Blueberry Pharmacy

We've had a great 3 weeks with Justin so far! We dove head-first into the cost-plus model and had discussions about the future of the profession. He has excellent clinical knowledge and work ethic - we are fortunate he chose us as a rotation site!

Duquesne University School of Pharmacy

Congrats to Honest Rx on their mission of transparency and cost-plus pharmacy launch (belated shout-out, as they've been open since April). If you are in Virginia, check them out!

Link to their launch: https://www.statnews.com/2022/11/21/this-small-town-pharmacy-may-be-a-model-for-more-affordable-drugs/

Cost-plus pharmacy locator: https://www.costpluspharmacies.com

Hard to believe, but Thanskgiving is less than a week away!

We are thankful for all of you! Our 🦃 is getting fuller each day :)

Day 9: Trying to recreate a meme

Yet another example of from medicare.gov. A reminder during that the best prices are often not listed on the website. Source in comments.

Day 8: Actual situation from yesterday

This is lowest-cost Medicare plan based on a patient's med list. Despite that, the cost of the medication at a PREFERRED pharmacy WITH insurance is 5x our non-member price for the year. Medicare.gov thinks our cost should be 13x what we currently charge - good thing we don't listen to them!

Hopefully you are noticing a trend - these medications are FUNDAMENTALLY non-insurable. We don't buy car insurance for oil changes (routine, low-cost, maintenance events). Nor should we want health insurance to be involved in routine, low-cost, maintenance health events as it only raises prices (either directly through copays, or indirectly through premium costs).

Day 7: The opposite of what you'd expect

It's easy to keep posting prices that medicare.gov has artificially inflated; however, this one was QUITE hard to find. Here they are instead artificially deflating our price. We feel it is only fair to show both sides - but read on to see why.

It's okay that we don't always have the "lowest price". The way we price medications is based on the service and knowledge of ensuring each medication is the safest, most effective, and correct regimen. We simply cannot do all of this for less than our dispensing fee ($3/member, $10/non-members). Although we like to highlight that we OFTEN have the lowest prices, we don't always - and that's okay because service and safety would suffer as a result.

If you haven't been following along, check back through the posts to see how Medicare.gov has been falsely advertising our prices to patients - on all medications and widely off-mark.

Day 5: It's a doozy!!

This one is so ridiculous I even put the plan number/name so you can double check my work. $137,000 vs our actual cost $1044/year.

Day 4: Running out of things to say.

These captions are getting hard to write as they become repetitive, but you get the picture. Yet another incorrect price on Medicare.gov - this time it says our price is over $4,600 when it is under $90.

Today we were fortunate to have Drs. Justinne and Liz join us to learn about community pharmacy and the cost-plus model. It was a great day for inter-professionalism!

We look forward to having several other residents join us over the coming months as we will be hosting all the UPMC Shadyside Family Medicine residents throughout the year.

Day 3: Is this hard on your eyes 👀?

It's hard for us to look at too!

If you haven't been following, all of our prices are falsely listed on medicare.gov. This one is for a WellCare plan. Our price is literally ONE-SEVENTH the price of an IN-NETWORK pharmacy THROUGH insurance.

Open Enrollment Alert Day 2:

Today, we showcase a price that is $1300+ less than what Medicare.gov lists, and $100 cheaper than our chain competitor WITH insurance!

It's open enrollment!

As we've highlighted in the past, all of our prices are falsely listed on medicare.gov. Often our prices are even LOWER than Medicare copays, but you wouldn't know by looking at their website. Therefore, we'll be posting a reminder every day until open enrollment ends.

Day 1: Medicare.gov lists our price as $504.48 when it is only $28.21, making it cheaper than the lowest-cost Medicare plan copay!

This encounter was full of 💙💙💙

Our patients are the best :)

Our FedEx driver delivered a dose of smiles with their doodles on our latest deliveries 🥹

Overheard in the Pharmacy 🎬

We've stopped tracking savings because there are just too many to keep track of! A major component of healthcare is making sure it is affordable - this is too often forgotten.

Reminder: Please vote for us for TribLive's Best of the Best award. You can vote every day until October 7th - https://lnkd.in/ektaFPFV

Flashback to yesterday and a great event put on by Direct Care Physicians of Pittsburgh!

Great time connecting with local practitioners and healthcare groups.

Reminder: Please vote for us for TribLive's Best of the Best award. You can vote every day until October 7th - https://bestofthebest.triblive.com/allegheny-north/#/gallery/351489967/

Thank you to WENY TV News for the spotlight! Prescription prices are higher than they need to be. They did an excellent job highlighting the problems in pharmacy (be sure to check out part 1 as well). PBMs need regulated/removed as middlemen!

Link to news story: https://www.weny.com/story/47345090/weny-news-special-report-the-high-codollart-of-prescriptions-part-2

Reminder: Please vote for us for TribLive's Best of the Best award. You can vote every day until October 7th - https://bestofthebest.triblive.com/allegheny-north/#/gallery/351489967/.

Day #2 for Voting!

In case you missed it yesterday, we've been nominated for the Best of the Best award. You can vote every day between now and October 7th: https://bestofthebest.triblive.com/allegheny-north/#/gallery/351489967/

One of our patients' favorites is the blueberry lollipops that we hand out (not just to kid patients, adult patients too!). For this month only, they've transformed into BOO-berry lollipops! 👻😱

Today is the day! 🎉

We've been honored with a nomination for TribLive's Best of the Best Award. Voting opened today and runs through October 7th. 🗳️

Link to vote 👉 https://tribweb.secondstreetapp.com/og/196e875b-da22-4fcc-bc5f-10cb19d29e32/gallery/351489967

If you see fit, please head on over and vote today (and preferable once a day until the 7th!) We appreciate your vote as it helps others learn about us and how they can save on prescriptions, and helps spread the cost-plus model for pharmacy!

Overheard in the pharmacy [ep. 27]

A funny comment for you to have a little laugh on this Saturday!

Meet Kali, a fourth-year student pharmacist from the University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy who has been on rotation for 3 weeks now. She has been learning a lot from Blueberry Pharmacy about the drug-pricing throughout the United States and the direct patient care that this pharmacy provides to every patient. She will be here for another week so stop by and say hi. 🫐

Just shower thoughts 🚿

Overheard in the pharmacy [ep. 26]

It isn't always medication savings that remind people of us, sometimes it's the soap we sell! Stop in and check out our selection of Duke Cannon Supply Co. soaps

☝️When a pharmacist gets to be a pharmacist.

Overheard in the pharmacy [ep. 25]

This patient had medication changes and called us to discuss them. We found out that he had been taking one at the wrong time of day because no one had gone over them with him. We were more than happy to go through the full medication list and discuss counseling points on each of them.

We love to be able to provide direct patient care and optimize the medication therapy for all patients. Give us a call whenever you have questions on medications!

Who doesn't love a good play on words!

Overheard in the pharmacy [ep. 24]

We really love when we can help new patients save so much more than they ever expected!

Seems like quite the coincidence! Less than a week after we get a comic book store as a new neighbor (check out K&J Comics and Games if you haven't already!), we show up in a comic-style article!

Full story: https://pittmed.pitt.edu/news/your-health-care-team

Thank you to the University of Pittsburgh for the spotlight!

Happy Labor Day! Hopefully everyone is as relaxed as those in the front seat! (Photo woke them up)

One of the cutest thank you cards 😊🫐 - thank you, Michael for all of your hard work work over the past 5 weeks! You are a great person, father, friend, and soon-to-be pharmacist!

Excerpt:

"Dear Kyle and Adam,
Thank you for teaching and coaching my dad. He said he had a blast! Hopefully in the future, you'll become business partners."

- Michael's daughter

Meet Michael, he's pretty much my favorite intern ever. I never had any intern that related to me so much, i.e. a father, local business owner, husband. Another first, I've never had an intern older than me and with more experience in pharmacy. As a father of 4, and finishing up Pharmacy school with his MBA, I'm shook how awesome he is. Intern of the year award goes to Michael Chieu!

No, Michael did not write this post.

We will be closed on Monday, September 5th for Labor Day. Hope you all have a great weekend relaxing and spending time with friends and family.

Overheard in the pharmacy [ep. 23]

A great way to start the week with one of the best quotes heard over the phone from a new patient who is saving big time on her medications.

Have a great week everyone!!

How adorable!! We fully approve of this berry cute toy! 🫐

It’s Berry Picking season! Don’t eat the big one!

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VOTE ON A DESIGN!

Creating new business cards...which is your favorite?!

The last image is what we have planned for the back. What are we missing? What info would you want to see on it?

Out and about this week! Fun visiting partners throughout the north.



The Fit Pharmacist

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Not all blueberries are blue!

Meet Gregg, one of Blueberry Pharmacy's best!!!

(I tasked him with coming up with a caption and this ^^ is all he could come up with 🤣🤣🤣)