Chapter 1
The discovery call
Answer first
An independent pharmacy owner was running the counter, the refill queue, callbacks, and prior authorizations alone and closing an hour late most nights. On the discovery call he asked whether outsourced staff could genuinely read a medication profile. They can: 95% of our staff come with healthcare educational backgrounds, and many are PharmDs.
Discovery call · transcriptanonymized
PH
Pharmacy
I’m the pharmacist and the call center. Refill queue, doctor callbacks, prior auths. I close an hour late most nights just catching up.
S
Staffingly
That’s the exact problem we solve. Prior auth is our flagship service. That’s how we got into this business.
PH
Pharmacy
Can your people actually read a med profile? This is not data entry.
S
Staffingly
95% of our staff come with healthcare educational backgrounds. Many are PharmDs, we have medical doctors, we have licensed nurses on leadership. The medical terminology is no big deal because they have higher education.
PH
Pharmacy
What does this cost me? Margins are thin enough already.
S
Staffingly
Now coming down to the pricing. $399 flat per week. Scale up to 10 plus, we drop it to $299. No setup fees, there’s nothing. We’re not a percentage model. We’re a dedicated full-time employee model.
PH
Pharmacy
And when your person is out? I can’t have the queue sit for a week.
S
Staffingly
Every staff member we deploy, we also train one floater. No expense to you, just in case. If that person goes on PTO or calls out sick, we ensure there is coverage.
The call ended the way most of ours do: a summary of the meeting and the deck went out the same day, and the pharmacy agreed to a two-week risk-free pilot. What we found when we walked the queue is Chapter 2.
Chapter 2
Research and findings
Answer first
Before anyone went live we walked the pharmacy’s day from open to close. The finding was simple: the pharmacist was the only person in the building who could do the clinical work, and also the person doing all the non-clinical work. Every refill request, callback, and prior authorization competed with the patient at the counter. The fix was structural: move everything that does not need a pharmacist’s license to a dedicated specialist, and give the pharmacist the counter back.
What the walkthrough showed. The refill queue aged during business hours because the pharmacist could only touch it between customers, which meant the deepest queue work happened after close. Doctor callbacks were a game of phone tag played at the end of the day, when prescriber offices were also closing. Prescription prior authorizations, the paperwork-heaviest work in the building, sat in a pile with no tracking, so nobody could say which requests were waiting on the payer and which had simply been forgotten. Every one of those delayed refills was a patient calling back, or worse, walking to a chain.
What we proposed. One dedicated pharmacy specialist working inside the pharmacy’s own system under role-based access: the refill queue worked continuously through the day instead of after close, doctor callbacks made during business hours while prescriber offices are actually staffed, and every prescription prior authorization submitted the day it arises and tracked to a decision. Clinical judgment stays with the pharmacist, always. The specialist handles everything that does not need a license, and many of our people are PharmDs, so the medication side is familiar ground. This is pharmacy back-office outsourcing the way we run it everywhere: no new software, a BAA from day one, and a trained floater behind the seat.
The owner reviewed the plan the same evening, after close, which was the point. The question that closed it was not about process. It was about pricing, and the answer was the same one we give everyone: $399 flat per week, no setup fees, no percentage of revenue.
Chapter 3
Training and onboarding
Answer first
Week one was setup: BAA signed, role-based access provisioned inside the pharmacy’s own system, the refill workflow and payer mix captured, escalation rules written, and the specialist trained to 80 to 90% ready before touching live work. A floater trained alongside them at no cost to the pharmacy.
Onboarding call · transcriptanonymized
S
Staffingly
First week is pretty much setup and our internal trainings to make sure they’re at least 80, 90% ready before they go live. Each pharmacy’s workflow is different, so we need to know exactly what we’re looking at.
PH
Pharmacy
When does the billing actually start? Just so I know what I’m signing up for.
S
Staffingly
The pilot is two weeks, risk free. Of course we have to start billing at some point. I don’t like to lose my money either. After that it’s the flat weekly rate, and we do a weekly 15-minute standup just to make sure everything is going well.
What onboarding actually covered. The specialist learned the pharmacy’s refill workflow step by step: how requests arrive, what the system flags, what escalates to the pharmacist, and what a clean handoff looks like. They learned the payer mix and each plan’s prescription prior authorization forms, the prescriber offices the pharmacy calls most and the direct lines that actually get answered, and the escalation rule that governs everything: anything clinical goes to the pharmacist, immediately and without exception.
By the end of the week the pharmacy had something it had never had: a written map of its own back office, and a person whose entire job was running it. The after-close catch-up hour was still on the calendar as a safety net. It stopped being needed.
Chapter 4
Going live: the pilot
Answer first
Week two the specialist went live under the two-week risk-free pilot, working the refill queue oldest first while the pharmacist kept every clinical judgment call. Callbacks moved to business hours and prior authorizations got tracked to a decision.
- Day 1 liveThe refill queue started being worked continuously through the day, oldest requests first, with anything clinical routed straight to the pharmacist.
- Callbacks move to daylightDoctor callbacks happened during business hours, while prescriber offices were staffed, instead of in the after-close phone-tag hour.
- Prior auths get an ownerEvery prescription prior authorization was submitted the day it arose and tracked to a decision. The pile on the counter stopped being a tracking system.
- First on-time closeThe pharmacist locked the door at closing time with the queue current. It stopped being remarkable within the week.
- Decision pointDay 14, the go or no-go review. The pharmacy converted from pilot to the standard engagement without changes.
Nothing in the pilot was magic, and that is the point of these memoirs. It’s really the same process, just that you have dedicated staff taking care of it, all day, and never putting it down.
Chapter 5 · Current
Where it stands today
Answer first
The engagement runs today as a steady operation: a dedicated specialist on the refill queue, callbacks, and prior authorizations, a trained floater behind them, and a 15-minute standup each week. The pharmacist does pharmacy. The specialist does everything else.
The operating rhythm now. The refill queue is worked continuously through the day, oldest first, with clinical questions escalated to the pharmacist the moment they appear. Doctor callbacks happen while prescriber offices are open, which is when they actually connect. Every prescription prior authorization has an owner, a submission date, and a tracked status, so nothing waits in a pile. When the assigned specialist is out, the floater steps in the same day. The weekly standup is the only recurring meeting the relationship needs.
What changed for the pharmacy. The pharmacist went back to being a pharmacist: counseling at the counter, reviewing profiles, making the judgment calls only a license can make. Closing time became closing time. And the patients who used to call twice about a late refill stopped needing to call at all. The engagement continues on the standard flat weekly fee, and this memoir grows with it: new entries are added as the work happens.
About this engagement
| Shelf | Memoir (delivered engagement) |
| Specialty | Independent community pharmacy |
| Services | Refill queue management, doctor callbacks, prescription prior authorization, billing follow up |
| Model | Dedicated pharmacy specialist + trained floater, $399 flat per week |
| Compliance | BAA from day one, HIPAA-trained staff, SOC 2 Type 2, $5M cyber liability |
| Systems | The pharmacy’s own dispensing system, role-based access, nothing stored on Staffingly systems |
| Status | Active and growing. Entries added as the engagement continues. |
