In this episode of the Concierge Medical Marketing Podcast, host Steven Schwartz interviews Dr. Ashley Pendrick, a pharmacist and consultant specializing in the integration of pharmacists into concierge and direct primary care practices. They discuss the benefits of having pharmacists on the healthcare team, including improved patient care, cost savings, and reduced physician burnout. Dr. Pendrick shares insights on how pharmacists can enhance medication management, educate patients, and ultimately lead to better health outcomes. The conversation also touches on the future of concierge medicine and the growing demand for personalized healthcare solutions.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Concierge Medicine and Pharmacists’ Role
03:20 The Impact of Pharmacists in Direct Primary Care
06:23 Financial Benefits of Integrating Pharmacists
09:29 Future of Direct Primary Care and Concierge Medicine
12:04 Building Relationships in Healthcare
15:17 Conclusion and Resources for Physicians and Pharmacists
 

Steven Schwartz (00:24)
Hello and welcome to the Concierge Medical Marketing Podcast. I’m your host, Steven Schwartz, and I’m so grateful that you’re along with us in our podcast journey. We meet so many interesting people in the concierge and direct primary care space. Today we have Dr. Ashley Pendrick. Ashley, thank you for being with us today.

Dr. Ashley Kay Pendrick (00:43)
No, it’s my pleasure. really appreciate being here today and excited to chat with you today, Steven.

Steven Schwartz (00:49)
Wonderful, wonderful. Well, great. What I’d like to do is let’s just jump right in to your background, your professional experience, just kind of your background so people know where you’re coming from before we get into the meat of things.

Dr. Ashley Kay Pendrick (01:05)
Absolutely.

So I’m a pharmacist by trade. I graduated out in Arizona and I am a clinical pharmacist as well as a expert in the clinical utilization of a pharmacist and optimizing them in that clinical sense. And that is the partner with a physician. And I help in bringing together physicians and pharmacists for everybody to be able to enjoy and improve.

the practice of medicine and safer overall care of our patients.

Steven Schwartz (01:40)
the name of your company?

Dr. Ashley Kay Pendrick (01:42)
I own and operate ProsperRx Consulting and we offer consulting services for both physicians as well as pharmacies in the clinical use of pharmacists.

Steven Schwartz (01:54)
Wonderful. Do you have many pharmacists who are part of your network who are looking for a better professional arrangement, a better gig, so to speak, from working at a grocery store pharmacy?

Dr. Ashley Kay Pendrick (02:06)
That’s a great question. You know, Steven that’s

probably what brought me to where I’m at is looking back after coming out of the Doctor of Pharmacy Training Program or the education that we undergo, they do train you for clinical practice. And many pharmacists come out and when they look for those clinical roles,

there’s not as amount that vast amount versus the retail opportunities. And so there are many pharmacists that are eager for these types of roles to be able to practice and use the skills and that knowledge that they were trained in direct patient care to be able to help physicians. So yeah, pharmacists are ready and they’re trained. And here we are trying to open and explore new roles.

and increase the utilization of them. I know the federal systems already use them as a pharmacist for the clinical management of several chronic diseases and in outpatient care and just moving that more, you know, widespread. Federal systems don’t have to be the only one that reap the benefits.

Steven Schwartz (03:20)
love it. Can you paint the picture for our audience of what it looks like in a concierge medical or direct primary care practice when a pharmacist joins the team working inside their four walls, working with the patients? How does that look and what are the outcomes that you’ve experienced in arranging these type of relationships?

Dr. Ashley Kay Pendrick (03:45)
So the overall experience is gonna be depending on the patient population, but pharmacists and physicians working hand in hand. with that, as soon as there’s a diagnosis or if there is some sort of concern when it comes to medications, the pharmacist is either in the visit ahead of time, so before the physician comes in or after. And from that point, they educate.

and showcase any sort of concerns when it comes to the medications and actually managing them and support physicians and prescribing the therapies. Another use and way that a lot of the practices are currently using them, especially in TPC, is gonna be in those cost savings areas and reducing in hospitalizations and so, and time saved. The average physician may spend over 600 hours

in educating and sharing about medications. And so having a pharmacist in the DPC practice and any practice really can help with reducing a lot of that burden that they face. And one current concierge practice has added a pharmacist and one of the big things that he mentioned was the education, a lot goes into it.

in disease education as well as medication education and trying to understand the role of how that will help the patient and keeping them, you know, adherent to therapy. And I know that they felt overall that helped with, you know, taking some of the decisions off of their plate and helping the patient in getting the access to some of these medications.

and supporting the practice and the physician and getting them in prescription assistance or what’s the best cost option here? And the pharmacist helps them in navigating that. so they, honestly, they described it as being game changing to their DPC practice. And so it is definitely something that all practices should explore as a partner in managing and helping their patients live healthier lives.

Steven Schwartz (06:04)
Very, very cool. So for somebody who’s not thought about having a pharmacist in their practice before, they might hear this and say, well, if I’m hiring a pharmacist to come in, I need to pay them a salary and benefits and whatnot. That sounds like a lot of money going out. Where or how does additional revenue come into the practice in order to help cover that expense of having another professional on the team?

Dr. Ashley Kay Pendrick (06:23)
you

That is a great question. Obviously with the direct primary care and our concierge models, there’s different ways in keeping that overall with revenue generating. We look at the cost savings as a big part in reducing hospitalizations through those conversations, anywhere from 60,000 to over 100,000 in cost reductions.

at a minimum when it comes to, if you think about drug interactions, drug side effects and things of that nature. But then also removing some of the time spent that the physician is directly engaged with anything medication related. And so it’s estimated they can open up over 1900 visit appointments for the patient to see their practitioner, their physician with the use of a pharmacist.

So really it’s increasing the time and the availability of the physician and offsetting and strategizing that time to then offset and use the pharmacist and saving physician time so that they can increase their panel.

Steven Schwartz (07:43)
I love it. Yeah, I think that was my thoughts on where this was going to is that let’s say a physician normally has, I don’t know, 250 patients in their panel for a high-end concierge practice. If they brought aboard a pharmacist to work inside the building, they could, I assume, stretch the panel to 300 and more than compensate for the salary and benefits for the pharmacist. Correct?

Dr. Ashley Kay Pendrick (07:44)
you

Absolutely, yeah. And I know if you think about the training, it’s very parallel to a physician and educating on the disease dates and watching for signs and symptoms and things of that nature. So they’re definitely a trained partner that the physician can use, but then giving them that prescribing authority if the physician’s got them diagnosed and concerned with certain things.

You know, they have protocols that then the pharmacist can help and support that physician in managing those patients as well. So they can expand their patient panel and still deliver that quality that they’re looking to achieve in those, you know, patient cases and overall the care and that, I think that’s one of the things too is that trust factor. And one of those things I feel like is the pharmacist and the way that they educate.

There is really no comparison. Let them educate the patients too on these medications and things of that nature and what the physician’s treatment plan is. And if they’re working in parallel, it’s been a really great opportunity for physicians and in the DPC space to do that, expand their panel.

Steven Schwartz (09:29)
Right, you said you’ve had this arrangement that you’ve helped set up for multiple doctors and it’s been a game changer. That’s wonderful to hear, especially physicians get out of the traditional insurance-based practices and move into a DPC or concierge arrangement simply because they want to have less stress and they want to have more time. And it sounds like doing this will free them up for even more time.

if the pharmacist can assist with the patient education on the topic of medication and what.

Dr. Ashley Kay Pendrick (10:03)
Absolutely. think that is one of the big factors that a lot, not just, you know, physicians, the practice of medicine and healthcare right now, it is, you know, a driving factor of burnout, you know, is the amount of charting and the amount of workload and, you know, the speed in which you have to go through and, you know, deliver that care. And obviously with concierge medicine, you have the ability to slow it down, but then also

think back to our strengths and depending how comfortable and knowledgeable they may feel on medications, over 20,000 medications exist that are FDA approved. That’s a lot of medicines to be navigating through potentially in your practice. so I think even deciding what to wear some days is a lot to decide upon and then you’re in your practice seeing.

You’ve got 200 and something patients, 250, 300. How many meds are they on and how many times are they returning to your practice? Maybe with a side effect or with a question in relation, I mean, to the cost. That’s a huge thing right now. Pharmacists are definitely that key player to help with reducing a lot of that friction.

Steven Schwartz (11:20)
Right, I meant to ask you about that as well. By having a pharmacist inside the practice, do you typically help arrange relationships with the drug manufacturers or drug wholesaler providers so that the medical practice can sell these meds at reduced preferred rates?

Dr. Ashley Kay Pendrick (11:42)
That is an absolute opportunity that some practices are looking at. And there’s a couple different steps that they would go through or having direct relationships with some of the local independents as well. And having those conversations as to, like you said, some of the wholesale and whatnot. And they can help with navigating that.

or having a preferred pharmacy, you know, mail order or something along those lines. So we can help set those conversations up and what works best for each practice may be a little bit different, but not only that, those, you know, the prescription savings plans for a lot of these, you know, name brand therapies and getting them through some of the, you know, the hoops potentially for those as well.

Steven Schwartz (12:29)
I assume you have plenty of relationships with these type of companies that you can help put the physician in touch with them and then let them shake hands and then you back off and let them have their discussions, correct? That’s so awesome. So you started in Arizona. You ended up in a beautiful area of North Carolina and you’ve got this consulting business. Are you able to help physicians and pharmacists around the United States?

Dr. Ashley Kay Pendrick (12:40)
Absolutely.

Absolutely. So all 50 states do allow pharmacists physician collaboration. And so it’s just the business agreement that allows the pharmacist to then follow a protocol, whatever that protocol may be. That’s, know, again, what does the physician feel most comfortable? How do they want to use the pharmacist? Everybody’s a little bit different in how much rope and leeway they’re going to offer. But yeah, I serve all 50 states.

And I think that lately it’s been really all over the US and that’s the exciting thing. I know you’re in Florida and I have a couple of practices that I’m in talks with out there. It’s a beautiful area and I’m hoping, you know, using a lot of these, this knowledge and whatnot, we’ll have some more pharmacists out in Florida practicing with some physicians there.

Steven Schwartz (13:52)
You know, it’s great is that through this amazing thing called the internet, we have the ability to put wonderful people together for mutual benefit. I mean, we really do, you know, the idea that I may speak to a traditional physician who’s considering starting a concierge practice and I can put that person in touch with one of three or four different consultants whose business is helping people.

transition from a traditional insurance based practice to a concierge or DPC. I can put them in touch with people who have experience with how do you set up the finances of a DPC practice or relationships with companies that are EMR systems and practice management software to help with that. So it’s really cool. I got to admit through where I’m sitting here in my little podcast booth.

Dr. Ashley Kay Pendrick (14:43)
You

Steven Schwartz (14:48)
the ability to meet so many wonderful people and through interviewing folks and putting them on our website and YouTube and Spotify and Apple and all these places where we have our podcast, we have the ability for people who are interested in this industry to have a chance to meet other people that they may not even knew existed and through it make connections and work together with positive collaboration so that everybody wins.

and that our entire industry is elevated. Doctors have a more pleasant and happy experience in their work, which translates to a happier, better experience in their life, more money, more freedom, less stress, and yeah, better outcomes for the patients and their health, right?

Dr. Ashley Kay Pendrick (15:39)
Absolutely, I know that’s what we all got into it for, you know, and like you said, the internet and connections, it’s been amazing and we got to share all of that and learn and grow together because we’re still all figuring it out, but there’s no use in, you know, staying frustrated when you can grow and start your own, you know, DPC and the fact that there’s, you know, a lot of

connections and relationships building so that way we can bring back the joy for everybody and that helps keep everybody healthy. I mean our patients and them happy and then the trust is reinstilled. I know there’s a lot of that going on, you know, with the traditional healthcare since and we’ve got to make sure that they’ve got trust in us. They’re, you know, they’re

clinicians and their physicians and their treatment plans so that way they follow through and they are comfortable sharing some of the things that happen. It’s all about relationship and that connection.

Steven Schwartz (16:39)
It’s funny you mention that. We’re in an area where there is a major national hospital chain that purchased our local hospital a few years ago. And some people were really excited about it. And other people were kind of scratching the head like, well, I hope this is going to be good. And the company brought a board, purchased, bought out lots of the independent physicians as well. And some people love it. And other people don’t.

Dr. Ashley Kay Pendrick (16:40)
Yeah.

Steven Schwartz (17:08)
Unfortunately, through social media, this business has gotten flamed massively. And as a business owner, we understand that running a business can be hard, right? And small businesses, you know, it’s a whole lot less challenging than running a multi-billion dollar hospital system, right? And so there’s something to be said about all of us in this industry working together, trying to elevate health care.

so that it’s better for the doctors so that they don’t get burned out. So that the pharmacists don’t get burned out and the nurse practitioners. So they don’t get burned out. We can’t have people who spend 10 years of their lives going to school and studies and residencies and internships and all these things that they’re doing only to do this for a couple of years and say, this sucks. I want out of this. I want to do something else. most certainly not. Somebody I interviewed.

Dr. Ashley Kay Pendrick (18:00)
It’s not the way it was intended.

Steven Schwartz (18:06)
couple of weeks ago was telling the story of how his, I believe it was his dad was a kind of a country doctor and they watched the, country doctor TV show. forgot what that was called, but it’s like, that’s the way I want to do it. I want to have relationships with my patients. want them to be able to drop on by and have good relationships and good outcomes. And I ended up working at a hospital system and I had to see 35 patients a day. And the last two or three hours of my day was.

charting, you know, and it’s miserable. So I’m grateful for this industry as a way the more people that learn about it and try it out, the more people are happy with it. so kind of on this direction of questioning, where do you see DPC and Concierge practices going in the future? I mean, what do you think this is going to look like in five years, 10 years?

Dr. Ashley Kay Pendrick (19:00)
you know in five and ten years I think more and more families coming out of the traditional insurance-based care and leaning into the direct primary care and direct concierge medicine for that human touch you know and the human connection and they may see more of their family you know undergoing some of the concerns.

and look for alternatives. And I know that the drive and the change is there. And I’d say the five and 10 years, they’re gonna have more primary and direct primary care and concierge in tandem with those clinical pharmacists really to help with navigating some of these complexities and having them as their partner in medicine. honestly, preventing medicine related…

problems and then preventing diseases. So maybe I mean in this utopia without the know the fee for service and tied to the chronic illness will have less disease burden because there’s more relationships and understanding and trust in the foundation of that relationship with the physician to understand some of those you know the what’s going on in the house. How is their diet? How is their nutrition and

How is their work possibly playing on their disease currently and having those resources and conversations early on to help actually preventing? And I know that’s what all of us got into this is to heal and to prevent disease. We don’t necessarily want chronic illness running rampant.

Steven Schwartz (20:48)
You know, I love that you share that. I was at the concierge medical forum event in Georgia in October, and I met so many wonderful people there. There was one physician, a woman with a practice, and she told me that at her practice, they have a 100 % success rate in no heart attacks. All right. 100%. Not one of her concierge patients had a heart attack.

Dr. Ashley Kay Pendrick (21:15)
If.

Steven Schwartz (21:18)
dug into that further. well, tell me why. We spend the time at the beginning, couple hours on their initial visit and the follow ups and stuff. And if we notice anything, we dig into it. We do the tests we need. We do X, Y, and Z. And for those people who have the indicators of heart disease or situations, we get them the care that they need. And because of this, 100 % all of our patients, zero heart attacks. So I thought, you know what, you go girl. I was so proud of her and sharing that story.

I’ve shared it a few times on the podcast because it really made an important impression on me as opposed to the traditional model. It’s like, well, I’m fine, I guess. So I’m not going to see my doctor unless I get a sniffle or a sore throat or chest pain or something when I’m walking down the street. So I think there’s so much room for growth in this industry. I saw a factoid a while back that

2023, concierge medicine was a $6 billion industry in the United States and it’s forecast to go to 13 and a half billion by 2030. That’s five years away, more than doubled. That is incredible growth. When you talk about billions with a B, you know, that’s big numbers. And so I think the more physicians

either in school or currently in practice, the more who see this model, the more appealing it sounds and that it’s definitely growing.

Dr. Ashley Kay Pendrick (22:49)
Absolutely. And I think it will align, you know, again with why they got into medicine. So it’s only understandable. I know very similarly, you know, physicians burning out, pharmacists are in that same boat. And average is eight years to become a pharmacist, come out with, you know, this debilitating debt and then very limited clinical roles.

and you’re into this potential only option of that retail industry that also, you just crank out those numbers. So it’s not about their patience. It’s not about that relationship and improving those outcomes. And that’s really, if we shift all of us into that focus in preventing and having those open conversations. I happen to have a holistic wellness practice.

focus on diabetes for that reason to prevent it. I mean, we can. It’s all of this, just a little bit more education and I think encouragement.

Steven Schwartz (23:53)
I love it. I am so glad you’re part of this industry. You have such a heart for what you do and for the people involved and it’s very evident in your demeanor and what you say and how you share. So thank you for that.

Dr. Ashley Kay Pendrick (24:05)
it’s my pleasure.

Steven Schwartz (24:07)
Great. Well, let’s, as we wrap this up here today, if a physician or a pharmacist is listening to this podcast and something that we’ve spoken about today resonates with their heart and realizing, you know what, there’s a better way for this type of career that I’m in a better way to run my practice, to have a pharmacist working inside our four walls and helping supporting and growing the practice, or maybe somebody is a pharmacist.

And they’re burned out by working at the local drug store down the street. And all it is, is, you know, counting pills, putting them in bottles and billing their card, you know, how can people contact you, have a discussion and see if you can help them find their way to a better career.

Dr. Ashley Kay Pendrick (24:53)
Absolutely. I have a website. It’s ProsperRxConsulting.com and there is contact information there. It’s [email protected] as far as the email. And you can always find me as well on LinkedIn, Ashley K. Pendrick, my full name, available for contact.

Steven Schwartz (25:15)
Wonderful. I really appreciate that. just a little plug, but with the marketing arm of my company, Concierge Medical Marketing, we are designed specifically as a marketing agency to help Concierge Medical and DPC practitioners succeed in their practices, whether that means how do we trans…

transition from a traditional practice in 3000 patients trying to get down to 250, 300, 350. We’d like to help you do that to transition. Another program that we offer is growth, right? You have a practice with a hundred, you want to be a 300, 400. We have methods of helping your practice get its face and name out in front of the potential we call avatar audience. People based on their location, their age, their income, their interests.

The right people need to see advertisements about your practice so they can learn about it and schedule their meet and greet. Also, people actively search Google and Bing. And even now, they search on ChatGPT for websites of practitioners. And we need to be sure that your practice ranks very high on the resulting screen when people do their searches. And if your practice doesn’t rank well,

but your competitors do, you’re missing out on opportunity. So we have the program called Growth. And the final program that we offer in our business is what we call Nurture. And the idea of Nurture is that you may have a practice with 300 or so in your panel and you say, I’m good. I even have a little waiting list. Well, one of the things we can do is nurture those people, keep in touch with them with emails, with text messages, with digital ads that they see on the internet.

perhaps even planning a quarterly, I call it wine and shrimp parties. We get together, spend time with the doctor, spend time with other patients, and really just get to know each other and feel really good about the community that surrounds their doctor’s concierge practice. So at Concierge Medical Marketing, we can help with all of these three different areas. And with us, if you’d like a free consultation with me, please just reach out, cmmkg.com/schedule

schedule a 15 minute call with me and be happy to chat another thing we do offer I wrote a book called the definitive guide to winning with digital marketing for concierge medical practices And this book is absolutely free. No strings attached Please go to our website put your email in the box Hit the submit button and the system will email you a message where you can download the book as a PDF to your computer Please take it read it with my compliments

I hope there’s value there that’s gonna help you get more leads, transition more patience, whatever it is, there’s 100 plus pages in that book that can help you with your practice. Of course, if there’s anything in that book that you don’t understand or you want a second set of eyeballs on your marketing, please reach out to us. It’ll be my pleasure to take a look and see what we can do to help you along that journey. So, Ashley Pendrick, thank you so much for taking the time to share with us today.

Like I said, your heart is amazing and I thank you for all that you do.

Dr. Ashley Kay Pendrick (28:38)
I the time and I hope everybody has a wonderful day. Thanks for having me, Steven.

Steven Schwartz (28:42)
Thanks for having me.

Truly my pleasure. This this interview is going to be available on our website conciergeMD.marketing. It’s going to be on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, now Amazon podcast. So we’re going to be all over the place. And please like and subscribe and follow and share and all those things. We get this message out there to more people. Okay.

Dr. Ashley Kay Pendrick (29:03)
Sounds great.

Steven Schwartz (29:04)
wonderful. This has been Steve Schwartz with the Concierge Medical Marketing Podcast. We will see you on our next episode. Have a great day.