Your kids are home from soccer practice, band practice, and ballet recitals, dinner has just landed on the table, and you’re looking forward to a quiet evening of relaxation when that fog of forgetfulness that’s surrounded you all day suddenly sharpens and delivers a jolt of panic - you forgot to pick up your medicine from the pharmacy.

You remembered to get one of your prescriptions last week and another one will be ready in two weeks, but having to go to the pharmacy multiple times a month can become overwhelming when coupled with all your other daily duties. However, pharmacists across Arkansas want to help you not only save time and gas from making so many visits, but also improve your health and wellbeing by synchronizing your monthly medications and offering new innovative packaging.

Medication synchronization involves your pharmacist syncing all your medications to pick up in a single monthly visit. Obviously, that’s a big time saver, but there are some fringe benefits that could have an even bigger impact on your health and even your finances.

A single visit each month means you’re more likely to stay adherent to your medication (taking your medication on time and in the correct dosage), which remains a key factor to the successful treatment of illnesses and long-term conditions. In addition, when your prescriptions are synced to one day a month, you can choose which paycheck your medicine will come out of, allowing you to better budget your monthly income.

An additional benefit of syncing your medication is the ability to use new packaging aimed at keeping you adherent to your prescriptions. Many pharmacies in Arkansas have begun using blister packages for people who take several medications at the same time.

The idea behind this new packaging is to group all your pills by the time of day that you take them. For instance, instead of having four bottles of pills and taking one pill from each bottle in the morning and evening, blister packaging gives you sealed foil packs for each week that have all your pills for the morning grouped together and all your pills for the evening grouped together for each day of the week.

Not only will this help you stay adherent to your prescription, it can also help older kids who take maintenance medications develop the habit of taking their medications on their own.

Ask your pharmacist for more information about these innovative services to help you and your family stay adherent to medications.

Scott Pace is the executive vice president and CEO of the Arkansas Pharmacists Association. He and his wife, Anne, own Kavanaugh Pharmacy in Little Rock. Pace holds a doctorate of pharmacy from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.