Scott Webb: The new retail pharmacy at Salinas Valley Health allows patients and staff members to fill their prescriptions right there on the campus and maybe grab some Starbucks along the way, but more about that later. And joining me today to tell us more is pharmacy manager Daniel Perez. He's also a pharmacist with Salinas Valley Health.

Host: This is Ask the Experts, the podcast from Salinas Valley Health. I'm Scott Webb.

Scott Webb: Daniel, thanks so much for your time. Today we're gonna talk about the new Salinas Valley Health retail pharmacy. So tell us about it. Uh, I know it's new, so, , when did it open? Why and so on.

Daniel Perez: so we, opened the pharmacy, the August of last year. we are open from eight 30 to five Monday through Friday. the reasons we opened up the pharmacy is basically to have a local pharmacy for the community and also for the employees at Salinas Valley Health. most importantly, we opened the new pharmacies to help out the, patients inside the hospital basically.

So we can have a , one-stop shop there at the hospital where they can get their, doctor's visits, treatment, and also their, outpatient, medications where they can take home and not make an extra stop at a CBS or Walgreens where they have to wait in lines and, Things like that, and maybe sometimes medications are not covered, , too expensive.

 We were actually pretty unique, where we're connected to the hospital and we can get those, changes to medications pretty quickly.

Scott Webb: Yeah. That's awesome. Uh, one stop shopping, right? If you're at the hospital, you get your meds, you head on home , so it's located there at the hospital. Is it inside the hospital or near the hospital?

Daniel Perez: so, yeah, it's not inside the hospital. It's, it's an outpatient service, so it's outside it's actually next to the Starbucks inside the gift shop. , we're located next to the big parking building. once you, if you park inside the parking building, we walk in and we're right there inside the gift shop.

Scott Webb: Well, I would certainly appreciate that it's near the Starbucks, cuz then you could really do the one stop, you go to the hospital, you get your meds, you get some Starbucks. That's perfect. And you mentioned the

staff there. Yeah. And you mentioned the staff. So I'm sure the staff really appreciates having a pharmacy, you know, right there on the campus.

Daniel Perez: Mm-hmm. Correct. So yeah, we're, we're open to the public. , anybody can come in. We accept most insurance , companies. , You know, express Scripts, Caremark, Medi-Cal, we accept all those insurances. So yeah, we're definitely open to the public, the local community, , employees for Valley Health, , and also to the patients inside the hospital.

Scott Webb: Yeah, I wanna find out, , if we can, you know, sort of transfer our maintenance medications to Salinas Valley Health, to the retail pharmacy. Maybe you can explain that MyChart process for folks. How does all that work?

Daniel Perez: Yeah, so it's, it's pretty simple to transfer medication. Basically all we would need is, your name, date of birth, the location of the pharmacy you want us to transfer from. , if you have a list of medication that's helpful but not necessary, we do all the work. We'll make the phone call, transfer those prescriptions from, the other pharmacy to our pharmacy.

Also, if it's easier sometimes, or if a medication doesn't have any refills, we we'll make the effort to contact your doctor directly, to get those new medications to our pharmacy. , the MyChart is a pretty helpful tool. , you can actually put us in there as a primary pharmacy, that'll make it easier for your doctor when he orders the medication, the pharmacy's already in there so you can just submit the medications electronically. So that's very helpful. We also have another app called RX Local which is more.

Connected to the, the retail pharmacy here at Valley Health with that app, you can actually, , talk to us, text us, via the phone app and also uh, you

can look at your medication

list, check your prices, check what's ready, what needs to be ordered, just by one click.

Scott Webb: Yeah. That's really awesome. Well, it's been great to learn about this today. Just to give you a chance here at the end. Final thoughts, takeaways. You know, I know that Salian Valley Health is really committed to just being everything they can be to members of the community and also their staff. So maybe you can talk about how the retail pharmacy kind of fits into that.

Daniel Perez: so yeah, we are actually starting a, new program here at the hospital called Meds to Bed, which is pretty cool, where the doctor will from the hospital will order the medications, , discharge medications from people leaving the hospital.

We. package it up and deliver it to the patient's bedroom so that way they don't even have to stop at the pharmacy and they can take everything home. So I, I think that's a pretty cool thing that we're doing here at the pharmacy. We're also able to fill a 90 day supply if your insurance are eligible for that.

I know employees at Salinas Valley Health. We're able to fill 90 days so that you don't have to use the mail order. Sometimes your medications are either, running late, , or too expensive and you can just get 'em right there at our pharmacy. At the pharmacy here, we want you to be part of the Swing Valley Health family, so we're gonna treat you with respect and care.

Scott Webb: Yeah. That's awesome. I love that. Bringing the meds to the bed, right. Next thing you know, you'll be

delivering them to my house, meds to my home. I just want, you know,

just go ahead, just plant the seeds there. And I love the, ability for folks who can with their insurance to get the 90 day meat.

Personally, I really appreciate the 90 days having to, you know, refill every 30 days is a bit of a pain. So great to get 90 days and it's right there by the Starbucks. , all good stuff. So thanks so much for your time today and you stay well

Daniel Perez: Thank you very much.

Scott Webb: and for help sending your prescriptions to Salinas Valley Health Retail Pharmacy. Call 8 31 7 5 9 3 2 7 7.

Host: And if you found this podcast to be helpful, please be sure to tell a friend, neighbor or family member, and subscribe, rate, and review this podcast and check out the entire podcast library for additional topics of interest. This is Ask the Experts from Salinas Valley Health. I'm Scott Webb. Stay well, and we'll talk again next time.