The Future of Long-Term Care Pharmacy: AI, Automation & New Revenue Models | SuiteCast

Thomas E. Hanzel joins host Todd Eury to discuss how AI, automation, data access, and emerging at-home care models can help long-term care pharmacies improve efficiency, expand patient care, and diversify revenue. Host: Todd EuryGuest: Thomas E. Hanzel, PharmD, MBA

• 0:05Speaker 00

  You are listening to the global network of podcasters dedicated to the pharmacy profession. Welcome to the pharmacy podcast network.

• 0:22Speaker 01

  Welcome to Sweet Cast, a podcast sponsored by Sweet RX Pharmacy Technology Platforms, exploring the strategies, technologies, and leadership practices, helping pharmacies improve performance, expand patient care, and build sustainable revenue.

• 0:40Speaker 02

  Dr. Thomas Hansel, Pharm D, he has his MBA as well. He's a pharmacy growth strategist, a podcaster, I love podcasters, public speaker. He's been in the long-term care industry for years, known as a leader for people that know him, someone that really cares about the success of our consultant pharmacists. And he hosts the ASCP RX Experience Podcast, and you can find more about him on LinkedIn. Tom, it is so good to welcome you to the Sweet Cast Podcast. How are you?

• 1:15Speaker 03

  Very good. Todd, I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to get on here. I've been watching you for a very long time. I refer to you as the grandfather of pharmacy podcasting. And but what you've done an amazing job at is you've made pharmacy public, you've made it relevant, you've brought our problems to the rest of the world. And so I admire you greatly, and I appreciate all the efforts you've done to give pharmacy a voice.

• 1:44Speaker 02

  Thank you, Tom. I appreciate that comment. The godfather is so much sexier than grandfather. So I like, I like thinking I've been turned by Sean Nairn out of Pittsburgh, the RX Podfather. And I'm like, I could go with that one. But I am a grandpa now. I have three grandchildren, which is just mind blowing. When I hear them call me Pappy T, I, I'm just, sometimes I'm like, who are you talking to? Like, who, what is going on? But

• 2:16Speaker 03

  I'm not that old. I can't, yeah, I can't.

• 2:20Speaker 02

  So our, our paths have crossed. We share a love for the black and gold. As you, if people are watching this on YouTube, you'll see Tom's terrible towel in the background. We're, we're both a little nervous about the upcoming season. And I think it's a transitional season per se, but we also hold another love in our hearts, and that is long-term care pharmacy. Because when I left telecommunications, which was one of the most boring parts of all of my careers, I fell into it with soft writers out of Pittsburgh, and it was the absolute

• 2:59Speaker 02

  best career move I had ever made. And when I found out what pharmacists actually do, and, and how they become so integrated into their patients' lives, and how the smallest of changes from their perspective ends up setting the stage for living better. And the world of de-prescribing, and the world of nutraceutical, and the world of the consultancy, it opened my eyes up in realizing that the majority of these pharmacists, they weren't good marketers, they weren't really into business development. And how could I come

• 3:37Speaker 02

  up along beside them and support them to do more and to connect and, and to use what we built in 2009, the first podcast, to, to blow them up and to get them out there? And you, you've been somebody I've been watching, and, and your consultancy, and your setting of the dominos up, and the strategy that you put into place. Tell our listeners, just in case they don't know about Tom Hansel, your little bit of your background.

• 4:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, certainly. Well, like you said, I'm from Pittsburgh, so I, I bleed black and gold. And that's kind of where the origin story is at. But, you know, I got into pharmacy for all the wrong reasons. When I was growing up, you know, you had an option as a young man to join the army, or go work in a factory, or like my dad did, go be a coal miner. And I'm a, I'm a clerk at, do you remember Hooks Apothecary?

• 4:39Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 4:40Speaker 03

  Way back in the Midwest. And I was a clerk up front in the cashier, and I see this guy back there who's above ground, in the air condition, making more money than my dad ever made as a coal miner. And, you know, flirting with all the ladies, all the single ladies that came back to pick up their, their medications. And I thought, I want that job. Just for those reasons, it seemed air conditioned and nice and friendly. So I went to pharmacy school and, and got out of pharmacy school and started working retail, paying off my school loans, as we all do. And, and then I quickly realized, I don't really like this. I feel like I'm in an assembly line, and I'm not counseling anyone. It's just as fast

• 5:21Speaker 03

  as you can go. I can barely eat. And, and I just, I thought, man, I made a pretty expensive mistake. And then I had a friend of mine talk to me about this opportunity as a general manager of a long-term care pharmacy. And I thought, what is that? And I went and interviewed and thought, oh, my gosh, I'm running a business, and this is fun. And I'm not, you know, we certainly have pharmacists and, you know, but I'm not worrying about the, you know, the coupon for diapers, or whatever it is, or, you know, whatever's happening at the time in retail. And, and, you know, I felt like I was making a difference. And I could work with the nurses and doctors, and I could help multiple patients. And, and it just,

• 6:04Speaker 03

  it just hit a chord with me. And I fell in love with, fell in love with long-term care pharmacy. And so I spent 20 years running long-term care pharmacy operations, and just never really thought that I would ever do anything else. And then we started getting into automation, packaging automation, hardware automation. And that was fun, because it was, you know, getting away from kind of the old way we did it in the 90s, and multi-dose, I certainly believed in multi-dose adherence, and it was helping my nurses, it was helping my patients. And I thought, this is, this is better for everyone. It's just a better way to do pharmacy. And I was working at the time for a company that owned and operated

• 6:46Speaker 03

  a nursing home chain. So instead of reporting to a pharmacist, I reported to a guy that, that was an administrator, that, that worked with administrators and DONs. And when I would go to conference, it'd be the pharmacy guy and 500 DONs and administrators, all telling me how to do pharmacy, what they need. And it changed my life, because I was like, man, I've been doing pharmacy, thinking about as from a pharmacist. And they're explaining to me how they need it as an administrator, how they need pharmacy to behave as a, as a DON. And, and so it really kind of caused me to really evolve as a pharmacy operator.

• 7:25Speaker 03

  And a little bit after that, I got an opportunity when Parada and TCG came together to be the Long Term National Vice President of Long Term Care for that combined company. And once again, just loved it. Instead of working in my five, six pharmacies, I now got to go and learn from 400 pharmacies across the nation, and big central fill packagings, and small independent mom and pop. And I found all the ways that I was doing pharmacy wrong, and how to do it better. And just that years of experience of helping them really automate and maximize their, their production. And, and again, it was just another evolution for me. It just helped me learn even more. And as that was kind of winding

• 8:10Speaker 03

  down and coming to an end, I started thinking about the future, and really kind of the hardware backend, I thought had evolved quite well over the last 10 or 15 years. And, but what hadn't really evolved was the front end, with software related, order entry, and billing, and PB1, and all the, the manual stuff we do up front. And so that's where I've spent the last few years, really working on developing different AI softwares, and working with different, different pharmacies on, on how to bring that same efficiency optimization mindset to the front end, not just to the back end.

• 8:48Speaker 02

  And what's brought us together is a common friend, CEO of Sweet RX, and, and Nick's passion for operations and framework, and, and being able to put together networks of decisions that are very specific to the operation, and then plug in the power of what artificial intelligence has the capabilities to do, but not doing it from the developer's perspective, doing it from the end user's perspective, the AKA that consultant pharmacist in the

• 9:28Speaker 02

  space of serving assisted living centers, and skilled nursing centers, and helping to understand the data, and the replication of decisions, and accessing more information about the patient, and then plugging in systems that can accentuate and enhance that. And what's special about today's interview, it's my first opportunity to talk about, a little bit about the evolved RX platform that you've helped to build. Tell our listeners what that is, and how it's much different than, because the buzzword, I mean, when I entered

• 10:10Speaker 02

  pharmacy, 2004, it wasn't until around 2010, that the workflow was the buzzword. Hey, workflow, workflow. And, and now today, it's the AI. Hey, it's AI. Well, AI is great, but if it's not, if it's not, if it's not implied, and implemented, and designed from internal, I think it's just smoke, I think it's a lot of smoke and mirrors. I think it's a lot of, it's a sexy talk. It's, it's kind of that buzzword. But evolved RX, it, it makes sense from an, from an insider's perspective.

• 10:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, certainly. I mean, at the end of the day, there's a lot of software companies out there. And you're right, AI is the most popular buzzword. There's no doubt about it. AI is, you know, yesterday, no one had AI. Now, not today. Everyone, their sister says, well, we got AI, we got AI. You know, there's nothing to prevent or, you know, keep the people from, from, from saying that. But, you know, my focus is kind of in my role is to help pharmacy owners and pharmacy managers kind of not be misled or bamboozled out there. There are some good AI products out there and they're, some of them are kind of scratching the surface of

• 11:30Speaker 03

  what it can do. But some of them are significantly more equipped. And so, you know, we're trying to kind of bring to, to the industry is the understanding, whether you use this product or not, but it's the understanding of what you deserve as a pharmacy operator, what, what is capable out there and what you should be in control of. And so, you know, margins are tough. Reimbursement continues to go down, labor cost, you know, continue to rise. And, you know, we're, we're in a very uncomfortable margin battle, if you will. And, you know, that's kind of where, where these things kind of start at. There's not a pharmacy out there that says,

• 12:14Speaker 03

  man, I'm making enough money. I'm good. Please, you know, we don't need anything else. No, they're, they're, they're hurting. And IRA, for example, specifically, more specifically in long-term care pharmacy, IRA might have been a good thing for America in a lot of ways, but it had unintentional negative consequences to long-term care pharmacies, because we were solely dependent on the transaction of dispensing a drug. So I spent most of my time, money and, and growth into how many medications I can dispense. And, and, you know, certainly brand

• 12:53Speaker 03

  drugs and rebates were kind of our, our, what we leaned on to make a profit. And now with IRA, that's getting extrapolated almost overnight. Long-term care pharmacies in 2026 alone are probably averaging somewhere around a 20 to 25% decrease in profit margin, just because of IRA alone. That doesn't even count the changes in insulin lens and the increase in labor and those type of things. So, so it's a struggle. And I can't really control it. I can't make it go away. So the way I look at it is I can either start adding a bunch of patients and prescriptions, which is so easy to do, you know, grow as fast as I can, right? Hard, hard to do. Or I think

• 13:37Speaker 03

  what's the most reasonable thing to do is to try to control my labor cost. And what I mean by that is making sure that my most highly trained, highly compensated employees are not stuck doing mundane, repetitive work, but they're stuck working at the top of their license and they're doing things that really requires their intelligence, requires their certifications and their ability, and, and requires that relationships with the DONs and the patients and prescribers and getting away from head down on computer, just pounding out, pounding out work. And, and we're there,

• 14:16Speaker 03

  you know, we're there as a, as a technology in, in this world. And we're just trying to deliver that same type of high level, cutting edge technology to long-term care pharmacies because

• 14:29Speaker 03

  most of them are still in that kind of old school way of, of just trying to get the work done by, by just crunching through it.

• 14:37Speaker 02

  So there's 11, I want to say 11,500 people turning 65 years old every day. And there aren't enough facilities to, to help those in need of either assisted living or skilled nursing.

• 15:02Speaker 02

  And the long-term care pharmacy that's positioned for the future of what's about to come and, and the pinnacle of this happening within the next five to eight years of reaching the top of the mountain of, of a population, or it might actually even be longer than that. That means that we have to start positioning how we're working, what we're working with, the information that's accessible to us, the personalized services that are now in demand more so than they were even when I entered pharmacy, because people know so much more. And AI has that good

• 15:42Speaker 02

  and bad balancing act on all senses of, in all capacities of society. And when I think of pharmacy, it's, it's the same thing. So I guess it's more of a philosophical question to you is, tell me about that balance from your perspective and the opportunity that the pharmacy, the new pharmacist that went through the same thing that you went through, where they're in a chain environment right now, they're in a community retail environment right now, they've been in it for two years or five years, they know that it's not, it's not fulfilling to them because

• 16:24Speaker 02

  it feels too much like fast food, you know, fast food, pushing things out and not getting into the life of a patient that they want to be. So talk to me about that dynamic and how AI is giving us an opportunity to strip out some of the repetitive stuff that pharmacists still have to do, and now inserting the pharmacist mind and experience to really making differences.

• 16:51Speaker 03

  Certainly. I mean, you're right on about the number of people turning 65. In fact, we have close to that number of people now turning 85. And so they're not just getting older, but they're staying alive longer. And by the year 2030, we're going to be kind of at the apex. There's going to be around 73 ish million seniors in America. And 98% of those will not be in, in an institutional setting like a skilled or an AL. But they still need the same type of care and access that a long-term care patient in a skilled or AL needs. You know,

• 17:33Speaker 03

  I often say when we're talking about this subject is, you know, my place of residence shouldn't determine my level of care. And, you know, I might, you know, I might, I might not need as much, but I should still have access to it. And so those 70 million or so seniors who are living at home should have access to a long-term care pharmacist. You know, how do you go from helping if there's just not going to be enough beds to go around, there's going to be a lot more seniors. But, you know, how do you expand your reach and be able to help more people by kind of doing it the same way that we've always done it? And so it's really about, let's stop

• 18:17Speaker 03

  wasting pharmacist and certified technicians time on basic labor points. And let's start utilizing their time where pharmacy expertise is needed. And to be able to take that extra time with a patient and be able to walk them through, whether it's over the phone or in person, but be able to help them manage through. There's a lot of seniors that are living at home alone, don't have really access to understand things. You know, back 100 years ago, the pharmacist was the doctor of the town. They come to their pharmacy, they get all their medical advice. And, you know, they were the center of the healthcare and they should still be as, as accessible, but the pharmacists are too busy behind the counter, just working as fast as they can. And

• 18:59Speaker 03

  so bringing them out and knowing that work's getting done independently of them and they can, they can spend that time as that front person or on the phone. I don't think there's any way that we're going to be able to get there without automating a lot of those just manual repetitive tasks.

• 19:16Speaker 02

  Another thing in the operations, and I

• 19:21Speaker 02

  I think of Nick and his leadership at SweeterX is the financials, the reporting, the building additional efficiencies based on how many keystrokes are taking place in order to get a prescription from entry to final review to connecting it with my logistics system, getting it delivered, double checking it, bringing the information back, reporting it to an electronic health record. So on that side of it, Tom, what are your visions for how AI can be plugged into a pharmacy management system to pull out, but not only pull out, but push in good information?

• 20:04Speaker 03

  Well, even before we go there, I think something that SweeterX has done a really good job at and something that I've enjoyed working with them is the accessibility of data. You know, it has to start there and you didn't get all the AI and software and tools that you have, but if you don't have access to your data, then you're kind of handcuffed, right? I mean, at the end of the day, it's your patients, it's your prescriptions, it's your data, but if I've got to call any software company and I've got to ask permission for that data, or even worse, they charge me for my own data, then, you know, it delays

• 20:46Speaker 03

  my ability to do what I need to do. And so, you know, I think all pharmacies should have clear and unbridled access to their data. They should have it whenever they need it in real time and then they should be able to utilize their data however they want to do it. And SweeterX has done a really good job of that. They have APIs and, you know, I'm not a, I'm just a dumb pharmacist. I'm not a big, you know, tech AI programmer or developer, but from my, you know, from the evolution in the world is really getting

• 21:25Speaker 03

  away from flat files and HL7s and those type of things and moving towards a real-time, interactive, bidirectional API. It's like the difference between Polaroid photos and a real-time conversation, you know? That HL7 is a snapshot of data at that moment in time, but APIs and to be able to have interaction with my data all the time and not just the pharmacy management system, but in any, I'm talking about any software in general, right? And so that, I think that's really the main, we've talked about workflow, you talk about where AI could be used. The real question I always start off with is, do you have access to your data? How do you have access to data? Do you have to ask permission for it or you

• 22:10Speaker 03

  have very limited access to it? Because it starts there. No data in, I can't do much with it. But if we can get the data and we can access it, now I can utilize AI in multiple, multiple different ways.

• 22:22Speaker 02

  I think about going back to something we just talked about, which is the expansion of our seniors and the need for additional care. You said something I want to touch on and I, I think your perspective is going to be really interesting for our listeners. So roughly 32,000 to 40,000 assisted living and residential care communities in the United States, we know that they're at, if you look this up on the, some of the standard documentation out there from groups like the AHCA or the NCAL, they'll say that we're at 70% capacity.

• 23:04Speaker 02

  By 2030, they think it's going to be nearing 92% capacity. So, long-term care pharmacy at home is a buzzword. It used to be called the combo shop and it was the community pharmacy that dipped its toes into assisted living and built themselves a really nice business that they were known in their community as not only the community pharmacy, but also the provider of some of the assisted living centers that cater to what they need. Instead of the individual patient per se, they were really able to do a wide stance of delivery of different services, but then send the consultant into that center and then dial

• 23:45Speaker 02

  into the, into the personalization of medicine, which has to keep happening. But my question to you is, we know that the community pharmacy is paying a lot of attention to long-term care pharmacy at home and finally getting paid for some of the services by doing different criteria and tackle boxes, emergency kits and 24-hour service and things that they have to do. My question is, what about the long-term care pharmacy in that community, in that area, in going the opposite direction where they're now thinking, maybe a home should be mapped out as just another assisted living center and instead of serving, you

• 24:28Speaker 02

  know, 10 centers in my community, I'm now serving 250, you know, centers in my community? But what, what are your thoughts around that?

• 24:36Speaker 03

  Well, I think it's necessary if you really want to grow your top line. I know why long-term care pharmacies are a little resistant to do that is because it's harder and it costs more. I get paid less and have to work harder. It doesn't sound like a good mix. But with that said, I've got a choice to make in my business. I can keep on swapping those 4 million skilled and AL beds back and forth between my competitors, or I can try to figure out a way to go after the 70 million seniors that are out there. And, and so it's a different business model and it takes a different mindset. I think long-term care

• 25:16Speaker 03

  pharmacies are uniquely positioned to do it very well because again, we understand seniors, we understand their needs. Yes, there's some, there's some additional cost to it and some different things and different ways I've got to bill it. So it'll never have probably the profit margins that a long-term care skilled bed has, but the quantity is so much greater that it, that there's certainly a very good business model for that. There are some companies that have been out there that do that nationally right now and do central field nationally, but they, they don't just deliver like, like, like some central field pharmacies do. They take extra care of their patients, they call them, they have

• 26:00Speaker 03

  a discussion with them every month, they found out any changes in their health, they have people go by and make sure of the environment and make sure they have electricity and their refrigerator meds and, you know, they go well above and beyond, but, but the real goal is about the outcome of the patient. You know, I, I've said more than once that my job as a pharmacist is not to dispense drugs. My farm, my job as a pharmacist is to make sure that my patients are adherent to the medications and that requires me to go the extra mile and make sure they have the conditions and their environment and the ability to communicate freely so, so I can help walk them through just whatever struggles they're having or misunderstandings they're having and kind of, kind of be there for them. And

• 26:44Speaker 03

  so I think pharmacies, long-term care pharmacies that are willing to go after that and go the extra mile and get that business model figured out, they're going to have a lot of success because the need is there, the quantity is there, the number of people are there. And so I think they can build quite the successful business from doing that, but harder to incorporate that in your current, current day-to-day operations. It really needs to be almost like a separate line, a separate division.

• 27:07Speaker 02

  I agree. And then the operator who nerds out on technology and starts saying, where is remote patient monitoring going from a reimbursement perspective? How could I couple in a durable medical equipment solution to the people that need the walkers or need the oxygen or need, you know, whatever's happening and including some of the more aggressive players in the market, Tom, I've even seen them build a new division and separate it from their other LLC or their corporation. And now they're doing home care services where they're coming in and they're doing some cleaning, they're doing some cooking,

• 27:52Speaker 02

  they're doing a little bit of shopping. There is a market, in my opinion, and I'm, you might, you may probably will share this, that if the long-term care pharmacy, the pure player, does separate and build a new division of home care service,

• 28:10Speaker 02

  There is a huge opportunity to use their expertise and their knowledge of exactly what you just said, living longer, living independently, not necessarily in a skilled environment, but maybe in a skilled environment, too, because the, the home is still going to be a place where you're going to start being able to build systems into the home so that you could deliver a day-to-day person coming to deliver skilled services, especially for those that can afford it. But that is a growth dynamic that I like how you put it, where you said it's, it becomes almost like a separate division in whichever way you're flowing. Are you flowing from the community to the long-term care? Or are you

• 28:55Speaker 02

  flowing from long-term care to the community? But whoever, whoever can use the Ribix Cube the fastest and, and come up with the solution. I think there's huge opportunities in every market within the, within the United States.

• 29:10Speaker 03

  And, and all that you just said is not dependent upon the PBM.

• 29:14Speaker 02

  True.

• 29:15Speaker 03

  That's all revenue that is outside the PBM. And that's really where it starts to become special because again, we're, we have a, a, a margin battle going on and, you know, we're under the control of three PBMs, 85% of prescriptions in America. And, you know, you know, that, that continues to be a, an ongoing fight up the Capitol Hill. But at the end of the day, I start diversifying and I start being almost like a mini Amazon to that patient. And I start getting into other clinical billings and other things like that. None of that's dependent upon PBM. And so those are great, consistent revenue streams. And now I'm providing full holistic care. I'm not just dispensing medications.

• 29:57Speaker 03

  I'm becoming a healthcare provider and working with, or collaborating with other healthcare providers. And it becomes, it becomes pretty special at that point. And so, you know, if I was a young pharmacy owner that felt like I had some, some years ahead of me, that I, I would have to figure that out. Because I think diversifying your revenue, getting away from PBMs. And then back to the conversation on AI, the, one of the challenges or rate limiting steps in the past was, man, I gotta hire how much people to do that. Well, not if you have the, the proper, the proper platform. And that's where we kind of start seeing, well, where are we at with pharmacy and, and artificial intelligence? And it's really, it's really

• 30:40Speaker 03

  kind of at the beginnings in, in most, what most people know publicly. But there are automation platform out there that automates and puts AI throughout your entire workflow, including tracking your RPM data and values, you know, including tracking the nutrition values and those type of things. And so that, those exist, they just need to start getting incorporated into long-term care pharmacies.

• 31:08Speaker 02

  And Tom, there are systems out there, wonderful systems that do an incredible job, but they have built themselves into the corner of something that they become an expert in, whether that is, hey, my system was built for the community pharmacy. And then all of a sudden they're like, no, my system was built for the long-term care pharmacy. SweetRx, because of their pedigree, starting in community and then becoming a champion in long-term care pharmacy, that is a platform that can give you the basis and the, and the systems in place, the reporting, the API readiness, to be able to go in both directions. And, and I think that's powerful.

• 31:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, certainly. Again, majority of pharmacies do one thing, one thing well. I think if you can open up your, your revenue stream, open up your, your patient types, you know, it's question is, is how many seats at the table can I get? If I just do one thing and I do it well, then, then fine. But if I want to diversify my revenue, then I'm going to have to, to, to get into other, other areas that maybe I naturally hadn't normally got into. I'm going to have to get into nutraceuticals. I'm going to maybe get into infusion. I'm going to have to get into long-term care at home and other things like that. And so, you know, being able to that, that really that growth mindset, you

• 32:35Speaker 03

  really don't want to be limited by your, your software. At the end of the day, you don't want to not be able to go after a marketplace because, you know, I've got a square peg in a round hole. And so the more versatile that that software can be, then the more, you know, patient segments I can, I can go after.

• 32:55Speaker 02

  I like what you said, also mentioning infusion care and how there will be patients that are going to need that. They don't want to leave their home. Do you have a system in place that can start building the, the, the parameters, the collection of the data, the outsourcing of those systems that get put into the home and then get double-checked and triple-checked to make sure that they're, that they're working properly for home infusion? I talked to Senator Shane Reeves of 12 Stone, I want to say, it's been a year now, maybe

• 33:33Speaker 02

  a little longer, and his building of centers in Tennessee is just, it's doubling of the need. But he's also mentioning how the home is becoming the new place where, where healthcare happens. And, you know, watching, watching him from the pure long-term care play 20, 25 years ago to now a hybrid is, that's a, that's a model for, like you said, if you're a, you know, you're a, a 28, 35-year-old pharmacist right now, and you're already in long-term care, and you want to know what's the, what's my long-term care plan, not to

• 34:15Speaker 02

  play on words, but it's, it's becoming a hybrid because there's going to be more demand and more demand for specific services. And as a pharmacist, you can, you can play in 100% of this.

• 34:28Speaker 03

  Yeah. And programs like PACE kind of merge those two worlds, if you will. And, you know, I've, I've serviced patient PACE accounts, and that's continued to grow in popularity for Medicaid, for state Medicaid. PACE is a no-brainer. They decrease their cost and they don't have the risk. But that, that is enabling people to stay at home, but to get more premium long-term care services and long-term care help. But I now have a doctor, a provider that understands all my needs, and I'm interacting with that specific divi- not doctor, not once or twice a year, but once or twice a week. And, you know, they're monitoring my health and they're working with their different vendors. And

• 35:09Speaker 03

  so that's a good example of, of kind of where those two worlds of at-home retail and long-term care are kind of coming together. And, and so there's a lot of, again, growing popularity. I don't think there's enough, enough PACE out there, but they need to continue adding that. For, for state Medicaid, it's a, I think it's a no-brainer slam dunk. I think all states should have multiple PACE programs if, if, if their population demands that.

• 35:37Speaker 02

  All right, listeners, if you are, if you're driving, doing something where you're just listening, don't worry about it. I'm going to have it in the show notes. Take a look at EvolvedRx. Once again, that's evolvedrx.com. Reach out to Tom. He is on LinkedIn as well. I'll have a link to his profile in the show notes. And Tom, I, I want, I want you to promise you'll come back as a, as a Pittsburgher, as a podcaster. I'd, I'd love to have you on the show again. And, and let's talk shop.

• 36:09Speaker 03

  Well, absolutely. And, you know, we all know our sales are going to go nine and eight this year, as they do every year. So we're, we already know the outcome of the season. I actually saw a, a meme and it said, potential best and worst records of every team in the NFL. And it was 0 and 16, or 0 and 17, and 17 and 0. And all 31 teams, and Pittsburgh, 9 and 8, or 9 and 8. You know, so that's, it's been, it's been a little difficult being average. But we're hoping to be, be a little bit above average this year. So everyone's going to win the Super Bowl in August.

• 36:48Speaker 02

  That's right. Tom Hansel, thank you so much for being on the SweetCast, brought to us by SweetRx. Check them out at sweetrx.com. If you have any questions about systems, both Tom and I have been soaking in pharmacy technology systems for 20 years now. That's, can't believe we, we can say that. And Grandpa Todd, Grandpa Tom Hansel here.

• 37:14Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 37:15Speaker 02

  Talk to you soon.

• 37:16Speaker 03

  Thank you.