How Parkland Pharmacy Improved Profit Margins by Up to 29% for 7 Store Locations
Locations
7 pharmacy locations throughout Missouri
Pharmacy
Parkland Pharmacy
Challenge
Managing pricing across multiple locations with vastly different patient demographics and claim mixes
Solution
GoMango Meds custom pricing
Results
$4 per claim improvement (29% margin increase) in 12 months
Morgan Brandon, PharmD and Pharmacist-In-Charge at Desloge location of the Parkland Pharmacy Group, was managing a challenge familiar to many multi-location pharmacy groups: seven stores across different markets, each serving distinct patient populations with unique medication needs.
The overall financial pressure is undeniable. PBMs are squeezing reimbursement rates on insured business, making cash prescriptions increasingly important. Yet cash margins for Morgan’s pharmacies weren’t where they needed to be. With limited resources stretched across seven locations, she didn’t have the bandwidth to dive deep into optimizing pricing at each store.
Parkland had previously tried a competitor’s pricing program and had been deeply disappointed. The results didn’t justify the operational friction. So when they first learned about GoMango, the team was understandably skeptical that this program could offer anything different.
What our analysis revealed was enlightening. Not only was there significant opportunity, but with location-specific pricing strategies, we were able to help Parkland increase profit margins by $4 per claim—a 29% margin improvement—in just 12 months.
What Our Analysis Revealed
When Morgan sent us claim files from all seven locations for a free pricing analysis, the data told a clear story:
Cash pricing practices varied dramatically across all seven stores.
Despite the belief that pricing was being administered consistently, each location had developed different approaches. The consistency Morgan thought existed simply wasn’t there.
Each location’s unique patient demographics created complexity.
The patient population at one store looked completely different from another. These demographic differences drove significant variations in drug mix, making one-size-fits-all pricing ineffective.
The pricing that worked in one market failed in another.
What made sense for one location’s patient base and competitive landscape didn’t translate to stores serving different demographics with different medication needs.
The opportunity was substantial. Once we identified where pricing was failing across the seven locations, we could quantify the improvement potential: $4 per claim or 29% margin improvement.
Building Location-Specific Pricing Strategies
Based on the analysis, we built custom solutions specifically matched to each of Parkland’s seven locations.
Rather than forcing a single pricing approach across diverse markets, we designed distinct pricing structures for each store. Each location’s pricing reflected the actual medications dispensed most frequently to its specific patient population. This approach combines data analytics with pharmacy pricing expertise. While some competitors rely solely on AI-driven pricing models that simply search for the lowest price, we take a cost-based approach to pricing and analyze real-world claims data from pharmacies, then apply AI-assisted advanced modeling techniques to build a cash pricing structure that’s both competitive, profitable, and sustainable for customers. This ensures pricing recommendations account for the unique claim mix and patient demographics for a specific store, not irrational AWP-based pricing outputs.
The key insight: different patient demographics and drug mixes require different pricing strategies. Trying to apply identical pricing across seven stores serving distinctly different populations was leaving significant margin on the table.
With GoMango Meds, Parkland found the right approach: location-specific pricing that worked for each store’s unique market while maintaining operational simplicity across the organization.
Effortless Implementation, Big Profit Growth
The implementation was straightforward:
Simple setup despite seven different pricing strategies.
Morgan didn’t have to become a pricing expert or dedicate staff time to managing complex systems across multiple locations. We handled the technical setup. All that Parkland had to do was begin submitting claims through the new structure at each location.
Significant margin improvements.
Twelve months later, Parkland saw $4 per claim improvement—a 29% margin increase. Each location’s pricing was optimized for its specific patient demographics and drug mix.
Reduced administrative burden.
Managing pricing across seven locations with different patient populations was no longer a constant challenge, freeing up capacity to focus on patient care and business growth.
Better competitive positioning.
Each location could now compete effectively with discount cards while maintaining healthy margins appropriate for its specific market.
What This Means for Your Pharmacy
Parkland’s success demonstrates several important principles for multi-location pharmacy operations:
What you believe about pricing consistency vs. reality may surprise you.
Even with good systems and experience focused on optimizing cash pricing, pricing practices can drift significantly across locations. Without data analysis, you can’t see the full picture.
Different markets need different strategies.
When patient demographics and drug mixes vary dramatically between locations, one-size-fits-all pricing leaves money on the table.
Location-specific pricing isn’t more complex when the right partner handles it.
The right solution manages the complexity for you, not adds to your workload.
The right optimization pays for itself.
You don’t need to dedicate staff to analyzing pricing at each location. The right partner does the heavy lifting and pays for itself in the long run.
Managing multiple locations serving different patient populations? Location-specific pricing strategies can transform each store’s cash prescription business from a missed opportunity into optimized profitability.
Ready to see what’s possible for your pharmacy? Our pricing analysis and custom pricing strategies have helped hundreds of independent pharmacies identify hidden margin opportunities and build sustainable pricing strategies. Schedule your free pricing analysis to discover how much margin improvement is waiting in your claim files.
