“AI has had a dramatic impact on our managers. One of the great challenges is onboarding, maintaining and scheduling the workforce. We trained the AI agent for 1 month and then it is minor tweaking from there. The best part was that we didn't have to do the employee training, Pharmesol did! We simply gave Pharmesol our process documentation and told them what was working well and what wasn't, Pharmesol did the rest.

From that point forward, when we want to change a process, we work through Pharmesol instead of retraining the entire team across multiple layers. Pharmesol’s AI agent is now one of our most reliable team members and has fundamentally changed how we operate.”

- Pharmacist-in-charge

The Challenge – Complex workflows. Fragile staffing.

This compounding pharmacy’s biggest challenge wasn’t call volume - it was managing the workforce required to support it. Every refill call followed a complex, consultative workflow that demanded consistency and deep process knowledge. Getting these conversations right required constant onboarding, reinforcement, and scheduling across all hours.

Each refill interaction involved:

• Confirming allergies and active medications

• Verifying prescriber communication

• Ensuring patient education materials were completed

• Discussing dose increases or decreases

• Scheduling pickups

• Handling detailed address changes

• Validating billing addresses for new payment methods

• Reminding patients of remaining refills and timing

• Applying different workflows for new vs. returning patients

Because of this complexity, traditional IVR systems were never an option. Simple “press 1” menus couldn’t handle dosing nuance, patient context, or safety checks without pushing work back onto staff.

As call volume increased, the strain fell on management. Refill requests spilled into voicemails during business hours, after hours, and over weekends. Monday mornings routinely began with hours of voicemail triage before any prescriptions could be processed. Hiring more staff wasn’t a clean solution. Each new hire required weeks of onboarding, months of reinforcement, and ongoing scheduling, retraining, and coverage management. Every workflow change meant starting the training cycle over again.The pharmacy never felt caught up.

The bottleneck wasn’t call volume — it was staffing complexity.

The Solution – Train the system, not the workforce

Refill calls used to mean constant interruptions, voicemail backlogs, and pressure to hire. Now, they’re handled automatically by Pharmesol’s AI agent without compromising operational rigor or patient experience.

The AI agent:

• Reads and interprets prescription directions to understand dose changes

• Adjusts conversation flow based on patient type and refill context

• Schedules pickups and confirms address and payment details in real time

• Captures structured documentation with exception-only escalation

• Provides 24/7 coverage, including nights, weekends, and holidays

The pharmacy trained the AI once. From there, the system absorbed institutional knowledge and scaled instantly with volume — without rehiring, retraining, or operational reset.

Results – Less chaos. More control

Time back, immediately

• Recovered 200+ staff hours per month by automating high-complexity refill calls

• Eliminated Monday morning voicemail triage — teams start productive work immediately

• Reduced interruptions during compounding and QA, improving focus and throughput

Control without managing people

• Removed ongoing onboarding, retraining, scheduling, and coverage anxiety

• Processes run the same way every time — no reminders, no drift, no variability

• Managers control workflows instead of personalities, freeing leadership bandwidth

Revenue protected around the clock

• After-hours coverage captured 13% of refill requests that previously went to voicemail

• Prevented missed or delayed refills by handling requests immediately, not days later

• Patients completed refills anytime with zero hold time and no IVR frustration

Why This Matters

Refill calls directly drive revenue.

When calls are answered, prescriptions are filled and revenue is captured. When calls are missed or delayed, refills stall, patients drop off, and revenue slips.

As volume grows, refill calls increase. Staffing rarely keeps up.

Answering refill requests immediately — including nights and weekends — protects recurring revenue and prevents teams from falling behind.

This is how pharmacies grow without burning out their managers and staff.

Key Takeaway

Is managing people the hardest part of scaling your pharmacy?
Train the system once. Stop managing around it.

By shifting work from people to process, leadership eliminated constant onboarding, retraining, scheduling, and coverage stress. Changes became easy. The volume stopped feeling heavy.

This wasn’t just call automation. It created an operational breathing room.

The pharmacy grew without adding staffing risk, emotional load, or daily fire drills.

Schedule a chat with us today to learn how Pharmesol can help your pharmacy.