait times lengthen, satisfaction with traditional pharmacy experiences declines. And when people go out of their way to avoid the pharmacy, they don’t pick up and take their medications, and they struggle to improve their health.    

Luckily, you aren’t out of options when it comes to building better benefits, especially when it comes to pharmacy.  More than just a convenience, onsite pharmacies offer a range of benefits that can make a significant impact on both employees and the organization’s bottom line. 

The Value of Onsite Pharmacy for Employees 

Onsite pharmacies are built on or near an organization’s campus and are sponsored by an employer to exclusively serve their workforce and dependents. They can include the “pick-up” counter many of us picture when we think about a pharmacy, but they are also staffed with expert pharmacists who can work one-on-one with members to address questions and offer coaching to promote proper medication usage and chronic condition management.  

Because they only serve employees and their dependents, onsite pharmacies see less of the friction common in chain pharmacies, and can prioritize the tenants of a better member experience, including:  

• Quality: Ensures accurate, timely medication delivery with personalized support, which drives better health outcomes. 
• Service: Minimizes wait times and offers easy access to knowledgeable pharmacists for quick resolutions to member concerns. 
• Cost: Makes medications more affordable and accessible, helping prevent costly health complications.

The Value of Pharmacy for Benefits Leaders 

But the advantage of having an onsite pharmacy doesn’t stop with members. In addition to saving employees and their families time and money, adding an onsite pharmacy to an organization’s benefits strategy creates a better experience for benefits leaders by making it easier to align all of your top priorities into one single strategy. Here’s how. 

Cost-effective care  

Onsite pharmacies can significantly reduce overall healthcare costs for employers, especially when part of an advanced primary care model. It makes sense – if members can’t access regular consultations and medications, they face emergency room visits and hospitalizations that can cost hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars. In fact, a Premise Health study across 26 employers found that paired pharmacy and primary care services resulted in $5,135 savings per member, per month on average. That’s over twice the $2,434 in savings clients saw with primary care alone, showing just how effective pharmacy access is in maintaining employee health and controlling healthcare expenses. 

Strategic guidance 

Legally, employers have a fiduciary responsibility to ensure the benefits they offer are reasonably priced and in the best interest of their people. This can be especially important when it comes to the cost of medications, which can be inflated by fees and incentives from pharmacy benefits managers (PBMs), cost-sharing models, and markups, resulting in higher spend for workers and their organizations. When these inflated costs affect crucial medications, it’s employees’ health that suffers.  

Onsite pharmacies can help keep these costs in check and decrease risk for employers by offering strategic guidance around the benefits plan. Established onsite pharmacy partners offer support via expertise from field-trained leadership teams who collaborate closely with employers. These pharmacy experts – alongside the pharmacists interacting with members on a day-to-day basis – offer actionable insights to inform benefit design, including cost-effective alternatives to expensive brand-name medications, formulary optimization, and adherence strategies tailored to the workforce. 

Transparent reporting 

Onsite pharmacies also give employers a unique look into prescription trends, medication adherence, and health outcomes that aren’t available through traditional retail pharmacies. Such reporting tools allow for real-time monitoring and benchmarking. This ensures that pharmacy services not only stay cost-effective but are also aligned with an organization’s broader health objectives and its duty to provide valuable benefits for employees. For example, when an employer can track medication adherence rates amongst people with chronic conditions, they can better project increases and decreases in costly hospital and urgent care visits for these same conditions and tailor solutions accordingly. 

Emphasizing transparency through reporting makes it easier for employers to collaborate with their benefits partners, reinforces their commitment to employee well-being and fiscal responsibility, and supports strategic planning as they work to optimize health benefits for their people.  

Onsite pharmacies are more than a modern convenience; they’re a strategic asset in enhancing health benefits for your people. By focusing on quality, service, and affordability, these pharmacies not only improve health outcomes but can also help you become a better steward of your people’s health and wellbeing.  

Ready to elevate your benefits strategy? See how one company saved $1,600 per member per year and helped their people regain control over their chronic conditions with integrated pharmacy and primary care, or get in touch to take your first step towards a happier, healthier workforce today.