Front Range Construction, LLC.?

Yes, we have changed our minds and we will now be carpenters instead of pharmacists. Of course we are kidding, but we must admit that it has been nice to get so personal with our project recently. Our space is looking more like what we envisioned it, our DIY projects are disappearing, and our opening date is getting clearer every day. This week we thought it was important to update you guys on our construction progress and when we will be opening our doors.

Construction on our store is pretty much to the halfway point - all underground utilities have been completed and concrete poured back, our walls are framed out, and they are completing our in-wall and overhead utilities over the coming couple weeks. We are so excited to finally have a shell in our unit that reflects the space we put on paper!

The last few weeks have been pretty chaotic for us in regards to the tasks that we committed to for Front Range. Last week we built the wooden surround that will stretch across the pharmacy space of our store. Creating 46 feet of this design was quite an undertaking in a one car garage workshop, but we did it and love the final result! This week, our parents flew in from South Carolina and Washington to help us tackle the biggest on the project- our cabinetry. Instead of purchasing the expensive custom pharmacy cabinets that one usually must, we elected to design and build our own at a fraction of the cost. This entailed nearly two dozen sheets of maple plywood being delivered to our door this Tuesday and us turning them into cabinets for our transaction and pharmacy work counter. Honestly, we have a had a blast with our folks and have truly enjoyed everyone pitching in to get this done. We are on pace to finish all the tasks we put on our plate for the week, leaving us to build one more big project - our wooden drop ceilings over our entryways. It has been a lot of work taking on these items, but the money we have saved and the impact they will bring to our space is worth twice the time we have invested.

Front Range has several more weeks of construction ahead. The large tasks left at the store are drywall, hanging the lights, painting, and installing our floors. The part of this project that stresses us out the most is actually not the construction of our space, but rather the licensure needed to function as a pharmacy. We must be inspected by our state board and obtain our Pharmacy Permit/NPI/DEA numbers before we can start contracting with third parties. This insurance contracting phase can take up to 60 days, so our goal is to begin this process on Tuesday. There is nothing that keeps us up at night more than the prospect of being completely finished and have drugs on our shelves, but being unable to open due to insurance contracts not being completed. We have a plan and the determination to succeed in overlapping the last phase of our construction with third party contracting - wish us luck!

Due to losing a few weeks because of a large plumbing issue, our scheduled construction completion date is now in the first week of March. After our space is done, we must schedule our software install and training, as well as the install and training on our packaging robot- about 2 weeks to compete it all. At this point, our grand opening is likely to be sometime in the second half of March. We truly miss being pharmacists- we absolutely love our job and cannot wait to resume and bring Front Range Pharmacy to life for our community. We appreciate all the family, friends, and former patients reaching out with encouragement and kind words while we work hard to get our doors open. We cannot wait to invite you to the store and we truly believe that you are going to love your local pharmacy.

PS - Our website got a little makeover by a professional - our SquareSpace skills were reaching their limit. Let us know what you think!

Be Independent, Choose Local

Ever walk into a new place that you can’t wait to tell your friends and family about? What was it about that chic restaurant, little Main Street shop, or urban boutique that made you so excited to share it? We believe there are things that resonate with people and make a space or business feel like it fits them above and beyond the products sold. When opening this business we knew that we wanted to fit our community and be a place that people enjoyed being at. We noticed that all the places that we were excited enough to share with others were not routine stops for us at all. Why can’t our daily or weekly errands involve spaces that we love to be in? Why couldn’t a pharmacy be beautiful and thoughtful in design? Must our logo have a capsule worked into it? Should we figure out where to buy those cheesy graphics of people taking tablets and eating apples? We decided that with Front Range, we would try our hardest to look and feel exactly like our competition didn’t - to look and feel like somewhere our patients and customers would enjoy coming to. 

Our large, chain competitors create plans and implement them in almost the same format across the nation, regardless of the community they are in. Small businesses have the opportunity to reflect where they are and be unique. When we planned our space, we knew that we didn’t want to design a pharmacy in the typical sense. We did not want to squeeze customers on to one tiny counter for drop-off, pick-up, and to ask the pharmacists questions. We also knew that we wanted a comfortable place to take patients for counseling, vaccinations, or appointments. Most of all, we just could not fathom the idea of surrounding the pharmacy in plexiglass or walling it off. We wanted Front Range to be the anthesis of our competition. We drew in long counters with access to personnel the entire width, we carved out generous space for a private patient room, and we made sure that we created opportunity for people to breathe in our store while they waited. We wanted the Taj Mahal of pharmacies, but unfortunately our skinny SBA loan left us with a dollar store budget. If you follow us on social media (@frontrangepharmacy) then you might have noticed that this week we have been covered in sawdust every single day. To make Front Range look and feel the way we wanted it to, we are spending money outside of our loan and using some of our favorite hobbies to create custom ceiling drops and valences, functional pharmacy cabinets, and bespoke merchandise shelving. We plan to play to our space’s high ceilings and beautiful natural light with a light colored walls, wooden floors, tile accents, and less “typical” retail shelving than you might expect. We want to balance textures of wood, stone, and textiles to make you feel comfortable and cozy. We want our pharmacy to feel like the place you are most welcome, to feel like a space that is uniquely yours, and to feel like you are home.

“A brand is not a logo. A brand is not an identity. A brand is not a product.” “A brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, service, or organization.” - Marty Neumeier 

At Front Range Pharmacy, we subscribe to the idea that a “brand” is not something you design or construct, but rather a reputation that your community bestows on your business. Because of this, the process of creating the tools with which you identify us was critical. When thinking of a name we knew that we wanted something that, without a doubt, would be recognized as local. Most of all we did not want to tie the business to our own names- there would not be a Logan’s Pharmacy or Scruggs Drug on S. Broadway. When brainstorming logos and fonts, we found it was important for us to stay away from pharmacy themes and create something that didn’t look too gaudy. After deciding to name our store Front Range Pharmacy, we tinkered with logo design and learned quickly that we needed a professional - enter Hannah Van Woert. After just a brief conversation, she was able to create the perfect tools for communicating Front Range. The unique yet recognizable mountains over a modern text invoked the sense of familiarity that we were after. While we absolutely love our name, logo, and colors - we needed a brand slogan that made it all stick. In a city where you have a little bit of everything right at your fingertips, we wanted introduce the idea that you could choose a local pharmacy. The people of Denver are always conscience of their choices in shopping- leaning toward something uniquely Colorado and local as much as possible. “Be Independent, Choose Local” is meant to urge our community to realize that a choice now exists in the type of pharmacy you frequent. Communicating the essence of our small business is just a small piece in becoming a part of the community, but an important one nonetheless. 

Our competition has a ton of capital to look, feel, and operate how they think will capture a market best. They choose to spend it by being on every corner making it “inconvenient” for you to turn them down. At Front Range Pharmacy, we are grateful that we do not have to follow suit. If a brand is not what a company tries to create but rather what a community says a company is, then we hope that you say that we are simply just “yours”. We want to be a company that you trust, a space where you feel at home, and an image that you are proud to be associated with. We are eager to start this relationship, and hope that Front Range Pharmacy becomes not just a place, but a brand that you can’t wait to share! 

Check out this brief video capturing a little of our week, courtesy of Burd’s Eye Photography:

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The Price is Right, Right?

The cost of prescription medications is, without a doubt, the number one frustration for patients and pharmacists. It is quite sad that our country is to the point where drug manufacturers can list medications for thousands of dollars. It also should not be possible for insurance companies to so easily pass that cost to the consumer via high deductible plans and corrupt formulary processes. We think it is time that our community had a more transparent experience while purchasing medication. Front Range Pharmacy is here to help you track your dollar, figure out if you are being taken advantage of, and get you the fair price you deserve. 

High price tags on medication definitely begin at the source - the manufacturer. Your healthcare team cannot do much about a greedy pharmaceutical company listing life saving medications at staggering prices and then inflating those prices each year. There are some medications that are expensive for your pharmacy to buy, expensive for your insurance to cover, and expensive for you to take home. Despite the gloomy scenario above, we are here to tell you that you can still spend less at the prescription counter. Working at a large chain pharmacy, we found ourselves trapped in a system that simply wasn’t designed to assist patients in achieving healthcare goals at a price they can afford. Even at the management level, it was near impossible to catch insurance companies taking advantage of our patients because so much of the transaction is masked. Exploring other saving options was time consuming and not taken into account when staffing these pharmacies. At Front Range, we have a view of the entire picture, understand when patients are falling victim to price gauging, and always have the time to troubleshoot the cost of your medications. Your health could cost you less - to better explain, follow us through a scenario that pharmacists see everyday:

A young man leaves his physician with a new diagnosis, hypothyroidism, and his doctor has sent over a prescription for a common generic drug. The man approaches the counter to pay for his medication and is charged $28.70 for a 30 day supply of levothyroxine. He leaves with his prescription and a good amount of frustration, after all, he was told this medication would be “cheap”.

This type of transaction happens all day long at large pharmacies - people leave without questioning the total and believe “it is what it is”. The pharmacy team may assure you that the total due is what your insurance quoted, but is that price the best price? How would the pharmacist be able to tell? At large chains the actual drug cost and insurance claim is hidden to the pharmacy team, so it would be impossible to know. Behind the scenes, the pharmacy collected $8.70 for the cost of the drug as well as a small dispensing fee, while the insurance company collected almost $20 in extra money. Although the patient receives a document at checkout stating what his insurance “saved” him, it is a crude and outdated estimate based on extremely inflated figures. At Front Range, our pharmacists have access to exactly what the drug costs, our contracted reimbursement rate, and any extra money your insurance company is “clawing back” from your copay- all in real time. In this case, it would be easy for our team to cut out the insurance completely and deliver a fair cash price of $12.00. The gentleman will save over $200 per year just on this one prescription drug and a small, locally owned business made a fair profit. This is the strength of independent pharmacy. 

Although these needless insurance “clawbacks” are probably the most common source of patient overspending, there are so many more. Sometimes there are cheaper therapeutic alternatives that you qualify for or maybe the drug can be obtained for a cheaper price from another wholesaler. Is there a manufacturer assistance program for you to sign up with? Perhaps we can work with your doctor to suggest lifestyle changes instead of immediately starting a medication? These are just some possible opportunities for savings and Front Range Pharmacy wants to make sure that you are aware and have access to each of them.

We are not writing this to say that pharmacists in other places don’t care about the cost of your medications. We know that, given the opportunity, every pharmacist would choose to make your medications more affordable - large corporations just do not empower their pharmacists in this way. Front Range Pharmacy exists to step into these gaps. We want you to achieve the health you want and not go broke doing it. We might not be able to save you money on all prescriptions, but we will enjoy delivering a transparent outcome every single time. We will always let you know when your insurance company is being a little greedy. Our pricing for cash transactions is updated every day and we plan to be as competitive as we can. Most importantly, our team will make your healthcare cost a priority and take the time to explore all available options in getting you your medication. We admit it feels odd writing these blogs and not being open to the public yet, but we are hoping to begin the relationship with our community now. We hope this week that you leave with more assurance that Front Range Pharmacy will put you first. You are going to love your local pharmacy. 

The Corner Drug Store 2.0

Cash & Henderson Drugs, Chesnee SC

There are so many reasons that I enjoy the title “Corner Drug Store” instead of “pharmacy”. Growing up in a quintessential corner drug store was so special - it was such a place of comfort, familiarity, and nostalgia. People came and went frequently but few referred to their visit as an “errand” or “chore”. Our community cherished this place… it wasn’t until I moved to Colorado that I realized what a luxury it was to have Cash & Henderson Drugs in my life. Hey guys, it’s Michael, and this week I want to expand upon what we want Front Range to be to our community: The Corner Drug Store 2.0.

Over the last 15 years, Pharmacists have lobbied intensely to use our knowledge as medication experts to expand our role into the healthcare chain - and we’ve succeeded on so many fronts. Pharmacists can now screen you and administer just about any immunization without a prescription. We can create care plans from a medicinal perspective that sync with your record at your doctor’s office, furthering the communication between your health professionals. In Colorado, pharmacists can enroll in additional training allowing them prescribe birth control by appointment at, in many cases, reduced cost. Pharmacies can do in-store testing for strep and flu, then let you leave with a prescription all via a collaborative practice agreement. As prescription drugs continue to dominate healthcare costs, pharmacists must step into your specific healthcare equation and give you the guidance you need to succeed. At Front Range Pharmacy, our pharmacists plan to operate everyday by celebrating your health accomplishments and keeping your health goals first.

After a recent trip back home and visit into my old place of employment, I was overwhelmed again by the shear amount of history, hard work, resilience, and passion in its walls. Having been open since the 40’s, the impact this local gem has had on the community is simply immeasurable. Front Range Pharmacy definitely draws inspiration from that establishment and many others like it. Our vision is a mix of past and present: to work toward the lofty goal of becoming our community’s corner drug store, but also have all the conveniences offered by our big chain competition. We have signed up with state-of-art software including an app for our patients to use if they choose. Almost all paperwork can be downloaded or emailed instead of printed, reducing paper waste and giving you your information securely on the platform we all use most . We have a pill-packaging robot capable of organizing your meds in perfect, thoughtful strips that we can’t wait to show you. While we will not have a drive thru, we will do curbside drop-off/pickup where you can sign for everything in your vehicle. We have some creative solutions for coping with the cost of prescriptions and plan to be your most flexible option. In the future, we want to offer free delivery to those in our area with mobility issues or schedules that aren’t compatible with our business hours. We plan to staff generously, so you always have the opportunity to ask questions and actually be listened to. We want you guys to shape who we are and what we do. In order for Front Range to become The Corner Drug Store 2.0, we must blend the cherished establishment of old with a convenient, efficient, and modern pharmacy. In the coming weeks we plan to uncover some more of our process and give you a transparent look at how your local pharmacy is already working hard for you!

Reignited. And It Feels So Good.

Hello all, Bridget here! Welcome to our second week of blog posts where we dive into who we are and how Front Range Pharmacy came to be.  Last week, you heard Michael talk about his experiences and path to independent pharmacy ownership along with some little-known facts about the industry. This week, you’ll hear about my story about why I took this leap into the unknown.

If you would have told me in March of 2013 as I accepted my invitation to enroll in pharmacy school, that I would be opening up my own pharmacy 7 years later, I would have called you crazy.  To be perfectly honest, I have never had a long-standing vision of who I wanted to become as a pharmacist, but my guiding light has always been to use every opportunity as a chance to grow and do good for those around me.  Ever since I was young, I wanted to do more and be more even if it meant creating my own path to success.  It’s the competitive drive that helped me excel as a Division-I student-athlete and chemistry major and gave me that extra push to want to become a pharmacist.

I graduated pharmacy school in May of 2017, fought my way into a market that was already heavily saturated with pharmacists, and was quickly promoted to pharmacy manager three months after being licensed.  I was proud of what I had accomplished but I had already hit my ceiling.  I had no room to grow into the complex needs of patients in healthcare because there was always someone above me with less knowledge and less daily patient interaction telling me I couldn’t do it.  I didn’t want to wait.  I knew it was time for me to again be pushed out of my comfort zone.

I met Michael through work at a corporate chain pharmacy.  In voicing my frustrations about my current job to him I was able hear first-hand how things can be different.  There are problems you encounter every day working in a chain that didn’t even need to be a problem in the first place.  It is a lot more work to own and run your own pharmacy.  At the end of the day  the finger is always pointed at you. While this can be terrifying you are also afforded a unique opportunity to grow with your patients.  You can take their frustrations with the current system and act independently.  I truly believe that this is the way I can be the pharmacist I was meant to be. I know that, in Front Range, I finally have the platform that lets me serve my community and develop professionally with the freedom I envisioned as I walked across the stage at graduation.  I still have a lot to learn but I have reignited my fire to be more and do more for myself and others.      

The Road to Independent(s)

Hello all, Michael here! Bridget and I are going to switch off writing to you guys each week. We really want things to be personal and our journey with Front Range to be public - so HERE. WE. GO.

It feels so good to be writing this. Front Range (or a version of it) has always been a dream achievement of mine. Growing up in a small town and working at its “mom and pop” pharmacy opened my brain to just how much small businesses can do in a community. In pharmacy school, I was able to take a very entrepreneurial path to graduating and completely understood that in order to be the pharmacist I wanted to be, I was going to have to create a pharmacy. I absolutely love being a pharmacist - I would choose that career path over and over again. However, after working in independent pharmacies for over 10 years prior to my brief stent in corporate pharmacy gave me this solid perspective: pharmacists can play a giant role in the health of a community IF empowered and given the chance to be creative. I found zero opportunities for creativity in corporate pharmacy - even as a manager. There is also very little given to empower pharmacists by these big chain stores. I’m sure that I will dive into my time at Walgreens sometime later on here, but for now… lets talk about Front Range!

Front Range Pharmacy will be a normal retail pharmacy with everything you would expect and so much more. We will accept and bill insurance, compete toe-to-toe on cash prices, carry all the typical non-prescription items, and offer the usual services you would expect from the pharmacies you frequent currently. However, Front Range is owned 100% by Bridget and I and we plan to be way more than an average pharmacy. It might surprise you to learn that there are actually as many independent community pharmacies as there are chains - the market in Denver is just unusually light in them (see the graphic below). We plan to take this opportunity to show our community what it has been missing and become YOUR local pharmacy.

Source: NCPA Digest 2019, an annual pharmacy benchmark paper

Independent pharmacy is about being part of your community and your community being apart of your business. Independent pharmacy is about creating a family and a place that people find trust through transparency in a market known for being murky and unnavigable. We cant wait to surprise you by putting you and your families at the center of our business, by actually listening to your concerns, and by providing services that puts our community’s health first.

We wouldn’t be here without you all.  This would be nothing without the support of those who believe in us and have been cheering us on since day one. We plan to use this weekly blog to keep everyone updated on our progress, to share more of our story, and spread the word on the services we will be providing at Front Range Pharmacy. It’s true that it takes a village to achieve anything and we’re honored that you have chosen to be ours. Stay tuned, you are going to LOVE your local pharmacy!

Check out our space as it is today in the pictures below! Just click the arrows to go left and right!

Lower Entrance

A look from our entrance at the corner of Englewood Pkwy and S Acoma St. The windows to the left look at the King Soopers parking lot. We plan on leaving the concrete wall to the right “as is” for some textural interest. The pharmacy will be against the wall directly ahead.

Behind the Pharmacy Counter

Standing in what will soon be our dispensing area, you can look left to see our parking lot entrance and straight ahead to see the lower entrance. We love the high ceilings and plan to paint them and the utilities overhead black.

Parking Lot Entrance

Yes, we have parking! We have 74 spaces and 36 are reserved for the businesses in our building. This will definitely be our most used entrance and we have planned for our pharmacist check station to face it so we can say “hey” right away!