When we make attempts at affordable healthcare options, we often compare pharmacies based on their prices for our prescriptions. While you can find significant differences in price, you are often only checking local pharmacies. There are other pharmacies that perform all sorts of other functions, including filling prescriptions.
Today we are going to use the example of a menopausal woman who is doing hormone therapy, and how the different pharmacies can help:
Personalized Service at a Compounding Pharmacy
The community pharmacy orders medicines in and fills prescriptions. A compounding pharmacy, on the other hand, can actually create a blend that is designed just for you. Pharmacies, like CareFirst Specialty Pharmacy, work hard to listen to you discuss your symptoms and get you the appropriate amount of replacement hormones so that your symptoms are minimized. Personalized care is one of the best ways to help heal and feel better! Additionally, this is a great option if you want to take your meds in another form than a pill.
The Clinical Pharmacy Makes Your Life Easy
Many clinics now have an in-house pharmacy that ensures you won’t have to wait long to get your prescription. They will monitor your symptoms in the medical office and then they will monitor the safety and efficacy of your prescription. This translates into quicker changes to your medicine regime and you can save a lot of time from dealing with a community pharmacy. Hormone replacement therapy is always best managed under scrutinous care in the beginning so that one can get relief sooner rather than later.
The Community Pharmacy
A community pharmacy is still a really important factor when it comes to maintaining good health. They may order your meds and fill prescriptions but they can do more than that. The pharmacist is on hand for you to learn more about the medications you are taking and you can ask about side effects that you are experiencing and if you should see the doctor. When you have all your medications in one pharmacy, they automatically watch your medications for potential side effects and will discuss with you at length about how to keep yourself safe. Lastly, you don’t have to limit your discussions with the pharmacist about your prescriptions! You can talk to them about any concern you have before making an appointment with your general practitioner.
Consulting Pharmacies Are Helpful
Most consulting pharmacies are associated with nursing homes, but did you know that they do visit home-bound persons and are in community health clinics? Consulting pharmacies don’t dispense medications but they do make visits to patients to review their medication use and encourage a healthy lifestyle so that we can all grow old gracefully. What this means for the person with hormone replacement therapy means that they can help advise you on diet, activity, and supplements that can help in addition to your medications with minimal interaction. In a lot of ways, it’s all about “growing old gracefully” and supporting you health-wise. Consulting pharmacies are a new type of pharmacy, barely having been in existence for 30 years but they are growing in number.
Now that you know about all the different types of pharmacies, which ones do you plan on checking out? Don’t be afraid to think outside of the box for your care. Sometimes when we think outside of what we are used to is when we discover something that helps us well.