5 Tips for Choosing the Right Outpatient Pharmacy POS

Elena Velikova

May 05, 2017

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Choosing the right outpatient pharmacy Point-of-Sale (POS) system for your hospital or health network is critically important, since this decision impacts patient adherence, reputation, and overall revenue generation. To send you and your team in the right direction – and steer clear of pitfalls and problems -- here are five tips for choosing the right outpatient pharmacy POS:

1. Ensure that it is Mobile

A mobile POS supports your bedside discharge program, increases patient compliance and adherence, and reduces readmission rates. All of these benefits are not only valuable for your patients, but help your organization avoid costly Medicare penalties.

2. Focus on Point-to-Point Encryption, EMV and Tokenization

P2PE (point-to-point encryption) ensures that even if your systems are hacked, there will be no usable credit card data for cyber criminals to steal. EMV (Europay/MasterCard/Visa) makes it virtually impossible to fraudulently duplicate a credit card. And tokenization allows you to charge a patient’s credit card, even if the actual card isn’t physically available. All of these of these security technologies are vital, and must be part of your outpatient pharmacy POS.

3. Payroll Deductions

Integrating payroll deductions with your outpatient pharmacy POS allows employees to pay for prescriptions, and have the amount automatically deducted from their paycheck. In addition to boosting employee engagement – which is especially important in the healthcare field -- the automatic audit trail also reduces the likelihood of errors, misuse or fraud.

4. Flexibility

Your outpatient pharmacy POS should seamlessly integrate with other systems in your ecosystem, so that if any of these tools or technologies change, you will not be forced to change the POS. At the same time, your POS should automatically update if you change drug wholesalers, and it should work with various credit card providers so that you can offer these choices to your patients.

5. Centralized Management

Last but certainly not least, ensure that your outpatient pharmacy POS supports efficient centralized management (e.g. products, pricing, reporting, etc.). This ensures that you have strong data hygiene and a reliable single-source-of-truth across your organization.

A Final Word

While an outpatient pharmacy POS is important for all hospitals and health networks, it is also true that not all systems are created equal. To ensure that your decision is rewarding rather than regrettable -- and that you aren’t forced back into the marketplace to find a replacement -- keep the above tips in mind. Your patients, employees and bottom-line will all benefit.