Owner: Mylo Wells
208 E Franklin St | 641-664-3100 | wellshometowndrug@gmail.com
www.wellshometowndrug.com/
Tell us a little bit of history about your business.
I graduated from Davis County in 2012 and graduated from the University of Iowa with a PharmD in 2018. We opened Wells Hometown Drug in December 2018 and have continued to serve more patients and add more services every year since then. The goal when we opened was to provide the newest and highest quality pharmacy services available in the area. We strive to continue to do that and were recently awarded the Future Ready Pharmacy of the year in 2022 by Cardinal Health which services the entire US. I also won the Iowa Pharmacist Association Distinguished Young Pharmacist of the Year in 2022. Both awards were complete surprises to me and really due to our extremely experienced staff who uses their knowledge and skills to implement all the new things we do every year at the pharmacy. When I told my wife about each award we laughed because when we were getting ready to open in 2018 I told her we were doing this to serve the community not for any awards. Fast forward 4 years and the hard work did turn into awards so it was fun to reflect on our conversation back in 2018.
What are the services or products your business provides?
We offer full prescription service (we have access to 99.5% of all drugs made so even if you take something rare we will likely be able to get it). We carry a large selection of over the counter items including medical equipment. We also order in a lot of medical equipment for patients. We have a mobile app and two way texting meaning you can communicate directly with the pharmacy staff via text. We offer Med Sync where all your medications are matched up and just dispensed one day every month so it cuts down on trips to the pharmacy. We measure for and sell compression stockings. We take blood pressures, A1c’s and blood glucoses. We offer vaccinations and other injections like vitamin B12 and testosterone for our patients. We complete medication therapy management reviews, medication reconciliation and hospital discharge medication reconciliation. We deliver medications for free within a 25 mile radius of Bloomfield. We provide remote pharmacy verification for inpatient orders for the Van Buren County Hospital 365 days a year. We offer off site flu vaccination clinics to local businesses. We participate in studies with the University of Iowa and Iowa Department of Public Health. We are part of the Community Pharmacy Enhanced Services Network (CPESN) which allows us to be the first in the nation/state to offer certain clinical pharmacy services. We are actively involved with our state pharmacy association so when we see patient issues we can pass them on directly to some of the most important people in our state when it comes to pharmacy.
What is your favorite thing about having a business in our community?
As the owner I like supporting local events and giving back to the community. Our employees are truly a part of the community because we all live here and it is common for us to see our patients out and about around town. Growing up here, I enjoy seeing some of the events I took place continue to grow and improve. At the pharmacy we pride ourselves on getting to know our patients on a personal level so we can better take care of their health. The fun part for me is always continuing relationships with our current patients and building new relationships with our new patients. People that switch to us from other pharmacies are surprised about the fact that we really do get to know you by name and take an interest in their health. They are also surprised that they can come straight from the doctor and get their prescription within a few minutes. We get it that people are busy and a trip to the pharmacy isn’t normally the highlight of their day so we try to be thorough and quick at the same time.
What is one thing people may not know about you or your business?
I think most people think all pharmacies are the same and that isn’t the case. We are able to bill more items (walkers, nebulizers, braces, etc) for certain insurances than an average pharmacy. We also commonly take blood pressures and report those to the patient’s providers. We help patients understand their lab values and what those mean in relation to their medications (diabetes labs and medications are a good example of this). This type of communication may not seem like a big deal but we have successfully helped many patients get to their goal BP or A1c through reporting the results we get in the pharmacy which cause the provider to adjust medication therapy accordingly. We have a good relationship with the local providers and that makes it much easier to take the best possible care of our patients.