How Bushard's Pharmacy Uses NimbleRx to Modernize the Patient Experience

For nearly 80 years, Bushard's Pharmacy has served Laguna Beach, CA as an independent, family-owned pharmacy. Founded in 1946, the pharmacy has remained in the family through three generations. Today, Sheila Bushard-Jamison, Marisa Jamison, and Luke Jamison help lead the business. In the testimonial below, Luke shares how NimbleRx is helping Bushard's Pharmacy modernize the patient experience.

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As prescription volume grew to more than 200 prescriptions a day, the team wanted a better way to keep patients informed, reduce manual work, and offer the convenient digital experience patients increasingly expect. With NimbleRx, Bushard's Pharmacy found a solution that works alongside their pharmacy management system (PMS), Pioneer, bringing messaging, online checkout, refill reminders, and more into a more streamlined experience.

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The challenge: High volume, manual work, and rising patient expectations

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To complement Pioneer, the team looked for a solution that could give patients access to prescription information and actions outside pharmacy hours, while reducing the phone calls and administrative work that come with managing prescription status.

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“Patients needed a way to take control of their medications 24/7,” Luke said. “That was the biggest thing.”

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For a busy community pharmacy, convenience matters just as much as communication. Summers in Laguna Beach bring heavier traffic and limited parking, making a quick, frictionless pickup especially valuable. At the same time, the team needed to make sure payment and signature steps were complete before patients arrived.

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“A lot of phone calls you get are just checking the status,” Luke said. “NimbleRx takes a lot of that manual labor out of it and helps keep everything running smoothly.”

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The solution: A patient-first digital workflow powered by NimbleRx

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Bushard's Pharmacy began with NimbleRx ready-for-pickup messaging and chat so patients could become familiar with the new communication flow. A few weeks later, the pharmacy enabled online checkout and refill reminders. That staged rollout helped introduce the platform without overwhelming patients, while allowing the team to expand the experience quickly.

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The result is a more self-service pickup journey. Patients receive a notification, pay online, sign digitally, and pick up their prescription at the pharmacy window. They avoid waiting at the register and spend less time navigating a busy parking situation.

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“Having patients be able to pay online, come by our window, pick up their prescription, and have everything already taken care of is such a nice feature for us,” Luke said.

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NimbleRx also helps Bushard's Pharmacy keep patients engaged between fills. More than 1,300 patients messaged for a refill in one month alone, highlighting strong demand for a convenient digital way to manage refills. By giving patients an easy way to take action on their refills, the pharmacy can capture refill requests in the queue instead of relying heavily on inbound phone calls, helping save staff time while making the process easier for patients.

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“We turned on checkout and refill reminders after first getting everyone used to the new messaging flow, and that staged approach worked well for us. The refill reminders give patients an easy way to stay on top of their medications, while helping us cut down on the manual follow-up that comes with managing a busy pharmacy. It’s just one part of NimbleRx that helps keep our overall workflow running smoothly,” Luke said.

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How the Pioneer and NimbleRx platforms work together

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The Pioneer integration is a central part of the workflow. Rather than requiring staff to stay in a single system for every action, NimbleRx gives the team a faster, web-based experience for patient communication while maintaining visibility into prescription activity in Pioneer.

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“Having NimbleRx work alongside Pioneer has been phenomenal. It makes the workflow easier, and having activity go straight to the task without another click is amazing,” Luke said.

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Luke specifically called out NimbleRx’s Pioneer comment and auto-complete workflow, which helps surface prescription activity in Pioneer and eliminate a manual step for staff.

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He also values NimbleRx’s ongoing product development and responsiveness to pharmacy feedback.

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“Even since we’ve been with NimbleRx, the amount of features they’ve added that we and other pharmacies have asked for is amazing,” Luke said. “I appreciate them actually doing due diligence and pushing things out.”

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More convenience for patients and less manual work for staff

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For Bushard's Pharmacy, the value is not limited to one feature. Messaging, checkout, refills, and the Pioneer-connected workflow work together to make daily operations more efficient and give patients a modern experience.

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“It’s NimbleRx as a whole. Everything combined makes the workflow easier,” Luke said.

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Patients have adopted the experience across age groups: “We’ll have people in their 70s and 80s say, ‘I love the NimbleRx platform,’” Luke said.

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For Luke, messaging patients though NimbleRx’s chat feature has been especially impactful. Because it is web-based and accessible on mobile, he and other team members can keep an eye on incoming messages even when they are not at the pharmacy. In one instance, that visibility helped the team respond to a patient who needed a specific medication on Thanksgiving night.

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“The chat feature is probably the most powerful feature we gained by switching over to NimbleRx,” Luke said. “I can log in on my phone, keep an eye on messages, and make sure something urgent gets attention.”

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By pairing NimbleRx’s patient engagement and refill tools with its Pioneer workflow, Bushard's Pharmacy has created a more convenient experience for patients and a more manageable one for its team while continuing the service legacy that has defined the pharmacy for nearly eight decades.

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“NimbleRx helps modernize your pharmacy and helps you compete with Amazon, CVS, and Walgreens,” Luke said. “You’re upgrading your pharmacy to the current times and being able to be more competitive.”

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To learn more about how NimbleRx can work for your pharmacy, talk to the team!