A Decade of Thinking Outside the Box with Flatirons Family Pharmacy

I started in an independent pharmacy at 14 years old and worked in pharmacy all through high school. When I went to college, I thought I would finish and open my own pharmacy, but chains were booming and that’s where the work was when I graduated.

I had thought independent pharmacy had fizzled out until I took a part-time job at an independent when my kids were younger. At that time, I was introduced to many owners and realized the opportunity to own was still viable. The job I had was going to end due to the company changing directions, so I decided in August of 2013 that I was going to take the plunge and open my open and by April 15, 2014, we were open for business.

I made a business plan, and I will say that our operations today are very different from that business plan. At the time I made that plan all I knew was basic dispensing of prescriptions and a little bit about compounding. Today we are a full wellness destination doing compounding, regular dispensing and functional medicine consultations.

I think that COVID will probably always stand out extremely memorably. It changed the world but especially changed pharmacy. At first, we didn’t know how we would survive and operate and at the end of COVID we had pivoted and changed operations to be frontline healthcare workers during the pandemic. Both our pharmacists and technicians learned to do things they’d never done before. Point of Care testing became a new niche we were known for, and we had to learn how to build and maintain relationships with patients and providers in very nontraditional ways. Surviving those two years made us feel like we could get through anything.

We have really expanded into the wellness space. Our pharmacist Rodney Diffendaffer, BSPharm has gotten certified in Functional Medicine after 3 years of schooling. This allows us to help patients take charge of their own health, get to the root cause of problems they’re having and advocate for themselves with their physicians. We offer one on one paid consultations for these services and that line of business continues to grow. We truly emphasize our staff working at the top of their license. We aim for our technicians to get additional training as it’s allowed and really have a career with us that they can grow in. Have really engaged employees allows us to provide exceptional service to our customers and the providers that we work with.

We are proud that we were able to be part of COVID vaccines for the Longmont community during that time. We partnered with Oddfellows and with the help of their volunteers we were able to hold several community clinics for patients to get their vaccines. We’ve also been an integral part of the veterinary community in Boulder County. We realize that animals are part of the family and when they are sick it’s usually an urgent situation. We try our best to tailor our compounding to allow for emergency situations when medication is needed immediately.

We plan to expand our footprint in Longmont and beyond. We remind everyone that we are not your traditional independent pharmacy. We want to make sure our communities know that and all the additional services that we offer.