By Andrew Fisher

Part of ORCHIDsocial Series

Have you ever given any thought to what your best life would look like? What would your day consist of if you could have it full of the things you choose? Where would you go? What would you do? With whom would you spend your time?  I’ve read a few things on this topic recently, and it is an interesting concept that can apply to your business as well as your personal life. When we started ORCHID, we had to make a decision about who we wanted to be and what we wanted to try to bring to the industries with which we are working. In a sense, we had to decide what ORCHID’s best life would be. After you make that decision, you can work backward and figure out what policies and plans will get you there.  

I talk with a lot of pharmacy owners about their strategy, and, while everyone’s is definitely not the same, there are common elements to successful ones. To me, the biggest indicator in whether a strategy will be successful is whether the policies, procedures, and activities for the business are aligned with the strategy. If your strategy and your policies, procedures, and activities are not taking you in the same direction, then you have a problem. For example, if you want to be proactive about growing your business, but you don’t have someone out in your community creating relationships every day, then your business activities aren’t aligned with your strategy. Likewise, if you want to reduce your risk of audit recoupments, but you aren’t requiring patients to pay their co-pays and stay current on their charge accounts, then your policies aren’t in line with your strategy. If you want your business to be successful, you need to make sure that your policies, procedures, and daily activities are in sync with your strategy. How do you do that? There’s not one right answer, but here are some tips.

1.     Establish a clear goal and define a time period for getting there.

2.     Determine which aspects of the business directly impact your ability to reach your goal.

3.     Decide which of those aspects are within your control and which ones aren’t.

4.     Review your current policies and procedures to make sure they are not an obstacle that will prevent you from reaching your goal.

5.     Make sure all new policies and procedures align with your goal and do not make it harder to reach.

6.     Critically review all your daily activities and change or get rid of the ones that are not helping you reach your goal.

ORCHID works with pharmacies to help them grow their businesses by partnering with providers within their communities, but we’re always happy to chat with pharmacy owners about other topics as well. We are pharmacy owners ourselves, so we understand the challenges facing independent, community pharmacies today. Please contact us any time. We would love to hear from you!