Welcome to Fiduciary 101 for community pharmacy owners.  This series of blogs will focus on the fiduciary responsibility you assume by sponsoring a pharmacy 401k and/or profit sharing plan.  The goal of this series is to fully explain what it means to be a fiduciary and to bring to your attention the things that must be completed to satisfy this responsibility. Part 1 will help give you a broad overview of what it means to be a fiduciary.  The subsequent parts will drill down into specific areas of fiduciary responsibility.  So, let's get started with the broad overview of fiduciary responsibility.

There are three specific areas where any fiduciary must focus.  They are plan design, investment experiences and cost containment.  Within these areas there are five specific duties that you must address. They are listed below:

1. A Duty of Exclusive Purpose
2. A Duty of Prudence
3. A Duty to Diversify
4. A Duty to Follow Plan Documents
5. Avoiding Prohibited Transactions, Self Dealing, and Conflicts of Interest

We have added a sixth duty for our plans.  This duty is to remain organized and be able to locate plan documents. That is why all our plans get a Fiduciary Binder with all the plan documents including the investment policy statement (this is the document that governs the entire plan).

All of these duties mean something different and require certain actions and oversight. By understanding these, you can dramatically improve your compliance with what is required of you being a fiduciary. Our next blog will go more in depth into your duty of exclusive purpose. We hope you will join us on this journey because we feel that you will be better for it in the end.

Please contact us at info@waypointus.com if you have any questions about your plan specifically.