MediSav Homecare Pharmacies *

Joe Larkin compares the retail business to a basketball game.

“In the retail business, you constantly have to adjust your game or you fall behind,” said Larkin, one of the owners of MediSav Homecare Pharmacies in Charleston.

Larkin should know. He has been adjusting his business game plan for more than 40 years.

Larkin — who owns the business with his wife, JoAnn, and brother, Keith Larkin — went into business in 1964 because he believed Charleston needed a pharmacy with better selection and service. He has been trying to deliver ever since.

These days, in addition to dispensing prescriptions, the pharmacy sells medical equipment and oxygen. It also provides flu shots and cholesterol checks.

The pharmacy’s revenue has been climbing steadily for the past 10 years. In 2004, its revenue topped $12 million.

“I would like to say it’s our good job,” Larkin said. “But the population is aged and [there are] more and more demands for new drugs.”

Still, to beat competitors, Larkin said the mission for the pharmacy and its 44 employees is to offer personal service.

“We would like to treat people like we would like to be treated if we went into a store,” Larkin said. That’s the MediSav motto.

Stellar customer service is one way MediSav fights off the competition, including companies that offer cheaper medicine by mail. Mail can be delayed, Larkin said, and a patient with a question may have a hard time getting an answer from a mail-order pharmacy.

Another key to the firm’s success is keeping on top of the latest medical and technical changes, including insurance regulations.

Larkin opened his second location in Fort Smith in the early 1970s. He would like to open another MediSav, but there is a shortage of pharmacists.

“You can’t open a drug store without a pharmacist,” he said. “So that’s one of the things that has held us back.”