The established belief that “buying right” and “dispensing right” are the keys to profitability in pharmacy is no longer the complete reality in today’s pharmacy industry, particularly in a closed pharmacy system.  A vital component of pharmacy cost containment, whether for the pharmacy or for its clients, is in the determination of the best balance between drug efficacy and drug economy for particular disease states. Through a close examination of your clinical process – the interaction your pharmacists have with prescribers, and the methods used by those prescribers in  product selection – FootHill can determine how to maintain the highest standards in patient care while reducing costs lost to prescriptions with no added benefit. Previously, FootHill’s clinical pharmacists have been involved in establishing a number of Clinical Pharmacy Intervention Programs in which a collaborative process between clinical pharmacists and prescribers is used to determine, when an order is received for processing, if there are alternative drugs that would be just as effective and more cost efficient. This is done on a real time, patient-level and disease state driven basis, not by trending past utilization.  These processes occur before the prescription is filled.  Ultimately, the prescriber makes the final decision on any order and the patient must receive proper care, but having an appropriate pharmacy resource who is using the most current clinical literature to educate prescribers on alternative medications is critical to cost efficiency and to maintaining a high level of care.