The Challenges in Accessing Specialty Prescriptions
If you’ve ever had a loved one in the hospital or been a patient yourself, you know how frightening the experience can be. Minutes can feel like hours as you wait for diagnoses, medications, and relief from pain.
Navigating your care plan once you leave the doctor’s office or hospital often feels like an overwhelming journey into the unknown with time-sensitive and expensive requirements for you to manage, all while trying to comprehend the seriousness of your condition. Amidst all this, specialty prescription delivery becomes an essential support for patients.
For an increasing number of patients, part of that journey includes specialty medications that can’t be picked up at the neighborhood pharmacy. Insurance often helps, but there are often more hoops for the pharmacy and the patient to jump through.
Looking Through the Patient’s Lens
In an effort to better understand the specialty pharmacy from the patient’s perspective, we talked with our Pharmacy Specialist, Amanda Awe, PharmD, who recommended an article on DrugTopics.com written by Molly C. Gombos, PharmD, MPBA.
In it, Gombos states that “Depending on the provider, the medication, and the patient’s insurer, the actual prescription may be sent directly to a specialty pharmacy or it may not, as there is no standard list of specialty medications and it varies significantly from payer to payer.
Sometimes it takes a rejected claim at a retail pharmacy for the patient to learn that they have been prescribed a specialty medication. At this point, the patient would need to begin navigating the prescription transfer process and/or communicating with the provider again to ensure the prescription makes it to the right place.”
In the meantime, the clock is ticking and all the patient can do is wait… for the pharmacy to verify benefits, work with the prescriber and the payer to receive authorization, and for the prescription to be filled and shipped.
Prioritizing the Patient Experience
Every specialty pharmacist we know got into the profession because they care deeply about people. However, as Awe regularly reminds us, in the rush of getting prescriptions dispensed and delivered, it can be easy to forget about the human being waiting, wondering, and feeling completely overwhelmed at the other end of the process.
That’s why when Awe joined VPL to lead the buildout of TrajectRx, patient notifications were at the top of her list for a number of reasons starting with patient experience. When your health or the health of a loved one is at stake, there’s no package more valuable than their specialty medications.
Patients expect an Amazon-like experience, and Awe led the charge to give it to them. Patients can receive text or email notifications with the expected specialty prescription delivery date and time and again when their package is out for delivery.
If patients don’t know when their medication is coming, they can’t be home to receive it and specialty medications are often temperature-controlled. Not only can shipments go missing, but they can also time out. This leads to reships and insurance will not pay the claim twice. So the pharmacy eats the cost.
And the benefits to pharmacy didn’t stop there, patient notifications not only reduced the instance of failed deliveries but also improved call center metrics by reducing reactive calls and questions about package status.
You Deserve a Specialty Prescription Delivery Solution that Puts Your Patients First
TrajectRx, our Specialty Pharmacy Solution, empowers outpatient pharmacies by giving them the cloud-based shipping, tracking, and compliance system they need to build stronger, smarter operations.
Created by pharmacists for pharmacists, our clinically minded solution:
- Gets scripts out the door
- Tracks and traces them to their final destination
- Communicates shipping updates to patients and staff
- Compiles necessary reporting for proof of delivery
With TrajectRx, specialty pharmacists can enjoy improved continuity of care and patients can relax, knowing their meds will reach them at the right place and the right time. Learn more about TrajectRx at www.getvpl.com, and help your specialty pharmacy start helping patients today.
