Outcomes Podcast at ThoughtSpot 2025: Kunal Vyas and Heidi Pollock Discuss Certified Integration

RxMile co-founder Kunal Vyas recently joined Heidi Pollock at ThoughtSpot 2025 for the Outcomes podcast series to discuss the benefits of pharmacy delivery software being integrated into independent pharmacies. They discussed how such systems not only enhance patient care but also reduce overheads and ensure full compliance with the varying legislation that pharmacies encounter.

Listen to the podcast below, and hear what they had to say.

Transcript

Host: Hey, we are here, and it has been an amazing event to be with the Outcomes team at Thoughspot 25. I have two guests in the booth in a trifecta interview, with Heidi Pollock is here, and Hedi, introduce our special guest today because he’s a friend of mine as well, but I’m going to let you introduce him.

Heidi Pollock: Absolutely, this is my friend, Kunal Vyas from RxMile, you know, he was so persistent in contacting me on LinkedIn, and you know, just so friendly in his interactions, that I couldn’t wait to talk to him about working, how could we work together as companies to bring delivery services to pharmacies. You know, patients today can’t get out as often as they could; we’re seeing a lot of pharmacy deserts, so patients have to drive 20-30 miles to get to a pharmacy, and they just can’t do that all the time. And, so , you know, working with Kunal and his organization to bring delivery services to our pharmacies has just been such a pleasure. So, Kunal.

Kunal Vyas: Thank you, thank you, Heidi. I appreciate that introduction. And, yes, Heidi is an amazing friend of mine, which I actually met for the first time here. I’ve been talking to her on the phone, I’ve been talking on email, for years, and we finally got to meet, and the energy is amazing. And I’m glad to be here with the Outcomes Team. And, as you have mentioned, pharmacy deserts and things like that, I look at us as independent pharmacies all as one big family in a sense, where we are all working together to resolve what we can do to help patients, especially the geriatric communities that we have in rural areas, and delivery helps that a lot, because we can reach out 20 miles, 40 miles, in certain rural areas and what not.

The other important piece I also feel is pharmacy economics. Very important. And, as a pharmacy owner, I was myself, seeing exactly how the reimbursements were dropping and getting audited, and different types of things, avoiding chargebacks to make sure it wasn’t a mistake made by the driver, which we don’t have control over certain things, is why we built the software. So, therefore, we can make it, you know, pardon me, “stupid-proof” so everything is done correctly, when auditing comes, we have all of our documentation in line. And, you know, the other piece I always tell people is that it’s not just about delivery. It’s also about what can the platform do to help you cut costs, and that is very important for us too.

HP: It’s extremely important today. You know, I personally, have not been a pharmacy owner, but I mentioned it yesterday, I’m a third-generation pharmacist, I watched my Grandfather take care of patients in a small community and my aunt and uncle, in Jamestown New York, and we had delivery drivers there. I did my summer internships there, and sometimes you have to have two and three or four delivery drivers there, and so you’re right, the economics behind trying to have an efficient delivery service can really not be financially sustainable for some pharmacies, so partnering with organizations like yours, that can really scale delivery, that’s important. Because, as your business increases, and we’re gonna see that. I’ve already seen a lot of independent pharmacies who are going to be absorbing patients from these large chains that are closing. That is gonna scale their business very very quickly, and you might not be able to stand up a delivery service very quickly, so having partnerships like yours is just so critical for pharmacies today, and it’s just been such a pleasure to work with you to get that integrated and out to our pharmacy customers.

KV: Absolutely Heidi, I appreciate your kind words. You know, I tell customers we work with, we’re agnostic, we work with all PMS platforms. I tell them all the time, try the product out, 30-day free trial, no long-term contract, month-to-month, cos I know you’re not gonna go nowhere once you use it. See, my thing is that, if a pharmacy is paying me $300 a month to use the software, I better be bringing $3000 in value back to you each month, and that is the key. We’ve got, probably, thousands of pharmacies as references that can say that’s the value we bring. That’s why we wanna just make sure it gets in the hand of everyone,  let everybody see how it can work for them and how it can help them with their efficiencies and overall operation and ecosystem of running a pharmacy, not just deliveries.

HP: Right, and, you know the complexity of deliveries aswell, there’s are a lot of things that you have to think about. Are you delivering controlled substances, and what regulations do you have around capturing signatures, delivering cold chain medications. You’ve got some great features in place to help pharmacies do that, so there’s so many little fine details that again, as a pharmacy owner, you might not be thinking about. So, knowing that you have a partner that, that’s what you focus on, so you tick all the boxes, you dot all the I’s, you cross all the T’s to make sure the delivery service is going to meet all the rules and regulations cos, that’s the last thing you want to do, is break a rule or regulation, in pharmacy, because we know that our friends at the PBMs are gonna come down and they’ll find a reason take back that claim. So, it’s just great to work with partners that are so efficient like yours.

KV: I appreciate that. Absolutely, they are gonna continue to move the goalpost, and we gotta make sure our pharmacies are gonna kick the field goal. That’s why we’re consistently evolving our technology to be compliant, as you mentioned, that’s very important. But there is one key component when it comes to delivery that I always, when I speak to pharmacy owners, I always ask them. After cost of drug, and payroll, your third largest expense is delivery. So, like you mentioned, a lot of these stores are closing as far as these chains. There are gonna be droves of volume coming in, they have to set themselves up where they’re not averaging 1.5 prescriptions per package being delivered to Joey's house. We need to bring that up to 2.5, especially if you are dealing with the geriatric community. That changes your economic dynamics of saving tens of thousands of dollars a month. I’ve seen it with our clients with the reports we have in our system, so yeah, it’s a big picture of everything. Delivery is kinda the glue, because it’s kinda the new Netflix. Everybody wants delivery, nobody is really trying to wait in line.

HP: And one thing that really drew me to your organization was what you mentioned earlier. You were, or still are, a pharmacy owner. You get it, you get us. That’s what I try to being every day to my work is, I put myself back in the shoes I used to wear early in my career, because if you don’t get it from your clients perspective, you’re probably not gonna get it right, and so, it’s really great to know we have pharmacy owners that have gone outside of that traditional comfort zone they were in and created something new and amazing for independent pharmacies.

KV: Built out of a necessity for me to serve my customers.

HP: Right, it’s great, love it.

HOST: You built it and then you passed it on.

KP: If it worked for me, it’s gonna work for them.

HOST: That’s been your whole attitude Kunal, for, as long as I’ve known you. It’s about taking something that you learned, putting more tech into it, refining it and then passing it onto another owner, who doesn’t have the resources that you’ve developed, because now you’re a tech geek, and you like that, you nerd out on this stuff. It’s good to share that. It’s been fun to see RxMile grow, and it’s also been rewarding to watch you build these partnerships with organizations like Outcomes. And that’s so important because we’re meeting our pharmacies where they are and what they’ve already invested in, and they have to bolt something in that’s gonna work, that’s gonna be seamless, and they don’t wanna put up with all of the nuances of something not being proven, and you’ve proven it. You should be very proud of what you built.

KV: Thank you, thank you. I appreciate that. We are just getting started with Outcomes. We want to create the sticky factors, we wanna create this thing where everything works together, and these pharmacies are happy. That’s the key right? They gotta worry about the patient, not worry about the logistics. We wanna make sure that we have the systems in place for them to not have to think about certain things and point things out to them that they might not be thinking about, to cut costs, bring better ROI to their bottom line.

Host: Kunal Vyas, Heidi Pollock, thank you so much for being part of this segment of our Outcomes Podcast series here at Thoughtspot 2025. I hope to have you back on Twerk someday.