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Asembia's Specialty Pharmacy Summit 2026 Rewind | 3/6 · Pharmacy Podcast Network

0:06
Speaker 1: The podcast press coverage of the ASSEMBIA twenty twenty sixth
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Speaker 1: Summit is brought to you by Paragon Pharmacy three to sixty,
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Speaker 1: powered by the innovative Modesto Health platform. Where specialty pharmacy
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Speaker 1: meets real time patient intelligence. Paragon three point sixty is
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Speaker 1: redefining pharmacy care by combining high touch clinical support with
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Speaker 1: advanced digital health technology. At the center of this model
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Speaker 1: is Modesto, a clinical intelligence platform that works for both
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Speaker 1: the care team and the patient simultaneously. On the clinical side,
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Speaker 1: pharmacists get a unified patient record, auto generated care plans,
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Speaker 1: and real time insights that automatically surface at risk patients
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Speaker 1: before gaps and care occur. On the patient side, automated
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Speaker 1: and event driven engagement keeps patients informed on therapy and
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Speaker 1: directly connected to their care team from day one, No
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Speaker 1: manual outreach required. The result less manual work for clinicians,
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Speaker 1: gaps for patients, and clinical data that gets smarter with
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Speaker 1: every interaction. This unified ecosystem closes critical gaps in care,
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Speaker 1: accelerating time to therapy, improving persistence, and delivering measurable outcomes
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Speaker 1: across specialty and chronic conditions. But what truly sets Paragon
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Speaker 1: apart is its ability to bring the pharmacist directly into
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Speaker 1: the patient's daily life, turning insights into action and data
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Speaker 1: into better care. As specialty pharmacy continues to evolve, Paragon
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Speaker 1: Pharmacy three sixty and Modesto are leading the way bridging technology,
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Speaker 1: clinical care, and patient engagement. Learn more at paragonpharmacy dot org.
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Speaker 2: You are listening to the global network of podcasters dedicated
1:57
Speaker 2: to the pharmacy profession. Welcome to the Pharmacy Podcast Network.
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Speaker 3: Each year, Assembia's Specialty Pharmacy Summit is at the epicenter
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Speaker 3: of the pharmacy industry, providing a unique opportunity for stakeholders
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Speaker 3: throughout the industry to understand challenges, generate solutions, and define
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Speaker 3: the future. This is the pharmacy podcast Networks Assembia twenty
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Speaker 3: twenty six rewind. We are dedicated to bringing you inside
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Speaker 3: coverage of the pharmacy Nation's biggest events with on the
2:39
Speaker 3: street style interviews with keynote speakers, attendees, exhibitors, and recurring
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Speaker 3: guests who make each year special. Stay tuned each week
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Speaker 3: for a new episode of this special six part series
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Speaker 3: on the ASSEMBIA twenty twenty sixth summit held this year
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Speaker 3: in Las Vegas. Special thanks to this episode sponsor paragone
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Speaker 3: three sixty.
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Speaker 4: This is Chris Antipass with Paragon Pharmacy three sixty and
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Speaker 4: you're listening to the Pharmacy Podcast Network.
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Speaker 5: Chris Antipas Assembia twenty twenty six. It's so good to
3:16
Speaker 5: see you here. Follow Pittsburgh.
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Speaker 4: Let's go, let's go. We got those pens tonight. I
3:20
Speaker 4: can't wait to hopefully see them extend the series.
3:23
Speaker 5: They won yesterday or they won the last game they did.
3:26
Speaker 4: We're now down three games to two, so we're still
3:29
Speaker 4: in fighting for our lives. But we win tonight, we
3:32
Speaker 4: go to game seven and then anything can happen.
3:34
Speaker 5: That's the Pittsburgh story. Yeah, always the underdogs, That's right,
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Speaker 5: all right. Imagine ecosystem that gives a farmer manufacturer the
3:43
Speaker 5: assurance that you have a patient on a pathway designed
3:48
Speaker 5: with all the guardrails in place to assure that you're
3:50
Speaker 5: doing what you need to be doing as a specialty pharmacy,
3:53
Speaker 5: to give back to them the data of what's happening
3:56
Speaker 5: to that patient in their lives. But better yet, you
3:58
Speaker 5: start customizing that journey depending on the drug depending on
4:03
Speaker 5: the treatment, and you surround them with technology, you surround
4:06
Speaker 5: them with communications follow up. That is the Paragon three
4:11
Speaker 5: a sixty in a nutshell from a layman's perspective. But
4:16
Speaker 5: I want you to open up about that. I want
4:18
Speaker 5: you to talk to our listeners, our pharmer, manufacturers, payers
4:22
Speaker 5: that are listening, other specialty pharmacies and oh there's a
4:26
Speaker 5: new market out there. There's the independent community pharmacy who's
4:29
Speaker 5: looking to partner with an organization that can execute specialty
4:34
Speaker 5: pharmacy services. So that's something else we can talk about.
4:36
Speaker 5: But talk to us about Paragon three sixty and that
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Speaker 5: special sweet sauce you guys develop.
4:41
Speaker 4: Yeah, So Paragon is what we describe as a technology
4:44
Speaker 4: forward or a digital specialty pharmacy, And we have dubbed
4:50
Speaker 4: ourselves a digital pharmacy because we've built tools internally to
4:54
Speaker 4: help alter the existing paradigm of how we interact with patients.
5:00
Speaker 4: In the specialty pharmacy space, there's just a ton of
5:02
Speaker 4: manual effort and there's a lot of waiting waiting for
5:06
Speaker 4: patients to respond, waiting for a provider to respond. So
5:10
Speaker 4: we kind of took our fate into our own hands
5:13
Speaker 4: and decided to build out technology that we could layer
5:16
Speaker 4: on top of our pharmacy management system that can close
5:18
Speaker 4: those gaps. And so by having a highly innovative patient
5:24
Speaker 4: engagement solution combined with a dashboard that gives the pharmacy
5:31
Speaker 4: unique perspectives into a given patient's journey and their experience,
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Speaker 4: we can then automate a ton of meaningful interactions both
5:41
Speaker 4: with the patient and.
5:42
Speaker 6: With the provider.
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Speaker 4: So we're using the latest and greatest in technology. We
5:47
Speaker 4: use a progressive web application to interact with the patient
5:50
Speaker 4: and we create automated journeys. Things that would need to
5:54
Speaker 4: be done manually by a person we can trigger automatically.
5:57
Speaker 4: So we use triggers which could be pharmacy receives a
6:00
Speaker 4: referral or a prescription for a given medication, automatically reach
6:04
Speaker 4: out to the patient, give them the onboarding information and
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Speaker 4: start retrieving the information you need from them to get
6:10
Speaker 4: that patient on therapy quickly. And then let's say that
6:14
Speaker 4: the medication requires prior auth. Our platform we call it Modesto,
6:19
Speaker 4: is connected into EHR, so we can pull medical information
6:23
Speaker 4: directly from the EHR medical history, medication history, labs, vitals, etc.
6:30
Speaker 4: And we can expedite getting that drug approved for the
6:33
Speaker 4: patient by completing a prior auth or appeal, for example,
6:37
Speaker 4: and then keeping the patient informed automatically along the way.
6:41
Speaker 4: We also have ability to communicate with providers directly into
6:45
Speaker 4: their EHR, so if some information is missing or we
6:48
Speaker 4: have an issue, instead of calling and leaving a message
6:50
Speaker 4: and waiting hours or days or longer for a callback,
6:55
Speaker 4: the physician can respond through their EHR where they live
6:59
Speaker 4: every single day caring for their patients, and we can
7:03
Speaker 4: automate the ingestion of their response back into our system.
7:06
Speaker 4: So we're looking at how do we leverage technology in
7:11
Speaker 4: ways that cannot only expedite a process that can be
7:18
Speaker 4: laborious and challenging, but also make the experience better and
7:21
Speaker 4: more enjoyable for the patient. At the core of our
7:24
Speaker 4: concept is, as I said, automation, and we also believe
7:30
Speaker 4: that there's an opportunity in pharmacy for the pharmacist to
7:33
Speaker 4: take accountability and ownership for the outcomes of the medications
7:37
Speaker 4: we dispense, and so by leveraging this surveillance capability, we're
7:43
Speaker 4: automating clinical assessments to patients, ingesting that data, marrying that
7:48
Speaker 4: with their medical information and the pharmacy information we already have,
7:52
Speaker 4: we can determine if a given patient is on track
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Speaker 4: for their therapy or they're not on track. And for
8:00
Speaker 4: patients that aren't on track, or they have an issue
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Speaker 4: that pops up, we create alerts and our clinical team
8:06
Speaker 4: can jump on that. So if you're thinking about it
8:08
Speaker 4: from a payer perspective, they obviously care how much the
8:11
Speaker 4: drug costs. But even if they got a good deal
8:14
Speaker 4: on that drug, if it's not working for the patient,
8:16
Speaker 4: we call that waste. And maybe it's not working because
8:20
Speaker 4: the patient isn't storing it correctly, maybe they're not using
8:24
Speaker 4: it correctly, Maybe they're having an adverse event that's causing
8:26
Speaker 4: them to slow down and not use it as it's prescribed.
8:29
Speaker 6: Maybe they're not on the right dose.
8:31
Speaker 4: I mean, I could go on and on, but number one,
8:34
Speaker 4: somebody needs to be looking for that, and then somebody
8:36
Speaker 4: needs to step up and do something about it. That's
8:38
Speaker 4: what we're doing at Paragon and where it's all possible
8:42
Speaker 4: because we're leveraging technology and automation to remove noise of
8:48
Speaker 4: stuff that doesn't need our attention and present us with
8:51
Speaker 4: the elements that are really relevant to the patient. First,
8:55
Speaker 4: and foremost, but also their provider, the drug manufacture, the
8:59
Speaker 4: pay and so on.
9:01
Speaker 6: So we're really excited.
9:02
Speaker 4: I mean, it's been We've had a lot of conversations
9:04
Speaker 4: here to Sembia, and everyone we've talked to has said,
9:08
Speaker 4: we've not seen this elsewhere, and so we're really getting
9:10
Speaker 4: some market validation that we've got something unique. But more
9:15
Speaker 4: than unique is meaningful because I would say, when you
9:20
Speaker 4: put your patient first, it's hard to go wrong.
9:25
Speaker 5: Yeah.
9:25
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I know that the industry we often get
9:28
Speaker 4: hung up on money and how do we make more money?
9:30
Speaker 4: And everybody cares about money, which I get I run
9:33
Speaker 4: a business and you've got to make money to have
9:36
Speaker 4: a successful business. But we want the money to come
9:41
Speaker 4: as a side effect of taking care of people. And
9:43
Speaker 4: that's our philosophy at Paragon, and we are well on
9:48
Speaker 4: our way and appreciate the opportunity to kind of share
9:50
Speaker 4: a little bit about what we're doing with the world.
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Speaker 5: Proud of this, proud of this coming out of a
9:55
Speaker 5: city that was the birthplace of specially pharmacy, are taking
10:00
Speaker 5: it up in a whole other notch and level. Where
10:03
Speaker 5: does the standards fit into this? Because you guys sound
10:07
Speaker 5: like you're way over the standards that like a URAK
10:10
Speaker 5: or an ACH would like put into place, and then
10:13
Speaker 5: how does RAMS reporting fit into back to the manufacture.
10:16
Speaker 4: So the standards, you know, the accreditation bodies where ur
10:19
Speaker 4: AK and AHC accredited and they do set a standard
10:23
Speaker 4: for clinical care. It's hard to meet those standards when
10:28
Speaker 4: you have to do everything manually. And so we've leveled
10:31
Speaker 4: it up because we automate the stuff that can be automated,
10:34
Speaker 4: and it allows us not to evaluate a care plan
10:37
Speaker 4: on an annual basis, but every single time we touch
10:40
Speaker 4: the patient or at least quarterly, where we have new
10:44
Speaker 4: information and with that new information, it may alter our
10:49
Speaker 4: care plan. It may alter the things that we should
10:51
Speaker 4: be looking at or the interventions we should be deploying
10:54
Speaker 4: for a patient. So from that perspective, we just leverage
11:00
Speaker 4: automation to give us the ability to do more. And
11:03
Speaker 4: every pharmacist I talk to wants to do more, but
11:07
Speaker 4: it's a lot of work to just dispense a drug,
11:09
Speaker 4: so you can't focus on the stuff you want to
11:11
Speaker 4: do when you've got to get the stuff done that
11:13
Speaker 4: you need to get done in order for your business
11:16
Speaker 4: to survive. So this is where the efficiencies just unlock
11:19
Speaker 4: tremendous potential. And as it pertains to REMS, it's a
11:25
Speaker 4: similar scenario. What is the risk? What is the variable?
11:28
Speaker 4: Is it a lab value? Well, guess what We're tied
11:30
Speaker 4: into the EHR. So if the lab value is missing,
11:33
Speaker 4: we can make sure we get it before we dispense.
11:36
Speaker 4: If the lab variable is elevated or low or whatever
11:39
Speaker 4: the concerning metric might be, we can call time out
11:44
Speaker 4: before we dispense it. And we obviously know that there's
11:48
Speaker 4: hesitation to rely solely on automation at the end of
11:51
Speaker 4: the day. Leverage the automation and the technology to create
11:54
Speaker 4: the alerts and then put the human component into it
11:59
Speaker 4: as well. But from a REM's perspective, leveraging technology has
12:03
Speaker 4: I think tremendous benefit to the same deal reduce unnecessary
12:07
Speaker 4: manual labor that where they could get it wrong.
12:10
Speaker 5: For example, hasperic on three sixty pharmacy.
12:13
Speaker 6: Have you.
12:15
Speaker 5: Decided, hey, let's become champions in these specific disease states,
12:20
Speaker 5: or have you become really really good at doing certain
12:26
Speaker 5: things and now you're expanding to a whole bunch of
12:28
Speaker 5: different medications.
12:29
Speaker 4: Yeahument I describe as kind of like a stem cell
12:32
Speaker 4: that hasn't quite differentiated yet. I know that some pharmacies
12:36
Speaker 4: focus on one disease state and that's kind of their niche,
12:38
Speaker 4: and we haven't gone that route. We're kind of we
12:41
Speaker 4: have a lot of experience across a number of disease
12:43
Speaker 4: states and therapies and therapeutic categories. We do have experience
12:48
Speaker 4: in rare and ultra rare diseases. We have experience with
12:52
Speaker 4: the drive by model in selling gene therapy. We have
12:55
Speaker 4: ultra cold chain freezers, and we also do some non
12:59
Speaker 4: specialty to spend out of Paragon for certain partners that
13:02
Speaker 4: we have. We very well could quote unquote differentiate to
13:08
Speaker 4: being more specific in a particular category, but we haven't.
13:12
Speaker 4: We haven't really come across an area where we feel,
13:17
Speaker 4: you know, we should pull away from one category or
13:20
Speaker 4: the other and focus on it. So we're still pretty
13:24
Speaker 4: diverse in our capabilities, but we have experience in some
13:26
Speaker 4: niche areas that demonstrate our capabilities. If you know, a
13:30
Speaker 4: given partner is looking for our advanced technology capabilities, we
13:33
Speaker 4: can jump in and I think meet their needs and
13:36
Speaker 4: hopefully exceed their expectations.
13:37
Speaker 5: Actually, there's health systems, hospitals out there throughout the country
13:42
Speaker 5: who are making hard decisions based on getting into specialty
13:48
Speaker 5: and they're deciding are we building this ourselves or are
13:51
Speaker 5: we partnering with somebody does Paragon three sixty pharmacy. Are
13:56
Speaker 5: you in a position where you might go to a
13:58
Speaker 5: small health system and say, let us just do this
14:01
Speaker 5: for you.
14:01
Speaker 4: We could absolutely, I mean, I think it all comes
14:04
Speaker 4: down to just philosophical and strategic alignment. The health systems,
14:11
Speaker 4: a lot of them have gone down the road build
14:14
Speaker 4: out specialty pharmacies. You know their organizations that I think
14:18
Speaker 4: you work with as well that help build out specialty
14:21
Speaker 4: pharmacies for health systems. The right opportunity, we could absolutely
14:28
Speaker 4: do that. I mean, at the end of the day,
14:29
Speaker 4: what we're seeing from a technology perspective, and we are
14:32
Speaker 4: actually Modesto as a technology platform that we have built
14:37
Speaker 4: and basically given an opportunity to flourish under the Paragon brand.
14:45
Speaker 4: We do license that technology and we are making that available.
14:48
Speaker 4: So a health system pharmacy may be very interested in
14:51
Speaker 4: leveraging the technology that we have to improve their operational efficiencies,
14:58
Speaker 4: improve their clinical oversight. Again from an automation perspective, so
15:02
Speaker 4: that is an area where we could absolutely partner with
15:04
Speaker 4: a health system that is looking to optimize the investment
15:09
Speaker 4: because it is a big investment to get into specialty.
15:12
Speaker 4: And so we actually have some of those ongoing conversations
15:15
Speaker 4: right now.
15:16
Speaker 5: So when you talk about this unique model that you have,
15:20
Speaker 5: and I've meticulously kind of gone through over the years,
15:24
Speaker 5: what fascinated by Paragon three sixty and what you guys
15:29
Speaker 5: have built. What advantage does that put in place for
15:34
Speaker 5: the development of more communication, better communication with the patient
15:40
Speaker 5: so that you can go back to a payer and
15:43
Speaker 5: not allow the payer to really bully the system. And
15:46
Speaker 5: when I say bully the system, you know is better
15:49
Speaker 5: than I do that Some payers, some PBMs make it
15:53
Speaker 5: really really hard to keep patients, to get them on
15:57
Speaker 5: the medication, to keep them on the medication. Sure, you
16:00
Speaker 5: guys have such rich from end to end services and
16:05
Speaker 5: care and standards and validity all of that. Is it
16:10
Speaker 5: easier to tell the payer, Hey, we're going to do
16:14
Speaker 5: it this way because it's in the best interest to
16:16
Speaker 5: the patient and you know your your standard way of
16:20
Speaker 5: rejection and it's easier to get it's easier to get
16:24
Speaker 5: around it because of what you guys are doing.
16:26
Speaker 4: I think that our big success with the payer conversations
16:30
Speaker 4: is related to oversight of medication outcomes. So the narrative
16:34
Speaker 4: in the industry right now is fixated on drug cost.
16:39
Speaker 4: Everybody wants the lowest cost. How do I get that
16:42
Speaker 4: drug for cheaper? Mark Cuban has made a lot of
16:46
Speaker 4: noise because he's able to help cut out waste, and.
16:49
Speaker 5: He doesn't understand specialty pharmacy. Every time I hear him
16:53
Speaker 5: talk about it, he's like, there's nothing special about specialty,
16:55
Speaker 5: and I'm like, cool, saying I.
16:57
Speaker 6: Think that the and I have a lot of respect
16:59
Speaker 6: for him.
16:59
Speaker 4: Yeah, At the same time, he doesn't talk about clinical
17:03
Speaker 4: and we've relegated the pharmacy to a vending machine wherever
17:08
Speaker 4: I can. They're all the same, and I'm interested in
17:11
Speaker 4: going to the vending machine that is the cheapest, right.
17:13
Speaker 4: I want the drug for the lowest cost. And I
17:17
Speaker 4: agree that there's value and cost. But what I say
17:20
Speaker 4: to I do some work in the employer sponsored plan
17:23
Speaker 4: space and the self funded employer space. A good discount
17:28
Speaker 4: on a drug that doesn't work is not a good deal.
17:31
Speaker 4: So so what if you say fifty percent If the
17:34
Speaker 4: drug doesn't work, it's a waste. Even a fifty percent,
17:37
Speaker 4: So who is taking ownership of making sure that that
17:41
Speaker 4: drug works and who is jumping in to do something
17:45
Speaker 4: about it when we see that the drug is not working.
17:48
Speaker 4: You know, drugs are approved by the FDA. No drug
17:51
Speaker 4: or maybe most, if not all, drugs do not benefit
17:56
Speaker 4: one hundred percent of the patients in the clinical trial.
17:59
Speaker 4: Not everybody, even in the most tight of kind of
18:03
Speaker 4: controlled environments, not everybody benefits. So then once it gets
18:07
Speaker 4: into the real world, it's even less likely to benefit everybody. However,
18:12
Speaker 4: we don't think about it that way. We think that
18:14
Speaker 4: as long as we do a prior authorization and make
18:17
Speaker 4: sure that they're an appropriate candidate, we just assume that
18:20
Speaker 4: the drug is going to help them. We have the
18:23
Speaker 4: ability to hedge that the investment in that drug, whatever
18:28
Speaker 4: that investment is, is going to give a return. And
18:32
Speaker 4: at the end of the day, the patient may need
18:35
Speaker 4: move to another therapy. Should we wait six months until
18:39
Speaker 4: they get to their doctor's appointment for their doctor to
18:42
Speaker 4: realize that they should be switched to another drug, or
18:45
Speaker 4: should we find out now because six paying for six
18:48
Speaker 4: months of therapy at ten thousand dollars a month, you've
18:53
Speaker 4: just thrown away sixty thousand dollars. So when we have
18:58
Speaker 4: this type of conversation with it just changes the dynamic
19:02
Speaker 4: and the fact that we have gone directly to some
19:04
Speaker 4: self funded employer plans and that nobody's talking about this
19:08
Speaker 4: in the market. They're all talking about low cost drugs, discounts, etc.
19:13
Speaker 4: We think we're going to break through and totally disrupt
19:16
Speaker 4: this paradigm because we have a mouse trap that not
19:20
Speaker 4: only does this clinical oversight, but it's enjoyable from the
19:24
Speaker 4: patient's perspective. I describe it as utilization management disguised as
19:31
Speaker 4: really good pharmacy care, and we're.
19:35
Speaker 6: Proving that out.
19:36
Speaker 4: We're getting a lot of traction, and we're excited to
19:38
Speaker 4: kind of disrupt this market and really demonstrate that pharmacists
19:41
Speaker 4: are more than just gatekeepers of the vending machine. We
19:44
Speaker 4: can help patients be successful on a therapy, and when
19:47
Speaker 4: we use technology, we can achieve it because it's really
19:52
Speaker 4: impossible to do manually for every single patient you serve.
19:55
Speaker 4: So that's kind of our angle in that regard.
20:00
Speaker 5: So talk talk about the patient communication and they're in
20:04
Speaker 5: a therapy, they're going to be on for some time,
20:06
Speaker 5: maybe for the rest of their life. What kind of
20:09
Speaker 5: communications happening between Paragon three sixty pharmacy and the patient.
20:13
Speaker 4: Yeah, so it starts with onboarding and welcoming them, right,
20:17
Speaker 4: because in the general sense, pharmacies engage.
20:22
Speaker 6: With their patients all the time. Yeah, right, I have
20:24
Speaker 6: a product in.
20:25
Speaker 4: My possession and I need to get it to you,
20:27
Speaker 4: So I need to get I have something you need
20:29
Speaker 4: and I need to get it in your hands. You
20:31
Speaker 4: could in a community pharmacy, they just come to the pharmacy,
20:34
Speaker 4: but most or many community pharmacies also deliver. So there's
20:38
Speaker 4: a coordination of I got to call you, I got
20:41
Speaker 4: to talk to you and do this type of logistical
20:45
Speaker 4: navigation of getting you this product and doing it compliantly.
20:49
Speaker 6: Right, And so we're.
20:51
Speaker 4: Leveraging our patient engagement solution to coordinate the logistics of
20:56
Speaker 4: getting you your meds. And then we sprinkle in that
21:00
Speaker 4: that discussion, that forum, if you will, we sprinkle in education.
21:05
Speaker 4: You know, patients want to know if they can track
21:08
Speaker 4: the status of their pizza from Domino's, they can track
21:11
Speaker 4: the status of their delivery from Amazon.
21:13
Speaker 6: You'd think we.
21:14
Speaker 4: Could track the status of their prescription, right, especially an
21:17
Speaker 4: expensive prescription that is life saving. You know, we early
21:21
Speaker 4: on my partner Dan Asty and I talk about you know,
21:25
Speaker 4: a patient is, especially for our oncology patients, the medication
21:31
Speaker 4: we're delivering to them.
21:32
Speaker 6: I describe it as like hope in a box.
21:36
Speaker 4: Okay, they have a devastating diagnosis, they're scared. They view
21:42
Speaker 4: this drug as potentially saving their life or even more intense,
21:46
Speaker 4: saving the life of their loved one. All right, so
21:49
Speaker 4: you're waiting for this box to show up. You want
21:52
Speaker 4: to get it in your system so that you can
21:56
Speaker 4: potentially save your life.
21:57
Speaker 6: It'll save your life.
21:58
Speaker 4: We need we approach our patient interactions with that in mind.
22:03
Speaker 4: To us, it's just another bottle of medicine. To the patient,
22:07
Speaker 4: it's literally their hopes and dreams walking down the aisle
22:11
Speaker 4: with their daughter at their wedding, at her wedding.
22:15
Speaker 6: And so.
22:18
Speaker 4: We can ease their concerns by being transparent about the
22:21
Speaker 4: status of what's going on, just letting them know, even
22:23
Speaker 4: if it's going to take time. It's better to be
22:26
Speaker 4: aware than to not have any idea and just be
22:28
Speaker 4: sitting on the edge of your chair. So transparent communications
22:32
Speaker 4: about the status of their prescription. Again, it's impossible for
22:35
Speaker 4: me to do that manually on every patient, But if
22:37
Speaker 4: the system is tracking this and just sending communications.
22:39
Speaker 6: They're like great, appreciate the update.
22:42
Speaker 4: You then interject into that experience with like, hey, I
22:45
Speaker 4: have a few questions to ask you how you're doing,
22:48
Speaker 4: and make it personal. Hey, it's Chris checking in on
22:50
Speaker 4: you about your condition, and then again letting them know, Hey,
22:56
Speaker 4: you're coming up do for your medicine, Just making sure
22:58
Speaker 4: everything's all right. If you need any let me know.
23:00
Speaker 4: Can we get the scheduled so you can get your
23:02
Speaker 4: medicine next week? Does Tuesday work? You can think of
23:05
Speaker 4: like how we can again sprinkle in the clinical oversight
23:08
Speaker 4: with the logistical element of what we do on a
23:10
Speaker 4: daily basis, and then that just continues on and it
23:13
Speaker 4: becomes a normal part of their experience. They have direct
23:16
Speaker 4: immediate access to their pharmacists when they need them, They're
23:18
Speaker 4: getting the information they need and want. It just becomes
23:22
Speaker 4: just good and we don't want there to be peaks
23:26
Speaker 4: and troughs. We want there to just to be standard.
23:28
Speaker 4: The patient is comfortable, they're good, their issues are being addressed,
23:32
Speaker 4: but always in the background, we are looking over their
23:35
Speaker 4: care and identifying if there's an issue we're going to
23:39
Speaker 4: jump in and help support them. And you need to
23:42
Speaker 4: do that one time for a patient for them to
23:44
Speaker 4: realize you're you know, you're really there for me, I
23:46
Speaker 4: really feel and you know, I mean, you know.
23:48
Speaker 6: How trusted pharmacists are.
23:50
Speaker 4: Patients love their pharmacists, but you also got to build
23:53
Speaker 4: a relationship with them, and we do that and.
23:55
Speaker 6: We incorporate that into this digital experience.
23:58
Speaker 4: It's not, you know, be a shame for anybody to
24:01
Speaker 4: think that we don't care about personal interactions.
24:03
Speaker 6: We do.
24:04
Speaker 4: But at the same time, like not every single thing
24:06
Speaker 4: needs to be personal for it to feel personal. It's
24:11
Speaker 4: just kind of have an appropriate dose of that to
24:14
Speaker 4: just maximize that feeling on the patient side and truly
24:17
Speaker 4: take responsibility for the role that we play in getting
24:20
Speaker 4: them their medicine. That as I said, some conditions are
24:23
Speaker 4: going to be more intense than others. But when it
24:25
Speaker 4: comes to oncology, for example, like we really need to
24:29
Speaker 4: own the responsibility of being in their you know, their care,
24:33
Speaker 4: delivering them these life saving medicines.
24:36
Speaker 5: Doctor Chris Antipas Paragon three sixty Pharmacy, thanks so.
24:39
Speaker 6: Much for being on the show. Appreciate it. Thanks so
24:41
Speaker 6: much to my friend.
24:45
Speaker 7: This is Chris Corsi with Cassie and RX, and you're
24:47
Speaker 7: listening to the Pharmacy podcast.
24:52
Speaker 5: One Journey, a streamline specially care platform has just been
24:56
Speaker 5: launched by Cassie and RX. We're bringing this to you
24:59
Speaker 5: at the SMBIA twenty twenty six post show. I'm here
25:03
Speaker 5: with Chris Corsi. Chris is so good to see you.
25:06
Speaker 5: Good to see you, Tod. It's always fun being out
25:07
Speaker 5: here at a sembia. It is this is our I
25:11
Speaker 5: think it's my eleventh Assembia. How many smbia is.
25:13
Speaker 7: The number seven or eight?
25:16
Speaker 6: I can't keep tracking?
25:17
Speaker 5: Do you like being the one of the old guys
25:18
Speaker 5: now where you're becoming a veteran in this space? Because you,
25:22
Speaker 5: I know, we both feel probably like you know, I
25:26
Speaker 5: feel twenty years younger than what I am, and I
25:29
Speaker 5: still come to this. I come to this with that
25:33
Speaker 5: sparkly eye excitement, and I feel the same, not as
25:37
Speaker 5: awestruck as I was when I first came. But this
25:40
Speaker 5: still gets me going. What do you think of Assembia?
25:42
Speaker 7: You feel that way after the thirty thousand steps three
25:44
Speaker 7: days in a row.
25:45
Speaker 5: H Still, yeah, I'm still jazzed up.
25:48
Speaker 7: No, I agree with you. It's it's the super Bowl
25:50
Speaker 7: of specialty pharmacy. Right, it's everyone's out here. You have
25:54
Speaker 7: great talks. Everyone's talking about cutting in technology. You know,
25:58
Speaker 7: you got a great exhibit hall with all these different
26:00
Speaker 7: vendors out here, all of these different manufacturers out here
26:03
Speaker 7: launching new products. I mean, where's a better conference than this, right.
26:07
Speaker 5: Yes, exactly. Let's talk about that technology. So you've launched
26:10
Speaker 5: something called one Journey and this is designed to streamline
26:15
Speaker 5: specialty care. Let's get into that. Let's talk about and
26:18
Speaker 5: unpack that. What's this platform about?
26:21
Speaker 2: Yeah?
26:21
Speaker 6: Yeah.
26:21
Speaker 7: One Journey is an orchestration layer that sits above all
26:25
Speaker 7: of the other platforms. And the idea is to create
26:28
Speaker 7: that one journey for all of the different stakeholders in
26:30
Speaker 7: the ecosystem, your pharmacies.
26:32
Speaker 6: Your patients, your manufacturers, your payers, and your providers.
26:36
Speaker 7: Right, so we all have one source of truth of
26:38
Speaker 7: what is actually going on for that journey for that
26:41
Speaker 7: patient and try to personalize that for each individual stakeholder
26:45
Speaker 7: so that we're all all on the same page and
26:47
Speaker 7: we're maximizing our engagement, we're maximizing our understanding, we're maximizing
26:53
Speaker 7: our turnaround times and time to therapy because we know
26:56
Speaker 7: that that improves all these different outcomes for those patients
26:58
Speaker 7: as well.
27:00
Speaker 5: All Right, is there limitations to the bolt in if
27:05
Speaker 5: I have an infusion pharmacy segment, I have a traditional
27:10
Speaker 5: pharmacy segment under specialty. Is there any limitations to the
27:15
Speaker 5: sectors that you're plugging in?
27:16
Speaker 7: No, not really, Todd Honestly, you can kind of think
27:19
Speaker 7: about it as a hub service infrastructure platform in a
27:22
Speaker 7: sense where we have some hubs that are labeling the platform.
27:26
Speaker 7: We have a lot of top fifteen specialty pharmacies utilizing
27:30
Speaker 7: the platform as well, and a ton and ton of
27:32
Speaker 7: idends that also utilize the platform for pretty much all
27:35
Speaker 7: specialty disease states. So when you think about it from
27:38
Speaker 7: a therapeutic area perspective, it's pretty agnostic there. And what's
27:42
Speaker 7: really nice is you can really customize your programs yourself
27:48
Speaker 7: in a low code, no code type environment, so it
27:50
Speaker 7: gives you the control to build out your program how
27:53
Speaker 7: you want it to be.
27:54
Speaker 5: How has the one Journey system pulled our patients close
28:00
Speaker 5: to the provider, Because there's mention in the in the
28:03
Speaker 5: press release where that patient engagement is sped up and
28:07
Speaker 5: it's and it's it's brought closer to the workflow.
28:10
Speaker 6: Yeah.
28:10
Speaker 7: I mean if you think about existing systems, right, I
28:12
Speaker 7: mean you're at pharmacy and care teams are really divided, right.
28:16
Speaker 7: You have your physicians, they're working in their EMR and
28:18
Speaker 7: they're they're working on their own thing. And then you
28:20
Speaker 7: have your patients that you know, go into the docs
28:23
Speaker 7: and are saying, hey, I'm prescribed this specially medication. Great
28:27
Speaker 7: it's going to come. They leave that office and have
28:29
Speaker 7: no idea for days weeks what's going on. And then
28:32
Speaker 7: you have your pharmacists. You got the script on the
28:34
Speaker 7: back end and they're working in their own silo and
28:36
Speaker 7: they're like, hey, I got to get the script out
28:37
Speaker 7: to the patient, right, I got to get a PA through.
28:39
Speaker 7: Oh man, I got to contact the physicians office. I
28:41
Speaker 7: need this information.
28:42
Speaker 6: Right.
28:42
Speaker 7: It's all just so fragmented, and there's a million phone
28:45
Speaker 7: calls flying back and forth people try and understand what's
28:48
Speaker 7: going on. So when you pull all those stakeholders into
28:50
Speaker 7: the ecosystem and give them a one source of truth
28:52
Speaker 7: right on that one journey, it really gives that patient
28:56
Speaker 7: visibility early on into where they're atting the journey. It
28:59
Speaker 7: keeps the physicians updated as to where that a script
29:01
Speaker 7: is actually at and what stage we're in. And it
29:03
Speaker 7: also you know, creates that collaborative environment so that everyone's
29:06
Speaker 7: focused on the right goal, like what is that patient's
29:09
Speaker 7: goal of the therapy, right, it might be getting to
29:11
Speaker 7: their son's wedding in a month?
29:12
Speaker 6: Yeah, right, what is that goal?
29:14
Speaker 7: And keeping everyone in alignment there.
29:16
Speaker 5: So you've used the standardizations that are already out there
29:20
Speaker 5: to be used Fire for example, which used to deliver
29:25
Speaker 5: a broader cross system through the exchange of data. Talk
29:29
Speaker 5: to our listeners about how that plugs into the one
29:33
Speaker 5: Journey system.
29:33
Speaker 6: Yeah. Yeah, we're very integration friendly.
29:36
Speaker 7: I always like to say, and I've been saying it
29:37
Speaker 7: for probably five years now, Casting One Journey is the
29:40
Speaker 7: most integration friendly company you will probably come come to
29:43
Speaker 7: meet and talk to. You know, whether it's Fire, HL seven, APIs, SFTPS,
29:49
Speaker 7: whatever you need to do to get the data in
29:51
Speaker 7: the right place and get that into the right state,
29:54
Speaker 7: We're going to make it happen. We've done it in
29:57
Speaker 7: a million different possible configuration setups for flows, so really
30:02
Speaker 7: from any perspective that you need there, we can adapt
30:05
Speaker 7: and build those workflows and layers there and integrations.
30:08
Speaker 5: So the first workflow system that I remember learning about
30:12
Speaker 5: quite confusing, extremely expensive. I think it was I call
30:17
Speaker 5: it like the OG of workflow systems for specialty was Theragy.
30:23
Speaker 5: And then a couple more started coming out, even Assemba
30:25
Speaker 5: even jumped into the game with the one backing this
30:29
Speaker 5: into hub services. Hub services was such a buzzwords six
30:35
Speaker 5: seven years ago. Where has I don't hear even hear
30:38
Speaker 5: that terminology as much. I mean, it's still there, but
30:42
Speaker 5: I think everybody's gotten used to it. So when we're
30:45
Speaker 5: talking about manufacturer and rebating and like the GPO side,
30:51
Speaker 5: are there components of one journey that is API ing
30:54
Speaker 5: into other systems like that that might touch on inventory.
30:58
Speaker 7: Yep, So that's that's a next step of the process.
31:01
Speaker 6: Right.
31:02
Speaker 7: We're really looking at it as a technology infrastructure where
31:05
Speaker 7: if you want to stand up a hub, say internally
31:07
Speaker 7: from a manufacturer perspective, or if you're trying to turn
31:10
Speaker 7: your specialty pharmacy services into leading cutting edge overnight right
31:15
Speaker 7: type services, differentiated services, or you know you are a
31:19
Speaker 7: hub service provider today running on some legacy fragmented platforms
31:22
Speaker 7: with five different point solutions to have the outpatient physician
31:25
Speaker 7: engagement workflow management call center. Right, at a certain point,
31:30
Speaker 7: if you want to take the step up and leverage AI,
31:33
Speaker 7: you need to have a unified base foundation. You can't
31:36
Speaker 7: build AI on a fragmented seven point solution product. It
31:41
Speaker 7: just won't work. The data integration isn't there to enable
31:44
Speaker 7: those agents and those those AI patterns to actually flow
31:47
Speaker 7: and be useful.
31:49
Speaker 5: I'm glad you brought it up. Let's talk AI buzzword here.
31:53
Speaker 5: Everyone that I'm talking to has a different version of
31:57
Speaker 5: how they're leveraging AI artificial intelligence to really standardize find data, fast,
32:04
Speaker 5: find you know, accessing things, making the prior authorization more seamless.
32:10
Speaker 5: How has one journey implemented AI into your systems?
32:14
Speaker 6: Yeah?
32:15
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean AI is a great thing, but it's
32:17
Speaker 7: something that you need to figure out where it fits.
32:19
Speaker 7: Right from our perspective, right, we kind of think about
32:23
Speaker 7: it as where where does an agent make sense? I
32:25
Speaker 7: think in the most cases it is, you know, on
32:28
Speaker 7: workflow type progression activities, right, anything that's clinical, medical, all
32:33
Speaker 7: that kind of stuff that needs to sticks to humans,
32:35
Speaker 7: but progressing like some statuses, submitting some forms. That type
32:39
Speaker 7: of stuff is great for agents that are low hanging
32:42
Speaker 7: type roots that you can automate. And I like to
32:45
Speaker 7: think of agents when you when you build them out
32:47
Speaker 7: and put them in the ecosystem for each step. Right, Hey,
32:51
Speaker 7: there should be one for the benefits of verification process.
32:53
Speaker 7: There should be one for the PA process. There should
32:55
Speaker 7: be one for the patient journey and the goal setting. Right,
32:58
Speaker 7: there should be one for you know, continue communications and
33:01
Speaker 7: coordination between your physician and your pharmacy. Right, you can
33:05
Speaker 7: kind of start thinking about like those operations and where
33:08
Speaker 7: does one make sense to build an agent and give
33:11
Speaker 7: them that right skill set and tool set. So that's
33:13
Speaker 7: how Cassie in a one journey thinks about AI, and
33:16
Speaker 7: that's where we started building out our AI agents and
33:18
Speaker 7: infrastructure there. And it's not something you need to jump
33:21
Speaker 7: in the deep end on day one and make one
33:23
Speaker 7: journey like, Hey, if I'm not adopting AI useful, you
33:25
Speaker 7: can really even just use it from a base case.
33:27
Speaker 7: And I like to use the walk or crawl walk
33:30
Speaker 7: run right methodology of Hey, first you need to unify
33:33
Speaker 7: the data, right if your data is fragment, and then
33:35
Speaker 7: seven different systems. Man, you shouldn't you shouldn't even be
33:38
Speaker 7: worried about AI yet because you don't even have the
33:40
Speaker 7: base foundation to start start thinking about into making useful.
33:43
Speaker 7: So that's like step one of just deploying that infrastructure
33:46
Speaker 7: layer of the one Journey platform. Step two is really
33:49
Speaker 7: understanding those patterns right, and each each pharmacy is going
33:52
Speaker 7: to have let's say or hub there. Manufacturers are going
33:55
Speaker 7: to have probably sixty seventy percent overlap typically of what
33:58
Speaker 7: those patterns are. And the real value is in that
34:02
Speaker 7: twenty thirty percent that are different, right, identifying them and
34:05
Speaker 7: finding them. And you really need to run that foundational
34:07
Speaker 7: platform for you know, time to find out what those
34:10
Speaker 7: patterns are and see it in the data and actually
34:12
Speaker 7: evolve through the data set. Once you find those patterns,
34:15
Speaker 7: then you can layer on the agents to you know,
34:18
Speaker 7: accelerate and execute against those patterns. And that's you know,
34:21
Speaker 7: now you're really running, right. I've built the data foundation,
34:25
Speaker 7: I've found out what my you know, common patterns are,
34:27
Speaker 7: and I've now built the agents on it that can
34:29
Speaker 7: exploite those patterns and really give me those operational efficiencies
34:32
Speaker 7: or outcome efficiencies or whatever you're looking for. I think
34:35
Speaker 7: a lot of people are trying to jump to the end. Yeah, hey,
34:38
Speaker 7: let's get there to the end. Let's throw in some
34:39
Speaker 7: agents and let's do it. And I think people are
34:42
Speaker 7: struggling and you know, coming up, coming up short a
34:46
Speaker 7: couple of times there and saying hey, maybe doesn't really
34:49
Speaker 7: work as well as we thought it was going to
34:50
Speaker 7: because they skip step one and two.
34:52
Speaker 5: Yeah, all right. I'm a pharmacy operator, VP of technology
34:57
Speaker 5: or the pick in charge of my especialty pharmacy. Sometimes
35:03
Speaker 5: I don't even know what I don't know and how
35:06
Speaker 5: to assess do I need this system? Give us some
35:09
Speaker 5: examples of some red flags that you're like, Hey, if
35:12
Speaker 5: you're going through this, you should schedule a demo with us,
35:16
Speaker 5: because we'll take you through how Cassie and RX is
35:19
Speaker 5: going to implement the one Journey system and really help
35:21
Speaker 5: you not only stabilize and improve, but help you with growth.
35:26
Speaker 6: Yeah.
35:27
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean I would say if if you're in
35:30
Speaker 7: any of those areas at a pharmacy, at a hub,
35:31
Speaker 7: at a manufacturer, and you're and you're looking at hey,
35:34
Speaker 7: I have seven point solutions and none of the data
35:37
Speaker 7: works together. Yeah, red flag, biggest red flag probably right
35:40
Speaker 7: there out of the gate at number two. Maybe you
35:44
Speaker 7: have some solutions and none of the data is unified
35:47
Speaker 7: right at all? Or you know three maybe you have
35:50
Speaker 7: a data lake. Right, Hey, I've done the first step.
35:52
Speaker 7: I've unified my data. I can't take any action on
35:55
Speaker 7: it though, Right, That's that's your next red flag. And
35:57
Speaker 7: a couple people have gotten to that stage of hey,
35:59
Speaker 7: I've you I have these data lakes, I'm using you know,
36:02
Speaker 7: these great products, but you know twenty four hour lag
36:05
Speaker 7: or you know multiple day lag if that's another big
36:08
Speaker 7: red flag? Right, If these things aren't near real time,
36:11
Speaker 7: that's another red flag. There's no reason at this point
36:13
Speaker 7: in this industry that data cannot be near real time.
36:16
Speaker 7: If you have a one, two, three, five week lag,
36:20
Speaker 7: there's no reason for it. The technology infrastructures there commercially,
36:25
Speaker 7: why why are we not giving our patients the best?
36:27
Speaker 6: Right? True? I like that.
36:30
Speaker 5: Chris Corsi, Cassie and RX. We're gonna hear more from you.
36:34
Speaker 5: We have a special three part series that we're so
36:37
Speaker 5: excited about producing and helping you to push out through
36:41
Speaker 5: the Pharmacy Podcast Network. Are you able to give us
36:44
Speaker 5: just a little hint in what we're going to be
36:46
Speaker 5: moving through?
36:46
Speaker 8: Yeah?
36:47
Speaker 7: Yeah, the three part series is going to be awesome.
36:49
Speaker 7: Were we're trying to really pull those different stakeholders in, right,
36:52
Speaker 7: that's the whole point of one journey, create that one
36:54
Speaker 7: unified window for everybody. So we're going to have our
36:57
Speaker 7: pharmacists come in, We're going to have our physicians come in.
36:59
Speaker 7: We're going to have some patients potentially as well, come
37:01
Speaker 7: in and give their perspective of what that one journey is, right,
37:04
Speaker 7: and how are we pulling everyone together, and how is
37:06
Speaker 7: that improving the experience, the quality of life, the patients satisfaction,
37:10
Speaker 7: the turnaround time right for all these different stakeholders, and
37:13
Speaker 7: getting it from each different vantage point, right, not just
37:15
Speaker 7: from a pharmacist, not just from a manufacturer, but from
37:18
Speaker 7: everyone in the ecosystem, and how it's all working together.
37:21
Speaker 7: It'll be a really cool, cool experience and series.
37:24
Speaker 5: That's testimony to the actual one journey philosophy. Anyway, is
37:27
Speaker 5: exactly what she just said. All right, you heard it
37:30
Speaker 5: here first at the Assembia twenty twenty six post show
37:33
Speaker 5: press coverage with Chris Corsi from Cassian Rx Learn more
37:38
Speaker 5: cassianarx dot com can't wait to talk with you and
37:42
Speaker 5: have you on Oh we're going to get you on
37:44
Speaker 5: twerqus two again.
37:45
Speaker 6: Yeah, let's do it all right.
37:49
Speaker 3: This year's ASSEMBIA twenty twenty six press coverage is sponsored
37:52
Speaker 3: by panther Rx Rare Pharmacy. At panther Rx, every day
37:58
Speaker 3: is Rare Disease Day. As the largest independent specialty pharmacy
38:02
Speaker 3: dedicated exclusively to rare and orphan conditions, their mission is
38:07
Speaker 3: simple but powerful, empower patients to live fuller lives through personalized,
38:11
Speaker 3: compassionate care. Through their innovative rare care model, panther Rx
38:16
Speaker 3: delivers hyper personalized support across the entire patient journey, connecting patients, prescribers, manufacturers,
38:23
Speaker 3: and payers with seamless access to life changing therapies. Their
38:27
Speaker 3: expert teams go beyond dispensing medication. They provide clinical guidance,
38:32
Speaker 3: financial assistance, coordination, prior authorization support, and ongoing patient engagement,
38:38
Speaker 3: ensuring that individuals living with rare and complex conditions are
38:41
Speaker 3: never navigating care alone. With nationwide reach, industry leading patient satisfaction.
38:47
Speaker 3: In a relenting focus on innovation, panther Rx continues to
38:50
Speaker 3: set the standard for what specialty pharmacy should be. We
38:53
Speaker 3: hope you find value in the podcast coverage of the
38:56
Speaker 3: ASSEMBA twenty twenty sixth Summit, the super Bowl of Specialty pharmacy,
38:59
Speaker 3: where Panther rx rare is helping redefine access in the
39:03
Speaker 3: future of rare disease care. Learn more at pantherxrare dot com.
39:08
Speaker 3: That's pantherxrare dot com.
39:24
Speaker 8: Hi, this is Kristin Roy. I am the director of
39:28
Speaker 8: product management at a novel On and you're listening to
39:30
Speaker 8: the Pharmacy Podcast.
39:34
Speaker 5: Welcome to THESEMBIA twenty twenty six Press. I always say
39:38
Speaker 5: press podcast or podcast press coverage of the show. This
39:43
Speaker 5: is so good to.
39:44
Speaker 8: See, nice to see us, too, nice to meet you.
39:47
Speaker 5: Thanks for doing this. So I kind of wanted to
39:49
Speaker 5: start off with just a general question for our listeners.
39:52
Speaker 5: It didn't get to come. What do you think of
39:54
Speaker 5: a SMBIA, Like, what is your experience at ASSEMBIA? How
39:57
Speaker 5: many smbias have you gone to? What do you like
40:00
Speaker 5: into this conference?
40:01
Speaker 8: So I think I have been to at least tennis Enbius.
40:05
Speaker 8: I love the energy at ASSMBIA. I specifically love the
40:08
Speaker 8: energy here in in this large room that we're in
40:12
Speaker 8: with all of the different booths. So I like learning
40:15
Speaker 8: about the different businesses that are out there and what
40:18
Speaker 8: they're doing. I just went to a couple of cps,
40:22
Speaker 8: So I love that it's sort of well rounded. I
40:24
Speaker 8: can get a little bit of ce in, but I
40:25
Speaker 8: can also hear what's going on.
40:27
Speaker 6: In the industry.
40:28
Speaker 5: Absolutely, I want to know a little bit more about you.
40:32
Speaker 5: So this is the first time that we've had an
40:33
Speaker 5: opportunity to meet. Talk to me about yourself and your
40:37
Speaker 5: role at a novlon in what you do and specially pharmacy.
40:40
Speaker 8: Sure sure, So I am a pharmacist by trade and
40:43
Speaker 8: over at an Ovalon, I consider myself to be sort
40:45
Speaker 8: of the customer on the inside, if you will. So
40:48
Speaker 8: I actually used an Ovalon pharmacy management system called script
40:53
Speaker 8: med from about two thousand and nine to twenty sixteen
40:57
Speaker 8: in different roles. So I started out which is a
41:01
Speaker 8: specialty pharmacy that got acquired by Optum in twenty sixteen.
41:04
Speaker 8: Throughout that time, I started as a staff pharmacist, so
41:07
Speaker 8: I used it own right there on the keyboard doing
41:10
Speaker 8: all the work. And then I eventually moved into a
41:13
Speaker 8: regional director role overseeing six pharmacies. So then I had
41:16
Speaker 8: to use the system from more of a strategic reporting
41:20
Speaker 8: and how do I move my business around things like that.
41:23
Speaker 8: So when a role opened up here. It's only been
41:27
Speaker 8: here about eighteen months. I was really excited because that
41:31
Speaker 8: way I can have influence on the pharmacy management system.
41:34
Speaker 5: From all kinds of levels. It's something that I've noticed
41:38
Speaker 5: that you wrote about, and I'm glad that you're here
41:41
Speaker 5: because I wanted this answered anyway. So now I'm getting
41:45
Speaker 5: two things out of this podcast, and that is there's
41:49
Speaker 5: a fusion between specialty and infusion pharmacies. To use the
41:54
Speaker 5: word of fusion twice in a sentence, and it's driving
41:59
Speaker 5: a shift.
42:00
Speaker 6: What do you think that.
42:01
Speaker 5: Means for how care is delivered across those settings?
42:04
Speaker 8: So I think from the patient perspective it means continuity
42:10
Speaker 8: of care, longitudinal care for them. Think for the provider,
42:13
Speaker 8: it's going to make things easier too. So if a
42:15
Speaker 8: pharmacy can service a patient from when they come out
42:19
Speaker 8: of a retail setting into the specialty setting as their
42:22
Speaker 8: disease state progresses, and then potentially they have to go
42:25
Speaker 8: into an infusion setting for let's say, like a flare up.
42:28
Speaker 6: So a really good.
42:29
Speaker 8: Example of this is a patient with maybe Krohn's disease.
42:32
Speaker 8: So typically they start out taking a oral medication at
42:35
Speaker 8: a retail setting. They're told to kind of adjust their diet.
42:39
Speaker 8: But things happen. They age, stress gets more as they
42:43
Speaker 8: grow older, and so that disease progresses to needing a
42:47
Speaker 8: specialty pharmacy that can give them a medication they can
42:49
Speaker 8: self inject, and then they may have a flare, and
42:52
Speaker 8: so they may need to go into an infusion pharmacy
42:55
Speaker 8: to get like a bowl ofs dose, a larger or
42:59
Speaker 8: a more concentrated dose of the medication they've been self injecting,
43:03
Speaker 8: but at a higher concentration, just for a short period
43:06
Speaker 8: of time, and then they may flip right back to
43:08
Speaker 8: just needing to self inject again. And so for the
43:10
Speaker 8: patient to be able to go between those two types
43:12
Speaker 8: of models, that's what's happening. That's the crossover that's happening.
43:18
Speaker 8: But really there haven't been great systems to help with
43:22
Speaker 8: that crossover back and forth, and so patients see it
43:24
Speaker 8: as fragmented care. Providers sometimes see it that way too.
43:28
Speaker 8: They wrote a prescription to the specialty pharmacy, it's the
43:32
Speaker 8: same drug. So to the provider it's like, you go
43:34
Speaker 8: into the infusion space. I already wrote that prescription. I
43:37
Speaker 8: just need to increase the dose, but they have to
43:39
Speaker 8: write a whole new prescription to the infusion pharmacy, and
43:42
Speaker 8: then when they go back, they almost always have to
43:44
Speaker 8: write another one as well. So it's really helping, I think,
43:48
Speaker 8: as that shift is being apparent to us as an
43:52
Speaker 8: industry and we're trying to build some support around that,
43:55
Speaker 8: it really helps patients and providers and then the pharmacies
43:59
Speaker 8: as well to do the work a little bit more efficiently.
44:02
Speaker 5: All right, So as those therapies they become more and
44:06
Speaker 5: more complex and they span multiple care settings, what capabilities
44:12
Speaker 5: do pharmacies need from their technology platform to better coordinate
44:17
Speaker 5: that care and manage patients?
44:20
Speaker 8: So absolutely, they need a system that's going to be
44:23
Speaker 8: able to push information from the specialty pharmacy to their
44:27
Speaker 8: infusion pharmacy or if the specialty pharmacy is owned, you know,
44:31
Speaker 8: owns both. They need the system to be able to
44:34
Speaker 8: seamlessly push information about the patient back and forth. They
44:38
Speaker 8: need to be able to have an interoperable relationship with
44:41
Speaker 8: the EMR and the EHR, and that includes getting labs,
44:45
Speaker 8: and that includes getting other medications maybe the patient might
44:49
Speaker 8: be taking in the retail setting. So it's really getting
44:51
Speaker 8: that full picture of the patient all in one place.
44:55
Speaker 8: That can really help drive efficiency with the conversation with
44:58
Speaker 8: the patient, with the conversation with the provider. They need
45:02
Speaker 8: a system where they can easily have conversations with the
45:05
Speaker 8: provider's office, whether that be the prescriber or the nurse
45:11
Speaker 8: in the field that might be doing the injection at
45:14
Speaker 8: the infusion site. So that's something that's sort.
45:16
Speaker 5: Of been lacking. They've been in two different two different systems, and.
45:19
Speaker 8: Maybe they're not connected, and maybe they can still be
45:21
Speaker 8: two different companies, but the two have to somehow connect
45:25
Speaker 8: so that that information is seamless.
45:27
Speaker 6: All right.
45:28
Speaker 5: So artificial intelligence, that's all people seem to be talking about.
45:33
Speaker 5: But it has to make sense. It can't just be
45:35
Speaker 5: science fiction. It has to be applicable, has to be proven.
45:38
Speaker 5: There has to be standards in place to make sure
45:41
Speaker 5: that it's all head of guidelines and keeping patients safe.
45:44
Speaker 5: So when you're looking ahead, what do you see as
45:47
Speaker 5: the biggest opportunity and challenge for specialty pharmacy, let's say
45:50
Speaker 5: in the next three to five years.
45:51
Speaker 8: Sure, sure, so I do see you know, I've gone
45:54
Speaker 8: to a couple of sessions while I've been here about
45:56
Speaker 8: AI and how that gets adopted, if you will into
46:02
Speaker 8: the software into actually using it. Where are we going
46:06
Speaker 8: to use it, how are we going to use it?
46:08
Speaker 8: How do we keep patient information secure? When do we
46:11
Speaker 8: need to tell patients that we're using it or providers
46:13
Speaker 8: that we're using it. So a couple of the sessions
46:16
Speaker 8: that I've been to, which is really great, was enlightening
46:19
Speaker 8: that the federal government doesn't seem to be giving any
46:22
Speaker 8: guidance right now, and so the fifty states are all
46:25
Speaker 8: coming up with their own guidance, which is great, but
46:29
Speaker 8: it's really hard to keep track of. So I think
46:31
Speaker 8: not only is there a challenge for specialty pharmacies in
46:35
Speaker 8: terms of how are you going to use AI, how
46:37
Speaker 8: are you going to apply it, how are you going
46:38
Speaker 8: to keep it secure? But how are you going to
46:40
Speaker 8: keep up with all fifty states and what their regulations are?
46:43
Speaker 5: Right?
46:44
Speaker 8: So I think that's a big challenge. I think also
46:47
Speaker 8: the regulatory bodies that exist today. I think achc URAQ,
46:52
Speaker 8: even NCPDP that puts out a lot of the standards
46:55
Speaker 8: for specialty pharmacies or any pharmacies. Really, how are all
47:00
Speaker 8: three of those seeing AI and what needs to be done?
47:04
Speaker 8: And then can they all come together right to try
47:07
Speaker 8: to I think as an industry, this is a great
47:10
Speaker 8: opportunity for us to all come together and sit down
47:13
Speaker 8: and figure out how we're going to do this so
47:15
Speaker 8: that it's not disparate and we're not just you know,
47:19
Speaker 8: individual states have different rules or regulations around that. From
47:26
Speaker 8: the pharmacy system standpoint, I think it's really important that
47:30
Speaker 8: we figure out how AI is actually going.
47:34
Speaker 5: What's the best benefit?
47:36
Speaker 6: Right?
47:36
Speaker 8: Is it in the patient facing I'm talking to you,
47:41
Speaker 8: or the or the phone tree that currently exists today.
47:44
Speaker 8: Is it in the text messaging? Is it in the
47:47
Speaker 8: provider communication on the portal?
47:49
Speaker 5: Is it?
47:49
Speaker 8: You know? How does that all work? I think that's
47:52
Speaker 8: a challenge we still have to unfold. But what a
47:54
Speaker 8: great time to be in the space right to be
47:56
Speaker 8: solving those problems.
47:58
Speaker 5: It really is, It really is, and we've seen a
48:00
Speaker 5: lot of things change. Think about when you graduated. If
48:04
Speaker 5: you could have jettison too the future of right now
48:07
Speaker 5: and you could have shown yourself what you'd be doing,
48:11
Speaker 5: it would have blown your mind. Oh see how it changed?
48:13
Speaker 8: Absolutely if you had asked me so, I've always been
48:16
Speaker 8: an operator pharmacist. I absolutely love the process of pharmacy.
48:20
Speaker 8: I love making the process smoother. I actually started out
48:24
Speaker 8: as a pharmacy technician before I went to pharmacy school.
48:26
Speaker 8: I was a tech for about five years. There's a
48:29
Speaker 8: joke that I went to pharmacy school kicking and screaming.
48:34
Speaker 8: But if you had asked me then, if I would
48:36
Speaker 8: have done anything different other than retail, I would have
48:39
Speaker 8: told you absolutely now. So to be where I'm at
48:42
Speaker 8: now and to be able to influence the software directly
48:45
Speaker 8: that can help make that process smoother, yeah, I would
48:48
Speaker 8: not have told you. This is where I would have been.
48:51
Speaker 5: It's really crazy. Doctor Christin Roy, thank you so much
48:54
Speaker 5: for spending time with us here at the ASSEMBIA twenty
48:56
Speaker 5: twenty six post show.
48:57
Speaker 8: Yeah great, Thank you so much, Todd, it was really
48:59
Speaker 8: great talking to you.
49:03
Speaker 6: Hello.
49:03
Speaker 9: This is Robert o'heada from KANV Pharmacy Associates.
49:10
Speaker 5: Robert, it's great to have you here in the press
49:13
Speaker 5: podcast booth here at ASSEMBIA twenty twenty six. How are
49:16
Speaker 5: you doing.
49:16
Speaker 6: I'm doing great?
49:17
Speaker 5: How are you very good? I want to shout out
49:20
Speaker 5: Nicole McClure, thank you. She's been with us at the
49:23
Speaker 5: booth all week. Here from Finch helping us to put
49:27
Speaker 5: this interview together. There is a common friend who you've
49:31
Speaker 5: known for twenty one years now, doctor doctor tie In
49:38
Speaker 5: nine eight six pharmacies and his dedication to not only
49:42
Speaker 5: his patients, but his community and the profession. And I'm
49:46
Speaker 5: just proud to know him. So shout out to Ken Tay.
49:49
Speaker 9: Yes, thank you very much. I've had the pleasure to
49:51
Speaker 9: know Ken for a few years now. Like you had mentioned,
49:54
Speaker 9: twenty one years. We initially started our organization as practicing,
50:00
Speaker 9: owning and operating independent pharmacy and branched out to different
50:03
Speaker 9: segments in our own business and then evolve that into
50:08
Speaker 9: what we see today for can B Pharmacy Associates, we're
50:11
Speaker 9: truly helping out and assisting the independent pharmacy space, whether
50:16
Speaker 9: you're retail, long term care, specialty, or everything else in between,
50:19
Speaker 9: all different segments. So grateful to be part of this journey.
50:24
Speaker 9: This journey has definitely been an exciting one for the
50:26
Speaker 9: past few years over at CA and B and just
50:31
Speaker 9: we're excited to see what the future holds, all.
50:33
Speaker 5: Right, So talk to me about you know, when I
50:37
Speaker 5: first got into pharmacy, got into pharmacy in two thousand
50:39
Speaker 5: and four, there were very very hardened silos between long
50:45
Speaker 5: term care, retail, community specialty, and fusion. Those silos are
50:52
Speaker 5: all starting to blend. So talk to me at K
50:55
Speaker 5: and B and what you guys are doing now. You're
50:59
Speaker 5: getting de b into specialty, So talk to us about that.
51:03
Speaker 9: We've been in a specialty for quite some time, but
51:05
Speaker 9: it's definitely evolved or we've taken a deeper dive into it.
51:09
Speaker 9: And to your point, it's this evolution in pharmacy practice
51:14
Speaker 9: that we've seen a I'm going to call it a
51:16
Speaker 9: melting pot between we're crossing over from retail to specialty
51:21
Speaker 9: to long term care, and it's aligning ourselves with the
51:25
Speaker 9: right partners to truly test the waters at our own
51:28
Speaker 9: stores first and foremost before it's rolled out to anyone else.
51:32
Speaker 9: So that way, if things go awry for some reason,
51:36
Speaker 9: I can only look at myself in the mirror and
51:38
Speaker 9: my partners in the face, and we could blame each other.
51:42
Speaker 9: So I do that wholeheartedly. For the fact that we
51:46
Speaker 9: truly test products, we test new opportunities or technology within
51:52
Speaker 9: our own organization first and foremost before it's rolled out.
51:55
Speaker 9: I think that makes it a very unique scenario for
51:59
Speaker 9: K and B. To be practicing what we preach in
52:04
Speaker 9: our messaging and how we communicate and support those that
52:08
Speaker 9: may have a question in getting involved into an LTC
52:12
Speaker 9: at home program or getting involved in the long term
52:16
Speaker 9: care space and fully in the space, if they have
52:19
Speaker 9: questions about assistant living or skilled nursing, or what those
52:23
Speaker 9: compliance levels look like. We always can take a step
52:25
Speaker 9: back and reflect upon what we do in our own practices.
52:29
Speaker 5: When I once again to sound like the old guys
52:32
Speaker 5: that we are now in comparison to what it was
52:35
Speaker 5: like twenty thirty years ago.
52:37
Speaker 6: We're still young. We're young.
52:38
Speaker 5: We're still young. Let's keep saying that. So the prescription
52:44
Speaker 5: to me back in the day seemed like it was
52:47
Speaker 5: the focal point. Today it's no longer the focal point
52:52
Speaker 5: because we're doing other things to generate income and to
52:56
Speaker 5: generate value for people in our communities. Have nothing to
53:00
Speaker 5: do necessarily with the prescription itself. It could have something
53:03
Speaker 5: to do with a therapy, because you might put somebody
53:06
Speaker 5: on a DME, you know, walker or something, or you
53:10
Speaker 5: might give them a supplement, or you might suggest something.
53:13
Speaker 5: But talk to me about everything except the prescription and
53:16
Speaker 5: the future of pharmacy and where value and care is
53:20
Speaker 5: much more evident than let's say, what it was twenty
53:23
Speaker 5: years ago.
53:25
Speaker 9: One of the first things I look at is workflow
53:27
Speaker 9: and operating costs. I can tell you from the numerous
53:31
Speaker 9: or hundreds or thousands of conversations I've had over my
53:35
Speaker 9: tenure is we are now taking a much further dive,
53:41
Speaker 9: not at the prescription, but how we ended up to
53:44
Speaker 9: the point of delivery to a patient and what those
53:47
Speaker 9: needs are. And you would be surprised to say that
53:50
Speaker 9: there's a lot of efficiency inefficiencies that occur in the
53:54
Speaker 9: marketplace today. Even while we're here at ASSEMBIA, we are
53:58
Speaker 9: looking at different technology. Piece is to increase our efficiencies
54:02
Speaker 9: in our own workspace. So I would say that first
54:06
Speaker 9: and foremost, I always take a step back and look
54:08
Speaker 9: at what those workflow processes are, even to the point
54:11
Speaker 9: where minimizing footsteps from wow from clerk to pharmacy tech
54:16
Speaker 9: to getting it verified by the pharmacists and sending it back.
54:20
Speaker 9: What are the efficiencies or lack thereof when we look
54:24
Speaker 9: at when we assess an operation and we'll do that
54:27
Speaker 9: and we do that our own stores.
54:28
Speaker 5: Now that's cool. Reminds me of the UPS study that
54:32
Speaker 5: was done on the seatbelt click and then turning on
54:35
Speaker 5: the ignition at the same time, and how they added
54:38
Speaker 5: up how many seconds that they were saving and it
54:40
Speaker 5: meant hours and that's wild.
54:43
Speaker 9: So you take that with technology and you build in
54:45
Speaker 9: technology into those efficiencies. You take a look at logistics
54:49
Speaker 9: and create logistics efficiencies and that compiles to the end
54:52
Speaker 9: user or creating a better margin.
54:54
Speaker 5: At the store level, let's talk about the human and
54:58
Speaker 5: all of this, the person, the patient. What does K
55:01
Speaker 5: and B pharmacies do to bring more the focal point,
55:07
Speaker 5: more personalization to the patient's experience.
55:12
Speaker 9: So that's at the store level, what we can we
55:16
Speaker 9: advise we're more of a buying group of GPO to
55:20
Speaker 9: support and give the necessary tools. I will say that
55:24
Speaker 9: I reflect that based upon our own stores where the
55:28
Speaker 9: messaging that we have is every patient. We treat every
55:31
Speaker 9: patient like their family, and that needs to be the
55:34
Speaker 9: focal point when dealing with a patient that may be
55:38
Speaker 9: English as a second language, may have limited levels of transportation,
55:45
Speaker 9: or even having a fear of communicating to their primary
55:49
Speaker 9: doctor specialists and so forth.
55:51
Speaker 6: So all those are very.
55:54
Speaker 9: Real challenges we see in the marketplace where that needs
55:59
Speaker 9: to be emphasized as an independent pharmacy owner, and sometimes
56:03
Speaker 9: that gets lost in translation. You get busy or the
56:06
Speaker 9: store level gets busy, you take these efficiencies away and
56:09
Speaker 9: you have a very inefficient model at the store, and
56:12
Speaker 9: it's at the sacrifice of who to patient. So for us,
56:16
Speaker 9: I always take a step back, look at where my
56:19
Speaker 9: lack thereof our efficiencies are and curtail it so we
56:23
Speaker 9: can have a customer with a positive experience in that environment,
56:27
Speaker 9: especially if they're a new patient and let's just say
56:30
Speaker 9: they're on their type two diabetic or unfortunately come across
56:34
Speaker 9: a diagnosis of chronic kidney disease and they're on anywhere
56:38
Speaker 9: from five to eighteen medications. Then what happens, it's a
56:42
Speaker 9: shock and of effect, and English is the second language
56:45
Speaker 9: you're not being able to get to and from the
56:47
Speaker 9: physician or doctorMary. We take a step back and become
56:50
Speaker 9: that liaison, We become that support channel to each individual patient.
56:54
Speaker 9: So that's a big emphasis or a significant part of
56:59
Speaker 9: what we do to take a step back and look
57:01
Speaker 9: at what those are.
57:03
Speaker 5: Robert, thank you for spending time with us here at
57:05
Speaker 5: ASSEMBIA and sharing a little bit more about the K
57:08
Speaker 5: and B pharmacy associate story. We appreciate this.
57:12
Speaker 6: Thank you so much, Thank you Todd,