(music).
In the world of healthcare and medicine, it's always
important to highlight successful new businesses that
focus on patient care improvements.
Joining us this morning for this "Behind the Mystery" series
segment today is Mike Schulz and Dan Blakely, co-founders and
managing partners of Foundation Care, a pharmacy company
committed to customized care and treatment for cystic fibrosis
patients.
Good morning, sir.
Good morning, Dan.
Thank you so much for being here.
Thanks for having us.
Mike, let's start with you.
First, let's start with cystic fibrosis and what it is.
Cystic fibrosis is a life-threatening genetic
disorder that affects mainly the lungs and digestive systems of
patients in the United States.
As far as CF goes, there's about 30,000 patients in the US,
of which, as of this year, about half of them are over the age of
18 and the other half are under the age of 18.
Which I know for a fact is a huge difference from way back
when, where the life span was much shorter, wasn't it?
Absolutely.
As Dan and I can attest to, back in 2004, when we started, how
many patients did we start with?
We started with one patient.
Wow.
And now?
We have over 6000 patients that we service.
Wow.
And quickly, who does it affect?
Men, women?
Men and women equally, and generally of Northern European
descent.
Okay, Dan.
You started the company.
You just mentioned it right now, in 2004, it's called
Foundation Care.
I know it says here you have clear objectives.
What are those?
When Mike and I started the business in 2004, our focus was
to provide the highest quality service to patients, as a
pharmacy.
It wasn't available other places, especially to the cystic
fibrosis patients, so that was the goal, to exceed their
expectations from a pharmacy.
And I'm sure doctors benefit as well, right?
All the health care providers do.
The doctors, the physicians, the dietitians, the respiratory
therapists, the social workers.
We provide services to help us become in integral part of that
healthcare team.
Now, Mike, you're in charge of the new business development at
Foundation Care.
How does that translate into patient care?
Well, business development in a pharmacy is a little bit
different.
When we do business development, we have a reputation because of
the number of patients that Dan mentioned we have under CF care,
where we have pharmaceutical manufacturers, we have device
manufactures and we have CF centers that look to us when
they have new products or services that they want to bring
to market, or offer to the patient.
So, what we do is we work with them very closely, and then what
it offers to our patients, obviously is that they have
access very, very quickly to these products and services
because of what we're able to do there.
And, Dan, I was seeing here the term high-touch service is a
phrase throughout Foundation Care.
What is it, exactly?
Foundation Care built our motto on high-touch services, and what
that means is, from the very moment that we receive the
prescription from the physician's office, we reach
out to the patient and communicate with them on
what's going to happen.
Our reimbursement team works to optimize the benefits to the
patient, the pharmacists themselves reach out to the
patients to talk to them, not only about the drugs, but the
devices they may be utilizing, and even down to our logistics
team to make sure packages arrive where they're supposed
to, on time.
It's really customized.
It is.
Very truly.
I was seeing here, this cute little panda, and I know in the
book, he has cystic fibrosis.
Who is he and tell me the story behind him.
Our Panda, Huxi, is the star of a series of coloring books we
created to help patients and their family members learn a
little bit about CF.
We have mothers that request these for their kids that are in
school that they share with the other kids in the classroom,
just so they can educate the other people around their child
to what CF is, and the treatment, and how they can all
work together.
And help educate them, and help understand it, and live with it
as well.
Correct.
Yep.
Absolutely.
Dan, to clarify here, because what I'm hearing is this is so
customized, where probably if I needed medication, or a family
member of mine, going to the local drug store is not going to
be the same as going to Foundation Care, is that what
I'm hearing correctly?
Well, that's a good point.
The local drugstore has very good quality healthcare
providers.
Sure.
They treat a multitude of diseases.
Foundation Care, one of our expertise is in cystic fibrosis,
and we take care of over 6000 cystic fibrosis patients.
So, because of that, we have available to us medications and
devices that aren't even available to a local corner
drugstore, which become very important components in the care
of that cystic fibrosis child.
Shipped overnight?
Shipped overnight anywhere in the country.
That's huge.
Mike, you've developed a go-to-guide.
Tell me what that is.
Well, we recognize, through the years that we've been working
with CF patients that there wasn't really one source for
information on CF, so we created this go-to-guide that has
information on the disease, information on the drugs,
information on the devices these patients use, but not only that,
we tried to expand on it just to give them additional
information, for their family and friends, and it would
include stuff like listing of websites you can go to for
different types of CF type services, videos that are
available, and then even scholarships that are available
for CF related patients for college and education.
That's wonderful, and Dan, for anybody who would like more
information, what's the website that they can look up?
Foundcare.com or they can email us at help@foundcare.com
Thank you so much for what you're doing.
You're helping so many people.
Thank you.
Appreciate your time.
And if you'd like more information on this rare and
genetic disease, click on TheBalancingAct.com or log on to
Facebook.com/TheBalancingActFans (music).