PHARMACY PROFILE
Healthcare, Not Wealthcare
For
Mark Brandell, RPh, COO and supervising pharmacist of Madison Avenue Health Mart
Pharmacy, New York City, “healthcare, not wealthcare” is one of two mottos that
he and his staff live by. The other is that “everybody be treated like my
mother.”
Without a doubt, no other city in America is as dynamic or fast-paced as New York City yet one independent drug store is standing out and making a difference in the community. Brandell and his staff of 20 have partnered with a Clarity, a pharmacy benefits administrator (PBA), to fill prescriptions for 9/11’s uninsured rescue workers in a program called “Health for Heroes.”
The program was designed to meet the needs of those who have given selflessly of themselves for the city. Initially, “Health for Heroes” was set to run with a large local pharmacy chain; however, it became apparent that the big “box” drugstore would not be able to provide the level of service that was desired and needed. Brandell had submitted a bid and, when asked, he said he would honor that bid. That was when Brandell’s pharmacy was selected.
Madison Avenue Health Mart Pharmacy, part of McKesson Corporation’s Health Mart franchise, is, according to Brandell, a “large operation.” The “Health for Heroes” program is only 10 percent of all his business. The Heroes program started in 2003 with eight people and 30 prescriptions filled. At the end of 2007, there were 2,206 people and over 18,000 prescriptions filled. Brandell points out that the program was “made possible by all the work in the background by McKesson and that affiliation. I am not a businessman; I am a pharmacist.” He continues that “if we can do it on this level and have this model out there, anybody can do it. It was all the tools available that made it possible.”
He says being
an independent pharmacy lets him make “snap” decisions because he does not have
to go through the bureaucracy of big chains. Of his staff, he has three
full-time and one part-time pharmacist. Asked to describe a “typical” customer,
Brandell quickly points out that there is no “typical” customer; “we accommodate
the poorest of the poor and the wealthiest of the wealthy.” He explained that
Central Park is only five blocks away and that low-income and/or homeless are a
block away from the pharmacy which has been in its present location for seven
years.
Only half a block from Mt. Sinai Hospital, the pharmacy fills prescriptions written at the hospital to people who are uninsured or underinsured but, according to Brandell, “we get paid later” through programs on file at the hospital. He continued that he looks closely at the health care needs of his clientele and tries to meet their needs.
He said he mails out 40 to 50 prescriptions a day, at no charge, to people who are still part of the “Health for Heroes” program who moved away after 9/11 and the rescue operation and did not come back. “We want to do this because we understand the clientele.”
In summing up the day-to-day operation at the pharmacy, Brandell said that the entire staff tries to make a trip to the pharmacy “as easy as possible. If you take care of the patients, they will take care of you .. with referrals.”