When Ellen H. Yankellow talks about how she started her company, she does it in an "aw shucks" manner and says she became an entrepreneur "accidentally."
One might think modesty becomes her. Because one look at her credentials and the dedication and innovation that it took for her to decide to start her Linthicum company, Correct Rx, and grow it into a $37 million force in the institutional pharmacy services industry — in just a few years — makes others wish they could accidentally become an entrepreneur like she did.
A one-time farm girl from Saskatchewan, Canada, who grew up in Montgomery and Frederick counties and now lives in Monkton, north of Baltimore, Yankellow has come a long way from when she decided to go to pharmacy school largely on a whim.
"When I was in high school at that time, if you were a woman, most of the time you went to school to be a teacher or a nurse, but I didn't want to do that," said Yankellow, 59. "So I got this advertisement, from the Philadelphia School of Pharmacy and Science, and I said, ‘This looks interesting.' And I was pretty good in math and science, so that's how I ended up in pharmacy school."
From there, Yankellow went on to helping a Baltimore grocery chain start in-store pharmacies in the inner city, to working for an institutional pharmacy company, to starting Correct Rx.
The Business Gazette talked to Yankellow recently about her company and issues in pharmacy and health care.
You said you think health care reform will pass this year, and that a change in how pharmacy is looked at will be a part of that?
I think health care reform is going to pass this year, in some way, shape or form. I think the president is putting enough time and emphasis on it that it seems like maybe the time is right and it may be time for it to finally occur. With regard to pharmacy, one of the things that everyone is working on is to make sure that pharmacists are recognized as providers [in the legislation].
And the reason for that is that pharmacy is migrating from a profession where people are focused on it as being about a commodity, and dispensing, to a profession where a pharmacist is actually a member of the health care team. And as a member of the health care team, they form a collaborative relationship with the practitioners and they then manage the medication therapy for the patients who are involved. So then, being really the true drug experts in the health care field, the pharmacist ... will work to actually improve the outcome and help to reduce the overall health care cost for those patients.
This would be a big change?
It's a dramatic change from what is perceived to be the pharmacist's role right now, which is primarily dispensing, primarily filling your order and handing it to you over the counter. So what you're going to see is a greater emphasis on the pharmacist-patient-directed medication therapy. Where really what will happen is your practitioner — and this will happen in the not-too-distant future and is occurring right now in many places — where the physician will diagnose the patient, give them a pretty good overview of what is going on with them, and then the pharmacist will ... help direct what medications are selected, what dosage, how they are doing, their compliance or education about the medications, and then will see how that is working along with all their other medications.
Your company has been involved in that, the clinical, health care management part, and not just dispensing, all along?
I started the company in 2003, from zero, and we have always had a clinical department. With our clinical department — and I am not very humble about it because I think it is second to none in the country — we really have set the benchmark in our industry, it's what we do best. We're very good at getting the medications filled properly, getting them delivered, getting them packaged to the patients.
But more important, we have that clinical component that we have always, always pushed. So we are actually looking at developing a second line of business within Correct Rx.
How has it gone for the company during the recession?
Well, my clients are primarily municipalities, states, government entities, and they are all out of money. So this is a pretty interesting group of people to be dealing with [smiles]. So one of the things we've had to do is to be flexible enough to look at our agreements and be able to provide greater value for the same dollar and clients have even asked to look at renegotiating existing agreements because everyone is looking to reduce their costs.
One of the things we've been able to do is to do that and still continue to provide and not cut services. So these clinical services we provide — pharmacy and therapeutics meetings, clinical evaluation of very high cost disease states, people who are very fragile, people who are on any coagulation therapy — we aren't cutting those services. So what we are having to do is, like a lot of companies, accept a reduced margin for what we do.
Who are some of your major clients?
Correct Rx is the current provider to the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. This was a significant milestone in our growth when awarded in 2005 and we are looking forward to continuing that relationship. It provided immediate economic benefits for the state and for Correct Rx and helped provide significant growth for Correct Rx. A contract that was recently renewed was with the state Department of Juvenile Services.
Who are your major competitors?
In [the] long-term care division, Omni Care, Neighbor Care.... On the correctional side, there are much bigger companies. But we think that bigger is not necessarily better. And we think we can provide a level of service that you lose when you get to be a great big company. And so we want to make sure we are not so focused on growth that we don't grow beyond that personalized front-door service that we've become known for, and also our ability to provide those clinical initiatives that we feel distinguish us in the marketplace. As far as our ability to provide competitive pricing, we can do that as well as the largest companies because we purchase through buying groups.
Looking back, when you decided on pharmacy school for a career, there were not many women in the classes?
When I went to pharmacy school, there were 77 people in the class and seven were women ... now it's 65 percent women. It was a very unusual profession for a woman at that time.
How did Correct Rx get started?
I left the company I was with, under fairly adverse conditions. I was a minority owner and it was a partnership that didn't work out. So in 2003, my business partner and I wrote a business plan at my kitchen table and made appointments with six banks to get a loan, and it was very funny because I was thinking all of them would say yes, and I would have to pick from all six of them because I was certain that all six of them would see that this was the greatest opportunity in the world.
But only one of them wanted to lend me a million dollars. It was actually $500,000 in an SBA loan and a $500,000 line of credit that was secured by inventory and receivables. So we took possession of our building here and we hired about 12 employees and we brought on about 35,000 lives. I had customers who had known me a long time, corporate clients and about 22 facilities in several states.
You are involved with Network 2000 and many other community and charitable organizations, like the Girl Scouts and Alzheimer's Association. How did that start?
Since we started. Correct Rx and myself are involved in being good corporate citizens. And we believe this commitment, this philosophy, has been instrumental in helping us to grow as an organization. With regard to Thanksgiving, we have started a food drive at our company that will probably go through the holiday season. In addition, we recently had teams participate in the American Heart Association walk, because that's a way for staff employees to become involved and raise money for a worthy cause. Even with the recession, we haven't stopped our giving, because there is so much need out there. So I guess we're hoping that we continue to enjoy the success that we have and continue to be examples of good corporate citizens. I think it goes back to the idea that, from those to whom much is given, much is expected.
Ellen H. Yankellow
-Age: 59
-Position: President and CEO, Correct Rx Pharmacy Services Inc., a Linthicum pharmacy with about 90 employees that is focused on serving the institutional and senior care markets, for more than 140,000 people, in 146 institutions, in 32 states across the country.
-Residence: Monkton
-Family: Husband, William E. Chapman; son, Martin L. Yankellow Jr.
-Awards: Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award, health service; Chimes International Hall of Fame award; Bravo! Entrepreneur Award, Smart Woman Magazine; Top 25 CEOs You Need to Know, The Gazette of Politics and Business; Greater Baltimore Committee Bridging the Gap Award; Maryland Chamber of Commerce Philanthropy Award; Employer of the Year, League for People with Disabilities; Business of the Year Award, Network 2000, Maryland's Top 100 Women Circle of Excellence.
-Organizations: Leadership Maryland, 2007; immediate past president, Maryland chapter, American Society of Consultant Pharmacists; board president of Network 2000; chair of the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy Board of Visitors; board member, J.J. Haines & Co. Inc.; board member, AAA Regional and Mid-Atlantic; board member of United Way Leadership Council; United Way Alexis de Tocqueville Society; Charlestown Retirement Community.
