American Dream

How an independent pharmacy became one of Chicago’s fastest growing companies.

Nearly seven years ago…

Bhavesh R. Patel, PharmD ’98, opened a small independent retail pharmacy in Schaumburg, Illinois that, in its first year, filled about 50 prescriptions per day. Today, Patel’s pharmacy network, Carepoint, spans seven locations, processes more than 2,000 scripts from across the United States daily, and generates approximately $230 million in revenue annually.

Dr. Patel, 44, who immigrated to the U.S. from India in 1988 with his family, says he is living proof that the American Dream is possible.

“Even in my wildest dreams, I did not imagine this type of success and growth for Carepoint,” said Dr. Patel, founder and chief executive officer at Carepoint.

A self-described entrepreneur – it’s in his nature, he says, not just his professional experience – Dr. Patel credits Carepoint’s focus on customer service and innovation as the driver of its success: in 2018 Carepoint was named the second fastest growing company in Chicago by Crain’s Chicago Business and was recognized as one of the most inspiring companies in the nation by Inc. Magazine’s “2018 Inc. 5000” list, coming in at No. 1,243.

A humble beginning

Dr. Patel’s first job was in a Target Pharmacy. He was 17 at the time and the position was one he humorously admits was short-lived. After graduating from UIC’s College of Pharmacy with a doctorate in pharmacy, he went on to work for Walgreens and CVS Caremark, and he worked in both hospital and specialty pharmacies.

When Dr. Patel founded Carepoint, it was with just a handful of employees and a vision to offer outstanding customer service to patients in need of affordable and convenient pharmacy services.

How did Dr. Patel manage to increase Carepoint’s revenue by approximately $230 million annually since 2012?

“We got here by hard work and solving one problem at a time.”

DR. BHAVESH R. PATEL

“We started by primarily serving patients with diabetes,” Dr. Patel said. From glucose testing strips to insulin, Dr. Patel says his mission was to help patients get everything they needed, including compounded medications, home infusion services and specialty medications “under one roof,” or as is the case for most of Carepoint’s customers, by mail from one pharmacy.

At the beginning, the challenges were as expected: accreditations, building efficient processes and breaking into a market that largely favors large retail chains.

“Independent pharmacies face a number of barriers to entry,” Dr. Patel said. But for many patients, Dr. Patel says the drawback of using a chain pharmacy is that they may not receive personalized services or access to specialty pharmacy services, and they may have difficulty accessing drugs that are less profitable for larger retailers.

Carepoint’s mission, aided by Dr. Patel’s experience working in a variety of pharmacy environments, was about solving these problems for patients, and Dr. Patel started by working with providers. They contacted offices and said they could meet the needs of their patients. Providers started pointing patients in Carepoint’s direction.

“ We were open to any ideas and I was willing to talk with anyone about how we could offer better options to patients.”

DR. BHAVESH R. PATEL

A unique partnership

Dr. Patel says things changed after a meeting with a drug sales representative and a resulting collaboration with a drug manufacturer.

“The manufacturer wanted to sell their branded drug to patients, but chain pharmacies were automatically filling patients’ scripts with generic drugs,” Dr. Patel said. “We agreed to fill scripts with the brand-name drug.”

Dr. Patel said this meant more work for the Carepoint team because they had to spend added time negotiating with insurance providers to ensure patients were not paying above their co-pay, but they felt they were ultimately supporting a win for patients – who are happy with a brand-name drug – and a win for the manufacturer.

It was also a win for Carepoint.

“We went from 50 prescriptions a day to a couple thousand a day, seemingly overnight,” Dr. Patel said. “Things changed for us after that.” Dr. Patel says the partnership mattered more than the drug itself.

Carepoint now has more than 45 similar partnerships.

A customer service-driven focus on technology innovation

“The majority of our customers are young, about 18 to 24 years old, and they love texting,” Dr. Patel said. “So we developed a texting infrastructure and smart phone application. For our patients, it’s as simple as responding to a text that asks ‘Do you need a refill?’”

This is only one example of the many technology-driven solutions in which Carepoint has invested over the years.

“We started to grow fast, almost too fast, and we had to build up our infrastructure to match – we needed a central server, phone technology, processing systems, more employees and the ability to train those employees,” Dr. Patel said.

As a result, Dr. Patel says it’s possible he talks to his software developer more than anyone else. “Maybe even my own family,” he said, although it just so happens that Carepoint is a family business. Dr. Patel’s wife, Priti, and her cousin, Pritesh, are Carepoint’s chief information officer and chief operating officer, respectively.

Dr. Patel and his team have an online tool for everything. They have software that helps them document sterile compounding step-by-step, they have a dashboard that monitors the time a patient waits on the phone before speaking with a technician, and the list goes on.

Dr. Bhavesh Patel

“Everything was built customized to Carepoint’s needs,” Dr. Patel said. “Our systems and processes were developed to address inefficiencies as they were revealed.

“It’s rare for an independent pharmacy to do all the things we do, from retail prescriptions to compounding, home infusion and mail order,” Dr. Patel said. He says Carepoint tracks everything so they can find ways to improve the experience of their patients.

Tracking is also vital for Carepoint’s accreditations from the Joint Commission, URAC – as both a specialty pharmacy and a mail service pharmacy – and the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy.

A commitment to the future

Today, Carepoint operates on a “hub and spoke” model. It has about 130 employees, most of whom are based in Schaumburg, and it delivers prescriptions by mail to 41 states.

Dr. Patel says he runs his business by listening.

“The ideas come from the team,” Dr. Patel said. “If we get 10 phone calls with complaints, I want to know what I can do to solve the problem and make it so that next time we only get seven calls.”

As Dr. Patel looks to the future, he wants to expand Carepoint’s mail-order network to reach patients in all 50 states.

“Pharmacy has always been, for me, the means to an entrepreneurial end,” Dr. Patel said. He was drawn to the industry because of its service to others and because he envisioned a future in which he could practice patient care while building his own business.

Dr. Patel looks back on his time at the College of Pharmacy and most significantly remembers the academic challenges and working with fellow students. It was inspiring, he said, to collaborate with his peers who were like-minded and driven.

“The best advice I can offer others is to take things one step at a time and to follow your dreams,” Dr. Patel said. “I have the perfect story of the American Dream – it wasn’t easy or without risk in the beginning, it’s not exactly easy now, but it’s worth it.” �