POCATELLO — A local pharmacy has recently transitioned from filling retail prescriptions to handling more specialized compounding medications.

Shaver Pharmacy And Compounding Center at 235 S. Fourth Ave. in Pocatello officially became a compounding-only pharmacy on Oct. 25, primarily as a means for the owners to better focus their customer service and alleviate the stress that comes with operating a retail pharmacy, says Tori Shaver, who owns the business with his wife, Lorri Shaver.

“Lorri is the pharmacist and I run the business,” Tori said. “Her passion has always been compounding. Our business has grown significantly over the COVID pandemic to the point where it was hard to manage. We have a drive-thru, which was heavily used for convenience for people when they didn’t want to be exposed to the public and things like that. We always say we’re not in the business of serving french fries. If we do something wrong we could kill somebody. Prescriptions require much more attention to detail and with all the growth that we had, that was a lot of stress for Lorri to go home with every night.”

In the field of pharmacy, compounding is preparation of a custom formulation of a medication to fit a unique need of a patient that cannot be met with commercially available products. Some people and animals need medications that aren’t commercially available, meaning they aren’t mass-produced and available at a standard pharmacy.

After a significant investment in its compounding laboratory, Shaver’s compounding capabilities include both sterile and non-sterile prescriptions. Sterile compounds include dosage forms like injections, eye drops and infusions. Non-sterile compounds come with a lower risk of infection. Their dosage forms include creams, capsules and suppositories.

“We are the only pharmacy in the region to be accredited with the Accreditation Commission for Health Care Inc.’s Pharmacy Compounding Accreditation Board (PCAB),” Tori said. “There’s a very, very small subset of retail pharmacies that do compounding and even a smaller subset that are PCAB accredited. We’ve spent a significant sum improving our compounding lab to make it a state-of-the-art facility and one of the nicest ones west of the Mississippi.”

Unless prior arrangements were made with Shaver’s Pharmacy employees, the retail prescription records for all of Shaver’s customers were recently transferred over to the Walgreens Pharmacy at 905 Yellowstone Ave. in Pocatello, but customers can refill their prescriptions at any Walgreens Pharmacy. Any person who wishes to use a different pharmacy is encouraged to contact their health care provider and request the retail prescriptions be sent to the pharmacy of their choice, Tori explained.

In addition to becoming a compounding-only pharmacy, Shaver’s also became a Hallmark Gold Crown store, which allows the business to stock the largest selection of Hallmark greeting cards and gift wrap, as well as Keepsake ornaments, home decor, jewelry and other gift products, according to Hallmark’s website.

“This gives us access to private label Hallmark products that other Hallmark stores can’t get,” Tori said. “We’re trying to expand and be the destination shopping place for cards and gifts for birthdays, anniversaries, special occasions, Christmas, Thanksgiving and other holidays.”

Shaver’s also maintained its durable medical equipment department. Tori said that portion of the business is the best place in the Gate City to obtain mastectomy fittings, diabetic shoes, hormone consultations and both continuous positive airway pressure, or CPAP, and bilevel positive airway pressure, or BiPAP, supplies.

“Lorri and I are very proud of the fact that over the years the community has embraced us and have been very supportive of us — we can’t thank the community enough for that,” Tori said. “But with that we feel like the responsibility on our part has always been our business model and our business model has been focused on customer service, friendliness and one-on-one interactions. With the huge numbers of retail prescriptions that we were doing, the satisfaction that Lori was getting as a pharmacist was really being replaced by stress.”

Tori continued, “It certainly wasn’t to retire and it certainly wasn’t to remove our presence from our community. Our desire was to get back to being able to engage our customers and patients, take care of them, know them when they walk through the door and be able to recognize their medical needs. We wanted to be able to sit down and have meaningful conversations with our people.”