No Ceiling: Heather Lyons-Burney

Local women share their journey to the top of their professions and the challenges and triumphs they faced along the way. They’re rewriting the script on success and there’s no ceiling.

Below is an excerpt from the start of our conversation.

—Christine Temple, Executive Editor

Christine Temple: Last year, you joined a prestigious group of local philanthropists by receiving the Humanitarian of the Year award from Community Foundation of the Ozarks, and that was for your work creating My Neighbor’s Charitable Pharmacy in Branson. What is a charitable pharmacy, and what was the need that you saw that made you want to go on this journey?
Heather Lyons-Burney: I was a founder for Faith Community Health clinic, which is a clinic that helps to take care of those who are uninsured, primarily in and around the Branson community. So, you think about a tourist-driven economy, and a lot of people either aren’t offered insurance or are unable to take advantage of their employers’ insurance due to income restrictions. A community group came together, developed Faith Community Health as a primary care solution. From the beginning we felt that it was important to have team-based care and to offer prescription medications. You can diagnose all day long, but if they can’t afford the medicine, you’ve done nothing. We started investigating other states: What’s happening in other states with this type of charitable model? We realized that Missouri didn’t have this kind of model. There was no way to designate it as a charitable pharmacy, meaning that you don’t charge for medications and you don’t bill insurance. The Missouri Board of Pharmacy was very amazing, very supportive, and said, we love what you’re doing and what you want to do; we just don’t have the regulations for this. We worked with our legislators, we worked with that Board of Pharmacy, and we were able to help put together language – got passed in 2021, like the easiest thing ever to get passed through the legislature. In February of 2023, we’re able to open the state’s first Class Q charitable pharmacy. We are the first in the state, and as of right now, I believe, the only one in the state. It’s kind of a big lift. This isn’t an easy thing to turn on because you’re never making money. You really need that community support behind it and a willing group of people to make it go.

Temple: This whole concept is an entrepreneurial idea, but like you said, it doesn’t make the profit. What really drove you to say, I want to make this happen; I want to take this on for the benefit of others?
Lyons-Burney: I love that you said that it’s an entrepreneurial idea because I talk to my students about that, too. It doesn’t have to be this great Silicon Valley idea or this amazing TikTok whatever. It can be something that benefits your community. I started my career as a pharmacist, and I did residency training, worked in the hospital at Cox afterwards, loved every minute of that. Had the opportunity with my husband to then own and operate what started as one and ended as three community pharmacies. Even from the beginning, I had a lot of people that just gave me autonomy and freedom and leash and to say, yeah, go for it if you want to try this. I wasn’t necessarily afraid to fail. As I go back, my parents were young parents when I was born, they weren’t college educated, just hardworking people, but supportive, and kind of gave me that leash. I was the oldest, too. That kind of led to that spirit of, well, let’s just go for it. I really recognized from the neonatal unit, my experience there to my community pharmacies, recognizing that it was hard sometimes for people to get access to medications and to take them and access to primary care. That helped develop the clinic in recognizing that we have to treat that whole person again. You got to give them the medication and give them the why behind it. All we’re doing is giving people those tools. I have seen just amazing transformation in patients that literally have come full circle in their health because of the tools.