Latest / Pharmacy Podcast Network / inSPire 2026 Rewind; The Hub of Specialty Pharmacy | Part Two

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inSPire 2026 Rewind; The Hub of Specialty Pharmacy | Part Two · Pharmacy Podcast Network

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Speaker 1: A special thank you to our sponsors for this year's
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Speaker 1: coverage of Inspire 2026. Your support makes our coverage possible.
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Speaker 1: And now, a quick message before this episode begins.
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Speaker 2: Clearway Health is transforming specialty pharmacy for hospitals, health systems,
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Speaker 2: and the patients they serve. More than a specialty pharmacy partner,
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Speaker 2: Clearway Health is an extension of the care team. Working
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Speaker 2: directly with hospitals and health systems across the country, Clearway
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Speaker 2: Health helps plan, design, build, and optimize specialty pharmacy programs
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Speaker 2: that improve access, reduce barriers, and deliver better outcomes for
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Speaker 2: patients with complex medical conditions. Through their embedded care model,
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Speaker 2: Clearway Health places pharmacists and patient liaisons directly into clinical workflows,
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Speaker 2: supporting providers with prior authorizations, financial assistance coordination, and patient education,
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Speaker 2: freeing up care teams to focus on what matters most,
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Speaker 2: the patient. Powered by advanced technology and real-time data insights,
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Speaker 2: Clearway Health streamlines the entire medication journey, ensuring patients receive
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Speaker 2: the right medications at the right time. Clearway Health brings
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Speaker 2: real-world experience and proven results, helping health systems unlock new
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Speaker 2: revenue streams while expanding access to life-changing specialty medications. Clearway
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Speaker 2: Health is leading the way in transforming specialty pharmacy. Learn
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Speaker 2: more at clearwayhealth.com. You are listening to the global network
1:37
Speaker 2: of podcasters dedicated to the pharmacy profession.
1:40
Speaker 3: Welcome to the Pharmacy Podcast Network.
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Speaker 4: It's that time of year where the Pharmacy Podcast Network's
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Speaker 4: founder and CEO, Todd Urie, lands where the hub of
2:03
Speaker 4: specialty pharmacy hosts their annual meeting. Introducing the Inspire 2026
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Speaker 4: Annual Expo.
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Speaker 3: That's right.
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Speaker 4: Specialty pharmacy is evolving, and so is the name of
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Speaker 4: its largest annual meeting. The NASP Annual Meeting and Expo
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Speaker 4: got an upgrade. Innovation, networking, specialty pharmacy expertise, insights, research,
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Speaker 4: and education come together to empower, educate, and connect our community.
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Speaker 4: Live in National Harbor, Maryland, tune in as Todd roams
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Speaker 4: the showroom floor, bringing you the inside coverage of this
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Speaker 4: year's event.
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Speaker 5: Hey, this is Allison Aran with Clearway Health, and you're
2:41
Speaker 5: listening to the Pharmacy Podcast.
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Speaker 6: Hey, Allison, it's great to see you here at Inspire 2026.
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Speaker 7: How's this conference been for you?
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Speaker 5: It's been great. It's so good to be here. It's
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Speaker 5: great to be with Sheila and her team at Inspire.
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Speaker 5: We are just over behind you at booth 302 having
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Speaker 5: really good conversations with folks. So it's great to be here.
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Speaker 7: I was headed over there to find you timed us
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Speaker 7: for the interview. I saw your smiling face come through
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Speaker 7: the doors. I'm like, there she is. I was so excited.
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Speaker 7: We get lots of Zoom time, but we never get
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Speaker 7: time in front of each other.
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Speaker 6: And that's such a different dynamic.
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Speaker 8: It is.
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Speaker 5: I was just talking to somebody on the elevator about
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Speaker 5: just the importance of getting together and sharing ideas because
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Speaker 5: you have the time and space for the elevator conversations
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Speaker 5: and the dinner and coffee break conversations that you just
3:27
Speaker 5: can't have when you're in a square on Zoom for
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Speaker 5: 30 minutes.
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Speaker 7: I want to give a pause and say we had
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Speaker 7: a first-time attendee on our show.
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Speaker 6: We did her recording yesterday.
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Speaker 7: And she said this is the friendliest conference that she's
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Speaker 7: ever been to with regards to the vibe, with regards
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Speaker 7: to the people welcoming her. Every time she says she's
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Speaker 7: a first-time attendee, people were telling her to come into
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Speaker 7: the booths or do something.
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Speaker 6: And I'm like, that is so cool.
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Speaker 7: Because sometimes we get so busy in what we're doing.
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Speaker 7: For a new person, it may feel like it's a
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Speaker 7: snobbery or something. And Sheila and the team should be
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Speaker 7: proud of that because they are.
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Speaker 6: This is very.
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Speaker 7: And I think that ties back to the new theme
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Speaker 7: of Inspire as well.
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Speaker 5: Yeah. This concept of belonging.
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Speaker 9: It's important.
4:15
Speaker 6: Exactly.
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Speaker 10: All right.
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Speaker 8: Belonging.
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Speaker 7: And that is Clearway Health belonging in specialty pharmacy, the
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Speaker 7: work that you're doing, some of the strategies that you're positioning.
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Speaker 6: When I think of how.
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Speaker 7: health systems are under so much pressure they have to
4:31
Speaker 7: get out they have to get more health care services
4:33
Speaker 7: out to their community than ever obviously specialty pharmacy embedded
4:38
Speaker 7: in some of our health systems some of them are
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Speaker 7: doing it really well some of them are doing not
4:42
Speaker 7: doing it so well struggling a little bit you were
4:45
Speaker 7: talking to me about maximizing other things that are happening
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Speaker 7: with with patients coming in for office visits home infusion
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Speaker 7: that needs to happen first maybe within the center Talk
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Speaker 7: to us about some of those expansion opportunities that health
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Speaker 7: systems might not be realizing, holy cow, we could triple
5:01
Speaker 7: dip our specialty pharmacy expertise.
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Speaker 5: Yeah. You know, ambulatory expansion is not a new strategy
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Speaker 5: or concept for hospitals and health systems. Really trying to
5:11
Speaker 5: move more care out into the community. create more access
5:14
Speaker 5: points for patients. Specialty pharmacy has an absolute place in that.
5:18
Speaker 5: And one of the things that we think about is
5:21
Speaker 5: the ways that we leverage specialty pharmacy to help power
5:25
Speaker 5: overall ambulatory expansion strategies for our clients and their partners.
5:29
Speaker 5: When we sit down and start to look at the
5:31
Speaker 5: opportunity that a health system has, Everyone will take the
5:34
Speaker 5: same approach. You'll look and you'll say, hey, we have
5:37
Speaker 5: this many specialty clinics as a part of our network.
5:39
Speaker 5: We have this many providers. They are writing this many
5:42
Speaker 5: prescriptions for specialty medications over the period of a year.
5:46
Speaker 5: But then oftentimes they'll say, where are our opportunities? You
5:50
Speaker 5: have to look at that pop health data, look at
5:51
Speaker 5: the market and see what other areas do you need
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Speaker 5: to lean into? In a highly competitive market, are you
5:57
Speaker 5: going to try to grow your oncology or grow your gastroenterology?
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Speaker 5: Do you need to add more providers? Oftentimes and historically,
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Speaker 5: people will look at the value prop of that and say, okay,
6:09
Speaker 5: for clinic visits, we'll drive this amount of revenue. For procedures,
6:13
Speaker 5: we'll drive this amount of revenue. we're finding that organizations
6:17
Speaker 5: are leaving out the valuation of specialty pharmacy in that
6:20
Speaker 5: ambulatory expansion strategy. So as we have these conversations with
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Speaker 5: health systems and we understand their overall organizational growth strategies,
6:29
Speaker 5: we say, what specialties are important to you? And we're
6:33
Speaker 5: looking at something.
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Speaker 3: Like $ 8.
6:35
Speaker 5: Million, $ 10 million of annual growth of revenue by adding
6:40
Speaker 5: one of those specialty providers, which is a significant opportunity
6:44
Speaker 5: for growth and to be able to provide greater, stronger,
6:47
Speaker 5: connected care to the community.
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Speaker 7: I always think of the struggles to communicate that to
6:53
Speaker 7: the public and what's available within the health system. That's
6:57
Speaker 7: another opportunity for health systems to take their marketing messaging,
7:02
Speaker 7: reach out to state representatives and getting them involved. Talk
7:07
Speaker 7: to me about some of the strategies you've helped some
7:09
Speaker 7: of your health system clients in order to leverage communication the.
7:14
Speaker 6: Right way to their communities about specialty pharmacy?
7:16
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's a tremendous marketing and communications aspect of that
7:21
Speaker 5: for sure. I'll give you a few examples. Just in
7:24
Speaker 5: the last three months, Clearway Health has opened three new
7:27
Speaker 5: pharmacies at three different health systems across the country. We
7:30
Speaker 5: have a new pharmacy in California, in Illinois, and in
7:34
Speaker 5: New Jersey. Part of that is the expansion plan and
7:38
Speaker 5: the way that it's being communicated out to the community.
7:40
Speaker 5: And so Part of that first is provider education and
7:43
Speaker 5: clinician education to help them understand that for a very
7:47
Speaker 5: long time, you've been writing your prescription and the patient
7:49
Speaker 5: has been served, but by perhaps a contract pharmacy that's
7:54
Speaker 5: somewhere else across the country mailing that prescription to that patient.
7:58
Speaker 5: Now patients have the right to choose to have that
8:00
Speaker 5: prescription filled within the four walls of your health system.
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Speaker 5: So it starts with that education internally, and then it's
8:07
Speaker 5: really helping patients to understand that they now have a
8:09
Speaker 5: right to choose I think the value of the partnerships
8:12
Speaker 5: that Clearway Health brings to our clients is that we're
8:14
Speaker 5: not just helping with that communication strategy. We're not only
8:17
Speaker 5: helping with the pharmacy build and design and planning. We
8:20
Speaker 5: are providing these liaisons who are truly clearing a pathway
8:24
Speaker 5: for patients who are on specialty medication therapies and helping
8:28
Speaker 5: educate them on that right to choose, not to mention
8:31
Speaker 5: all of the other barriers that they're helping to eliminate,
8:33
Speaker 5: like the benefits prior authorization and the work that has
8:37
Speaker 5: to happen to create stronger access. You mentioned some of
8:42
Speaker 5: the regulatory components, and I think that's a really cool
8:45
Speaker 5: way that Clearway Health sits alongside our client partners. When
8:48
Speaker 5: you think about 340B as part of the foundation of
8:52
Speaker 5: so many of these specialty pharmacy programs, There is a
8:56
Speaker 5: tremendous amount of advocacy work that's happening right now. We're
8:59
Speaker 5: approaching the 340B rebate model taking effect in January. We've
9:03
Speaker 5: been navigating MFP with our clients and looking ahead to
9:07
Speaker 5: what's next. There is so often this parallel path that
9:10
Speaker 5: we take to support our clients where their compliance and
9:13
Speaker 5: regulatory teams are doing tremendous work, either in local government
9:18
Speaker 5: at the state level or on the national level. One
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Speaker 5: really great example is the work that Sinai Chicago has
9:24
Speaker 5: been doing as they're advocating for the incredible importance of
9:28
Speaker 5: 340B in the Chicagoland area. Sameer Shah, Tom Yu have
9:34
Speaker 5: been incredible voices locally in Illinois. And they know the
9:38
Speaker 5: importance that the 340B program brings to their organization. They've
9:42
Speaker 5: matched that with the ambulatory expansion strategies that we talked
9:46
Speaker 5: about a little bit ago. So it all starts to
9:48
Speaker 5: come together when you say, okay, we need to understand
9:50
Speaker 5: the importance, fight for the importance of it, serve our patients,
9:53
Speaker 5: educate our providers and clinicians. And all of that can
9:56
Speaker 5: happen in parallel. And when it does, it drives really
9:59
Speaker 5: incredible progress.
10:00
Speaker 11: Growth.
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Speaker 7: Those stories, Allison, that you tell from the experience of
10:04
Speaker 7: how you've helped your client change, pivot, strategize differently, that's
10:11
Speaker 7: powerful for health systems that aren't thinking about it that
10:14
Speaker 7: way because they're so concentrating on giving the services and
10:19
Speaker 7: making sure that the patient is left behind. Sometimes they
10:22
Speaker 7: don't see specialty pharmacy. Sometimes that's kind of off in
10:26
Speaker 7: the woods and it's not really front and center. And
10:28
Speaker 7: it really should be, especially when you're talking about a
10:31
Speaker 7: complex rare disease.
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Speaker 12: That's right.
10:33
Speaker 5: And I think when specialty pharmacy plays a role in
10:38
Speaker 5: the treatment of these rare diseases or strategically in the
10:41
Speaker 5: ambulatory expansion of a health system, there then becomes this
10:45
Speaker 5: decision point of placement and expansion even within pharmacy itself
10:49
Speaker 5: I mentioned the pharmacies that we've helped to open in
10:52
Speaker 5: recent months, and very few of them are immediately on
10:57
Speaker 5: the campus of that hospital. One happens to be in
11:00
Speaker 5: the lobby with incredible prime real estate that we were
11:03
Speaker 5: able to help to set up for them. But so
11:05
Speaker 5: many of specialty prescriptions are mail order. And so as
11:10
Speaker 5: health systems are thinking about opening their specialty pharmacy for
11:13
Speaker 5: the first time, we'll help with that intentional and planful
11:16
Speaker 5: approach to design, which includes location. And then for clients
11:20
Speaker 5: who have had specialty pharmacies for a very long time,
11:23
Speaker 5: and I think we're starting to see that shift in
11:25
Speaker 5: the market, especially over the last three to five years,
11:28
Speaker 5: where there are fewer people doing it for the first time,
11:32
Speaker 5: we start to look at ways that we're elevating the
11:34
Speaker 5: access for those specialty pharmacies. So as you start to
11:38
Speaker 5: capture that initial early growth, then we're looking to things
11:41
Speaker 5: like ongoing limited distribution drug access, payer PBM access, manufacturer relationships,
11:48
Speaker 5: and really navigating some of those pathways because oftentimes you'll
11:52
Speaker 5: have very few of these specialty drugs that are an
11:55
Speaker 5: incredibly high price point that make up tremendous opportunity for
11:58
Speaker 5: the margin of the health system. And so really navigating
12:01
Speaker 5: and putting a tremendous amount of effort into gaining access
12:04
Speaker 5: to maybe only a handful of drugs could drive meaningful
12:07
Speaker 5: improvement for patient access and for the growth of the
12:10
Speaker 5: financial strength of the organization.
12:12
Speaker 7: I always say clearing the way for better specialty pharmacy.
12:17
Speaker 7: One of the questions I meant to ask you when
12:20
Speaker 7: you've been on some of our other shows is accreditation
12:24
Speaker 7: and being able to guide your health system, especially pharmacy,
12:28
Speaker 7: through that process. I would think that it would help
12:31
Speaker 7: to accelerate that process a bit when you have an
12:35
Speaker 7: organization like Clearway that's like saying, hey, here's about what's
12:38
Speaker 7: to happen.
12:39
Speaker 6: Here's what you can expect.
12:41
Speaker 7: And then that way they're ready faster for the submission
12:45
Speaker 7: of the information process.
12:46
Speaker 6: That the body is looking for?
12:48
Speaker 5: Absolutely. So let's put accreditation in two buckets. The first
12:52
Speaker 5: will be when we're building a pharmacy for the first time.
12:55
Speaker 5: The second will be for an existing pharmacy that is
12:58
Speaker 5: now seeking accreditation. So for that first bucket, when we're
13:01
Speaker 5: building a specialty pharmacy for the first time, we are
13:04
Speaker 5: building it with accreditation in mind so that we are
13:07
Speaker 5: establishing policies and procedures that are required, the oversight committee
13:12
Speaker 5: that is required to govern the accrediting requirements, And as
13:16
Speaker 5: we build that pharmacy, our goal is that we are
13:18
Speaker 5: achieving the first accreditation within 60 to 90 days of
13:22
Speaker 5: opening that pharmacy or sooner. Then it clears a pathway
13:26
Speaker 5: for us to obtain that second dual accreditation well within
13:29
Speaker 5: the first year of the pharmacy opening. That's an incredible
13:32
Speaker 5: milestone because it means growth happens faster, access happens faster.
13:37
Speaker 5: And so then the work becomes on maintaining that accreditation
13:40
Speaker 5: over time. The second group is when we partner with
13:44
Speaker 5: a health system who has an established specialty pharmacy but
13:47
Speaker 5: has maybe not obtained URAC or ACHC. Maybe they've gotten
13:52
Speaker 5: one but not the other. And so we'll really help
13:55
Speaker 5: to do an analysis to evaluate what is the value
13:57
Speaker 5: of those accreditations. Certainly it is the mark of excellence.
14:01
Speaker 5: And with that, what kind of access and what kind
14:03
Speaker 5: of dollars come from that. So we'll look at the
14:05
Speaker 5: drugs to say these are the drugs that require dual accreditation.
14:09
Speaker 5: for access, here's the dollars that it supports, here's the
14:12
Speaker 5: number of patients you will be able to serve differently
14:14
Speaker 5: through your own health system. And so those pathways are
14:17
Speaker 5: really important. The other component of that is Clearway Health
14:21
Speaker 5: has a proprietary patient management solution called Charter. The documentation
14:25
Speaker 5: pathways in Charter meet accreditation requirements. And so holistically you
14:30
Speaker 5: start to look at this program and all of these
14:33
Speaker 5: parallel paths are running together so that we have people, policies, procedures, technology, operations.
14:40
Speaker 5: And all of that wraps around the ability to achieve
14:43
Speaker 5: and maintain accreditation.
14:44
Speaker 6: That's incredible.
14:45
Speaker 7: It's so much gives that feeling at that CFO level
14:50
Speaker 7: and the executive level that, wow, this is going to
14:53
Speaker 7: happen much faster. And it's less undefined of how to
14:59
Speaker 7: grow the specialty pharmacy that you've already invested in or
15:03
Speaker 7: what's happening, like you said, starting up your specialty pharmacy
15:06
Speaker 7: in a in a health system that desperately needs it
15:09
Speaker 7: for the community. And when I think of mail order
15:13
Speaker 7: fused with specialty care, that's not a good feeling if
15:18
Speaker 7: I were dealing with a disease. I would want it
15:21
Speaker 7: sourced from my health system, knowing my doctor, knowing my pharmacist,
15:26
Speaker 7: knowing the team that's surrounding me when I go for checkups.
15:29
Speaker 7: I think there's a whole nother thing to health care
15:33
Speaker 7: at that local level.
15:35
Speaker 5: Absolutely. And There's a few components of that. One is
15:38
Speaker 5: that Clearway Health believes inherently that a patient is best
15:43
Speaker 5: served by the hospital or health system where they are
15:46
Speaker 5: comfortable and competent receiving care. And that is a given.
15:49
Speaker 5: And so any way that we can navigate and break
15:52
Speaker 5: down the barriers that that health system has to be
15:55
Speaker 5: able to care for that patient is just core to
15:58
Speaker 5: the work that we do. And you're right, I think,
16:01
Speaker 5: especially in the market, we're seeing now so much diversification
16:05
Speaker 5: with multiple pharmacies and options that patient has to choose.
16:09
Speaker 5: Beyond that, we're seeing more restrictions, which makes it harder
16:13
Speaker 5: for health systems to be able to gain access to
16:15
Speaker 5: that medication to serve that patient. And so one of
16:18
Speaker 5: the value drivers in partnering with someone like Clearway Health
16:21
Speaker 5: is that we are looking comprehensively at all of those
16:24
Speaker 5: things and navigating those hurdles to make sure that we're
16:27
Speaker 5: forward-looking and helping to plan for those challenges as they
16:30
Speaker 5: come up so that health systems aren't looking in the
16:33
Speaker 5: rearview mirror trying to figure out what happened, what happened
16:36
Speaker 5: when a patient didn't receive that medication because they couldn't
16:39
Speaker 5: put it in their inventory. The script had to go
16:42
Speaker 5: somewhere else and they lost that closed-loop ability to track it.
16:45
Speaker 5: At the end of the day, there's a patient who
16:47
Speaker 5: needs their medication. And so finding the way for the
16:49
Speaker 5: health system to serve their patient is the most important
16:52
Speaker 5: part of all of this.
16:54
Speaker 6: All right.
16:55
Speaker 7: Allison, we have another Clearway Health interview upcoming here on
17:00
Speaker 7: the NASP podcast covering Inspire 2026. Thank you so much
17:04
Speaker 7: for your support for the Pharmacy Podcast Network. It's just
17:08
Speaker 7: been incredible working with you and the Clearway Health team.
17:11
Speaker 7: Shout out to your marketing team as well. We're excited
17:15
Speaker 7: about what's happening in specialty pharmacy. And we love working
17:18
Speaker 7: with you guys.
17:19
Speaker 6: So thank you.
17:19
Speaker 3: Thanks so much.
17:20
Speaker 5: It's great to see you. Appreciate your partnership.
17:26
Speaker 9: Hi, this is Derek Dennis, Senior Vice President of Pharmacy
17:28
Speaker 9: Operations with Clearway Health. And you're listening to the Pharmacy Podcast.
17:33
Speaker 7: Dennis, welcome to Inspire 2026, the NASP podcast.
17:38
Speaker 6: It's great to have you.
17:40
Speaker 11: Thanks.
17:40
Speaker 9: Appreciate it. Excited to be here. Lots of great vendors
17:43
Speaker 9: and booths, lots of great colleagues to see that you
17:45
Speaker 9: only get to see ever so often. So really enjoying
17:47
Speaker 9: the time.
17:48
Speaker 7: Yeah, the change from the NASP as an association to
17:54
Speaker 7: now identifying it as a special conference where we come
17:57
Speaker 7: together and inspire each other. I think it's a perfect
18:01
Speaker 7: analysis and name of what is happening here where specialty
18:06
Speaker 7: pharmacy happens. There's so many parts of what is specialty pharmacy.
18:13
Speaker 7: We're seeing fractionalization of different types of specialty pharmacies. There's
18:17
Speaker 7: a new expression that says specialty pharmacy light, infusion, compounding.
18:23
Speaker 6: So one of the.
18:24
Speaker 7: Parts of specialty pharmacy that's a head scratcher for a
18:28
Speaker 7: lot of people, especially like within our health systems and
18:31
Speaker 7: getting people access to medications, is the 340B space.
18:33
Speaker 10: Sure.
18:36
Speaker 7: You guys have been a guiding light for so many
18:38
Speaker 7: specialty pharmacies over the years, especially our health systems.
18:42
Speaker 6: Could you kind of give us an overview of what's
18:44
Speaker 6: going on?
18:44
Speaker 9: Yeah, you know, for all of our partners, you know,
18:47
Speaker 9: they own their own health system specialty pharmacies. And, you know,
18:52
Speaker 9: we've been following the news, the information around the 340B
18:55
Speaker 9: rebate model. Really started last year, thought that something was
18:59
Speaker 9: going to launch in 26. It did not. And then
19:02
Speaker 9: there's been revisions to that. But it was announced last
19:04
Speaker 9: I guess, a couple months ago that the rebate model
19:07
Speaker 9: would go live in 27. And so we're starting to
19:11
Speaker 9: help prepare our clients for that, right? And this is
19:13
Speaker 9: a big change to how systems or pharmacies benefit from
19:18
Speaker 9: the 340B program and how the revenue moves, right? So
19:21
Speaker 9: probably the simplest way to kind of start out what
19:24
Speaker 9: the change is, is they're not going to have to
19:26
Speaker 9: pay a higher upfront cost for these medications that before
19:29
Speaker 9: they were getting discounts on And then there will be
19:32
Speaker 9: several steps that have to occur for them to get
19:34
Speaker 9: this rebate to make them hold on those savings. And,
19:38
Speaker 9: you know, our partners count on these savings. It allows
19:40
Speaker 9: them to offer an enormous amount of services that without
19:44
Speaker 9: the program they could not do. And so this is
19:46
Speaker 9: a big change, and we're actively working to get our
19:49
Speaker 9: clients prepared for it.
19:50
Speaker 8: It.
19:51
Speaker 7: Is one health system or even a separated standalone specialty pharmacy,
19:58
Speaker 7: how's the classification? How is the access to that funding?
20:02
Speaker 7: How's that How is that different from one entity to
20:05
Speaker 7: the next?
20:06
Speaker 9: Yeah, you know, it varies quite a bit depending on
20:08
Speaker 9: the types of patients that they take care of. So
20:12
Speaker 9: the drugs that are included in this model are the
20:14
Speaker 9: same ones that are in the IRA MFP drug list, right?
20:18
Speaker 9: So there's about 25 in total. A few of them
20:20
Speaker 9: are not participating. But depending on the types of medications
20:25
Speaker 9: that they're dispensing, the types of patients, it could have
20:27
Speaker 9: various ramifications, right? So one of the first things we're
20:30
Speaker 9: doing It's just to help our partners understand what is
20:33
Speaker 9: their exposure. So taking a look at the medications they're dispensing,
20:38
Speaker 9: doing some math on that and saying, you know, you're
20:40
Speaker 9: now going to have to pay a higher cost up front.
20:42
Speaker 9: This is going to change your cash flow. This is
20:44
Speaker 9: going to change how you plan. Finance needs to be aware.
20:47
Speaker 9: You may need to have some considerations around payment terms
20:51
Speaker 9: with your wholesalers, looking at that. And so, yeah, it
20:54
Speaker 9: definitely varies across each client. Similar to, you know, you
20:57
Speaker 9: can kind of equate it while different. A lot of
21:00
Speaker 9: folks had to set up new processes for the MFP
21:03
Speaker 9: program this year. And that varied across our clients. Some
21:07
Speaker 9: had little impact. Some had a lot. And the analysis
21:10
Speaker 9: part of that is kind of that first step. So
21:13
Speaker 9: we're working through that. After kind of understanding exposure, it's
21:17
Speaker 9: really about partnering or having the right processes to submit
21:21
Speaker 9: for these new rebates. And then once those submission occurs,
21:25
Speaker 9: there's multiple steps to reconciliation after that. So hopefully you
21:29
Speaker 9: submit and you get paid, right? And the money comes
21:31
Speaker 9: back in and you're able to take care of these
21:33
Speaker 9: patients the same way you have. But we know there
21:36
Speaker 9: will be denials, there will be data issues. And really
21:39
Speaker 9: reconciling all of that is a place we're spending a
21:41
Speaker 9: lot of time in preparation. We invested in some additional
21:44
Speaker 9: folks in our 340B team specifically for this. So as
21:48
Speaker 9: we're going to our partners to talk through this, It's
21:51
Speaker 9: not me that's leading them through it. It's our specialist.
21:53
Speaker 9: And so we've been expecting it. So we did that
21:56
Speaker 9: earlier in the year to make sure we could be
21:57
Speaker 9: prepared to support that.
21:59
Speaker 11: All right.
22:00
Speaker 7: What's it what's the conference been like for you and
22:03
Speaker 7: being here in Washington, D.C. and getting all together with
22:06
Speaker 7: people we don't get to see enough? It's always Zoom meetings.
22:08
Speaker 9: Oh, it's amazing.
22:09
Speaker 10: Right.
22:10
Speaker 9: So D.C. is a great venue. I love the area,
22:12
Speaker 9: great food, going out for another great dinner this evening.
22:15
Speaker 9: So that's always fun with some colleagues. I love the
22:18
Speaker 9: part of just passing people in the hallways, taking 15
22:21
Speaker 9: minute conversations, learning what's happening within their space and taking
22:26
Speaker 9: that and trying to apply it for Clearway and for
22:28
Speaker 9: our partners. I always look forward to it every year.
22:30
Speaker 9: This has been a great venue. I do love the
22:33
Speaker 9: Gaylord in D.C. It's a little smaller, so getting from
22:36
Speaker 9: room to the different events has been great, too.
22:39
Speaker 7: Yeah. Sometimes when you go to the bigger ones, you
22:42
Speaker 7: have to walk two miles.
22:43
Speaker 6: To get anywhere, huh?
22:44
Speaker 9: Yeah, and you forget your badge, and now you've got
22:46
Speaker 9: to go back. So, yeah, that's my experience. But this
22:48
Speaker 9: has been a great venue.
22:50
Speaker 6: All right.
22:50
Speaker 7: We so much appreciate the support of Clearway Health with
22:53
Speaker 7: our podcast press coverage. Really appreciate the insights that you
22:58
Speaker 7: bring to health system pharmacy and specialty pharmacy. Derek Dennis,
23:02
Speaker 7: thanks so much for being on the NESP podcast.
23:05
Speaker 9: Appreciate it, Todd. Thank you.
23:11
Speaker 7: Ben Heiser here at the Inspire 2026.
23:15
Speaker 6: Ben, welcome to the conference.
23:18
Speaker 12: Thanks, Todd. It's always a highlight of the conference to
23:21
Speaker 12: join you for a little conversation.
23:23
Speaker 7: So NASP, their conference, this is the first year they're
23:27
Speaker 7: calling it Inspire. I'm feeling inspired with the energy that's here.
23:32
Speaker 7: How long have you been coming to the NASP's annual? Oh, boy.
23:36
Speaker 12: Let's see. Probably somewhere 10 to 11 years maybe this
23:40
Speaker 12: might be. It's been, again, a lot of years. It's
23:43
Speaker 12: a lot of things have happened since the time of
23:45
Speaker 12: the conference in and of itself has changed and grown.
23:48
Speaker 12: As I look around the exhibit hall here, it's incredible
23:50
Speaker 12: to see every year the the number of new vendors
23:53
Speaker 12: that are coming to do something to support patients in
23:56
Speaker 12: specialty pharmacy.
23:57
Speaker 7: And congratulations on your work and your individual career. You
24:01
Speaker 7: have really leveled up the responsibility that you've taken on
24:07
Speaker 7: in really helping with Lumicera. But I can only think
24:10
Speaker 7: of the domino effect that this has had on specialty
24:14
Speaker 7: pharmacy care and the patients that you serve.
24:17
Speaker 12: Well, that's why we're all here. I mean, every company
24:20
Speaker 12: that's here has some sort of influence and impact on
24:23
Speaker 12: specialty pharmacy. Certainly at Lumicera and now as an extension
24:26
Speaker 12: of that, ClearVenta, we want to continue to accelerate the
24:29
Speaker 12: things that we do within the specialty space to take
24:31
Speaker 12: care of our patients. And the more patients that we
24:34
Speaker 12: can serve in a variety of different therapeutic classes, different areas,
24:38
Speaker 12: the way we can change supply chain economics, we're really
24:41
Speaker 12: in this for our patients. Oftentimes, especially as you get
24:44
Speaker 12: into the business side of pharmacy, you start looking at
24:47
Speaker 12: those financial numbers. But what we very often center back
24:50
Speaker 12: on is that there's a patient behind every single thing
24:52
Speaker 12: that we do, and that's what really drives us, is
24:55
Speaker 12: making sure that we are ultimately serving the patients that desperately.
24:58
Speaker 10: Need our help.
24:59
Speaker 7: Ben, over the next three years, the FDA is looking
25:03
Speaker 7: at approvals at right around 120, 123 new medications that
25:06
Speaker 7: are going to be coming out. That tells me that
25:12
Speaker 7: specialty pharmacy is growing. And with that growth, we need
25:18
Speaker 7: more pharmacists to start dialing into what that rare disease
25:23
Speaker 7: challenge brings to their patient. Talk to me about that
25:27
Speaker 7: from your perspective. You back up to graduation day, you
25:31
Speaker 7: graduating with your PharmD. you probably had no idea that
25:35
Speaker 7: you were going to be a leader in specialty pharmacy
25:38
Speaker 7: at the time. But I'm talking, my microphone right now
25:42
Speaker 7: is directed towards the P3, the P4 that's out there
25:45
Speaker 7: right now looking at their career.
25:47
Speaker 12: Well, there are a lot of different ways that we
25:49
Speaker 12: can go with this. You are 100% right that I
25:52
Speaker 12: had no idea that specialty pharmacy or even the leadership
25:54
Speaker 12: level that I'm at was in my future. Certainly, that
25:57
Speaker 12: was an aspiration, but it's great to see it come
25:59
Speaker 12: to fruition. And I think what's certainly exciting is, one,
26:03
Speaker 12: the profession of pharmacy is so powerful. There's so many
26:06
Speaker 12: different ways that you can go from the very traditional retail,
26:09
Speaker 12: hospital standpoint, specialty like we're talking about, but really the
26:12
Speaker 12: pathways are endless. And I think that shows the power
26:14
Speaker 12: of the profession in and of itself, which is great.
26:16
Speaker 12: When we talk about kind of looking forward as to
26:19
Speaker 12: the pipeline of what specialty is going to look like,
26:21
Speaker 12: I do think specialty pharmacies, we know it will change
26:24
Speaker 12: quite a bit. The types of therapies that we provide now,
26:27
Speaker 12: especially as we get specialty generics, biosimilars, I think you're
26:30
Speaker 12: going to see more of that shift to maybe more
26:33
Speaker 12: of a retail-type setting, and specialty as we know it
26:35
Speaker 12: is really going to move into those rare, ultra-rare-type therapies
26:38
Speaker 12: that you mentioned. It's certainly an area that we provide
26:41
Speaker 12: services in and really want to expand in because we
26:44
Speaker 12: feel it fits our service model really, really well, that
26:47
Speaker 12: patient-centered focus, the care that our team provides, and that
26:51
Speaker 12: high-touch member experience. It's interesting when you talk about the pipeline.
26:55
Speaker 12: We're incredibly fortunate that we have the type of innovation
26:58
Speaker 12: that we do, and some of these therapies are going
27:00
Speaker 12: to be first in their class. They're going to help
27:03
Speaker 12: patients that are sitting there without therapies, without really high-quality therapies,
27:06
Speaker 12: and it's going to help improve or maybe even extend
27:08
Speaker 12: their life. I think the other thing that we owe
27:11
Speaker 12: to the industry, though, as well, is as we have
27:14
Speaker 12: all this incredible innovation, how are we being mindful as
27:17
Speaker 12: to how the innovation is being deployed to our patients
27:20
Speaker 12: and to our clients? A lot of people look at
27:22
Speaker 12: it and say... Innovation is incredible.
27:25
Speaker 2: It is.
27:25
Speaker 12: But we also have to take a look at what
27:27
Speaker 12: is the cost of that innovation. So I think as
27:29
Speaker 12: we move forward, we're going to see more design around
27:32
Speaker 12: value-based care, really taking a look at the value that
27:35
Speaker 12: that therapy adds kind of within an existing class or
27:38
Speaker 12: a new class. Because the unfortunate side of it is
27:42
Speaker 12: with all this innovation, we're kind of moving into an
27:44
Speaker 12: affordability crisis. And we really owe it to our clients,
27:48
Speaker 12: our plan sponsors, to really help them navigate that affordability crisis.
27:52
Speaker 12: and make sure that they can get the medications in
27:54
Speaker 12: the hand of their patients that need it, but also
27:57
Speaker 12: can still fund the benefit. And that's some of what
27:59
Speaker 12: we're trying to accomplish with Clarventa and really trying to
28:01
Speaker 12: get that net price up front to make it affordable
28:05
Speaker 12: out of the gate for the plan sponsor. And they're
28:07
Speaker 12: not sitting around waiting for the rebates months after months,
28:10
Speaker 12: which they may or may not get. So there's a
28:12
Speaker 12: lot of meat on the bone to that, a lot
28:15
Speaker 12: of ways that we could go. But you're right, we
28:16
Speaker 12: are in incredible innovation stages.
28:18
Speaker 6: Well, we appreciate you, Ben.
28:19
Speaker 7: You've been a great supporter of the Pharmacy Podcast Network, more.
28:23
Speaker 6: Specifically in the specialty space.
28:26
Speaker 7: And thank you so much for being on the NASP
28:28
Speaker 7: Podcast at Inspire 2026.
28:31
Speaker 12: Always a pleasure, Todd. Thanks for having me. Thank you.
28:36
Speaker 7: Chris Corsi on the NASP Podcast. We're at the Inspire Podcast.
28:41
Speaker 7: 2026 event. Chris, it's so good to see you and
28:44
Speaker 7: spend time with you.
28:45
Speaker 11: Yeah, Todd, it's always fun being out at Inspire and NASP,
28:48
Speaker 11: another great conference here for the specialty pharmacy ecosystem.
28:51
Speaker 13: Yeah.
28:52
Speaker 6: What has this been like for you this year?
28:55
Speaker 7: Every time I talk to you, you walk by, you're
28:57
Speaker 7: always with someone, you had a lot of meetings, things
29:00
Speaker 7: are going on, but what's the outcome been for you?
29:02
Speaker 11: It's been great. It's been great. Everyone is really receptive
29:06
Speaker 11: to our new product, OneJourney. They really are interested in
29:08
Speaker 11: how do we engage our and connect this ecosystem and,
29:11
Speaker 11: and a lot of the fragmentation that's happening there. So
29:14
Speaker 11: it's been a great conference. It's been a busy conference. Uh,
29:16
Speaker 11: I'm ready to get back home to myself.
29:19
Speaker 7: So I'm not getting good sleep at hotels.
29:22
Speaker 6: I usually don't.
29:23
Speaker 7: So I'm definitely looking forward to being back in my bed,
29:26
Speaker 7: but this place excites me. Um, I like the theme inspire.
29:30
Speaker 7: I've been inspired the whole time. I've been inspired by
29:33
Speaker 7: your journey and not to double up on the one
29:35
Speaker 7: journey name, but literally I've been watching you and your
29:39
Speaker 7: journey and you've been able to document some of that
29:42
Speaker 7: through podcasting I want to shout out to the listeners
29:44
Speaker 7: we have a special three part series that is coming
29:48
Speaker 7: out part one is actually already out part two is
29:52
Speaker 7: coming part three is coming we actually got to record
29:54
Speaker 7: with the LumaSara team here in developing number three Talk
30:00
Speaker 7: to us about using podcasting and using social media and
30:05
Speaker 7: some of the things that we've pressed Cassian to give
30:08
Speaker 7: us so that we can echo that. How does that
30:10
Speaker 7: impact communication with the marketplace?
30:12
Speaker 9: Oh, it's great.
30:13
Speaker 12: I mean, just general awareness, right?
30:14
Speaker 11: Everyone understanding the journey, the story, the purpose, and getting
30:18
Speaker 11: everyone aligned as well, right, is just a huge part
30:21
Speaker 11: of it. And understanding they're part of the ecosystem, how
30:23
Speaker 11: can they collaborate with others in the ecosystem, and even
30:26
Speaker 11: finding other people in the ecosystem that want to do
30:28
Speaker 11: the same thing, right? having a lot of our special
30:31
Speaker 11: guests on through that series and bringing them to light
30:34
Speaker 11: that they're collaborators, right? And they're trying to do what
30:36
Speaker 11: is right for the patient and right for their community.
30:38
Speaker 11: So I think it's been great for everyone on the series,
30:40
Speaker 11: and it's been really great for us and great finding
30:43
Speaker 11: additional partners as well.
30:44
Speaker 6: All right.
30:44
Speaker 7: For the listeners, if they don't know, give them kind
30:47
Speaker 7: of an elevator 30-second, one-minute overview of Cassian RX.
30:53
Speaker 10: Yeah.
30:54
Speaker 11: Cassian RX and our One Journey product is an end-to-end
30:57
Speaker 11: orchestration platform So you can think about all the different
31:01
Speaker 11: point solutions that are out there that are not necessarily
31:04
Speaker 11: integrated together. And you have that constant problem at your pharmacy.
31:08
Speaker 11: How do I integrate my PA solution into my benefit
31:11
Speaker 11: check solution, into my dispensing, into my patient workflow? All
31:15
Speaker 11: these different pieces. How do I get my patient digital
31:18
Speaker 11: experience right? How do I get my prescriber experience correct?
31:21
Speaker 11: That's where Cassian comes in with our One Journey product,
31:23
Speaker 11: where we're really that orchestration layer that sits above everything.
31:27
Speaker 11: and really enables all that interconnectivity, communication, and synergy across
31:32
Speaker 11: that ecosystem, across those different stakeholders with our various platforms
31:36
Speaker 11: and our single pane of glass that we're providing to
31:38
Speaker 11: everyone so they have real-time visibility and insights into that
31:41
Speaker 11: patient journey.
31:43
Speaker 7: Chris, we have appreciated so much of the support that
31:45
Speaker 7: you've given us and to our publication through your knowledge
31:49
Speaker 7: and through the insights of bringing people together That's what
31:53
Speaker 7: this is about, learning from each other and sharing and
31:55
Speaker 7: networking and then building a better system that ultimately impacts
31:59
Speaker 7: our patients, especially in such complex diseases that they're going
32:04
Speaker 7: through and the therapies that they have to keep up
32:07
Speaker 7: with and finding a way to get it paid for.
32:09
Speaker 7: You have to have people that are passionate about it.
32:11
Speaker 7: You are so passionate about.
32:12
Speaker 6: What you do.
32:13
Speaker 7: That's why I like working with you. What's next in
32:17
Speaker 7: Cassie and RX? Can you give us any little secrets
32:20
Speaker 7: out there that that you're allowed to talk about that
32:23
Speaker 7: any projects that you're going to be working on over
32:25
Speaker 7: the next year or two.
32:27
Speaker 11: Oh man there's a lot there's a lot uh i
32:30
Speaker 11: think a lot of the most exciting things and not
32:32
Speaker 11: not to double down on the whole ai theme but
32:35
Speaker 11: a lot of a lot of agentic use cases coming
32:38
Speaker 11: about a lot of agentic voice type you cases as
32:41
Speaker 11: well given those patients, you know, another modality that they're
32:44
Speaker 11: familiar with, right? And in a lot of cases, don't
32:47
Speaker 11: mind spending time on the phone, but in a way
32:50
Speaker 11: that is efficient, in a way that is efficient for
32:53
Speaker 11: the healthcare ecosystem as well, where we're, you know, aggregating
32:56
Speaker 11: that data and removing a lot of those silos there.
32:59
Speaker 11: So there's a lot of AI use cases that are
33:02
Speaker 11: coming down the pike and that have been deployed that
33:04
Speaker 11: are really exciting and excited to see the results of
33:06
Speaker 11: them too. And big projects as well, you know, supporting
33:10
Speaker 11: different large specialty pharmacies, hub service providers, IDNs, you know,
33:15
Speaker 11: really working in a lot of different streams there.
33:17
Speaker 9: So, you know.
33:19
Speaker 11: A lot of exciting things, a lot of exciting things coming.
33:21
Speaker 6: I can't wait.
33:22
Speaker 7: Be documenting it through our shows and would like to
33:26
Speaker 7: do some additional reading on Cassian. That's what I want
33:29
Speaker 7: the listener to do. Reach out to Chris and his team.
33:32
Speaker 7: Take a look at Cassian and what they have. Go
33:35
Speaker 7: to CassianRx.com. Chris, I appreciate you being on the NASP podcast. Chris,
33:46
Speaker 7: welcome to the NASP podcast here at Inspire 2026.
33:48
Speaker 6: How are you?
33:50
Speaker 13: I'm doing fabulous.
33:51
Speaker 12: It's such a great conference.
33:52
Speaker 6: You brought your colleague with us. Introduce us.
33:55
Speaker 13: Candice.
33:55
Speaker 10: Yeah.
33:55
Speaker 6: I'm going to open up to you to introduce yourself.
33:58
Speaker 10: Hi, I'm Candice Evans. I'm with Kelly services for the
34:01
Speaker 10: NASP podcast.
34:03
Speaker 6: Very good.
34:03
Speaker 7: So, um, So many jigsaw puzzles of the specialty pharmacy market.
34:10
Speaker 6: We're talking about compliance.
34:11
Speaker 7: We're talking about automation, technology, systems, software, artificial intelligence. However,
34:19
Speaker 7: the most important part of the business of specialty pharmacy
34:23
Speaker 7: inside specialty pharmacy is the staff.
34:26
Speaker 6: And that is the people that actually work.
34:27
Speaker 7: Our pharmacists, our technicians, administration, logistics, people that pack trucks.
34:33
Speaker 6: I mean, there's so much going on.
34:35
Speaker 10: Yep.
34:35
Speaker 7: Kelly Services has been a champion of outsourced staffing as
34:41
Speaker 7: well as private placement for years. Matter of fact, back
34:45
Speaker 7: in my day, doesn't sound like the old guy, but
34:48
Speaker 7: before I got into pharmacy, I was in the staffing
34:50
Speaker 7: industry and actually competed with Kelly.
34:52
Speaker 6: Services in Pittsburgh.
34:54
Speaker 7: So talk to us about being here at a conference
34:57
Speaker 7: that's dedicated not only to pharmacy, but even more specifically
35:01
Speaker 7: specialty pharmacy.
35:03
Speaker 6: And what you guys think as first-time attendees?
35:05
Speaker 13: Yeah, I'll start off. And Todd, yeah, you hit the
35:08
Speaker 13: hammer on the nail. We have such a.
35:11
Speaker 12: Large track record of success.
35:12
Speaker 9: We just had our 80th birthday.
35:14
Speaker 6: Congratulations.
35:15
Speaker 13: So we can say we're the oldest staffing talent solutions firm.
35:18
Speaker 9: In the whole United States.
35:19
Speaker 12: So that's pretty exciting. And it's been a great conference,
35:21
Speaker 12: you know.
35:21
Speaker 13: The partnership, the collaboration, just the enthusiasm everybody's having and
35:27
Speaker 13: seeing some of our clients here and making some new ones,
35:29
Speaker 13: especially some of the startups as they're They're getting more clients.
35:32
Speaker 9: They're scaling up.
35:33
Speaker 13: They need to help their workforce. And some of the folks,
35:37
Speaker 13: they're actually developing the product like we've seen here, medical
35:40
Speaker 13: devices or just like boxes to ship out, special medications.
35:45
Speaker 13: When we think about the warehouse, the logistics, and maybe
35:48
Speaker 13: some of the supply chain gaps that they're having, these
35:50
Speaker 13: are opportunities where we can help them out. We see
35:52
Speaker 13: a lot of enthusiasm, and there's just.
35:55
Speaker 9: A lot of energy to feed off of food.
35:57
Speaker 7: Candice, what is your role with Kelly Services and what
36:00
Speaker 7: do you think of the NASP event here?
36:03
Speaker 10: My name's Candice, I'm from Kelly Services. I'm a director
36:06
Speaker 10: of specialty solutions and my vertical's life sciences and that's
36:09
Speaker 10: why we're here. We're having a great time here as
36:12
Speaker 10: first timers and we're learning a lot from all of
36:15
Speaker 10: the vendors, all the booths surrounding here, as well as
36:17
Speaker 10: all of the attendees. And so what we do with
36:21
Speaker 10: Kelly Specialty Solutions is we not only do specialty staffeting
36:25
Speaker 10: in life sciences, particularly pharma, such as pharmacy techs and pharmacists,
36:32
Speaker 10: we provide patient care. That could mean patient access support.
36:37
Speaker 10: That could mean... A new drug's coming on the market,
36:40
Speaker 10: and our agents are taking calls.
36:42
Speaker 3: Tier one, where's my prescription?
36:43
Speaker 6: Clinical trial stuff.
36:44
Speaker 10: Clinical trials, right? All the way up to, like I said,
36:47
Speaker 10: pharmacist level. And that's not just on the phones. That
36:50
Speaker 10: can be in a warehouse or distribution center too, right?
36:52
Speaker 10: Where we're packing up the drugs and sending them out
36:54
Speaker 10: to the customers. So there's a lot to learn. We're
36:58
Speaker 10: excited to be part of this event moving forward. And
37:01
Speaker 10: I'll put it over to Chris to tell a little
37:04
Speaker 10: bit more about what he does on our end.
37:06
Speaker 13: Yeah, so I'm in the skilled professional solutions division. So
37:09
Speaker 13: we are the fully benefited arm of Kelly. And as
37:12
Speaker 13: we're hearing at this event, you know, healthcare costs going
37:15
Speaker 13: up and health insurance being increasingly important and the benefits
37:19
Speaker 13: that talent are getting as they're going to new places.
37:22
Speaker 13: And that's something that we pride ourselves on, you know,
37:25
Speaker 13: with debt being increasingly rising. We find that, you know,
37:29
Speaker 13: talent and their families want to make sure that they're.
37:31
Speaker 12: Taken care of.
37:33
Speaker 13: So we have the ability to make sure that they're
37:35
Speaker 13: from a benefit standpoint, getting that access that they need.
37:39
Speaker 13: And that's going to help with candidate retention and candidate
37:43
Speaker 13: attraction and kind of narrow down the pool of candidates
37:46
Speaker 13: to kind of the key target areas and the right
37:48
Speaker 13: personnel who can come in and integrate with these firms
37:51
Speaker 13: and hit the ground running, knowing that they're covered financially
37:55
Speaker 13: with their benefits.
37:57
Speaker 7: So in the staffing situations, I'm going to keep it
38:00
Speaker 7: to a specialty pharmacy perspective. example if I pick up
38:05
Speaker 7: a new contract if I take on a new chosen
38:10
Speaker 7: pharmaceutical drug and I need to staff quickly if I
38:16
Speaker 7: could reach out to Kelly and say hey it's going
38:18
Speaker 7: to be you know XYZ drug or whatever and we
38:23
Speaker 7: need you know 20 techs to understand this and documentation
38:28
Speaker 7: management we need a pharmacist who's experienced with you know, XYZ,
38:34
Speaker 7: whatever it is.
38:35
Speaker 6: So Kelly Services and the division, you could really.
38:38
Speaker 7: Kind of hone in and turn that around much faster
38:40
Speaker 7: than what probably a specialty pharmacy could do.
38:43
Speaker 13: On their own.
38:44
Speaker 10: Oh, absolutely. Because we already have that select candidate pool waiting, right?
38:47
Speaker 10: We have them engaged with other customers. And our goal
38:50
Speaker 10: is obviously to keep those people working, right? So if
38:53
Speaker 10: one engagement ends, then we could put them on another one.
38:56
Speaker 10: And they're already skilled in that area, particularly. So, for example,
39:00
Speaker 10: prescription management, taking verbal prescriptions from healthcare providers, you know,
39:04
Speaker 10: all of that, annotating, problem solving, understanding patient needs. We're
39:09
Speaker 10: specialized in that. So we're the people behind the solution
39:13
Speaker 10: that that company is trying to deliver.
39:15
Speaker 6: That's incredible.
39:16
Speaker 7: So when I was thinking, when you were saying warehousing, Chris,
39:20
Speaker 7: I have one, two, three, four, I have four... buying
39:25
Speaker 7: group and small distributor clients of ours that we help
39:29
Speaker 7: them with their public relations and podcasting and marketing. I
39:33
Speaker 7: could imagine if they're like, hey, we have a new
39:36
Speaker 7: product that we're coming out with. It's going to increase
39:39
Speaker 7: our warehouse need for staff. I need 16 people as
39:44
Speaker 7: quickly as possible. That's going to be hard to source
39:47
Speaker 7: on their own. whereas they might tap into the outsourced services.
39:52
Speaker 7: And what happens if it's a seasonal situation where They
39:55
Speaker 7: don't want to lay them off.
39:56
Speaker 6: You know, they just hired 16 people. You got them trained.
39:59
Speaker 7: They worked there for six months, and now they come back,
40:01
Speaker 7: and they're like, we only need eight of the 16.
40:04
Speaker 7: So talk to us about them being able to shift
40:06
Speaker 7: gears and go faster and go slower.
40:09
Speaker 13: Yeah, I would say that outsourcing BPO solution is the
40:12
Speaker 13: first thing that comes to mind. So the first one
40:14
Speaker 13: I mentioned to you is where we would manage the service, right?
40:17
Speaker 13: We would manage the people for you. We have a
40:18
Speaker 13: dedicated talent care team. They're making sure that they have
40:21
Speaker 13: everything with their benefits. vacation, even supplies, travel, so the
40:26
Speaker 13: managers who are feeling the pain points and the gaps,
40:28
Speaker 13: they can really just focus on their work and do
40:30
Speaker 13: what they do best. When you're looking to kind of
40:32
Speaker 13: scale up and maybe have more of a solution where
40:34
Speaker 13: we're delivering on it and we're managing on it, that
40:37
Speaker 13: would probably be more of our business process outsourcing solution
40:40
Speaker 13: I'm going to hand it over to Candice because she's
40:42
Speaker 13: an absolute.
40:42
Speaker 9: Expert in that area.
40:43
Speaker 10: Right.
40:44
Speaker 1: Yeah.
40:44
Speaker 10: So that's why, you know, customers reach out to us
40:47
Speaker 10: because they have that need to scale up or down.
40:49
Speaker 11: Right.
40:50
Speaker 10: And they don't want to bring on their full time
40:51
Speaker 10: employees and then have to let them go. So that's
40:55
Speaker 10: exactly why they would outsource to us. And when it
40:57
Speaker 10: comes to specialty pharmacies. For example, we have 550 agents
41:02
Speaker 10: right now already working for a large pharma company. And
41:06
Speaker 10: so not only the skill is there, but our recruiting
41:10
Speaker 10: team's there, and they're skilled in looking for what the
41:13
Speaker 10: specialty pharmas are looking for. So it not only saves time,
41:17
Speaker 10: it's retention play, and also it's a cost savings when
41:20
Speaker 10: you look at it.
41:20
Speaker 12: As a whole. Excellent.
41:22
Speaker 9: All right.
41:23
Speaker 7: Give our listeners, someone's listening right now. They're in operations.
41:27
Speaker 7: They're like, holy crap, I'm having an issue I need
41:29
Speaker 7: to deal with. I want to get a hold of
41:31
Speaker 7: Kelly Services.
41:32
Speaker 6: Talk to us. How do our listeners get a hold
41:34
Speaker 6: of you?
41:35
Speaker 10: Yeah, well, you can reach us on LinkedIn. You can
41:37
Speaker 10: go to our Kelly website. We do have a landing
41:39
Speaker 10: page for our specialty pharma. And also, you know, Chris
41:43
Speaker 10: and I can put our QR code out there. We
41:47
Speaker 10: will be doing that to follow up after the event. Excellent.
41:50
Speaker 7: So if you go to Google and put in Kelly
41:52
Speaker 7: Services Specialty Pharmacy, it'll probably find the landing page.
41:56
Speaker 10: It absolutely will. All right.
41:58
Speaker 12: Excellent.
41:59
Speaker 7: I'm going to have you guys back. We got more
42:01
Speaker 7: work to do with you guys.
42:02
Speaker 6: I'm excited, too. Thanks for being on the NASP podcast.
42:05
Speaker 9: Thanks for having us, Todd.
42:06
Speaker 10: Thanks for having us, Todd.
42:10
Speaker 7: Eric Huckins back at NASP. This is the Inspire 2026.
42:14
Speaker 7: Welcome to the show.
42:16
Speaker 8: Todd, always a pleasure. Thank you for having me.
42:18
Speaker 6: Hey, are you starting to feel old yet? Because we're
42:21
Speaker 6: starting to be kind of like we're pumping up. We're
42:25
Speaker 6: kind of leveling up to the veteran status now.
42:27
Speaker 8: Yeah, a little more gray in her facial hair.
42:30
Speaker 9: Yeah, yeah, definitely.
42:32
Speaker 6: All right, we're in Washington, D.C. I think that's special
42:34
Speaker 6: in itself.
42:35
Speaker 7: Inspire, the new kind of theme to the National Association
42:40
Speaker 7: of Specialty Pharmacy. Shout out to Sheila and her team
42:43
Speaker 7: for the transformation. I'm already feeling inspired just being here
42:48
Speaker 7: with everyone. I love seeing the faces that really... the
42:51
Speaker 7: innovators of specialty pharmacy. And I want to just shout
42:54
Speaker 7: you out. You're one of those innovators. Your team has
42:57
Speaker 7: really grown over the years. Lumicera Health Systems and Services,
43:01
Speaker 7: you've been a partner of the PPN for several campaigns.
43:05
Speaker 7: Talk to me about being part of the NASP and
43:07
Speaker 7: really helping to push the envelope and to change things
43:11
Speaker 7: for the betterment of specialty pharmacy care.
43:13
Speaker 8: Well, that's what's great about specialty pharmacy is it's where
43:17
Speaker 8: all the innovation starts with pharmacy.
43:19
Speaker 9: We're usually early adopters of.
43:22
Speaker 8: All the new technologies, all the new ways to take
43:25
Speaker 8: care of patients. And at Lumicera, we've evolved as specialty
43:30
Speaker 8: pharmacy has evolved, and we're continuing to find new ways
43:34
Speaker 8: to not only help patients, you know, our own patients,
43:37
Speaker 8: but now helping other specialty pharmacies here at NASP to
43:42
Speaker 8: find ways that they can continue to help their patients
43:45
Speaker 8: procure drugs better and, you know, find new innovative tools
43:51
Speaker 8: that help them manage their programs.
43:53
Speaker 7: What is something about coming to this conference that you
43:57
Speaker 7: look forward most to?
43:58
Speaker 8: Well, honestly, it's just seeing all my colleagues and friends
44:03
Speaker 8: and seeing all the new innovative things that they're doing.
44:06
Speaker 8: It's such an open forum for us to have conversations
44:11
Speaker 8: and talk about how we are ultimately in the same
44:15
Speaker 8: game together of taking care of patients. and doing it
44:18
Speaker 8: within our own programs, within our own niche, within our
44:21
Speaker 8: own specialties and subspecialties. And so it's fun hearing all
44:26
Speaker 8: the great things that other programs are doing and us
44:30
Speaker 8: sharing with them how we can also help their programs. So, yeah,
44:35
Speaker 8: it's fun.
44:36
Speaker 11: All right.
44:37
Speaker 7: So leadership is not an easy thing because sometimes you're
44:41
Speaker 7: leading from the bottom up and you're supporting a new practitioner.
44:46
Speaker 7: You're supporting a nurse that doesn't understand things. You're supporting
44:50
Speaker 7: a family that doesn't think that they can get their
44:52
Speaker 7: medications paid for.
44:54
Speaker 6: What's leadership mean to you?
44:56
Speaker 12: Well, leadership is inspiring.
45:00
Speaker 8: It's a very fitting name for this conference and theme
45:03
Speaker 8: for this conference. Leadership is inspiring those that are having
45:09
Speaker 8: to manage those very difficult situations, either from the prescriber's
45:13
Speaker 8: standpoint of how do I help get these things new
45:17
Speaker 8: innovative treatments to my patients or the patients themselves. How
45:21
Speaker 8: do I afford these high-cost medications and all these hurdles
45:25
Speaker 8: that they have to go through? And I have the
45:29
Speaker 8: luxury of inspiring great teams to be able to come
45:32
Speaker 8: up with solutions for those challenges and ultimately help our patients.
45:37
Speaker 7: Eric, I want to congratulate you and your work. It's
45:39
Speaker 7: not easy what we do. It's not easy what you do.
45:43
Speaker 7: and sticking to it year after year and making things
45:46
Speaker 7: better year after year.
45:47
Speaker 6: And I want to congratulate you and your team.
45:49
Speaker 7: Thank you, LumaSara, for your work and thank you for
45:52
Speaker 7: your support of even our work.
45:54
Speaker 8: Well, Todd, I have to thank you. Thank you for
45:56
Speaker 8: giving us the mic and letting us talk about all
45:59
Speaker 8: the innovative stuff we do and how we are here
46:03
Speaker 8: to take care of our patients and help the profession.
46:05
Speaker 8: And so thank you for all that you and PPN
46:09
Speaker 8: have done.
46:09
Speaker 6: Absolutely.
46:10
Speaker 7: Hey, We have more Inspire 2026, the NASP podcast coming up.
46:15
Speaker 6: Stay tuned.
46:19
Speaker 3: Hi, this is.
46:20
Speaker 14: Norma Castaneda from Fidelis Specialty Pharmacy. I'm the COO and
46:24
Speaker 14: happy to be here on the Pharmacy Podcast Network.
46:28
Speaker 7: Norma, thank you so much for being here on the
46:30
Speaker 7: NASP podcast. We're celebrating Inspire 2026. It's the first rebranding
46:37
Speaker 7: of the NASP conference. It's nice to see you.
46:40
Speaker 14: Nice to see you too. Thank you for having me.
46:42
Speaker 6: Very good.
46:43
Speaker 7: So describe to the listeners what your organization does in
46:46
Speaker 7: specialty pharmacy.
46:48
Speaker 14: So we are a pharmacy that's located in Pasadena, California,
46:52
Speaker 14: and also in Las Vegas, Nevada. And we have a
46:56
Speaker 14: pharmacy that is available to.
46:59
Speaker 3: 15, 16 states now, I believe.
47:01
Speaker 6: Oh, congratulations.
47:02
Speaker 12: Yes, yes.
47:03
Speaker 14: And so we are excited to be here. A lot
47:06
Speaker 14: of our patient base have rare blood conditions, so we
47:10
Speaker 14: have patients that need a little extra help, and this
47:12
Speaker 14: is why we exist, right, as a specialty pharmacy.
47:15
Speaker 8: Exactly.
47:15
Speaker 10: Yes.
47:16
Speaker 7: Well, something that's special about the board of the NASP
47:20
Speaker 7: is the collection of expertise from so many different providers
47:25
Speaker 7: of specialty care, specialty technology, and We have interviews on
47:30
Speaker 7: our series that's going to be about the certification.
47:33
Speaker 6: We're going to be talking about fundraising.
47:37
Speaker 7: And in your case, you're part of governance. You're part
47:40
Speaker 7: of government relations. Could you describe to our listeners what
47:43
Speaker 7: you do on the board of NASP?
47:45
Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely.
47:46
Speaker 14: Actually, I am one of the chairs for Government Affairs Committee,
47:50
Speaker 14: and we have a large committee that.
47:52
Speaker 3: Is about 32 people at the moment.
47:55
Speaker 14: We also have another subchapter of that, which we have
48:00
Speaker 14: committee members that represent each of the states.
48:03
Speaker 3: In the US and this is very.
48:04
Speaker 14: Helpful because we do a lot of work with some
48:08
Speaker 14: of the faculty at NASP.
48:11
Speaker 3: And what we do is.
48:12
Speaker 14: We basically educate people in the Senate, people that need
48:17
Speaker 14: to know what specialty pharmacy is because it's very different
48:20
Speaker 14: than a retail pharmacy. Our patients have needs that are
48:26
Speaker 14: extensive and they need very special care. And this is
48:31
Speaker 14: something that sometimes gets lost in translation with government and
48:36
Speaker 14: so forth. So it's very important that we have these
48:38
Speaker 14: committees because we have members in each state that can
48:41
Speaker 14: come back to us, to our main subgroup. and talk
48:46
Speaker 14: about the issues that they're having, whether it be in reimbursement,
48:49
Speaker 14: whether there's challenges to access, different patient needs that are
48:56
Speaker 14: not being met in several states. We can address those
49:00
Speaker 14: by talking about them and actually getting a course of action.
49:03
Speaker 13: Yes.
49:04
Speaker 7: The layperson, the consumer, the patient, if you say pharmacy
49:11
Speaker 7: to them, they immediately think of, okay, A doctor-type person
49:16
Speaker 7: with a white coat standing behind a counter.
49:20
Speaker 6: You know, they don't know what you do.
49:21
Speaker 7: They say counting pills, doing this, doing that. Then we
49:26
Speaker 7: have more educated people in... An example, Mark Cuban, who
49:31
Speaker 7: entered the pharmacy space about seven or eight years ago
49:35
Speaker 7: with Cost Plus Drugs, he has made several public statements
49:39
Speaker 7: that there's nothing special about specialty pharmacy. And what he's
49:43
Speaker 7: defending in some ways, I kind of agree. agree with
49:46
Speaker 7: a little bit of what he says, is really to
49:49
Speaker 7: pull out the discrepancies of some of the large PBMs
49:53
Speaker 7: who are doing things to classify a specialty drug, price it,
49:58
Speaker 7: rebate it, but it really has nothing.
50:00
Speaker 6: To do with care.
50:03
Speaker 7: Someone like him with his outward ability to get the
50:07
Speaker 7: public to know things and just his voice would come
50:11
Speaker 7: to even the NASP, for example, and really sit down
50:14
Speaker 7: and talk with specialty pharmacists and understand there's cold storage differences,
50:20
Speaker 7: there's transportation differences.
50:22
Speaker 6: There's prior authorization. I mean, I could go on and on.
50:26
Speaker 6: You know the list and list and list.
50:28
Speaker 7: But specialty pharmacy is so drastically different than compounding or
50:33
Speaker 7: senior care or our community. We have to educate politicians
50:38
Speaker 7: about the specialness of specialty. And when they start passing
50:44
Speaker 7: specific policy laws, keeping that in mind, that specialty pharmacy
50:48
Speaker 7: is very different than other sectors of our pharmacy industry.
50:53
Speaker 3: Yes, that's correct.
50:53
Speaker 14: And I'm glad that you brought that up because Mark
50:56
Speaker 14: Cuban has been, he's a voice in the community and
51:00
Speaker 14: throughout the United States, obviously. But there's a big difference
51:04
Speaker 14: because a patient that goes and picks up a prescription
51:07
Speaker 14: at a retail store is quite different. They get their
51:12
Speaker 14: prescription and they go home and they pretty much get
51:14
Speaker 14: their counseling there.
51:16
Speaker 3: With the specialty drugs, it takes a.
51:18
Speaker 14: Lot more to go through a system of getting prior authorizations,
51:24
Speaker 14: making sure that the doctors are giving the specific information
51:28
Speaker 14: so that these particular prescription drugs are actually given to
51:32
Speaker 14: the patient. There is more challenging information from the patients
51:39
Speaker 14: that we need to gather. Everything from, is there weight?
51:43
Speaker 14: Where is there weight? How has this drug worked out
51:47
Speaker 14: for you? Because in most cases, these specialty drugs, they
51:49
Speaker 14: could be subcutaneous, they could be And a lot of
51:53
Speaker 14: times there are reactions, and those reactions can't be managed
51:57
Speaker 14: by just dropping the medication to them.
52:00
Speaker 3: Yes, so it's very important.
52:02
Speaker 6: Monitoring, ongoing monitoring, ongoing.
52:05
Speaker 7: Labs to see how the medication is metabolizing.
52:08
Speaker 6: Or doing whatever.
52:10
Speaker 7: I think that there's a bright future for specialty pharmacists.
52:14
Speaker 7: When I look at the drug lists that the FDA
52:17
Speaker 7: has now been submitted for the next three years... There's
52:21
Speaker 7: 120 medications as of right now that are on standby.
52:26
Speaker 7: That means that there's another bunch of disease state attention
52:31
Speaker 7: that's going to be driven. It's going to be that
52:34
Speaker 7: specialty pharmacist that's going to be the experts in understanding
52:37
Speaker 7: that specific medication. But then you marry that with a
52:41
Speaker 7: specific DNA breed, like in pharmacogenomics or something, or a
52:47
Speaker 7: specific titration, or a specific moving from one medication to
52:51
Speaker 7: the next, that's like hands-on stuff. That's not, hey, here's
52:55
Speaker 7: your medication, your antibiotic, high five, take it every day
52:59
Speaker 7: for the next 90 days, and we'll see you later.
53:02
Speaker 7: It's like, no, this is a relationship. Just as a
53:05
Speaker 7: person has a relationship with a physician... Our specialty pharmacy
53:08
Speaker 7: patients have relationships not only with the physician, but more
53:12
Speaker 7: so with their specialty pharmacist.
53:14
Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely.
53:15
Speaker 14: And we get a lot of information directly from the patient.
53:17
Speaker 14: You know, now we have some great technology that we
53:21
Speaker 14: can stay in touch with the patient. But a lot
53:23
Speaker 14: of times it could be that there's a language barrier
53:26
Speaker 14: and they need to talk to us. They need to
53:27
Speaker 14: tell us, you know, hey, my child... You know, he's
53:30
Speaker 14: not feeling well. He's getting headaches.
53:31
Speaker 3: What do we do? We're the people that they call.
53:35
Speaker 14: And we work hand in hand with our doctors, making
53:38
Speaker 14: sure that they know the effects of some of these drugs,
53:41
Speaker 14: you know, as they're starting a new regimen or whatever
53:43
Speaker 14: it is.
53:44
Speaker 3: But yes, it's absolutely important. And there is a lot more.
53:49
Speaker 14: I guess you could say high touch with our patients.
53:52
Speaker 14: And I'm very happy that we have a certification here.
53:57
Speaker 3: You know, because... CSP. Yeah, CSP is super important.
54:00
Speaker 14: I think, you know, when you go through that process,
54:03
Speaker 14: you really understand the differences and pharmacists can have an
54:08
Speaker 14: added value, right? Even if they do work in the
54:11
Speaker 14: retail space, but more importantly... When you're in this specialty
54:15
Speaker 14: pharmacy sector, you really have to understand that this is,
54:20
Speaker 14: you know, these patients, your counseling might be two to
54:24
Speaker 14: three hours a week with them.
54:26
Speaker 8: Yes.
54:26
Speaker 7: All right, somebody that's in the government touch explaining to
54:31
Speaker 7: our politicians what specialty pharmacy is, laying out examples for them.
54:36
Speaker 7: One of the ways that we've done that, we had
54:38
Speaker 7: a show. I released the very first podcast in pharmacy
54:41
Speaker 7: in 2009, and I also released the very first PBM-oriented
54:46
Speaker 7: podcast in 2019. It's one of our most popular shows.
54:50
Speaker 7: It's called PBM Reform Podcast, and that show has educated
54:55
Speaker 7: more people politicians on the nuances and the complexities of
55:01
Speaker 7: PBM reform than any podcast. And the reason is, is
55:05
Speaker 7: because the champion politician within a state, Buddy Carter or
55:09
Speaker 7: Jake Auchincloss, These people are coming to our shows, they're
55:14
Speaker 7: describing what's going on, and then that content is being
55:17
Speaker 7: used to educate other politicians through the words of a
55:20
Speaker 7: politician that people know.
55:22
Speaker 6: So I'm going to hand you a baton, and.
55:25
Speaker 7: I'm going to say the next time you guys get
55:26
Speaker 7: into committee, I want you to strategize about which politicians
55:32
Speaker 7: do you want to come on the NASP podcast and
55:35
Speaker 7: then bring them on and we'll interview them. And it always,
55:38
Speaker 7: of course, shines great light on them from a political perspective,
55:41
Speaker 7: especially during a voting year where they get to stand
55:45
Speaker 7: up and they get to say, hey, this is my question,
55:48
Speaker 7: or this is what I know, or this is what's
55:50
Speaker 7: happening in my state with my constituents.
55:52
Speaker 6: So I want to put that invitation out.
55:54
Speaker 7: To you in leading that committee that you can leverage
55:56
Speaker 7: the NASP podcast to engage and to embrace, but then
56:00
Speaker 7: also educate our political leaders.
56:03
Speaker 3: Absolutely, Todd.
56:04
Speaker 14: And I think you bring a great point with Buddy
56:07
Speaker 14: Carter because he understands our business. He understands he's a pharmacist.
56:13
Speaker 14: We need more leaders like that in D.C. and in
56:17
Speaker 14: other areas of our country because they can really... explain
56:21
Speaker 14: what we're trying to do, how these PBM reforms affect
56:25
Speaker 14: our patients, affect our businesses here as being a specialty pharmacy.
56:31
Speaker 14: And yes, I will take that invitation and take it
56:33
Speaker 14: back to my committee.
56:34
Speaker 6: Absolutely.
56:35
Speaker 7: Well, we appreciate you being on the NASP podcast here
56:38
Speaker 7: celebrating Inspire 2026.
56:40
Speaker 6: Thank you so much. Hope to have you back next year.
56:43
Speaker 5: Great.
56:43
Speaker 3: I'd love to.
56:44
Speaker 6: Thank you, Todd.
56:45
Speaker 12: Thank you.
56:45
Speaker 8: All right.
56:45
Speaker 6: Bye-bye.