Ive considered the idea of going down this path for a few years. I'm just starting to seriously look into it.
For anyone that has decided to venture out on their own...would you recommend buying a business or starting new?
It seems like each would have their obvious pros and cons...but just wondering if there's any major pieces I may be missing.
There is information available from orgs and conventions/seminars you can attend for information. What has been mentioned about PBMs is true, and it's obvious that PBMs will **** with your business until you go bankrupt. Cheap generics, where profit used to be, is not the same and the market/face of pharmacy has been drastically changing. Owners are no longer safe and with this extremely variable market that is heading in an unknown direction, it's hard to say what will happen in just a few years time.
What are your reasons for wanting to own a business? I believe that is the first question you need to answer before doing anything. If you're going into pharmacy to make a lot of money, you're probably getting into the wrong business. If you're already set for life and want to do charity work, then you're absolutely getting into the right business. Are there new pharm owners who have made a lot of money? Of course. There is a pharmacy that grew from $1.6mil to 37mil/year fairly recently (independent with 2 owners). However, how many pharmacies out there went under or had to close their doors? How about pharmacies that are stagnant and barely staying afloat? You need to sit down for a very long time and do a no bull-sh1t assessment of your financials, and once you arrive at a number, have someone with experience look at your estimates for a second and third opinion. Do you have a family? Does your spouse have a steady income? If you're single, are you planning to start a family soon? Do you have kids / alimony to consider? What will you leverage if you need a loan? Will you need partners or a co-owner? How about your mortgage and investments? What happens when you need to infuse a bolus of $125k into your business to pay vendors by March 1st, 2015? What will you do when a PBM sticks a rod up your _ and delays payment after you dispense Revlimid? What will you do when your main source of patients needs you to fill an emergency supply of [insert specialty drug here that you don't have access to]? How will you protect your physical assets? If something goes wrong, you better have the ability to handle extraordinary problems with ordinary resources.
Concerning PBMs, I signed on with a certain PBM this year and I terminated the contract 32 days into it. It's laughable at how dumb some PBMs take their pharmacies to be... but what's more disturbing is the complicated data mining that goes on with PBMs, pharmacy, patients, etc. I digress.
If you like excitement, risk and the pleasure of knowing that you created something - that it's yours... that you made it... that you own it... try your hand at business. Don't limit yourself to just pharmacy. You will have an edge over non-pharmacist owners but is what you know or what you can do... really an edge in today's evolving market?
Put it this way - if you buy an existing pharmacy, you really need to know what you're buying into.
If you want to start fresh, well... it's a wild ride. I'm having a lot of fun. HAHA.
