Latest / Pharmacy Podcast Network / The NASP Specialty Pharmacy Expo RECAP Show | Part Two

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The NASP Specialty Pharmacy Expo RECAP Show | Part Two · Pharmacy Podcast Network

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Speaker 1: You are listening to the global network of podcasters dedicated
0:09
Speaker 1: to the pharmacy profession. Welcome to the Pharmacy Podcast Network.
0:24
Speaker 2: Hey there, Welcome to the NASP twenty twenty five here
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Speaker 2: at the gay Lord Rockies in Denver, Colorado. This is
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Speaker 2: an exciting time where we're bringing together thousands of people
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Speaker 2: focused on specialty pharmacy and impact on our patients.
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Speaker 3: You're not going to want to miss this.
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Speaker 2: Stay tuned for the coverage of the NASP twenty twenty
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Speaker 2: five brought to you by the Pharmacy Podcast Network. A
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Speaker 2: special partner of the Pharmacy Podcast Network and providing funding
1:01
Speaker 2: in sponsorship for the NASP podcast is Excessia Health and
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Speaker 2: with me is Jennifer Noonan, who is no stranger to.
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Speaker 3: The pods, so welcome back. Jennifer.
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Speaker 4: Thank you. I think some might say I am a
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Speaker 4: bit stranger, but in all of it's glory, I'm glad
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Speaker 4: to be here at NASP this year and I'm super
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Speaker 4: excited to speak with you again.
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Speaker 2: Well, we're excited to have you really learning more and
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Speaker 2: more about specialty pharmacy and what is the roadblocks to
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Speaker 2: keeping patients adherent and one of the largest scariest roadblocks
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Speaker 2: for any patient that finds out that they have a
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Speaker 2: chronic disease that they're going to have to maintain sometimes
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Speaker 2: for the rest of their life, is hey, how am
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Speaker 2: I going to get this paid for? And Accessia's Health's
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Speaker 2: entire mission is assuring that that isn't a roadblock. Kind
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Speaker 2: of expand upon how ACCESSIA in specialty pharmacy specifically has
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Speaker 2: really helped the patient.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, so we know that our organization was originally founded
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Speaker 4: to help with copay support, and we certainly do that
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Speaker 4: all day, every day still, but what we started to
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Speaker 4: recognize over the last few years was that individuals who
2:13
Speaker 4: were able to use our assistance to get the gap
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Speaker 4: filled between their out of pocket costs to get their
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Speaker 4: treatment sometimes still weren't able to fully comply with that
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Speaker 4: because they had a lot of barriers that weren't included
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Speaker 4: in just the co payment portion of that. And some
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Speaker 4: of the biggest things we would see is nursing infusion
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Speaker 4: costs individuals who were able to infuse at home for say,
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Speaker 4: immune globulins or other types of treatments. Once we saw
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Speaker 4: the emergency authorization that had been applied during COVID, patients
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Speaker 4: were no longer able to infuse at home without incurring
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Speaker 4: some out of pocket costs, but their quality of life
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Speaker 4: without being in the hospital and picking up other bugs,
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Speaker 4: without having to travel to and from would have some
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Speaker 4: out of pocket costs for nursing assessments and nursing visits
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Speaker 4: and supplies supplies, and so that surprise bill at the
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Speaker 4: end of the month. And we've opened up our grants
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Speaker 4: to be more flexible for individuals to use. So instead
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Speaker 4: of having to choose one grant for only co payment
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Speaker 4: help and another grant to help with premium support, we've
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Speaker 4: combined those together, and as long as patients are utilizing
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Speaker 4: that assistance toward their treatment for their disease, then we
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Speaker 4: allow that under the same grant. We like to think
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Speaker 4: it it removes at least one burden out of a
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Speaker 4: million that someone with a complex health condition has to.
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Speaker 5: Face every day.
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Speaker 2: That flexibility is really comforting because there's a lot of
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Speaker 2: people who don't even understand the process, and when they
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Speaker 2: do get into it, they get to the first level
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Speaker 2: filling out their application, they're thinking that it's for a
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Speaker 2: very specific part of the ecosystem or cycle of the
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Speaker 2: payment for their total care, and you're saying copay versus premium,
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Speaker 2: and then dialing to other things that might be ancillary
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Speaker 2: to the treatment.
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Speaker 3: It's so important to take the stress off it is.
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Speaker 4: We just did a speaking engagement today talking about social
4:23
Speaker 4: determinants of health and implicit bias. And when you talk
4:26
Speaker 4: about those social determinants of health, and I think you
4:29
Speaker 4: and I talked about this a little bit last year.
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Speaker 4: When people are overwhelmed with a new diagnosis or even
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Speaker 4: just an old complex diagnosis that shows up every day
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Speaker 4: to cause them burdens, just to be able to help
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Speaker 4: lift some of that off, I think is huge. But
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Speaker 4: people aren't able to hear and maintain information that's very
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Speaker 4: important if their mind is on something more important to them,
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Speaker 4: like food or housing, or the ability to get to
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Speaker 4: and from work. And so often we find people who
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Speaker 4: haven't even been able to get to asking us for help,
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Speaker 4: or when they do, our help isn't going to be
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Speaker 4: as helpful if they have these other needs that are
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Speaker 4: unmatt So we've been working on also trying to do
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Speaker 4: some case management and offer some other educational supportive services
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Speaker 4: to help people understand how to use their funding.
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Speaker 2: It's organizations like Excessia Health in communication with specialty pharmacies
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Speaker 2: to educate the payer source or the funding source about
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Speaker 2: what's truly needed in the life of a specialty pharmacist patient.
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Speaker 3: That's important.
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Speaker 2: Talk to us about how you've pushed that information back
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Speaker 2: to funding sources and say, hey, there's a bigger thing
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Speaker 2: here than just getting the drug paid.
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Speaker 4: Yeah. I think that from my part of this piece
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Speaker 4: in the ecosystem, it's about building relationships first and foremost
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Speaker 4: with the patient advocacy groups that know exactly what they
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Speaker 4: are struggling to get in order to get to their
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Speaker 4: healthcare needs. But then the provider groups, and I think
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Speaker 4: often we overlook specialty pharmacies or we don't think of
6:11
Speaker 4: them as a provider, but that they're the biggest provider
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Speaker 4: once a diagnosis is made in a treatment is prescribed,
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Speaker 4: because they pick up that from then on and carry it.
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Speaker 4: And so what we're trying to do is be better
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Speaker 4: partners with specialty pharmacies, helping them understand how they can
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Speaker 4: apply on behalf of patients, and most importantly just that
6:31
Speaker 4: we're here. And so if they have sources that they've
6:35
Speaker 4: utilized on their own for funding, that they keep us
6:37
Speaker 4: in that bank of resources and We do that on
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Speaker 4: our own website. If someone comes to access your Health
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Speaker 4: and applies for funding in a program that's at capacity
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Speaker 4: and they're waitlisted and their need is great, we list
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Speaker 4: the resources of the other financial organizations that are out there,
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Speaker 4: because we want to ensure that everybody knows all the
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Speaker 4: resources and then they can make informed decisions that make sense.
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Speaker 2: You were telling me about that, and it was so collaborative,
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Speaker 2: and it was so driven, where it was the patient
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Speaker 2: that was the most important part of the whole process,
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Speaker 2: and now you're getting them, You're getting them access to
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Speaker 2: funding through just your organization, but the collective of the
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Speaker 2: organizations that you've worked with.
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Speaker 4: I think the most important part about this ecosystem we
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Speaker 4: keep talking about that's very strained right now under legislative
7:30
Speaker 4: uncertainties in many regards newborn screening, which is essential in
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Speaker 4: order for rare disease patients to get treatment immediately. Some
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Speaker 4: of those different things that have been safe parts for
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Speaker 4: our community are not necessarily gone, but they're definitely We
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Speaker 4: are questioning the stability of those agencies and whether or
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Speaker 4: not we're going to have to kind of start moving
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Speaker 4: into doing things on our own. You asked earlier about
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Speaker 4: passing this information along. We try to collect stories about
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Speaker 4: patients and their impact so that we can provide something
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Speaker 4: positive back to partners that are donors, because we can't
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Speaker 4: give a lot of information back just based on compliances.
8:21
Speaker 4: But who doesn't want to hear the good work that
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Speaker 4: has come. So we definitely have been working harder at
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Speaker 4: collecting and utilizing patient stories because once you can tie
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Speaker 4: an important matter back to something relatable to people who
8:37
Speaker 4: maybe aren't familiar with this industry, you can usually get
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Speaker 4: by in If you attach it to a person and
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Speaker 4: an emotions, then it makes sense. And you see that
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Speaker 4: with senators and House representative too. It's like they had
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Speaker 4: no idea and then you put a patient in front
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Speaker 4: of them and it suddenly makes it real.
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Speaker 2: Thank you, It's very true, Jennifer Noonan, With excess your health,
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Speaker 2: we will be right back with the NASP podcast.
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Speaker 6: Accessia Health, a national charitable patient assistance organization, is dedicated
9:08
Speaker 6: to eliminating healthcare barriers for those with rare or chronic
9:12
Speaker 6: health conditions through personalized case management, financial assistance, education, and
9:18
Speaker 6: legal support. The organization provides more than copay relief. It
9:23
Speaker 6: delivers a full spectrum of services that address the real
9:25
Speaker 6: costs of care. Founded by patients. For patients, Excessia Health
9:30
Speaker 6: helps cover essential expenses like insurance, premiums, diagnostic testing, counseling
9:35
Speaker 6: and therapy services, travel, and more. Their inclusive outcomes focused
9:40
Speaker 6: approach supports people throughout their health care journey. Learn how
9:44
Speaker 6: Excessia Health is closing gaps in care and improving lives
9:47
Speaker 6: across the country. Visit excessiahealth dot org. Today.
9:52
Speaker 3: Hey here with Nick Negri with Altour. Nick, Welcome to
9:56
Speaker 3: the NSP twenty twenty five.
9:57
Speaker 7: Thank you, glad to be here.
9:59
Speaker 2: All right, you've been here many times. I've seen you
10:02
Speaker 2: talk to us about altar. What are you doing in
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Speaker 2: specialty pharmacy?
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Speaker 8: So we are actually the ye okay perfect.
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Speaker 7: So we're the leading manufacturer of temperature controlled packaging, specifically
10:13
Speaker 7: phone based so EPs and co expanded polyarthane YEP. And
10:18
Speaker 7: so what we're doing is we are innovating building solutions
10:22
Speaker 7: temperature controlled packaging. So obviously, so medication can get from
10:26
Speaker 7: point eight to point B safely, securely, so there's no
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Speaker 7: compliance issues patient safety.
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Speaker 2: So in rare disease, Nick, is this any medication or
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Speaker 2: is it very sensitive to specific medications that have to
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Speaker 2: stay a certain temperature.
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Speaker 7: No, probably about eighty percent of special new medications are
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Speaker 7: temperature sensitive, so there's some sort of So the majority
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Speaker 7: of them are probably two to eight degrees celsius is
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Speaker 7: I would say the majority of where that is. But
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Speaker 7: there are some sub zero and some warmer ambient room
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Speaker 7: temperature medications as well, so we'll address that.
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Speaker 2: I'm sure your team watches the clinical trials because of
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Speaker 2: the increase of rare disease accessible medications. What does that
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Speaker 2: mean for all tour Are you starting to look to
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Speaker 2: the future of saying are we going to adjust temperatures
11:15
Speaker 2: should things not go over a specific temperature versus another.
11:19
Speaker 2: Are there disease state medications that have to stay within
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Speaker 2: seventy two degrees versus ninety two degrees or something.
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Speaker 8: Yeah, so we're following it.
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Speaker 7: I would say we're following the drug pipeline as a whole,
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Speaker 7: and following actual medication is honestly a better and more
11:36
Speaker 7: strategic strategy so that we can actually tailor our solutions
11:42
Speaker 7: back to actual medication and what those temperatures are. So
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Speaker 7: each manufacturer will actually have its own mandates what temperature
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Speaker 7: they have to do, what it has to be stored
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Speaker 7: at shipped at duration, all that kind of good stuff,
11:55
Speaker 7: you know, obviously as you get into distributing it through
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Speaker 7: the pharmacy. So we're following all that so you're staying educated.
12:03
Speaker 7: That's a big part of this show.
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Speaker 3: Absolutely.
12:05
Speaker 2: So if I'm listening to the show, I'm hearing this.
12:08
Speaker 2: It's something that I've been worried about. Are concerned about.
12:11
Speaker 2: What's the best way to reach out to you. How
12:12
Speaker 2: do I get a hold of you.
12:13
Speaker 7: So you can get us at all to our solutions
12:15
Speaker 7: dot com. It's our website, brand new website that we
12:18
Speaker 7: actually launched earlier this year. So it's a great way,
12:21
Speaker 7: great resources you can kind of user friendly, so or
12:26
Speaker 7: you can reach out to our customer service directly or
12:29
Speaker 7: myself tel I'm the business development manager.
12:32
Speaker 2: So all Tour Solutions dot com. All Tours a L
12:36
Speaker 2: T O R.
12:37
Speaker 3: Solutions dot com. That's correct, all right, Nick, thanks for
12:40
Speaker 3: being on the show.
12:40
Speaker 8: Yep, no appreciate it. Talking.
12:46
Speaker 9: Hey, this is Cecilia Buyers with your scripts and you're
12:48
Speaker 9: listening to the NSP podcast.
12:51
Speaker 3: Cecilia Buyers.
12:52
Speaker 2: Sure scripts, I don't know what number is this, So
12:56
Speaker 2: that you're on the NSP podcast post show.
12:59
Speaker 9: I think this is year number four. It doesn't even
13:02
Speaker 9: seem possible, but I think it's number four.
13:03
Speaker 2: I think either Harry Travis, you well, Sheila cat cheated
13:08
Speaker 2: because she's part of THESP.
13:11
Speaker 3: We can't count her. We have to figure out who.
13:13
Speaker 2: Are long longest going guest is of the show.
13:17
Speaker 9: Yeah, I'm pretty sure when we count back, it's probably
13:19
Speaker 9: this is probably number four for this particular one. I've
13:22
Speaker 9: been coming a lot longer than that. But for the podcast.
13:25
Speaker 9: For you, I think it's solid four years.
13:27
Speaker 3: Well, it's good to see you you as well, all right?
13:29
Speaker 3: So what an age?
13:33
Speaker 2: When I say that word is actually making me feel old,
13:35
Speaker 2: But the age of specialty pharmacy, I feel like this
13:38
Speaker 2: is the early twenty years of its life because we're
13:42
Speaker 2: really starting to gain a lot of strength and a
13:44
Speaker 2: lot of authority, and there's artificial intelligence is just blowing
13:48
Speaker 2: up everything.
13:49
Speaker 3: But when I think of the challenges of.
13:51
Speaker 2: What specialty goes through, specifically reducing complexity around specialty medication
13:59
Speaker 2: for fulfillment and all of the nuance and all of
14:02
Speaker 2: the processes and the Nixon crannies of missing information, talk
14:06
Speaker 2: to us about how Surescripts is stepping in for specialty pharmacies.
14:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting.
14:11
Speaker 9: When I started at Shure Scripts almost almost six years ago,
14:13
Speaker 9: now there was and there continues to be huge opportunities
14:17
Speaker 9: to really address all the different facets of fulfilling that
14:21
Speaker 9: medication and specialty pharmacies from onboarding right with clinical information
14:25
Speaker 9: interoperability right, that was a key word that continues to
14:27
Speaker 9: be a buzzword in the industry. We think QHEN TEFKA
14:31
Speaker 9: Quality Health Information Network and Trusted Exchange Framework can common
14:35
Speaker 9: Agreement and sure Scripts is really starting to step into
14:39
Speaker 9: that place as a qualified QHN now and bringing more
14:42
Speaker 9: information to pharmacies at the point of care when it's needed.
14:46
Speaker 9: We think about the benefit verification process right calling insurance companies.
14:50
Speaker 9: We have solutions around real time prescription benefit to help
14:53
Speaker 9: bring more than information into the line of sight at
14:56
Speaker 9: the point of processing avoid some of those phone calls.
14:59
Speaker 9: One of the areas that we're looking into the not
15:00
Speaker 9: most excited about for next year is how do we
15:02
Speaker 9: improve our prior authorization solution for pharmacies. How do we
15:06
Speaker 9: bring in some of those automatic processes AUTO, whether it's
15:10
Speaker 9: artificial intelligence or you know, some facets of that with
15:13
Speaker 9: like language models and clinical data to help streamline the
15:16
Speaker 9: process for those pharmacists to answer those questions, to get
15:19
Speaker 9: them submitted in a more streamlined approach, and again all
15:23
Speaker 9: while trying to free up the time for the pharmacists
15:25
Speaker 9: to focus on what's most important in this whole process,
15:27
Speaker 9: and that's the patient.
15:29
Speaker 2: I think of the dysfunction in my life where I
15:33
Speaker 2: do something and I never think of that I need
15:36
Speaker 2: help to get out of my own way. And I
15:39
Speaker 2: think of specialty pharmacies not understanding some of the programs
15:43
Speaker 2: and some of the services that sure Scripts is even providing,
15:47
Speaker 2: and overlooking the solutions that could be brought to their organizations.
15:52
Speaker 2: So when I think of that, I think of the
15:56
Speaker 2: real putting, the proof and putting of everything.
16:01
Speaker 3: Why am I thinking of putting? I think it's because
16:03
Speaker 3: it's lunchtime.
16:04
Speaker 2: But it's the delays to treatment. It's what's impacting the patient.
16:11
Speaker 3: That's what this is all about.
16:13
Speaker 2: Talk to us about, well, what sure script is doing
16:16
Speaker 2: to help get rid of those delays.
16:19
Speaker 9: Absolutely, I mean I think of one of our most
16:22
Speaker 9: innovative things we just released in last year's touch us
16:25
Speaker 9: prior authorization. It doesn't necessarily impact the pharmacy like at
16:28
Speaker 9: the point of care, but it does and what touches priorthization.
16:32
Speaker 9: What that does is it really is a partnership with
16:34
Speaker 9: our PBM partners. And you know, how do we actually
16:37
Speaker 9: get a prior authorization to be approved without anybody touching
16:41
Speaker 9: it at all? Right, And that's happening today, and the
16:45
Speaker 9: expansion that we're looking to do with that, and even
16:48
Speaker 9: how a pharmacy might be able to kick something like
16:50
Speaker 9: that off and that intersection to be able to really
16:52
Speaker 9: make sure that we're saving time across the continuum of
16:56
Speaker 9: that prescribing process, that patient journey. That doesn't just you know,
16:59
Speaker 9: impact the pharmacy itself, but also the physician and the
17:03
Speaker 9: work that's happening there. Right, Pharmacies can only do so
17:06
Speaker 9: much before it has to go back to the physician
17:07
Speaker 9: to do that. So as we're even thinking across the
17:10
Speaker 9: continuum of what surescripts offers, it's not just in the pharmacy,
17:12
Speaker 9: it's at the EHR level, it's what the PPM partners,
17:15
Speaker 9: it's just our whole network that really comes together to
17:17
Speaker 9: try to find ways to innovatively solve some of these problems.
17:21
Speaker 2: I always love talking to you and seeing Cecilia. Thank
17:24
Speaker 2: you so much for being part of the show. Let's
17:26
Speaker 2: do a twork sometime in this week in pharmacy and
17:29
Speaker 2: have you come on and talk with a couple of
17:31
Speaker 2: our pharmacies that are out there.
17:32
Speaker 9: Yeah, I think that'd be great. I love talking to
17:34
Speaker 9: our pharmacy partners. It's just it brings me. It fills
17:36
Speaker 9: my cup talking to pharmacies and being here. So Todd,
17:39
Speaker 9: thank you again for having me on.
17:40
Speaker 3: Thank you, Hey.
17:44
Speaker 2: Shout out to our specialty pharmacists and pharmacy owners and
17:48
Speaker 2: pharmacy operators out there concentrating on rare disease specialty pharmacy
17:53
Speaker 2: specific disease state management. Do you understand what the NASP
17:58
Speaker 2: does in the power that it brings to our profession,
18:01
Speaker 2: the protections that it brings, the education that it brings
18:05
Speaker 2: Veteran state advocacy, Government Affairs Committee workshops, grassroots advocacy education
18:12
Speaker 2: including abstract and poster programs, the CMROO, a NASP partner,
18:18
Speaker 2: Journal Education centered Presenter, Educational Committee and work groups. The
18:24
Speaker 2: NASP is leading the Certified Specialty Pharmacist The csp cretentials
18:30
Speaker 2: look into the NASP reach out to one of their
18:34
Speaker 2: members We're excited to be here at the NASP twenty
18:37
Speaker 2: twenty five. Meeting up back with doctor Joe pass Lair
18:43
Speaker 2: with Specia.
18:44
Speaker 3: Welcome back to the show. It's so nice to see
18:46
Speaker 3: you again. Hey Todd, so glad I ran into you.
18:49
Speaker 2: Well, you're all over the place. You've been traveling a lot.
18:51
Speaker 2: I watch your life through LinkedIn. Talk to us about
18:55
Speaker 2: NAS being here at NSP and how your organization would
18:59
Speaker 2: fit into specialty for Yeah.
19:01
Speaker 3: I love this conference.
19:01
Speaker 10: It's one of my favorite specialty conferences and I do
19:04
Speaker 10: go to a few of them.
19:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, this one.
19:08
Speaker 10: I have been quite involved today during the accreditation workshop,
19:13
Speaker 10: so I was either facilitating or speaking in three sessions.
19:17
Speaker 10: So just sharing the love with accreditation. Not everyone loves that,
19:21
Speaker 10: but I try to give some excitement around it and
19:24
Speaker 10: some education.
19:25
Speaker 3: So that was really fun.
19:26
Speaker 10: And then the rest of the week I'm mostly meeting
19:29
Speaker 10: with people, so just super smart specialty pharmacy leaders, both
19:34
Speaker 10: specialty from specialty pharmacies, from tech solutions, consultants, you know.
19:39
Speaker 3: All over the board.
19:41
Speaker 10: And then I do have one more presentation on Tuesday
19:43
Speaker 10: about training a non specialty pharmacist to become a specialty pharmacist. Okay,
19:48
Speaker 10: so that's how we've been spending my time, and yeah,
19:51
Speaker 10: I'm really excited. My business Specia is we're getting a
19:55
Speaker 10: lot of interest and traction. We provide disease specific clinical
19:59
Speaker 10: reviews which are great for educating new specialty clinicians or
20:04
Speaker 10: just as a daily resource and reference for your pharmacist.
20:07
Speaker 10: And then we also have disease specific clinical workflows which
20:10
Speaker 10: can be embedded into partner software solutions. So we're working
20:14
Speaker 10: to embed it into epic Cassian. We already have a
20:19
Speaker 10: couple of pharmacies using in a new in which one
20:24
Speaker 10: is Pioneer RX and blanking on the last one.
20:30
Speaker 3: That's right, many too many systems.
20:32
Speaker 10: Yes, yes, a couple of systems, which is very exciting.
20:34
Speaker 10: So yes, so we have these workflows. They support accreditation
20:37
Speaker 10: and clinical care. So yeah, I'm really excited to be
20:39
Speaker 10: sharing more about that.
20:41
Speaker 2: So I like when you're talking about accreditation. We're working
20:43
Speaker 2: on one the first of its kind, evidence space podcasting,
20:47
Speaker 2: so that it will be peer reviewed just as a
20:49
Speaker 2: journal would be. So how does Specia assure that the
20:53
Speaker 2: information that is being utilized is in fact evidence based?
20:58
Speaker 10: Yeah, so all of our content is based on clinical
21:00
Speaker 10: and scientific evidence.
21:01
Speaker 3: And resources.
21:02
Speaker 10: We have citations throughout, it's all an AMA citation format,
21:06
Speaker 10: and all of our writers and peer reviewers, all of
21:09
Speaker 10: our content is both written and peer reviewed by specialty pharmacists.
21:13
Speaker 10: So at least one of those is a practicing specialty
21:16
Speaker 10: pharmacist who works full time in a specialty pharmacy, and
21:19
Speaker 10: usually actually so far, at least one of those is
21:21
Speaker 10: also a CSP Certified Specialty pharmacist.
21:23
Speaker 3: So really they.
21:24
Speaker 10: Really are the experts and they're reviewing the content, but
21:27
Speaker 10: ultimately they're making sure that our content is based on
21:29
Speaker 10: those the evidence and the clinical literature guidelines, resources, things
21:33
Speaker 10: like that.
21:34
Speaker 2: That's awesome if someone's listening, I'm an operator, I'm running
21:37
Speaker 2: a specialty pharmacy. I want to hear more about what
21:40
Speaker 2: you're doing. What's the best way to get information about
21:43
Speaker 2: your organization.
21:45
Speaker 10: It's really easy to find me on LinkedIn. I have
21:47
Speaker 10: a unique name, the only one, so it's Jill jil.
21:50
Speaker 9: L last Nay pas l I E R.
21:53
Speaker 10: And then also our website has plenty of great information.
21:58
Speaker 10: We have some brand new screenshots up there so you
21:59
Speaker 10: can see what I'm talking about when I say a
22:01
Speaker 10: workflow and a clinical review. We've got more demos and
22:04
Speaker 10: info right on the website, which is exciting. And our
22:07
Speaker 10: website is SPECIAARX dot com, so Specia is special without
22:12
Speaker 10: the l Specia rx dot com.
22:16
Speaker 3: Very good.
22:16
Speaker 2: And if you can't get a hold of Jill, reach
22:18
Speaker 2: out to me. I will put you in touch with her.
22:20
Speaker 2: She is fabulous. I love what you're doing, Jill, and
22:22
Speaker 2: it was really good catching.
22:23
Speaker 3: Up with you.
22:24
Speaker 10: Thanks, dott, I appreciate it.
22:29
Speaker 2: Jonathan Hammerick, the last time we talked was NASP twenty
22:33
Speaker 2: twenty four.
22:33
Speaker 11: Absolutely good.
22:35
Speaker 3: Todd, Yes, nice to see you you as well. All right,
22:38
Speaker 3: so you are giving us some overview.
22:42
Speaker 2: You were talking before we started recording about building stronger
22:46
Speaker 2: relationships with the manufacturers on purpose and then how that
22:49
Speaker 2: trickles down to the specialty pharmacies that you've been helping.
22:52
Speaker 2: Talk to us about your background and a little bit
22:54
Speaker 2: about the organization, just in case the listeners don't know.
22:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, sure.
22:58
Speaker 12: So. Curati advisors focus on supporting the channel strategy and
23:03
Speaker 12: service model design, working with manufacturers as products, particularly specially
23:08
Speaker 12: products leave late phase two or early phase three, as
23:12
Speaker 12: the manufacturers are really beginning the process for commercializing those
23:15
Speaker 12: drugs and thinking about how does the distribution and service
23:19
Speaker 12: model for those products integrate with the brand planning process.
23:23
Speaker 12: So we support them on that everything from the research
23:28
Speaker 12: around the patient journey, designing the things that would optimize
23:33
Speaker 12: and mitigate the pain points for the patient and the
23:37
Speaker 12: providers along that way, and thinking about which pharmacy providers
23:41
Speaker 12: and other pharma services providers might be able to support
23:44
Speaker 12: those efforts.
23:45
Speaker 11: At the end of the day, that's what we do.
23:47
Speaker 2: A lot of Sean Jensen's back here on the pods
23:50
Speaker 2: and you've worked with Jonathan, You've worked with the teams,
23:54
Speaker 2: you've worked with many organizations.
23:56
Speaker 3: Talk to me about the tech.
23:58
Speaker 13: By the tech will I mean, John knows the tech
24:01
Speaker 13: as well as anybody.
24:02
Speaker 14: And I've been bringing some friends here today, but today I.
24:06
Speaker 13: Brought I bring a lot of work friends, and I
24:07
Speaker 13: brought a friend friend, a friend friend.
24:09
Speaker 8: A true friend outside of work and within work.
24:11
Speaker 3: So John's a great guy. I've known him a long time.
24:14
Speaker 8: He knows the tech.
24:14
Speaker 14: He appreciates me in his days in theoregy big you know,
24:18
Speaker 14: household name around here.
24:19
Speaker 3: But just seeing you know, we were speaking earlier this year.
24:21
Speaker 14: And he was presenting a use case about YAI and
24:24
Speaker 14: just kind of where his mind's at and some of
24:26
Speaker 14: the stuff he's thinking about.
24:27
Speaker 3: Right now is just so interesting.
24:29
Speaker 14: So I just wanted to bring him on, bring him,
24:31
Speaker 14: you know, meet with him and talk about it.
24:33
Speaker 8: There's a lot of cool things going on.
24:35
Speaker 2: When you're looking at where we've been, You've been around
24:38
Speaker 2: long enough to kind of track this out. AI enters
24:41
Speaker 2: the game maybe two and a half three years ago.
24:44
Speaker 2: Now it's intense from your perspective, where is the best
24:49
Speaker 2: leverage of artificial intelligence in the ecosystem especialty pharmacy.
24:54
Speaker 12: You know, we did a talk at the Association of
24:58
Speaker 12: Value Based Cancer Care last year. The topic was like
25:01
Speaker 12: what is the uptake of AI across? And I think
25:05
Speaker 12: it's similar and just specialty pharmacy in general that in
25:09
Speaker 12: some ways they're sort of like how is AI being
25:11
Speaker 12: used to support enhancement or efficiency and operational processes? So
25:15
Speaker 12: you see a lot of efforts to support workflow, uh
25:21
Speaker 12: and operational processes as well as sort of like supporting
25:25
Speaker 12: the approval processes and all the things that are happening there.
25:28
Speaker 12: So that's a big use case that that people are seeing. Uh.
25:33
Speaker 12: There's the other bucket that we're seeing a lot of
25:36
Speaker 12: is around. Uh. If you think of assistance and virtual
25:40
Speaker 12: assistance and leveraging AI and and healthcare is A is
25:44
Speaker 12: a real natural for that because so much of what
25:48
Speaker 12: we do is protocol driven, and what's going on inside
25:50
Speaker 12: of the specialty fowumentses, care management operations is protocol driven,
25:55
Speaker 12: which is generally speaking, you know, amenable to leveraging AI
26:00
Speaker 12: agents to support that activity. So we're seeing that sort
26:04
Speaker 12: of effort. The other one that people don't talk as
26:06
Speaker 12: much about is leveraging it for data and leveraging AI
26:09
Speaker 12: for as a research assistant. And we're doing a lot
26:12
Speaker 12: of work in that area, and that's what's really exciting,
26:16
Speaker 12: if you will, to.
26:16
Speaker 11: Me, and it's just beginning. I mean.
26:18
Speaker 12: Lastly, what you're seeing is AI to support actual clinical decisioning,
26:23
Speaker 12: and that's I think going slower than the other areas
26:28
Speaker 12: just because people are you know, crawl before you walk
26:31
Speaker 12: and run in that segment.
26:33
Speaker 11: So that's I would say, that's the overview.
26:34
Speaker 12: What I have or what we're seeing with AI. I
26:37
Speaker 12: think also relatives, especially pharmacy and hub services in general,
26:41
Speaker 12: manufacturers and the service providers themselves, whether they're hub service providers,
26:46
Speaker 12: especially pharmacies, they're all exploring how to best leverage AI
26:51
Speaker 12: right now, and what we're seeing today versus what we're
26:54
Speaker 12: going to be seeing in about six eight months is
26:57
Speaker 12: going to be maybe very different. One last thing I
27:00
Speaker 12: would say is that we did we supported a survey
27:04
Speaker 12: recently of patient services executives and managers across pharma and
27:11
Speaker 12: what they thought that the role of AI would be.
27:14
Speaker 12: And I guess suffice to say it is nobody has
27:18
Speaker 12: the answer right now that the cement is being mixed,
27:21
Speaker 12: not even really poored yet, so a lot's going to
27:24
Speaker 12: happen over the next twenty four to thirty six months
27:27
Speaker 12: in this space.
27:28
Speaker 13: Yeah, we had did a survey through an EESP, and
27:31
Speaker 13: in terms of adoption like AI and the pharmacies, it's
27:34
Speaker 13: still really really low obviously, but I think it was
27:36
Speaker 13: like literally one hundred percent said they'd already taken steps
27:39
Speaker 13: to either implement it, look into implementing it, like they
27:43
Speaker 13: had formed teams, AI review committees.
27:45
Speaker 8: Like everything you name it.
27:45
Speaker 13: But literally one hundred percent of the respondents, Like I
27:48
Speaker 13: don't think in America if you can ask any question
27:50
Speaker 13: and get one hundred percent to say the same answer,
27:53
Speaker 13: And literally it was like, are you considering AI?
27:55
Speaker 3: Within the next twelve months in your pharmacy.
27:57
Speaker 13: Every response we got an ASP committee said that, so
28:00
Speaker 13: it's clearly an area where people.
28:01
Speaker 2: Are going using my imagination again, uh oh. Every time
28:06
Speaker 2: I say that, Sean's like, this is going to cost money.
28:09
Speaker 2: So I think of taking an AI bought or system,
28:15
Speaker 2: marrying it with Walter's Cluer or a medi span database.
28:19
Speaker 2: Going back to a far especially pharmacy that had one
28:21
Speaker 2: hundred patients that were on I don't know, some one
28:24
Speaker 2: of the NAB drugs, one of the blood disorder drugs,
28:27
Speaker 2: knowing how they reacted to it over the period of
28:31
Speaker 2: three months, six months, twelve months, eighteen months, gathering that
28:35
Speaker 2: data off the one hundred patients and coming up with
28:38
Speaker 2: queries as to what the average response was to treatment,
28:43
Speaker 2: and then once again, now that you have all the
28:45
Speaker 2: NDC information, being able to cross out any of the
28:50
Speaker 2: drug drug drug food drug allergies and kind.
28:52
Speaker 3: Of like dialing in.
28:54
Speaker 2: I think there's something to the clinical expansion of getting
28:59
Speaker 2: a head of treatments and getting a specialty pharmacist that
29:03
Speaker 2: deals in a specific disease state to understand what the
29:08
Speaker 2: statistics are going to tell them to rush them in
29:11
Speaker 2: getting to next decisions faster. Yeah.
29:15
Speaker 8: Absolutely.
29:15
Speaker 14: I mean it's just it's so much data these days,
29:17
Speaker 14: and like where better to put technology in general and
29:20
Speaker 14: AI specifically. You know that's sorting through all that data,
29:24
Speaker 14: so you know, anywhere that can be put together and
29:26
Speaker 14: put to use.
29:27
Speaker 3: To help the patient, help treatment and you know, you
29:29
Speaker 3: name it.
29:30
Speaker 8: That's that's it's being done right now.
29:31
Speaker 11: It's really it's out of time.
29:33
Speaker 2: What what sector of pharmacies inside specialty pharmacy.
29:39
Speaker 3: Jonathan, are you helping?
29:41
Speaker 2: I think of health systems that want to build out
29:42
Speaker 2: their specialty pharmacy programs. I think of startups. I think
29:46
Speaker 2: of existing pharmacies that want to scale.
29:48
Speaker 8: Who who?
29:49
Speaker 3: What's your sweet spot? What do you who? You help them?
29:51
Speaker 12: I think it's a great question. But it's also like
29:54
Speaker 12: the spectrum and when I when I say that, when
29:56
Speaker 12: you think about a product that's being launched into the
29:59
Speaker 12: market place, what is the core specialty pharmacy network. If
30:04
Speaker 12: it's going to be a limited dissolution product that's leveraged,
30:07
Speaker 12: what are the health systems and their sps that are
30:10
Speaker 12: going to have access to the product and how are
30:13
Speaker 12: they going to be most providing services? And what's the
30:17
Speaker 12: data solution for that segment. I would say one of
30:20
Speaker 12: the hottest spots right now in specialty, with sixty percent
30:24
Speaker 12: of the specialty pipeline being infused therapies, is the amatory
30:29
Speaker 12: infusion centers at AIS and infusion space in general. And
30:33
Speaker 12: that landscape is all I can say is it's just
30:38
Speaker 12: super hot across the pharmacide across private equity is really
30:46
Speaker 12: buying a lot of those companies, merging a lot of
30:48
Speaker 12: those companies because so much of the pipeline is being
30:51
Speaker 12: delivered in that segment. So I mean, at the end
30:53
Speaker 12: of the day, it's about creating an entire, if you will,
30:58
Speaker 12: ecosystem for a product all those those care that care continuum.
31:06
Speaker 14: What's old is new, I mean it's old infusion again.
31:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is like going back eight years.
31:12
Speaker 12: That Sean, You're so right. It was like I was
31:14
Speaker 12: selling somebody yesterday. It's like nineteen ninety eight, two thousand
31:18
Speaker 12: and three medical big margins on that side, and then
31:23
Speaker 12: all of a sudden switch over to all pharmacy benefit.
31:25
Speaker 12: And I would say, in general, the hard thing is
31:27
Speaker 12: that biologic injectable drugs that are self administered, the margins
31:33
Speaker 12: are really thin right now, and that's a big problem
31:36
Speaker 12: in the industry, just written large and so you're seeing
31:39
Speaker 12: a lot of more activity on these medical benefit products I.
31:43
Speaker 5: Think, I mean John mentioned it just in the beginning here.
31:45
Speaker 15: I mean, the relationship with the pharmacy and pharma is
31:49
Speaker 15: so important and it's really it's a bi directional, true partnership.
31:53
Speaker 15: And I mean a lot of you know, these meetings
31:55
Speaker 15: are just to really connect those two together, but you know,
31:58
Speaker 15: not a lot of people are focus so much on
32:00
Speaker 15: that relationship and how.
32:02
Speaker 8: Important it is.
32:02
Speaker 15: And you know, as a pharmacy to position yourself and
32:05
Speaker 15: the best way to pharma is just you.
32:08
Speaker 11: Know, that's white.
32:08
Speaker 8: All is staying alive, especially right now.
32:10
Speaker 13: So what's going on at NAS, what's going on with ratio?
32:13
Speaker 13: I mean, this is this is a really really important
32:15
Speaker 13: relationship to you're looking at.
32:17
Speaker 12: Yeah, I mean I totally align with Sean on that.
32:20
Speaker 12: And I think the other thing, with all the changes
32:22
Speaker 12: in some ways things stay the same. The most important
32:26
Speaker 12: thing that stays the same is that I would say,
32:28
Speaker 12: parma is really inquisitive right now trying to think about
32:32
Speaker 12: the landscape that exists today, how it's changed. As long
32:35
Speaker 12: as every participant in the continuum puts the patient first
32:40
Speaker 12: and thinks about the journey and figure out out how
32:42
Speaker 12: to try to mitigate the issues that stand between a
32:46
Speaker 12: patient quickly getting the therapy that's been prescribed to them.
32:50
Speaker 12: Everything else will take care of itself. And from Sean's like,
32:53
Speaker 12: I think in Shawn's world, like being able to prove
32:56
Speaker 12: that through the data that is provided is it's so foundational,
33:01
Speaker 12: right And for example, we were just talking about a
33:03
Speaker 12: minute ago of the medical benefit or ACP administer drugs
33:08
Speaker 12: and what's going on that landscape. I feel like specialty
33:11
Speaker 12: pharmacy is pretty standardized now in terms of the general
33:14
Speaker 12: data sets you see, and that all came out of
33:17
Speaker 12: the last fifteen years. I feel like there's segments where
33:21
Speaker 12: data sets are also being standardized, but it's going to
33:24
Speaker 12: take a little time and those other segments and everybody's
33:27
Speaker 12: trying to figure that.
33:27
Speaker 11: Out right now.
33:30
Speaker 2: Sean and Jonathan, thank you so much for being part
33:32
Speaker 2: of the nesp's post show. We're looking forward to hearing
33:36
Speaker 2: more from you, Sean an upcoming series that we're going
33:39
Speaker 2: to dig more into this specialty pharmacy fused with artificial
33:42
Speaker 2: intelligence talk.
33:43
Speaker 3: So thank you sounds great. Todd, thank you.
33:45
Speaker 12: Todd, Thank you and the Pharmacy Podcast for everything you
33:48
Speaker 12: guys do.
33:49
Speaker 3: Thank you the best, Yeah, Manome.
33:54
Speaker 4: The mission of the NASP is to empower specialty pharmacy
33:57
Speaker 4: stakeholders to advance the standard of patient care. Our vision
34:00
Speaker 4: is to help create a world where every specialty pharmacy
34:02
Speaker 4: patient benefits from life changing.
34:04
Speaker 2: Care within the evolution of podcasting, which doesn't seem might
34:09
Speaker 2: even seem trivial to listeners, but I believe in this
34:12
Speaker 2: so much as a means of education that we're coming
34:14
Speaker 2: out with a certification that I put in a trademark
34:16
Speaker 2: for that here working on a patent didn't realize patents
34:19
Speaker 2: were so expensive. And it's going to be called evidence
34:22
Speaker 2: based podcasting. And what that's going to be is peer
34:25
Speaker 2: reviewed podcast Information is going to be listening to. It's
34:27
Speaker 2: going to be as good as reading a journal. And
34:30
Speaker 2: we're going to get subjective people to be able to
34:32
Speaker 2: dig into the content and say, maybe this isn't right,
34:34
Speaker 2: Maybe this is because there's just too many podcasts out
34:38
Speaker 2: there not to have a way to marry ce with
34:42
Speaker 2: something that you're listening to audio. And when I think
34:44
Speaker 2: of certifications and I think of the way that we're
34:47
Speaker 2: raising standards. I think of the NESP and the Certified
34:51
Speaker 2: Specialty Pharmacists and what that means for their career, what
34:55
Speaker 2: that means for our standards, what that means for our patients.
34:58
Speaker 3: I have two.
34:59
Speaker 2: Members of the Certified Specialty Pharmacist Initiative and the Board,
35:04
Speaker 2: and I want to introduce you both.
35:05
Speaker 3: Jonathan, let's start with you.
35:07
Speaker 2: Introduce yourself to the listeners, let them know your background,
35:10
Speaker 2: and then let's get into this.
35:11
Speaker 16: Yeah, sure, Jonathan and Gorchak Pittsburgh, Bord and Bread, just
35:15
Speaker 16: like you, Todd. But I'm the current chair elect for
35:18
Speaker 16: the SPCB and excited.
35:20
Speaker 8: To be here.
35:21
Speaker 16: I've worked with Independent Specialty Pharmacy in Pittsburgh CEO and
35:25
Speaker 16: co founder and Zero Specialty Pharmacy, and run a tech
35:28
Speaker 16: company as well, so have my hands in a lot
35:30
Speaker 16: of things. But this is a CSP in particular I've
35:32
Speaker 16: I'm passionate about.
35:33
Speaker 8: For a long long time.
35:35
Speaker 2: I can tell all right, Brandon, talk to us about
35:38
Speaker 2: what you're doing. Introduce yourself to the listeners and let
35:41
Speaker 2: them know your background.
35:43
Speaker 5: And why you're involved.
35:44
Speaker 3: Why are you passionate about a certification just for specialty pharmacists?
35:49
Speaker 3: Thanks Todd.
35:49
Speaker 17: It's a real honor to be on with the Podfather.
35:51
Speaker 17: I've been a fan for a long time, so it's
35:53
Speaker 17: pretty cool to do this now.
35:55
Speaker 3: I'm Brandon Harden.
35:56
Speaker 17: I'm the current chair of the Specialty Pharmacy Certification Board.
36:00
Speaker 17: I've been in specialty pharmacy full time since twenty twelve.
36:03
Speaker 17: Started out in the PBM space, then did independent specialty pharmacy,
36:07
Speaker 17: and since twenty eighteen I've been in the health system
36:10
Speaker 17: specialty pharmacy space.
36:12
Speaker 5: As far as the.
36:12
Speaker 17: Value of the credential, I first earned the CSP credential
36:16
Speaker 17: in twenty sixteen and it is It's an investment I
36:20
Speaker 17: made in my own career that has paid for itself
36:24
Speaker 17: several times over. I've made a bunch of wonderful friends.
36:27
Speaker 17: It's allowed me to stand out as a certified expert
36:33
Speaker 17: in the field of specialty pharmacy for a long time now.
36:36
Speaker 17: And in twenty twenty two, when I had the opportunity
36:39
Speaker 17: to join the board, I felt a certain obligation to
36:42
Speaker 17: pay back what the credential had given to me, and
36:46
Speaker 17: then that advanced a little bit further and I've had
36:48
Speaker 17: the opportunity to lead this board for the past two
36:51
Speaker 17: years now and it's been a lot of fun.
36:53
Speaker 3: It's awesome. I'm going to use my imagination.
36:56
Speaker 2: I'm not a pharmacist, I just play one on podcasts,
37:00
Speaker 2: and I always think, you know, validity of information, the
37:05
Speaker 2: element of fake news, the element of fake information, or
37:10
Speaker 2: doctor Google.
37:11
Speaker 3: And now all of a sudden we have the advent
37:13
Speaker 3: of AI.
37:13
Speaker 2: And while AI is wonderful and it's great and it
37:16
Speaker 2: does a lot of good things, there's also an opportunity
37:19
Speaker 2: to develop information and criteria that may not be evidence space.
37:23
Speaker 2: So when I think of the certified Specially pharmacists, I
37:26
Speaker 2: immediately think that someone's taking the time to tell a physician,
37:30
Speaker 2: or to tell a health plan, or to tell somebody
37:34
Speaker 2: that this pharmacist knows what they're doing in this specific space,
37:37
Speaker 2: even to say, hey, I'm a certified specially pharmacist in
37:41
Speaker 2: HIV or some blood disorder. Jonathan expand upon that of
37:46
Speaker 2: why the importance of this certification is really it's important
37:50
Speaker 2: to the entire specialty pharmacy sector.
37:53
Speaker 8: Absolutely.
37:53
Speaker 16: I mean it's more than just letters after your name
37:55
Speaker 16: on a business card or on a LinkedIn profile or
37:57
Speaker 16: something like that. It really does help to solidify your
38:01
Speaker 16: role in the profession and it's not just you. There's
38:04
Speaker 16: an exam component to it, so you actually have to
38:06
Speaker 16: prove your knowledge of a number of different domains across
38:09
Speaker 16: all of specialty. But there's a practice component. You have
38:12
Speaker 16: to practice so many hours as a specialty finances, you
38:15
Speaker 16: have to do so much continued education that's focused in specialty.
38:18
Speaker 8: It's really showing that those of us that hold this
38:21
Speaker 8: credential have gone above and beyond just.
38:24
Speaker 16: To focus in this area of practice. And it really
38:27
Speaker 16: does help whenever we're talking to when we're talking to payers,
38:31
Speaker 16: when we're talking to pharma, when we're talking to our peers,
38:34
Speaker 16: to show that we've taken that extra initiative to the
38:37
Speaker 16: point just to go above and beyond and try to
38:40
Speaker 16: help to further the professional and further our role within
38:43
Speaker 16: helping to grow this whole area specially.
38:46
Speaker 2: So I have podcasts Brandon that focus on pediatrics, focus
38:50
Speaker 2: on senior care, focus on obviously shout out to Sheila
38:54
Speaker 2: Katt and the NESP podcast focused on specialty, and that's great,
38:58
Speaker 2: But what I'm thinking of is the board of specialties
39:01
Speaker 2: that is actually out there that has certifications. This is
39:05
Speaker 2: an extension of something that's very special and being able
39:08
Speaker 2: to surround people with every aspect of it, whether it's
39:11
Speaker 2: some advocacy group or funding creation or NCPDP tied it
39:17
Speaker 2: end of how we're getting data to the right places
39:20
Speaker 2: to get reimbursed. Talk to us about how this is.
39:23
Speaker 2: This is going to affect the entire ecosystem of specialty pharmacy,
39:27
Speaker 2: not just you know, one or two specialty pharmacies.
39:30
Speaker 3: It's the whole thing.
39:31
Speaker 17: Sure, So when we think about the value proposition of
39:34
Speaker 17: our credential, the certified specialty pharmacists, whether we're talking about
39:38
Speaker 17: the pharmacists, the whold the credential, the organizations that employ them,
39:43
Speaker 17: the patients that are cared for by them. We want
39:46
Speaker 17: our stand when somebody sees CSP we want them to
39:50
Speaker 17: think about, well, Jonathan just said a moment ago, above
39:53
Speaker 17: and beyond the best standard of care, patient experience, provider
39:57
Speaker 17: experience possible.
39:58
Speaker 5: And when we will.
40:00
Speaker 17: At the domains of how our exam is set up.
40:04
Speaker 17: It was originally developed as a credential that has meant
40:09
Speaker 17: to signify clinical expertise, and that is still the heaviest
40:12
Speaker 17: weighted domain on our exam. It's about sixty five percent,
40:16
Speaker 17: but thirty five percent is still a pretty large number
40:19
Speaker 17: when we're talking about intake and benefits, investigation, medical benefit
40:24
Speaker 17: versus pharmacy benefit, knowledge of copay assistance programs, especially more recently, knowledge.
40:31
Speaker 8: Of advocacy programs.
40:32
Speaker 17: We hear an awful lot about social determinants of health
40:35
Speaker 17: and different areas that are not related to pharmaceutical care.
40:38
Speaker 5: That's about knowing where your resources are.
40:40
Speaker 17: Yeah, you come to see the pharmacists when you need drugs,
40:43
Speaker 17: but we also need to know where to send you
40:46
Speaker 17: within health systems or within the broader community.
40:49
Speaker 5: If I can't help you, I need to be able.
40:51
Speaker 3: To show you to somebody who can't.
40:53
Speaker 17: So we've placed a large premium on the holistic patient experience,
40:58
Speaker 17: the holistic provider experience, because ultimately, if we can't provide that,
41:05
Speaker 17: people aren't gonna find value in our credential.
41:07
Speaker 5: Yes, So those are kind of the things we think
41:09
Speaker 5: about as a.
41:10
Speaker 17: Board, and we have you know, I told we have
41:14
Speaker 17: a couple of new board members that I just we
41:16
Speaker 17: just oriented yesterday here at the conference, and we talk
41:19
Speaker 17: an awful lot about like I look forward to our
41:21
Speaker 17: board meetings because it's beautiful minds that really just want
41:26
Speaker 17: to make our profession a better place and our space
41:29
Speaker 17: the gold standard for medical care and pharmaceutical care.
41:32
Speaker 5: It's really fun to hear those ideas and then turn
41:34
Speaker 5: them into action. So it's been a real fun experience.
41:38
Speaker 3: I love it all right. So what's next? First, specially
41:41
Speaker 3: pharmacists c SP.
41:43
Speaker 2: Do you see the future of this being specific to
41:46
Speaker 2: a disease state or specific to condition or chronic Are
41:49
Speaker 2: you going to start giving pharmacists to want to dial
41:51
Speaker 2: into something very direct, very specialized.
41:56
Speaker 16: Well, I know Brandon can speak this more than I can,
41:58
Speaker 16: but I just know that the.
42:00
Speaker 8: The credential itself continues to evolve.
42:02
Speaker 16: In our word is our role as a board continues
42:04
Speaker 16: to evolve just to make sure we're representing what's going
42:07
Speaker 16: on with the industry. I mean, every couple of years
42:10
Speaker 16: we do a whole job task analysis just to make
42:12
Speaker 16: sure that the things that we're testing on are still
42:14
Speaker 16: applicable to the practice of specialty. And that was one
42:17
Speaker 16: of the things that we had identified, as you know,
42:19
Speaker 16: there's a certain hours requirement in order to be able
42:22
Speaker 16: to sit for the exam.
42:23
Speaker 8: You know, what are some things that we could do
42:24
Speaker 8: for up.
42:26
Speaker 16: And comers in the profession that might be looking to
42:30
Speaker 16: show that they are focused on wanting to better themselves
42:32
Speaker 16: as clinicians, but maybe they haven't put in their three
42:35
Speaker 16: thousand hours that it takes to be able to sit
42:37
Speaker 16: for the exam.
42:37
Speaker 8: So we're looking at ways that we could bridge that.
42:39
Speaker 8: We're looking at ways that we can take and find.
42:43
Speaker 16: You have different areas across the profession that are representative
42:47
Speaker 16: of you know, it's not just pharmacists.
42:48
Speaker 8: I mean, pharmacists, we.
42:49
Speaker 16: Do do a lot, but it's you know, the whole
42:51
Speaker 16: team that actually comes together to take care of those
42:54
Speaker 16: patients at the end of the day. So what can
42:56
Speaker 16: we as a board do to help support, you know,
42:59
Speaker 16: validating some of the other tools and other resources that
43:02
Speaker 16: are part of that care team. You know, we're looking
43:04
Speaker 16: at a number of those different types of solutions. Greton,
43:06
Speaker 16: I don't know if you could talk a little bit
43:07
Speaker 16: more about that.
43:08
Speaker 5: I can so, Jonathan.
43:09
Speaker 17: So there's two common requests we get todd within the
43:13
Speaker 17: broader marketplace. Jonathan just touched on one of the major ones.
43:16
Speaker 17: How do we bridge that gap between pharmacy school graduation,
43:20
Speaker 17: just entering specialty pharmacy in the profession and having the
43:22
Speaker 17: hours to sit for the exam. They want to be
43:24
Speaker 17: able to differentiate themselves earlier on. So we're considering that
43:27
Speaker 17: feedback and we're looking into that. The other one is
43:29
Speaker 17: what you alluded to with the beginning of the question,
43:31
Speaker 17: which is, Okay, yeah, I'm a CSP, but I work
43:34
Speaker 17: in HIV all the time. I want a certification that
43:36
Speaker 17: specifies I'm an expert in HIV.
43:39
Speaker 5: We look at those things as well.
43:41
Speaker 17: What we have done recently since I came on the
43:44
Speaker 17: board and then you got elected as the chair, we'd
43:47
Speaker 17: expanded the size of our board for two reasons. Number one,
43:50
Speaker 17: specialty pharmacy has evolved significantly in terms of the number
43:54
Speaker 17: of stakeholders and the different areas of practice that occur
43:57
Speaker 17: for specialty pharmacists, whether that's independence, actualty consulting, health system
44:03
Speaker 17: difference to pharma.
44:05
Speaker 5: We have a bunch of different.
44:06
Speaker 17: Stakeholders that we need to satisfy and have represented on
44:09
Speaker 17: our board. So we've expanded the size of our board
44:12
Speaker 17: for that reason. And we've expanded the size of our
44:14
Speaker 17: board because of all these different initiatives that we're hearing
44:17
Speaker 17: from the marketplace, where yeah, the CSP is great, but we.
44:20
Speaker 5: Need you to do this, We need you to do that.
44:22
Speaker 17: Ultimately, that's about incorporating the voice of the customer, and
44:27
Speaker 17: our customer is.
44:29
Speaker 5: The professional pharmacy specialty pharmacy space and.
44:32
Speaker 17: The holders of our credential, not just those that hold
44:35
Speaker 17: the credential, but also the people that employ them.
44:37
Speaker 5: So we've listened to the market very very closely.
44:40
Speaker 17: We've compiled, we've comprised our board to try to represent
44:44
Speaker 17: those different areas, and we're very much in action.
44:47
Speaker 5: Mode right now.
44:48
Speaker 17: Historically there's always been a lot of great ideas exchange,
44:51
Speaker 17: but now we're trying to put some hay in the barn.
44:54
Speaker 16: So sw Yeah, and I think another thing to kind
44:57
Speaker 16: of bring up. You know, our credential is the only
45:00
Speaker 16: credited credential out there for special pharmacists. I mean, there's
45:03
Speaker 16: there's something to be said about, you know, and you know,
45:05
Speaker 16: accreditation is my background for some of the stuff. I mean,
45:07
Speaker 16: there's something to be said about going above and beyond
45:10
Speaker 16: to make sure that you really want to put your
45:11
Speaker 16: money where your mouth is.
45:12
Speaker 8: And that's something where as a.
45:14
Speaker 16: Board, we continue to reevaluate and collect that feedback to
45:18
Speaker 16: make sure not only you know, not only is an
45:21
Speaker 16: obligation to our credential holders, but it's an obligation to
45:24
Speaker 16: ourselves because we need to maintain our accreditation.
45:27
Speaker 8: Just to show that there's some value to this. It's
45:29
Speaker 8: not just another, you know, for all way sort of
45:32
Speaker 8: thing that somebody's doing on the flock.
45:34
Speaker 2: Jonathan, Doctor Jonathan Aguchak, and doctor Brandon Harden really appreciate
45:40
Speaker 2: you being part of the NASV podcast and what you're
45:42
Speaker 2: doing with the Certified Specialty Pharmacist, and we'd love to
45:45
Speaker 2: hear more. We don't have to wait till Maryland next
45:49
Speaker 2: year when we all meet up in Baltimore at NESP
45:52
Speaker 2: twenty twenty six. You're more than welcome to come back
45:54
Speaker 2: on this Week in Pharmacy or another one of our programs.
45:56
Speaker 3: So thank you.
45:57
Speaker 5: It sounds great Ton, Thanks Tom, appreciating.
46:04
Speaker 11: Hi.
46:04
Speaker 18: This is Steve Polyakov from Tartar, Krinsky and Drogan here
46:07
Speaker 18: at NASB twenty twenty five.
46:10
Speaker 11: I'm a pharmacy attorney and I have it to.
46:12
Speaker 2: Answer questions, Steve, I have questions fraud, waste and abuse compliancy. Like,
46:19
Speaker 2: there's so many pitfalls that especially pharmacy may fall into
46:24
Speaker 2: because they're just that's not their gig, that's not their specialty.
46:27
Speaker 2: Their specialty is taking care of patients and making sure
46:29
Speaker 2: that they're staying in here and on a medication.
46:31
Speaker 3: It's pretty expensive, but you have.
46:33
Speaker 2: A very unique position in this industry that we need,
46:37
Speaker 2: so talk to us about the workshop and some of
46:39
Speaker 2: the things that you've been talking about here at NEESP.
46:42
Speaker 18: Absolutely so at ANASP, I will presenting on fraud, waste
46:45
Speaker 18: and abuse, as we just said, and the idea is
46:48
Speaker 18: to kind of demonstrate some of the pitfalls. Like there's
46:51
Speaker 18: marketing pitfalls, right, Like there's issues of kickback, which there's
46:56
Speaker 18: very heavy rules and regulations. Again, so I'm kind of
46:58
Speaker 18: talking about like, hey, if you are entering into a
47:00
Speaker 18: deal with the marketing company, make sure it's all flat
47:03
Speaker 18: fee based versus value based. There's issues of how to
47:07
Speaker 18: deal with staff and hippa. So when dealing with hippa issues,
47:10
Speaker 18: you also want to make sure as it ties in
47:12
Speaker 18: with fraud, waste and abuse, right, Like you don't want
47:14
Speaker 18: to be willingly handing out patient information to who's ever asking, right,
47:18
Speaker 18: So there's specific compliance programs that go into that.
47:21
Speaker 11: Similarly, the biggest.
47:23
Speaker 18: Issue in fraud, waste and abuse is dealing with the
47:26
Speaker 18: PBMs and the pharmacies that have issues that oftentimes are
47:30
Speaker 18: in inverting is when you potentially dispend something and the
47:34
Speaker 18: patient doesn't pick it up and then you forget to
47:36
Speaker 18: kind of get that back right. So you want to
47:38
Speaker 18: make sure that everything you dispense is backed by an invoice.
47:41
Speaker 18: You want to make sure that when your staff is
47:44
Speaker 18: dealing with dispensing medications, especially in specialty, which is under
47:48
Speaker 18: a microscope, when dealing with PBMs, you want to make
47:51
Speaker 18: sure that everything syncs up because the worst thing to
47:54
Speaker 18: happen is in inverting errors and then the.
47:56
Speaker 11: Next thing you know, you can lose your contract.
47:58
Speaker 18: There's a big audit, they look back at you for
48:00
Speaker 18: three years, and that's the worst thing that can happen.
48:03
Speaker 2: I almost think of I'm out of shape. I go
48:06
Speaker 2: to the gym, I try to work out myself, not
48:09
Speaker 2: exactly what's sure to do. I hire my workout coach.
48:13
Speaker 2: They come in and sure enough, things work better. Talk
48:16
Speaker 2: to us about what you're doing with specialty pharmacies to
48:19
Speaker 2: take them through the auditing process to make sure that
48:23
Speaker 2: when they do get audited, that they're passing with flying colors.
48:26
Speaker 18: So what we generally like to do is create a
48:29
Speaker 18: comprehensive compliance policy and then do the training for their
48:32
Speaker 18: compliance policy. So we tell them how to manage the inventory,
48:36
Speaker 18: We tell them how to manage the wholesalers, how to make.
48:39
Speaker 11: Sure that invoices are in line.
48:40
Speaker 18: And it's a step by step process that we as
48:43
Speaker 18: a coach come in.
48:45
Speaker 11: And go through the details.
48:47
Speaker 18: And there's the inventory management, there's a dispensing management, there's
48:52
Speaker 18: in inverted errors and how to report those to make
48:54
Speaker 18: sure that everyone's aware and that you are being fully transparent.
48:58
Speaker 18: And again on how to handle up patient records.
49:00
Speaker 8: That's also a big part of it.
49:02
Speaker 11: So that's what we really do.
49:03
Speaker 18: And then we sort of do follow ups afterwards, just
49:06
Speaker 18: kind of do spot checking. We do our old internal
49:08
Speaker 18: audits to say, hey, guys, we gave you this wonderful
49:10
Speaker 18: compliance program. Let's see if you're following you. Let's let
49:14
Speaker 18: meet the friendly person find all the flaws so we
49:16
Speaker 18: can patch the holes as opposed to somebody else blowing
49:19
Speaker 18: them up and have.
49:19
Speaker 3: The ships in like a PBM coming back for some
49:22
Speaker 3: of their money.
49:23
Speaker 11: That's exactly right.
49:24
Speaker 18: So the PBMs love to audit specialty pharmacies.
49:27
Speaker 11: I mean, all the specialties know this.
49:29
Speaker 18: Right, and they'd love to cancel contracts because they want
49:32
Speaker 18: to steer you to their pharmacies right, even though that's illegal.
49:34
Speaker 11: But you know, the PBMs are not notorious. They known
49:37
Speaker 11: for following the law.
49:39
Speaker 18: But essentially we want to make sure that if there's
49:42
Speaker 18: any holes, we patch them without a PBM coming in
49:45
Speaker 18: doing the audit. The worst things that can happen. Look,
49:47
Speaker 18: at the end of the day, if there's an overpayment determination,
49:51
Speaker 18: you pay them, you kind of continue operating. If they
49:54
Speaker 18: cancel your contract with one of the five PBMs, potentially
49:56
Speaker 18: twenty percent of more of your business is gone. We
49:59
Speaker 18: make sure you keep those contracts and we handle those
50:01
Speaker 18: So in the event a PBM is alleging fraud, waste
50:05
Speaker 18: and abuse and they're threatening to terminate the contract, we
50:08
Speaker 18: come in and deal with it. We go through arbitration,
50:10
Speaker 18: We go to bat for our clients and make sure
50:12
Speaker 18: that again we're assuming good faith on behalf of our clients,
50:16
Speaker 18: and we want to make sure that the PBM did
50:19
Speaker 18: the right thing when doing that audit versus you being
50:21
Speaker 18: across the street.
50:21
Speaker 11: From the CBS.
50:23
Speaker 2: Excellent, Steve, thank you so much for these insights here
50:25
Speaker 2: at the NASP twenty twenty five here in Denver.
50:28
Speaker 11: Thank you, Todd Pleasure, thank you so much.
50:34
Speaker 2: Cold Chain Technologies, Tammy Dean, Welcome to the NASP podcast.
50:39
Speaker 3: Thank you, Todd.
50:41
Speaker 19: I'm a global marketing manager for Cold Chang Technologies. I've
50:44
Speaker 19: been with them for about seven years now. One of
50:47
Speaker 19: my major focuses there is the products and services that
50:52
Speaker 19: a specialty pharmacy would need to stay in cold chain
50:56
Speaker 19: compliance when shipping.
50:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, so why is Cold Chain Technologies invest in coming
51:02
Speaker 2: and supporting the NSP.
51:04
Speaker 19: Yeah, we love coming to NSAP. This is i think
51:07
Speaker 19: our fifth or six year here. We attend to network
51:10
Speaker 19: and connect with specialty pharmacies and we also take the
51:14
Speaker 19: opportunity to learn what's happening in the specialty pharmacy segment.
51:19
Speaker 19: And we also think that Sheila and her team do
51:22
Speaker 19: a wonderful, wonderful job organizing this event.
51:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, it takes a lot of soldiers and horses and
51:31
Speaker 2: humpty dumpty doesn't just just doesn't get placed.
51:34
Speaker 3: Up on the wall without anybody. It's very important.
51:37
Speaker 19: Yeah, so you can tell a lot of work and
51:39
Speaker 19: planning goes.
51:39
Speaker 3: Into this event. Absolutely.
51:41
Speaker 17: So.
51:44
Speaker 2: I've heard that you have a information source for clients,
51:48
Speaker 2: for customers, people out there in the market. It's a
51:52
Speaker 2: newsletter kind of open up about that's us about that sure.
51:55
Speaker 19: In early twenty twenty five, we started a quarterly newsletter
51:59
Speaker 19: that's dedicated to helping specialty pharmacies with coal chain compliance challenges,
52:04
Speaker 19: and it's called Specialty Rix Advisor. Some of our recent content,
52:09
Speaker 19: just to give you an example of what we cover,
52:12
Speaker 19: we cover how to best deal with the surge and
52:16
Speaker 19: GLP ones which require shipping in two to eight and
52:21
Speaker 19: also when selecting a coal chain provider, what are the
52:24
Speaker 19: top questions you want answered. Another topic that we've recently
52:29
Speaker 19: covered is navigating all of the sustainable solutions that are
52:33
Speaker 19: available now for specialty pharmacies. Last one we recently did
52:41
Speaker 19: Pharmacy Pharmacy, coal Chain Management, and.
52:44
Speaker 3: Health Systems, so covered a lot of topics.
52:46
Speaker 19: In that article.
52:47
Speaker 3: Excellent.
52:48
Speaker 2: All right, So we'd like you to be back on
52:51
Speaker 2: the Pharmacy podcast Network. At some point we'll have to
52:54
Speaker 2: bring you back for an interview on this.
52:56
Speaker 3: Week in Pharmacy. That'd be great. Oh, thank you for
52:59
Speaker 3: being part of the podcast.
53:01
Speaker 19: Thanks for having me And if anyone wants to subscribe,
53:03
Speaker 19: it is a free quarterly newsletter.
53:05
Speaker 3: They would just go.
53:06
Speaker 19: To col chaintech dot com and look under the Specialty
53:09
Speaker 19: Pharmacy segment that we have on our website.
53:12
Speaker 3: Thank you, Tammy, Thank you so much.
53:14
Speaker 12: Todd