Strategies to improve compensation for pharmaceutical care services.

In the past decade, the pharmacy profession has made remarkable strides in implementing a wide range of pharmacy-based patient care services. To foster greater awareness of the value of these services among payers and to ensure the long-term success of pharmaceutical care, pharmacists need to focus more attention on obtaining compensation for these services. In the long run, pharmacists are likely to receive greater net profits from pharmaceutical care than from dispensing. As Norwood et al. noted, pharmacies keep all the revenues they receive from pharmaceutical care as profits and to cover operating expenses, whereas they keep only about 29% of the revenues from the sale of products. By exploring innovative markets for pharmaceutical care services and continuing to improve rates of reimbursement from third party payers, pharmacists can further enhance the revenues they obtain from their growing array of patient care services.