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Mehrdad Hariri, CEO of RX Connection, shares his journey as a pharmacist turned tech innovator. From building solutions for pharmacy pain points to delivering nationwide care, Mehrdad discusses overcoming challenges, leveraging data, and creating cost-effective systems that empower independent pharmacies in a PBM-dominated world. Sponsored by Waypoint Rx.
This transcript was generated automatically. Its accuracy may vary.
Mehrdad Hariri RPh CPh MBA: Mirdad, introduce yourself to our listeners. My name is Murdaud Hariri, my company is called RX Connection. We're located in Orlando, Florida, and I'm the CEO and the founder of the company. We've been in business since 2005.
Mike: Mirdat, when I looked at your stuff, I know that you're a pharmacist and I know that, you know, technology and that's such [00:02:00] a cool combination because of these companies you see from outsiders and they've made these, Technological apps and things for pharmacy delivery apps and so on. And sometimes you'd scratch your head, like, have you ever set foot in a pharmacy? Do you know that? What are you doing here?
Mehrdad Hariri RPh CPh MBA: I've been a pharmacist for 43 years now. I own several pharmacies in Orlando. I know what business is all about. I know what the pain points are. I know what the pharmacies go through to make a dollar.
I've been there, I've done that. And, kind of going back to like, 2005 when I started, expanding my business into all 50 states, I realized what I was missing was technology. So I quickly started developing. technological things for my pharmacy to be used for my own pharmacy and not to be sold.
And over the 10 or 15 years after that, I [00:03:00] started, creating more and more and more solutions. And, when I sold my pharmacies back in 2016, to a 503 A and B compounding pharmacy. I went home and I said, honey, I'm free, and she said, no, you're not. If you're going to stay home, I want a divorce.
So I said, you know what, my technology company is there. So I will go ahead and maybe expand on that part. And, I called my staff, because at the time I had two or three IT people working for me in my pharmacy. So, to answer your question, everything that I have created comes from having a good solid knowledge of what pharmacy business is about, what is a PBM, what do you go through, kind of places you're losing money every day but you wish you had something else to offset those type of losses in income or revenue.
So we've kind of tried to put [00:04:00] everything together into one package. I mean if I had to kind of summarize it, sometimes I tell my clients we're like a Costco of everything pharmacy. You need marketing, you need websites, you need digital, you need podcasting, whatever that you need, you need print material, you need SEO, whatever you need, we have you covered.
Mike: Murdad, tell me about getting into the 50 States. And what technology were you missing that you said? I got to build this right away.
Mehrdad Hariri RPh CPh MBA: I started a program back in 1999.
this program at the time, if you recall 1999, nobody had internet for one thing, everything was dial up or, you had to run fiber optics to have a fast internet. So I created a program to be able to bring affordability.
to healthcare and for patients to be able to afford their medications that they desperately need that they couldn't get. And when you were talking about PBMs, you see a [00:05:00] little old lady comes in and pays you 10 for hydrochlorothiazide. that thing costs you 10 cents, and you're thinking I made 9.
And I started thinking how can I reach these kinds of patients across the country? And I started working with a bunch of nonprofit organizations, hospitals, doctors, and even pharmas. So our clients were actual pharmaceutical companies that wanted to use our patient assistance program that we created for patients.
So they'd be able to access these types of medications, or get it for free. Or low cost or no cost. That's why we need technology and because definitely pharmaceutical companies didn't want to deal with us if we didn't have technology.
They needed to be able to send the files in FTP files or things like that to our pharmacy rather than faxing, emailing because it wasn't HIPAA compliant and that sort of stuff. And, [00:06:00] just basically started from there. the money I was making, I actually started putting that into the technology because we know that with better technology, we can do a higher volume and with the higher volume came, we started off in Florida and it.
Before I knew it, I was in Georgia and Alabama, Texas. By the time I sold my pharmacies, we were all 50 states, including Hawaii.
Mike: So Merdan, you use those things and then, I'm joking here but, post divorce talk,
Mehrdad Hariri RPh CPh MBA: Yeah.
Mike: What product came out post divorce talk when you're like, okay, I don't have the pharmacies anymore, but I've got a little bit more time. What transpired from there, either what product or what direction and so on, or was it just a growth of it?
Mehrdad Hariri RPh CPh MBA: Very first thing that it was kind of, you can call it low hanging fruit was. A delivery for pharmacies because, I remember we had, I mean, we not only ship medication all over the country, [00:07:00] but we also deliver, within, let's say, 50 mile radius of Orlando area.
And we had an extensive group of delivery drivers, cars, and things like that. And I know that was my biggest pain point. Knowing where the drivers are. Whether the patient got the medication. I mean, you give the patient 20, 000 drugs. Where did it end up? I mean, the drivers don't care.
They don't know what's inside the bag. The very first thing that I tried to tackle was the delivery. And we quickly built a delivery app, which we called the doorstep RX. And we beta tested it actually in the Orlando area with about 38 pharmacies and about two pet suppliers. So they delivered dog food and cat food to people's homes.
I remember in 2018, we did over 25, 000 deliveries to about 7, 800 households in 11 months. So that was a big achievement. That's what kind of, I said, wow, this is [00:08:00] great, This is exactly what I wanted. They can take pictures, they can take videos, they can get electronic signatures. No one where the drivers were, at any moment, That's really what I was trying to build. And then, it kind of grew from there.
Mike: I don't think some companies can. Understand, like, for example, you mentioned about tracking a package. I don't think some companies understand the thin to non-existent, profit on a prescription. And sometimes you're talking thousands of dollars. to make 10 and, there's some companies that, if you're delivering a pizza or something and the pizza doesn't turn out, okay.
And it's another dollar and a half for the pizza
Mehrdad Hariri RPh CPh MBA: Right.
Mike: pharmacy. It's like, golly, if you miss something or lose something or it goes to the wrong house and now you've got to eat it. I mean, there is zero margin for that. So that fine tuning is so important.
Mehrdad Hariri RPh CPh MBA: Yeah, and not only just losing the medication. I [00:09:00] mean, Mike, you're a pharmacist. Think about losing a duragesic patch,
I mean
I mean, what's going to happen? Where did it end up? Who picked it up? Who signed for it? I've been there a ton with my dad.
So, when you're talking about your driver calls up and says, yeah, I delivered the package. The patient's on the other phone saying, I, it's not here. I don't know. Where did he go? I don't know where he went. I have to get him to go back and backtrack to find out exactly where he was, who it was, who signed for it.
I mean, the legality just doesn't end with financial. You're talking about your professional responsibility of delivering that control drug or whatever it was to the patient that's needed,
Mike: of the lambs, and you see it a lot in these movies, it's in a lot of hostage movies where you show the, camera coming in and you show the person in the house and the camera's coming in, but [00:10:00] After the climax of it, that it was not the house that they were showing the camera coming in on.
There was some confusion and then it let these monsters continue. It's like, yeah, Mrs. Smith, we delivered it. It's on your porch, you know? And, by the last thing it's like, it's right behind that shovel on your porch. And then she says, I don't have a shovel and I don't even have a porch.
Mehrdad Hariri RPh CPh MBA: Thank you.
Mike: same thing, you know?
So Murdad, when you made all these additions, did you have to, or decide to build your own pharmacy system? Or were these more add ons to help other systems and they were more like APIs and things like that?
Mehrdad Hariri RPh CPh MBA: So you can just imagine, I mean, you have a pharmacy, you've got four or five pharmacists, you're doing in excess of 1, 500 scripts a day, you've got all kinds of robotic, you've got a call center, you've got all these shipping department everything else. And now you're going to have to. Keep a tap on all the activity that's going on.
[00:11:00] you go back 20 years, Mike, there wasn't a whole lot of technology to go around. The website was a novel thing back in 1999 when I started my program. So knowing that, these types of, Things are needed. One thing that I try to focus on is, where did I have a problem?
I mean, is it the shipping department? Okay. So I went ahead and developed a program with our programmer. How many pharmacies do you know that had two IT guys working, having their own office inside the pharmacy and one outside as a consultant? That would say, okay, you have a problem with the shipping, let's create something that would monitor your shipping and miss any packages and things like that.
Delivery, same thing. Even as far as the calls, like, we had no kidding. We had like 30, 40 people in the queue waiting to speak to our call center. And we had like 15 people answering phones, not knowing if I knew if one of the sales [00:12:00] rep were sitting behind the phone and just, basically talking to friends rather than answering the phone, we would automatically be alerted of that knowing that that guy is not doing his job.
And we would go and ask him to log in and help out, basically.
Mike: Murdada so the things we've been talking about so far have been some of the fringes, very important, but fringes. Did you have a pharmacy system, you don't have to name the name, but did you have a pharmacy system from. One of the more big names.
And then you were just creating these ancillary things.
Mehrdad Hariri RPh CPh MBA: That is correct. I'm a data geek. I love data. So I know there's a lot of data inside your PMS system. And we had one of the largest ones that we use. paying in excess of 40, 000 a year in subscription fees to this PMS. And so we knew a lot of data there. And how do we use this data?
Let's say now we're looking at the business. How do I grow my [00:13:00] business? I'm looking at the data inside my PMS and I'm thinking, I wish I knew who's my number one doctor. I can run a report. I'm sure you've run across on a piece of paper. It prints Dr. 13 script, Dr. Smith, 12 scripts, and moves it all down.
But no, that's not what I want. I want to get more detail. I want to know who the doctor is, where they're at. Location wise. What did they prescribe? What type of drug? What type of classification of drug they prescribed? Whether it be for any kind of condition and so on. I want to see more than just that.
And that's just one aspect of it: being a physician. Talk about the patients. I mean, we had patients all in all 50 states. Now, yes, we would put stuff on a heat map and say, Oh we got a ton of stuff, tons of people in Florida and Texas and California, one guy in Wyoming, but can we penetrate that kind of market?
They can't be just, In Wyoming, there's only one person that uses us. There's got to be more than [00:14:00] that's just what I know. Population is not Florida or New York or California, but there's got to be more people that need help with the medication. So again, we go back to the data and how do we do that? We captured data that comes in and we would utilize, analyze the doctor, analyze the medication, put the patient, Demographic and location and everything else and put them all into some sort of a system that Our salespeople would actually make sense and say hey, I just ID'd this doctor that prescribed, 1, 500 Lasix in Illinois I said let's go and talk to them and get them to send us a prescription because the patients can get it for free.
So this is how we kind of looked at everything. Data and demographics and different variation of data points that we could get,
Mike: The pharmacies had their own PMS. And so part of the message I imagined [00:15:00] from you guys was, can work with any of these. Is that basically how you had to approach
Mehrdad Hariri RPh CPh MBA: we can with our system called tabula rx Which is one of our programs that we have with tabula you can identify or get a repo Let's say you want to say hey out. I'm in Lansing Michigan and I want to see who prescribes ozempic, okay, just type it in. It'll tell you who the doctors are, how many, how many patients, how many prescriptions per given period of time.
Now, knowing that type of data that's valuable to you as a pharmacy owner,
Mike: is that your data or is that
Mehrdad Hariri RPh CPh MBA: No, that's external data
we're getting prescribing data that the doctors have been prescribing into how many patients, because you gotta understand, like data is very, very expensive. Now you're talking about Amazon, Walmart, CVS. They spend a hundred, $200 million a year getting this type of data.
Our [00:16:00] data is probably yes. It's about 9 to 12 months old, but does it matter to you? No, it doesn't matter because you know you as a pharmacist you fill in the same prescription month after month. You buy the same 200 2000 Lasix to buy the same, 2000 amlodipine, month after month after month.
Your purchases don't change. You, what you dispense really doesn't change from month to month. Except there's a, in case there's a flu or COVID or something. Yeah, you just, dispense five packs a little bit or something like that, but theoretically that doesn't change. What you dispense doesn't change.
A physician is the same thing. A physician sees the same patients throughout the year, two to four times a year, and writes the same medications day in and day out. And all you need to know is this, what is this doctor's number one prescribed medication, let's say doctors, internal medicine, family medicine, [00:17:00] cardiologists, and you can break them down based on specialty too. Hey, the number one drug is atorvastatin. If you know the doctor cardiologist across the street from you, he writes 475 atorvastatin. As a pharmacist, I would say that's pretty good.
Cause I can just go in there and talk to the doctor and can I give his patients free Lipitor? I could. What's it going to cost me? A dollar? Okay. Offer that for free. At least this one, you're going to gain money. How do you gain money? When your doctors sign over the free medications, now it's a pharmacist's chance to not only Act as a healthcare professional, but as a business person, ask the patient, how are you doing?
Are you taking this medication? Are you taking it at bedtime? Are you taking it with food? Talk to them. Maybe offer them a little coupon or something, here's a 25 gift certificate. Transfer your medication to us. Where do you go? CVS? These are all new patients. I mean, companies like Walmart or [00:18:00] CVS, they spent upward 160 per patient.
That's the customer acquisition cost to get somebody in the door. It costed you a dollar,
Mike: Mirdad, looking back with your capabilities, is there anything you feel that you've learned? You kind of miss the boat that you had to catch up on, or maybe something that you went too heavy on that you probably shouldn't have spent that on.
Or has it been a fairly well thought out endeavor?
Mehrdad Hariri RPh CPh MBA: This is the kind of challenge that's been with us for a few years now is to be able to, not only provide our solutions to pharmacies that are financially strained and they can't do anything because they can't afford, 400 a month, 300 a month in subscription every month or paid 1, 500 annual fees to some company to get something, only one single solution to help them grow their [00:19:00] business.
Can they afford 69, 59? I mean, our goal from the get go when I actually started. The RX connection was to be able to give these pharmacies. Cause I saw the need and kind of like going back to my patient assistance, I could see my patients. There's a lot of people that need help. They need their medications.
Same thing with pharmacy. I could see that there's a lot of pharmacies that need help. They say, I'm like, so cash. Poor that I can't even afford 300,
I can't afford 400. I see the value, but sorry, I don't have the time. Frankly, I don't have the money.
At the end of the day, there's not much left after DIR fees, audits and everything, callbacks and everything that goes on in the pharmacy. There's not much left. And you are thinking, I did all of that for 200 a day and I still got to pay the technician 150 of it.
[00:20:00] Cash poor, what do you do?
You start looking for ways to cut back rather than saying like I learned in business, it doesn't matter how much cash . Uh, we're giving you something for 129 a month and to have to keep your marketing up because if you don't market yourself, you're not going to get any business. You don't get any business, you're gonna not grow.
It's like a catch 22 and I try to educate my pharmacy saying, trust me, go in there and give it a shot. I mean, I know you can't afford a thousand dollar solution, but we're giving you something for 129 a month and look at what it could do for you. I mean, you can market your pharmacy all hours a day, you can get the data, and then you know those doctors, you know those physicians, you know what they prescribe, you know how to reach them either by fax or email directly from our platform.
Why don't you do the marketing? Yeah, but I don't have any facts for it. Okay. What are you looking for? [00:21:00] You look for print material. We have a complete, that can design anything and everything printed or digital. We even do websites.
We create websites for pharmacies, real professional websites that don't cost you hundreds of dollars a month. One time fee, And why are we doing this? We're doing this not that our motive is not to make money.
I feel bad for, as a pharmacist, I mean, I gotta say, I feel bad for some of these guys.
Mike: In the pharmacy, I think people have been stung a little bit. If you read marketing books, they're going to say two things. We're going to say, market to your true audience. So if you're selling cigars, your audiences, you know, 35 to 65 year old men with this income and that kind of stuff with pharmacies, there's. Two problems there: the average pharmacy across the board has zero to 102 year olds that they're servicing.
Mehrdad Hariri RPh CPh MBA: [00:22:00] sorry. Um,
Mike: The wrong insurance and things like that.
Obviously we know the problems in broadcast media, that's expensive, but even in social media. That's hard because
I don't know if you can do it per PBM, but at least you can say, Hey, this doctor or this drug, that kind of thing.
I think that's where that data really comes in. Handy is really focusing on things that are profitable.
Mehrdad Hariri RPh CPh MBA: Yeah we don't have any PBM information other than the ones that we generate or the pharmacies generate on their own. Okay. And how do they do that? We actually have a program called Bona RX, which is a custom savings card for pharmacies. And of course, when you talk about [00:23:00] pharmacy savings cards, everybody thinks of a good RX, and they start running.
I mean, don't tell me about it. And I'm saying, no, man, this is different. Why is this different? And I go back to my story that when I started this Bodon RX back in 2008, remember I told you we're in all 50 states, so this guy's at my pharmacy this month and buying, three month supply of metformin.
Is that the only thing this guy takes is metformin? I can't imagine
takes only metformin and he doesn't have insurance and that's all he takes. So we started thinking, how do we get the information? To come to us so we know where people are going, knowing with HIPAA, private PHIs and all that kind of stuff.
So we created a card with a BIN and PCN. We started passing these out in all 50 states, all over the country to every one of our clients. And before you know it, we start getting all this data coming back to us. [00:24:00] And I'm like, wow, look at that, I mean, we don't know who the patients are, but we know who the doctor is.
They went to CVS, Walgreens, Walmart. Hey, look at this. This one doctor sent 150 metformin to CVS. Yes, it's across the street or whatever, but, can't we contact this physician like I was saying earlier? Can we call this doctor and say, Hey, did you know your patients that you're sending CVS?
You can get it from us for free.
Plus, we manage diabetes.
Mike: On that point, I know you can't tell who the patient is, but can you tell that one patient went here for two medicines and here for three medicines? Do you divide that out even though you don't know who it is or doesn't it give you what that patient did?
Mehrdad Hariri RPh CPh MBA: we just know somebody, 95 years old, went to CVS, , and bought, let's say, 180 metformin and paid 10 or 12 or 15.
This is what CVS said it was going to cost them, say, [00:25:00] 200, and using our card, they only paid 10 or 15 or 20, they saved 90 percent and this is who the doctor was, we're picking up the age.
Mike: But on that question, and I'm not saying you should, you don't know then that that same 95 year old got something else at a different pharmacy, you don't know what that individual person did,
Mehrdad Hariri RPh CPh MBA: We never get the patient information. Okay, and you can't say just because a 95 year old went to CVS It's got to be the same 95 year old that went to Walgreens.
What do we try to tie everything into the provider Where is the fountain?
The fountain or the water coming out is a physician. That's where the prescriptions are coming from, if we can go to the source and grab the water, grab all the data and find out what this doctor is prescribing. And then, with the demographic, the age, typically people go to pharmacies that's around their house.
You're not gonna go [00:26:00] to another state to buy your medication. You go across the street, there's Walgreens, CVS, Walmart. So, most likely the patient lives within that area. Geographic area and we break it down so you can see geographically where the patients are. We actually put that on a map for you on a heat map.
So you can see where your patients are coming from. You can look at where the doctors are that are prescribing these medications on the map, like around your store. So that's valuable information, and not only that, but you also get a dollar 50 every time your card is used at any pharmacy nationwide.
Now, not only that, okay, but you could go out and create a custom card for your doctors. I mean, you know, the doctor across the street, he trusts you a hundred percent. They love Murdoch. I mean, you're the guy, Hey doc, can I make these cards? You like to, you pass these out at your office. Can I make these for your office with your logo on it?
The answer is, hell yeah, give it to me.
[00:27:00] you make their card custom with their logo and give it to the doctor. Can you put their name or phone number, whatever on the card? Do you think they're going to throw away that card? No, they're going to put it in their lobby, give it to their patients because it's their card.
Mike: a lot of doctors have cards anyways in there, and they've only got six inches for something, and someone comes in and sets it there, they're not going to mind something being replaced with their own logo on it from a local pharmacy. is your best marketing for your company? I know Cole saw photos of him at some of the conventions and so on. feel is your best way to get a customer?
for RX Connection.
Mehrdad Hariri RPh CPh MBA: Lately, it's been word of mouth. Most people, when we contact, or Cole, he's our director of marketing, and he's doing a fantastic job with us, and we also have Mason, Eric, and Sean, who help us with other solutions, like marketing, things like that.
But Cole, I guess you can [00:28:00] call your front man, that's the face that everybody associates. Nobody wants to look at me. I try to put my face on the company.
Mike: I'm not including you. I know I've got a face for radio. You're a handsome devil, but I got to tell you, going to attract a little bit more than both of us.
Mehrdad Hariri RPh CPh MBA: Yeah, that's true. Cole's been with us for a few years now. He's doing a fantastic job. But the one thing that we've learned is word of mouth. So when we sit down and let's say Cole and I, or Cole by himself, we do a demo for a pharmacy.
And they show them to me as a pharmacist. So if somebody says, ah, that doesn't work that way. Cole's not a pharmacist, but he knows about pharmacy business.
You need somebody that knows a pharmacy business that says, no, this is not what you think it is, it's the other way, so. When somebody listens to what we have, I haven't had too many people that say, I don't get it.
I got it. Especially with our latest, which is, which is our telemedicine program that we offer [00:29:00] custom to the pharmacy. , as of today, we're in all 50 States. And basically we give you a custom telemedicine for your pharmacy. Anybody walks into the door. Hey Mike, what's good for me?
Pink eye. What's good for earaches? What's good for this? Can I get my GLP? Can I get my Viagra? Can I get the compounded medication? Can I get my HRT? Whatever ails you, including chronic care management, you are able to connect the patient to a provider. It could be on the spot or it could be at home,
through a link, through an app that we provide. To the pharmacy, that's all custom to the pharmacy. And then the patient does all the evaluation and the pharmacy receives all the prescriptions and goes directly to the pharmacy. , think about that.
I mean, it's just like having a doctor in your pharmacy that writes everything and anything, including compounded medication for one fee, which is 39 per visit.
Mike: So, [00:30:00] Murdad, on your complete program, let's say that it was free, pretend it was free. What do you think you would still hear from some pharmacies? What would be the pharmacy's objections? I've got some people who've been on my show and they might have a program, you know, and they say, Hey Mike, let's just give this to you for free.
You can try your pharmacy for three months, we were on your show and this or that. And I'm like, Yeah. there's nothing free because even if it was free, I've got to train my team. I've got to have my team, griping about something because they don't understand something.
And then there's confusion of this and that. And then, morale goes down because of this or that. So if it was free, and I don't even know if it's true, what's the excuse that people use? Even if it were free
Mehrdad Hariri RPh CPh MBA: I heard this morning, I don't have time to train my staff. This is a great thing, but I don't have time.
Mike: All right. So Murdad, so you tell them, you say, you've got time and then they say to you, well, here's [00:31:00] really the reason. And I'm not saying you guys are not successful all the time.
I'm just thinking of a company like yours. It always seems like there's something deeper and I guess it's money and time. Sometimes it's trust. And that's where the word of mouth really comes in. be interesting to know exactly what psychology was, in each person's mind, because sometimes there's a bigger nut to crack.
I imagine you just don't know what it is. And I'm not saying that happens often, but it's just curious how you get through to people sometimes?
Mehrdad Hariri RPh CPh MBA: There is time, but I think what it is, is that, and again, I'm a pharmacist, no insult to the pharmacy or pharmacy profession. I love my profession. I want the success for every one of our independent pharmacies across the country. I like to be able to educate these pharmacists. Sometimes I get hands on, I roll up my sleeve and I said, okay, man, let's set up a couple of calls. I want to show you how to do it. Now, how long did this take? Five [00:32:00] minutes. Okay. You don't have five minutes
this, to market your pharmacy.
Okay. I got it now. Or I say, why don't you use your technician? Why don't you do somebody else instead of standing there doing nothing. Why don't you just have them do it, show them how to market? We'll educate your technicians how to do these kinds of stuff.
Mike: So are you afraid of your wife now? When's your next retirement? Or do you enjoy this so much? It's just going to
Mehrdad Hariri RPh CPh MBA: what drives me is getting up in the morning every day, coming to work. At my office, knowing that I'm going to run across one guy that needs help, and it happens every day. That either he has an issue, a problem, he has some pain points and 90 percent of the time it's financial,
I mean, we have pharmacies that are making five digits, close to six digit revenues every month from some of the solutions that we offer. I want everybody to be able to be successful. That's [00:33:00] what drives me to work every day
Mike: Finish this sentence if you can. Pharmacy went wrong by doing X or by not doing X back in the day, or would you say it didn't do wrong? It's just a competition.
Mehrdad Hariri RPh CPh MBA: know, my time goes back to when we had a roll of labels on a toilet paper dispenser, to the wall, and it goes into IBM typewriter,
Mike: Yeah. Right.
Mehrdad Hariri RPh CPh MBA: until like in the late 70s, 79, 1980, we started having computers.I was in pre med. I switched to pharmacy that summer when I got that job in this pharmacy in Lambertville, Michigan, because I saw the pharmacist.
I saw that he was everything for this community. Everybody come and talk to him. He's the advisor. He's a doctor. He's a
He's everything to everybody, so what went wrong, I think [00:34:00] is, maybe number one, I put the blame on our own shoulders as pharmacists.
Saying that, Hey man, when they came up to you in the mid eighties and they say, Hey, HMOs,
know, cost plus a dollar. And okay. A dollar was a lot of money. I remember a pharmacy in Orlando. The name of the pharmacy was dollar pharmacy. Because everything was a dollar, lace sticks, digoxins, whatever. It's a dollar. They weren't thinking, okay, I'm giving away my professional expertise, my time, everything, my energy and everything for 1.
That was kind of the start of it. And then as PBMs developed in the nineties. It starts getting worse where the PBM started, dictating you where the patients have to go, how much you get paid. We just sat there as pharmacists looking at these PBMs. Okay. No problem.
Express script. No problem. Just whatever. AWP [00:35:00] minus 35 percent plus 25 cents. Okay. No problem. I can handle that. we were instilled in our head back in the days that everything is about volume.
You know what I'm saying?
And nobody told us it's not about volume. It's about the quality. What you provide to the patient is what needs to be done.
that goes back to become a provider as a pharmacist. I mean, in how many States are we not a provider except Tennessee, for example, and maybe a handful of others, I mean, I can't build an insurance company. If I spend an hour with somebody educated about diabetes, do I get paid? No.
So that's where we started going wrong. I think in my opinion, the late nineties, and it just exacerbated as we went on in the early 2000 and
the saga continues,
Mike: It seems to me that part of the problem back then [00:36:00] is now with the internet, I think people can reach out. Maybe we could have put our foot down. You think about the mid eighties and I suppose the state associations and different pharmacy groups or grassroots could have fought back against these people, but they come to you and they're kind of big and they already have the market share.
I would have the same answer. It was just eroded, it's kind of the cliche of the frog in the pot. You know, you turn up the heat and it doesn't jump out. have done it.
Mehrdad Hariri RPh CPh MBA: It seems like dentists tell them to go to hell. I don't know. And I'm not a rebellious kind of a guy. I'm actually very peaceful. I think there's negotiation for everything
life, in business, and everything else. But, I think, not to get political. All the collusion that goes on in the capital, in D.
Mike: I told our guy on our team, we were looking through and Michigan was doing some or something. And all of a sudden a state rep shows up on my computer and he says, how wonderful PBMs are. And I said, to my guy, I said, go, go find out who his donors are.
he emails me back from another room, you know, three minutes later, he said, well, I got a thousand dollars from this place and a thousand from that. And it's like, of course.
Mehrdad Hariri RPh CPh MBA: Like I said, I'm not a rebellious kind of guy, I'm not proposing anything, but what I would like to say is just imagine this, let's just say if all independent pharmacies, and I know, you're losing money anyways, Most instances, close your doors for a couple of weeks.
Just think about it. Do you think CVS, Walgreens, all these people will be able to absorb all the prescriptions that are going right to their pharmacy? They can't even fill the prescription that they have already. They're looking for pharmacists.
They don't have the help. Now, [00:38:00] overload them and pharmacists are, I'm going to lose my patient. You're not going to lose your patients. You're going to get the point across that, hey, look, you're paying us this much. And just imagine if everybody walked. And again, I'm not proposing anything. I'm just, Saying imagine this, Look I bought the damn insulin for 400. I'm selling it for 300. I lost 100. How many prescriptions do I have to fill to make a hundred dollars? Okay, but they're like it's okay, but you're making 50 cents on something else. No, that's not how it works
I don't understand the pharmaceutical business.
Mike: . My listeners hear about this ad nauseum, but we don't dispense brand names. I haven't dispensed insulin in three or four years. It's like, screw it.
I'm not doing that stuff for a loss.
It's hard because, a pharmacy like ours, like I've got 40 pharmacies within a 10 mile radius and the PPMs don't give a damn if I'm there or not.
I went to your website earlier . I like what you [00:39:00] do of having the packages there, if I remember right, the packages, the pricing and all that kind of stuff.
Mehrdad Hariri RPh CPh MBA: Of course. Yeah, sure. We are very transparent.
Mike: Are, well, you know, call us and we're going to talk to you and,and bug you forever and things like that. you're putting your money where your mouth is as far as, you know, let's do this.
It's simple. Let's get going.
Mehrdad Hariri RPh CPh MBA: , I've had objections before oh, you're too cheap, man. You're not making enough money. I said but you don't understand my mission. My mission is to help or save community pharmacies and let these guys survive. How many 2,400 stores shut down last year?
Why?
happen because of bad luck or mismanagement. These were pharmacists. I knew some of these guys and I knew their guys are great pharmacists. Why did they shut down? So my mission is not to Take money away from you. I mean, it costs me something to run this program.
I can't spend it out of my own pocket. I'm just asking you to [00:40:00] contribute to whatever it's costing us. You can call it, I don't want to make it too cliche, but it's like cost plus, you have this program and. And some people say, why is it so cheap? Why is it so cheap?
Because I don't have to pay anybody else.
Our mission is to help you grow and thrive and be able to stay in business. And hopefully these DIR fees, all this garbage that happens in our profession will go away soon and we go back to making pharmacy great again. That's a joke in the office.
Mike: Golly, Murdoch. I appreciate you spending time with us. The listeners got to be looking at this stuff, unless you're a stubborn German like I am.
if you're still doing stuff, if you're still doing these, and you're not having a pity party, like I am, I'd suggest Murdoch, at least people checking you, I'm going to spell it out here. So it's RX connection with an X, two Xs, RX, then connection with an X. And I'm telling our listeners, I would [00:41:00] suggest to our listeners, just go on there and check it out. Murdoch, thank you. I know you're busy. You got a lot of stuff going on. And so I appreciate you taking time out for us. And I know our listeners appreciate it too.
Mehrdad Hariri RPh CPh MBA: Hey Mike, I really appreciate, giving me the opportunity to be on your podcast. I know it's a big deal. I've had guests on my podcast, but mine's not as popular as yours, and I've been listening to your podcast for a long time. Seriously, I do listen to most of your podcasts because you bring in the little extra thing that can really truly help any independent pharmacy.
And that's really what I care about. So thank you, Mike.
Mike: Thanks Murdoch. I look forward to keeping in touch.
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