We often ask pharmacy owners why they set up their company retirement plan or any other company benefit. The most common answer we receive is it was the right thing to do. While we never want to remove the nobility of providing these types of benefits, we do want to point out that there are certain things that all benefits should be designed to do.

One of the key fiduciary resposibilities you have as a plan sponsor is to make sure the pharmacy 401k advisor is delivering specific outcomes to each of your employees.  This typically requires meeting one-on-one with each employee at least one time per year to make sure they fully comprehend how to use this plan to reach their retirement goals.

The history of the 401k has been chronicled over and over the past three or four decades. They started becoming more and more popular when the traditional pension plan became increasingly more expensive as the World War 2 generation began to reach retirement age in the 1970s.  Now, pensions are almost extinct and other retirement plans (including 401ks) have been trying to fill that void.

401k programs come in many different shapes and sizes and are offered by many different companies.  Unfortunately, this means there is no one size fits all approach to 401k plans for pharmacies.  However, there are certain things that the most successful programs have that the others don't.  When we explain this to pharmacy owners they always mention that they want to know what these are.