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: This episode is brought to you by Hendren AI. Specialty
0:15
Speaker 2: pharmacy teams are being asked to do more than ever before.
0:19
Speaker 2: Between patient outreach, refill coordination, prior authorizations, and the endless
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Speaker 2: volume of phone calls, valuable clinical and operational time is
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Speaker 2: often consumed by administrative work. At Hendren AI, we believe
0:31
Speaker 2: the people caring for patients should spend less time managing
0:34
Speaker 2: workflows and more time delivering meaningful outcomes. That's why we
0:39
Speaker 2: build AI-powered solutions designed specifically for specialty and infusion pharmacy organizations.
0:44
Speaker 2: Our platform helps automate repetitive phone-based and administrative processes, streamline operations,
0:51
Speaker 2: and improve the patient experience while fitting into existing workflows.
0:55
Speaker 2: Hendren AI is focused on a simple mission, turning human
0:59
Speaker 2: labor into software so healthcare organizations can scale more efficiently
1:03
Speaker 2: while keeping patients at the center of care. To learn more,
1:07
Speaker 2: visit Hendren.ai and discover how AI can help your team
1:11
Speaker 2: work smarter, not harder.
1:20
Speaker 3: You are listening to the global network of podcasters dedicated
1:23
Speaker 3: to the pharmacy profession.
1:25
Speaker 4: Welcome to the Pharmacy Podcast Network.
1:41
Speaker 5: It's that time of year where the Pharmacy Podcast Network's
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Speaker 5: founder and CEO, Todd Uriek, lands where the hub of
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Speaker 5: specialty pharmacy hosts their annual meeting. Introducing the Inspire 2026
1:55
Speaker 5: Annual Expo.
1:56
Speaker 6: That's right.
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Speaker 5: Specialty pharmacy is evolving, and so is the name of
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Speaker 5: its largest annual meeting. The NASP Annual Meeting and Expo
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Speaker 5: got an upgrade. Innovation, networking, specialty pharmacy expertise. insights, research,
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Speaker 5: and education come together to empower, educate, and connect our community.
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Speaker 5: Live in National Harbor, Maryland, tune in as Todd roams
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Speaker 5: the showroom floor, bringing you the inside coverage of this
2:23
Speaker 5: year's event.
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Speaker 7: Inspire 2026, we are here, a new event through the
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Speaker 7: National Association of Specialty Pharmacy. John, it is so good
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Speaker 7: to see you here in the booth, here at the
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Speaker 7: NESP's booth. Being with Hendren AI, tell our listeners who
2:42
Speaker 7: are dialed into specialty pharmacy, what is Hendren AI? And
2:47
Speaker 7: a little bit of background on yourself.
2:49
Speaker 8: Thanks for having me, Todd.
2:50
Speaker 9: So Hendren AI is a health tech company that is
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Speaker 9: focused on pharmacy, health systems, and pharma companies, is our ICP.
2:59
Speaker 8: And three years ago, we realized quickly that there's an.
3:02
Speaker 9: Area for disruption within healthcare, specifically looking at pharmacies because
3:07
Speaker 9: I've been a pharmacist for the past 16 years. I've
3:10
Speaker 9: noticed everything is fragmented. There's so many point solutions and,
3:14
Speaker 9: And in terms of being able to use technologies such
3:17
Speaker 9: as AI agents, voice AI, and intelligent automation is the
3:21
Speaker 9: reason why the company was started. And then really what
3:24
Speaker 9: it is is domain transference from the Amazons of the
3:27
Speaker 9: world and Facebook to healthcare and how we can actually
3:31
Speaker 9: support productivity and being able to look at, for example,
3:34
Speaker 9: the staffing issues that we're currently experiencing and how do
3:37
Speaker 9: we alleviate those staffing issues using technology. So I would
3:41
Speaker 9: say a pitch would be Hendren AI is how we
3:45
Speaker 9: turn human labor into software, but at the same time,
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Speaker 9: not removing all the human labor, but really having human
3:50
Speaker 9: laborers work with digital laborers to improve the net margins
3:54
Speaker 9: of those pharmacies, whether specialty or not, and being able
3:58
Speaker 9: to really improve productivity in ways that we've never thought before.
4:03
Speaker 7: That's a really good, that's a good starting point, John.
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Speaker 7: You know, I've been asked over the years when we
4:08
Speaker 7: cover events of hey, do you have like a favorite?
4:13
Speaker 7: And it's evolved over the years because when I started,
4:16
Speaker 7: it was long-term care pharmacy. So I felt so much
4:20
Speaker 7: more comfortable talking about long-term care.
4:23
Speaker 10: And guess what?
4:24
Speaker 7: There are components of what's happening in long-term care that
4:27
Speaker 7: have spilled over into the evolution of specialty pharmacy. And
4:32
Speaker 7: now specialty pharmacy has so many more components than any
4:35
Speaker 7: of the sectors that I work in, compounding community pharmacy,
4:42
Speaker 7: clinical trials. That's a whole other sector of pharmacy that
4:45
Speaker 7: people aren't really paying attention to. But specialty, when I
4:49
Speaker 7: think of the manual work, when I think of prior
4:53
Speaker 7: authorization follow-up and filling coordination and provider follow-up and questions
4:59
Speaker 7: and prescription statuses and watching where my order is, delivery, documentation,
5:04
Speaker 7: patient outreach, specialty is... 16, 17, 20 things packed into
5:13
Speaker 7: what it is. And it also depends on the disease state,
5:16
Speaker 7: because sometimes in the disease state, we have REMS reporting
5:19
Speaker 7: that we got to send data back to the manufacturer
5:22
Speaker 7: and stuff. So in my opinion, my lack of knowledge
5:26
Speaker 7: of how AI is implemented, specialty seems to be a
5:31
Speaker 7: hotspot for the leverage and the implementation of artificial intelligence
5:37
Speaker 7: agents that know what's going on within each of those
5:40
Speaker 7: puzzle pieces.
5:41
Speaker 8: So let's talk.
5:42
Speaker 7: About how Hendren has adopted and has become a leader
5:46
Speaker 7: in specialty pharmacy with being able to put some of
5:49
Speaker 7: those pieces together depending on the operations too. Let's start with,
5:54
Speaker 7: let's talk about prior authorization and let's talk about the
5:57
Speaker 7: intensity of that because we got to get that medication
5:59
Speaker 7: to the patient as soon as possible. So let's talk
6:03
Speaker 7: about how Hendren works in that space.
6:05
Speaker 9: As you all know, in terms of prior authorizations, the
6:08
Speaker 9: largest barrier for patients to receive access to those medications,
6:12
Speaker 9: having worked in pharma, I know quite well how these
6:16
Speaker 9: prior authorizations are set up because I've actually worked in
6:20
Speaker 9: payers at PBMs. And utilization management is one of those
6:24
Speaker 9: things that are, quote, unquote, man-made created barriers for.
6:27
Speaker 8: Patients to receive those medications.
6:30
Speaker 6: Yeah.
6:30
Speaker 9: And the reason why they're made is because of those
6:32
Speaker 9: agreements between pharma companies and essentially the payers and PBMs.
6:38
Speaker 8: Because of those.
6:38
Speaker 9: Man-made created barriers that are done behind the doors, we
6:42
Speaker 9: actually have to go through the hoop, whether we're a
6:45
Speaker 9: patient provider or stakeholders such as a specialty pharmacy. And
6:49
Speaker 9: a lot of these things are actually currently done on
6:52
Speaker 9: the office manager side, the private practice side. And all
6:55
Speaker 9: we have is what cover my meds from our side.
6:58
Speaker 9: We can't do more than that. But in terms of
7:00
Speaker 9: being able to have those kind of APIs set up
7:03
Speaker 9: in place where we can see missing diagnosis codes, we
7:07
Speaker 9: have visibility into patient access through those things because we
7:13
Speaker 9: Now that we actually have that kind of access to
7:15
Speaker 9: the epic discerners of the world, while you're in specialty pharmacy,
7:20
Speaker 9: it really solves a lot of the questions that you
7:22
Speaker 9: might have as a pharmacist saying, what are these diagnosis codes?
7:26
Speaker 9: How long has this patient been on this medication? Were
7:28
Speaker 9: they using another pharmacy prior to this? Was it a
7:31
Speaker 9: different dose? So I think to have that kind of
7:34
Speaker 9: full visibility instead of having a fragmented piece of healthcare
7:39
Speaker 9: is the way to do things, especially if we're using
7:41
Speaker 9: voice AI to reach out to those providers and making
7:45
Speaker 9: sure that they're following up on completing those prior authorizations because.
7:48
Speaker 8: The patients need them.
7:50
Speaker 9: And we've communicated immensely with pharma companies to be able
7:53
Speaker 9: to try to facilitate those kind of things because the
7:56
Speaker 9: pharma companies are in business to make sure that those
7:58
Speaker 9: medications reach the patients. At the same token, a specialty
8:01
Speaker 9: pharmacy is trying to make sure that medication is.
8:03
Speaker 8: Reached by the patient.
8:04
Speaker 9: But if there's no I would say push from the
8:08
Speaker 9: office manager or the physician to be able to complete
8:11
Speaker 9: those forms in a timely manner, then the patient doesn't
8:14
Speaker 9: get treated with the medication and it just goes downhill afterwards.
8:17
Speaker 9: It just goes into limbo. So in terms of being
8:19
Speaker 9: able to leverage the transparency of API integrations with those
8:24
Speaker 9: EHR systems, making sure that AI agents from the provider
8:27
Speaker 9: side are actually working on those things, and at the
8:30
Speaker 9: same time, the visibility into those EHR systems from the
8:32
Speaker 9: specialty pharmacy side, and the collaborations with pharma to be
8:36
Speaker 9: able to move things forward is the way we approach things.
8:41
Speaker 7: John, has the API snobbiness, that's a lot. I don't
8:49
Speaker 7: know what else to call it. But back in my day,
8:52
Speaker 7: back in the day when I was selling pharmacy management
8:55
Speaker 7: system software and we would reach out to an organization,
8:58
Speaker 7: sometimes that was the EHR Systems Association, It was like
9:01
Speaker 7: pulling teeth to get them to even allow us to
9:05
Speaker 7: write some kind of code and some kind of permanent
9:08
Speaker 7: connection API to their system. Because of the advent of
9:12
Speaker 7: AI and because of the adoption really of AI and
9:16
Speaker 7: the acceptance of it, has this lowered the, I don't
9:21
Speaker 7: want to start, it's not quality, but is it like,
9:24
Speaker 7: are these EHR systems allowing a smaller, let's say specialty
9:29
Speaker 7: pharmacy per se, to write something permanent and has the
9:33
Speaker 7: cybersecurity and it has, you know, all the checks and
9:36
Speaker 7: balances necessary, but it is allowing us to pass information
9:42
Speaker 7: back and forth. So it's not just passing it to
9:45
Speaker 7: the provider, letting them know what happened, but if the
9:47
Speaker 7: provider makes a comment or the provider, you know, wants
9:51
Speaker 7: additional information, talk to me about the evolution of the
9:54
Speaker 7: API between these large gargantuan EHR systems and then our
10:00
Speaker 7: pharmacy management systems.
10:02
Speaker 9: Yeah, there are two different worlds. So the HR systems
10:06
Speaker 9: actually charge you for every call.
10:08
Speaker 8: So every time you.
10:09
Speaker 9: Transmit information to them or back, you're actually paying for it.
10:13
Speaker 9: On the pharmacy management software side, you get an API,
10:17
Speaker 9: and it's the most predominant ones in the PMS or
10:20
Speaker 9: pharmacy management system world out there.
10:22
Speaker 8: You'd be able to get an API with them.
10:24
Speaker 9: Now, the question that you had stated is, how can
10:27
Speaker 9: you read and write onto those EHR systems? Again, for
10:31
Speaker 9: a specialty pharmacy to go through the hoops itself on
10:34
Speaker 9: its own, to be able to do those things, the
10:37
Speaker 9: security clearance would be a nightmare for a specialty pharmacy.
10:40
Speaker 8: Unless you're like a.
10:41
Speaker 9: Large specialty pharmacy who might have a couple of names
10:43
Speaker 9: in my head that I don't want to mention, it
10:46
Speaker 9: would be very difficult, right? So we are leveraged essentially
10:50
Speaker 9: as a third party that we can go say, We
10:52
Speaker 9: have the SOC compliance. We're able to make sure of
10:55
Speaker 9: all these things that are in place in terms of
10:57
Speaker 9: security control and compliance and governance to be able to
11:01
Speaker 9: say we can connect, we can read, we can write,
11:04
Speaker 9: and we can send information back and forth from the
11:06
Speaker 9: pharmacy management software system. all the way to the EHR
11:09
Speaker 9: system and then making sure that's actually compliant in a way.
11:13
Speaker 9: And this is, by the way, happening all the time
11:14
Speaker 9: through webhooks. So Doximity, for example, has an ability to
11:18
Speaker 9: be able to go in there and book appointments and
11:21
Speaker 9: schedule off of an EHR system. And whether that's Athena, Epic, Cerner,
11:25
Speaker 9: they actually look at the calendars of those providers and
11:28
Speaker 9: they're able to basically read and write in terms of
11:31
Speaker 9: scheduling appointments with physicians, right? But to be able to
11:34
Speaker 9: have that kind of caliber in terms of governance and
11:36
Speaker 9: compliance and making sure you're entering information in a way
11:40
Speaker 9: where you're not disrupting anything else, that's really the key.
11:43
Speaker 9: So in terms of being able to have that competitive moat,
11:46
Speaker 9: we do have that because we work on both sides
11:49
Speaker 9: of the aisle, from the HR side and from essentially
11:52
Speaker 9: the PMS side.
11:55
Speaker 7: Also thinking of things like the data entry component of this,
11:59
Speaker 7: the compliance monitoring component, Medication, reconciliation, things tied into the inventory.
12:07
Speaker 7: What other ways is Hendren assisting the specialty pharmacy operator?
12:14
Speaker 9: So we're assisting them mostly with the pharma companies because
12:18
Speaker 9: of the limited distribution networks for certain medications. So that's
12:23
Speaker 9: really the signaling that we get the high-touch, high-cost medications
12:28
Speaker 9: where they need nurses to go out.
12:30
Speaker 8: And when the nurses get those kind of really.
12:32
Speaker 9: Detailed information, the pharma company wants them back because we
12:36
Speaker 9: need that data to be able to start looking at
12:39
Speaker 9: we're looking at rare disease, right? So cell gene therapy
12:42
Speaker 9: or rare diseases, there's very limited cases.
12:46
Speaker 8: To begin with.
12:46
Speaker 9: So the more information you can actually obtain from those
12:48
Speaker 9: kinds of patients, the more information the pharma.
12:51
Speaker 8: Company wants to get.
12:53
Speaker 9: So all of that is like data retrieval and giving
12:55
Speaker 9: it back to the pharma companies and facilitating all those
12:58
Speaker 9: steps back.
13:01
Speaker 4: Very good.
13:02
Speaker 8: All right.
13:02
Speaker 7: So when you're seeing the vendors here, you're around, Everybody
13:10
Speaker 7: at NASP is really focused on specialty. Has there been
13:13
Speaker 7: anything that stood out to you where you're saying, wow,
13:16
Speaker 7: this is a huge opportunity for organizations to leapfrog where
13:20
Speaker 7: they are right now with the adoption of AI? Has
13:23
Speaker 7: there been any sessions or have there been any meetings
13:26
Speaker 7: that you've had that those opportunity lights have gone off?
13:32
Speaker 8: Oh, yeah.
13:32
Speaker 9: I've definitely had opportunities where I've seen I would say
13:36
Speaker 9: a huge uptake where pharma companies are working with specialty
13:40
Speaker 9: pharmacies and saying, hey, we have this huge population that
13:44
Speaker 9: we want you to carry on your shoulders, and how
13:46
Speaker 9: do we end up carrying it as a specialty pharmacy?
13:48
Speaker 9: And they're coming to us to try to figure that
13:50
Speaker 9: out because there's a huge uptake.
13:53
Speaker 7: Do you think, John, organizations that have pharmacists on staff
13:59
Speaker 7: that are tied in specifically to the management of tech
14:03
Speaker 7: and tied into the management of AI. There's such an
14:07
Speaker 7: advantage there. You were a pharmacist first, and I'm not
14:11
Speaker 7: sure if you were a pharmacist nerd first or a
14:14
Speaker 7: tech nerd first, but regardless, double nerding.
14:18
Speaker 4: But talk to me about that.
14:20
Speaker 7: What's the advantage of an organization really adopting a pharmacist
14:25
Speaker 7: and bringing them into the fold that can see both sides,
14:29
Speaker 7: that really has that background as a PharmD, and then
14:31
Speaker 7: leveraging AI on top of that?
14:35
Speaker 9: Well, I would say a lot of the organizations from
14:37
Speaker 9: the pharma side have already started to tick up in
14:39
Speaker 9: terms of getting directors of AI and VPs of AI
14:43
Speaker 9: to be able to get up to speed with this.
14:45
Speaker 9: And I actually teach at the Rutgers Business School with
14:47
Speaker 9: mid to upper level actually pharma executives from Johnson & Johnson, Vive.
14:53
Speaker 9: And in terms of being able to try to educate
14:55
Speaker 9: folks about this, it's quite difficult because we've come from
14:59
Speaker 9: a time where, let's say, AI stuff didn't exist. And
15:02
Speaker 9: basically saying, well, now you have to be a PharmD
15:04
Speaker 9: and understand technology, at least superficially. It becomes quite difficult.
15:08
Speaker 9: But in terms of being able to get everyone up
15:11
Speaker 9: to speed with this kind of technology, whether it's on
15:13
Speaker 9: the pharma side or from the specialty side, there definitely
15:16
Speaker 9: is going to be roles carved out within these organizations
15:20
Speaker 9: and specialty pharmacies because everyone has a lot of work
15:23
Speaker 9: to do to begin with. And then being able to
15:25
Speaker 9: assign someone, whether they're delegating out to a vendor or
15:30
Speaker 9: they're building it out in-house, There's going to be a
15:33
Speaker 9: need for someone that actually can come in and understand,
15:35
Speaker 9: I would say, the processes, the depth of the workflows,
15:40
Speaker 9: and the folks that are involved from the specialty pharmacy side.
15:43
Speaker 9: And I've already seen an uptick from the pharma side
15:45
Speaker 9: in terms of them doing it and building out those
15:48
Speaker 9: specific roles. But in terms of being a pharmacy nerd,
15:51
Speaker 9: I was definitely a pharmacy nerd first. became a tech nerd.
15:54
Speaker 9: I think the last time I coded was in high
15:56
Speaker 9: school with HTML, Visual Basic, and Python. But other than that,
16:02
Speaker 9: in terms of being a nerd, I can definitely say
16:05
Speaker 9: that for sure, having done a PharmD MBA and now
16:08
Speaker 9: gotten into tech. But yeah, I do think there's a
16:12
Speaker 9: need for it because some of the folks that have
16:15
Speaker 9: been in the field for the longest within pharmacy are
16:18
Speaker 9: just asking me, health.
16:19
Speaker 8: Tech, what is that? You know my point?
16:23
Speaker 9: I've known these people for decades, and I told them
16:25
Speaker 9: I'm a health tech, and they have no clue what
16:27
Speaker 9: I'm talking about.
16:30
Speaker 7: I've heard the same thing. I've heard the same thing
16:33
Speaker 7: in our long-term care pharmacy consultants who are used to
16:37
Speaker 7: going into the facilities who do have a little bit
16:40
Speaker 7: of a background in programming before AI, where they were
16:43
Speaker 7: doing everything really manually, and now the implementation. I think
16:48
Speaker 7: those individuals who have taken time to follow That's why
16:51
Speaker 7: I say to these P3s I visit with just, you know,
16:55
Speaker 7: was down at WVU two or three weeks ago, make
16:58
Speaker 7: sure that you're keeping up with tech, even though you
17:00
Speaker 7: have so much going on from the clinical perspective and
17:03
Speaker 7: pharmacological things that you're learning, you know, keeping up with
17:07
Speaker 7: tech is going to be so important because this is
17:09
Speaker 7: only going to, this is only going to continue to
17:11
Speaker 7: compound of marrying tech with, with your PharmD and what
17:15
Speaker 7: that means for operations.
17:18
Speaker 9: I mean, there's another wave that's happening right now within pharmacy,
17:21
Speaker 9: which is genomics. So you just can't catch a breath,
17:26
Speaker 9: whether it's genomics or AI. So you have a lot
17:28
Speaker 9: of things being thrown at these classes in terms of undergraduating.
17:33
Speaker 9: So there's a lot of waves to be followed.
17:36
Speaker 11: And specializing.
17:37
Speaker 7: So a shout out to our pharmacists out there, not
17:41
Speaker 7: only specializing into the disease state, but specializing into the
17:45
Speaker 7: application process. of writing prompts and understanding how to do
17:48
Speaker 7: that and leveraging and double checking and auditing, because no
17:52
Speaker 7: matter how good AI is, it still comes back to, um,
17:57
Speaker 7: the pharmacists, uh, you know, expertise, it comes back to
18:00
Speaker 7: your license. So it's really, it still comes back to
18:03
Speaker 7: you being the, the individual in charge when you're, when
18:06
Speaker 7: you're attached to that prescription attached to that patient and
18:10
Speaker 7: that therapy. And then really, um, applying, being able to
18:14
Speaker 7: apply tech to these systems. I love when the hot
18:18
Speaker 7: button or hot phrase 10, 15 years ago was predictive
18:23
Speaker 7: analytics and being able to take big data and being
18:27
Speaker 7: able to forecast shortages and forecast, you know, inventory needs
18:32
Speaker 7: and even start dialing into what the patient is going
18:36
Speaker 7: to go through based on what's happened to another hundred thousand,
18:40
Speaker 7: a hundred thousand patients that have gone through some type
18:43
Speaker 7: of therapy. I can only imagine now what AI is
18:46
Speaker 7: going to be able to do when you start coupling
18:48
Speaker 7: data over a 10 year, you know, five year, 10 year,
18:52
Speaker 7: 20 year period of being able to say, Hey, what's the,
18:55
Speaker 7: what's the prediction outcome on ABC, you know, what of
19:00
Speaker 7: what's going to happen and then have that pharmacist be
19:02
Speaker 7: able to look into that data and share that with
19:04
Speaker 7: the physicians, with the teams, but it's going to come
19:07
Speaker 7: back to the pharmacist as the hub. Because really, it's
19:10
Speaker 7: their clinical expertise, I think, that's the knife's edge. It
19:15
Speaker 7: really gives a huge advantage, especially in the space of
19:18
Speaker 7: rare disease.
19:19
Speaker 9: Well, I think because the diseases are so rare, when
19:23
Speaker 9: you think of being able to visualize this data, and
19:27
Speaker 9: that's another thing in tech that they typically look at
19:29
Speaker 9: with data scientists and be able to dissect this data online.
19:33
Speaker 9: You're able to use a 3D visual model to be
19:36
Speaker 9: able to zoom in and zoom out and categorize based
19:40
Speaker 9: on specific lab parameters, environmental impact, and being able to
19:45
Speaker 9: look back, I would say, down. you could probably look back.
19:51
Speaker 9: And then you could look back in terms of environmental
19:54
Speaker 9: factors that were happening in the past and then try
19:57
Speaker 9: to foresee those kind of things into the future. And
19:59
Speaker 9: if you look at it in a three-dimensional pathway where
20:02
Speaker 9: you're able to look at the factors that are impacting
20:06
Speaker 9: the disease state and that could prevent that disease state
20:09
Speaker 9: from happening into the future.
20:10
Speaker 8: So in terms of data science and data visualization.
20:14
Speaker 9: And being able to look at The disease states from
20:17
Speaker 9: a therapeutic angle, but at the same time, environmental factors.
20:21
Speaker 8: And I said genomics is another one. Yeah. So there's
20:24
Speaker 8: so many avenues that you can actually cut this.
20:27
Speaker 7: Yep. Hey, we are excited that you got to be
20:31
Speaker 7: part of the coverage of Inspire 2021. here at the
20:36
Speaker 7: NASP booth, running NASP's podcast. We'll definitely have you back
20:43
Speaker 7: on the subject of specialty pharmacy. We're also excited. We're
20:48
Speaker 7: going to be working with Hendren at the NCPA 2026.
20:51
Speaker 7: Shifting gears, John, we're going to go from specialty to community.
20:55
Speaker 7: And it's.
20:58
Speaker 4: Just as complex, just in its own special way.
21:02
Speaker 8: Ain't got the truth.
21:03
Speaker 1: Yeah.
21:04
Speaker 7: All right. We'll see you in Kansas City.
21:07
Speaker 8: See you, Dad.
21:11
Speaker 4: Hey, this is Andy Crawford from KeySource, and you're listening
21:14
Speaker 4: to the Pharmacy Podcast Network.
21:19
Speaker 7: Andy Crawford. I found him in Washington, D.C. at the
21:23
Speaker 7: Inspire 2026. This is an amazing event. KeySource at specialty.
21:30
Speaker 7: That's special in itself. I want to hear why KeySource
21:33
Speaker 7: is here at a specialty pharmacy event.
21:36
Speaker 4: Well, you know, we've been coming to NASP back when
21:39
Speaker 4: it was in the basement of the hotel in D.C.
21:43
Speaker 4: We were one of the OGs.
21:44
Speaker 10: The OGs.
21:46
Speaker 4: The OGs. I think there might have been 12 vendors
21:48
Speaker 4: back then. Holy cow. So, you know, KeySource has been
21:51
Speaker 4: a long-term partner of NASP and now Inspire. I can't
21:57
Speaker 4: forget that conference.
21:58
Speaker 7: Great.
22:00
Speaker 4: Great organization. Anything we do to support our specialty pharmacy
22:03
Speaker 4: partners across the United States, anything that's genericized, specialty light
22:09
Speaker 4: type of products, we're distributing across the country. So I'm
22:12
Speaker 4: glad to be here, Todd.
22:14
Speaker 7: I'm glad to have you.
22:15
Speaker 4: It's good to see you.
22:16
Speaker 7: What do you think has changed in specialty pharmacy over
22:20
Speaker 7: the years that has impacted distribution, sourcing, supply chain, and
22:27
Speaker 7: it's become more complex?
22:29
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, great question. I'd say the biggest changes recently
22:34
Speaker 4: are access. How do you get access, especially if you're
22:38
Speaker 4: a pharmacy that's looking to get access to limited distribution
22:42
Speaker 4: type of products, partnering with those emerging biotech companies to
22:46
Speaker 4: be able to have access to them. So I'd say
22:47
Speaker 4: that would be, I think, of major interest to a
22:50
Speaker 4: lot of the specialty pharmacies that are here. From the
22:52
Speaker 4: distribution standpoint, it is, are you prepared to distribute cold
22:57
Speaker 4: chain across the country? biosimilar products that continue to come
23:01
Speaker 4: to market require special handling. So in my business, that's big.
23:06
Speaker 4: So since we're going countrywide, I think a big change
23:10
Speaker 4: for our business is expansion of our capabilities in our
23:14
Speaker 4: distribution center to be able to ship cold pack products
23:16
Speaker 4: across the United States. And I think formulary placement's another
23:21
Speaker 4: really big one for biosimilar products. Access is always important,
23:26
Speaker 4: but if the product that you have access to is
23:29
Speaker 4: not placed on a formulary that makes any sense or
23:31
Speaker 4: falls off that formulary, upon the new year, I think
23:34
Speaker 4: that's a big challenge for pharmacies right now.
23:37
Speaker 7: So when I think of the challenges of specialty specifically,
23:41
Speaker 7: I want to say prior authorization and denials and systems
23:46
Speaker 7: that seem to be algorithm-driven problems. we become really frustrated with,
23:50
Speaker 7: especially our pharmacists who know damn well, even the prescriber
23:54
Speaker 7: who knows, oh, I prescribed this and it immediately gets
23:57
Speaker 7: rejected for X, Y, Z. AI comes in and starts
24:01
Speaker 7: to find patterns.
24:02
Speaker 12: Right?
24:03
Speaker 7: And we've heard about, we found this as reports that
24:06
Speaker 7: have come out on several blogs that we follow. How
24:09
Speaker 7: do you see AI impacting that world where the PBM
24:15
Speaker 7: needs to start stepping up to the plate and really
24:17
Speaker 7: starting to tell some truths rather than it being kind
24:20
Speaker 7: of status quo business as usual?
24:24
Speaker 4: Uh, great question. I don't know that I'm a, I
24:26
Speaker 4: know you're not an expert, but that's a good one. Oh,
24:29
Speaker 4: I like your, I like your thoughts around it. I'd
24:31
Speaker 4: say though, um, The world has changed drastically from the
24:37
Speaker 4: standpoint of artificial intelligence, how it's been used and implemented
24:40
Speaker 4: in businesses. The health system space, I think, will see
24:44
Speaker 4: vast change over the next 12 to 36 months. I
24:49
Speaker 4: think where I can shed some insight, maybe not from
24:52
Speaker 4: the payer standpoint, because that's not my world, but maybe
24:55
Speaker 4: from the standpoint of just how does a how does
25:00
Speaker 4: a manufacturer and or a company look to develop a
25:04
Speaker 4: new therapy? Could that therapy be used across different indications?
25:10
Speaker 4: Using artificial intelligence to look at, hey, if we apply
25:16
Speaker 4: for an ANDA for a new product or an NDA
25:18
Speaker 4: for a new product, what is the likelihood of success?
25:23
Speaker 4: Or how could you use this product for more than
25:26
Speaker 4: one indication of therapy? I think that's what's really exciting
25:29
Speaker 4: from the standpoint of distribution, because that means that medication
25:33
Speaker 4: access and prescribing habits might change based on what AI
25:37
Speaker 4: brings to the table. From the payer standpoint, not necessarily
25:41
Speaker 4: sure on that side. But like anything, as you mentioned, algorithmically,
25:47
Speaker 4: if there's patterns and you can use AI to identify patterns,
25:53
Speaker 4: I think there's leverage there. for those that are prescribers
25:57
Speaker 4: to use. And I think that's ultimately power for them.
26:01
Speaker 7: It is. And that's where I want it to return.
26:04
Speaker 7: I want the prescriber and I want the providers and
26:06
Speaker 7: I want the physicians to be working with pharmacists to
26:09
Speaker 7: understand the disease state, to understand what the patient's going through,
26:12
Speaker 7: and not have to claw for access and not have
26:17
Speaker 7: to claw for getting that product to the patient, getting
26:22
Speaker 7: them on that therapy as quickly as possible.
26:24
Speaker 6: Yeah.
26:25
Speaker 4: No, I think there's a lot of great opportunity that's
26:30
Speaker 4: going to come down the pipeline. Speed, automation, you name it.
26:37
Speaker 4: And you can already see the change within just the
26:39
Speaker 4: day-to-day operations of pharmacy implementing AI into different types of
26:46
Speaker 4: facets of their business. So it's exciting times.
26:49
Speaker 7: All right.
26:50
Speaker 4: It was good to see you here in D.C.
26:52
Speaker 7: We always appreciate Key Sources Insights. Your insights, Andy Crawford.
26:57
Speaker 4: Appreciate you.
26:58
Speaker 7: It's been good to see you. Appreciate you.
27:00
Speaker 6: Yeah.
27:00
Speaker 4: Thanks a lot, Tom.
27:05
Speaker 7: Brandon, back on the pods, NASP podcast here at Inspire 2026,
27:10
Speaker 7: and you're with Dr. Arga Chak again. It's so good
27:16
Speaker 7: to see you both.
27:18
Speaker 11: Thanks for having me back as always.
27:19
Speaker 6: Summer reunions you really look forward to, and this is
27:21
Speaker 6: definitely on that list.
27:23
Speaker 11: We've been able to do this two years in a row,
27:25
Speaker 11: so I'm pretty excited for it.
27:26
Speaker 7: Well, once you get to two, now you have to
27:29
Speaker 7: keep coming back and make it a tradition. So we'll
27:31
Speaker 7: have to have you on Inspire 2027 too.
27:35
Speaker 11: Sounds great to me. If you're willing to have me back,
27:37
Speaker 11: that's for sure.
27:38
Speaker 7: You podcast listeners, you can't see it, but Jonathan's holding
27:42
Speaker 7: our mobile microphone and it has a Steeler yellow on
27:47
Speaker 7: top of it in the little fuzzy thing. And it's
27:50
Speaker 7: we should play a violin along with the picture that
27:53
Speaker 7: I look at right now because the Steelers, what what
27:56
Speaker 7: is going on?
27:58
Speaker 11: And we shouldn't be talking about it because we have
27:59
Speaker 11: a Cleveland fan that's standing beside me.
28:01
Speaker 7: But he won last week, I think.
28:03
Speaker 13: I know.
28:03
Speaker 11: He's going to rub it in and not let us
28:05
Speaker 11: hear any less about it.
28:07
Speaker 6: I mean, I didn't forget most of my life, guys.
28:09
Speaker 6: I'm not in a position to rub it in when
28:11
Speaker 6: it comes to.
28:11
Speaker 12: The subject of NFL football.
28:13
Speaker 10: That's fair enough.
28:15
Speaker 9: All right.
28:16
Speaker 12: Well, guess what?
28:17
Speaker 7: You guys are champions in the specialty pharmacy space. I've
28:20
Speaker 7: been watching your careers for years. Jonathan, my goodness, your
28:24
Speaker 7: career specifically. and the growth in specialty pharmacy specifically, and
28:30
Speaker 7: just how proud I am of what you've worked on.
28:33
Speaker 7: Part of your dedication to this profession is taking certification
28:37
Speaker 7: to a whole other level and allowing a pharmacist who
28:40
Speaker 7: wants to get deeper into specialty to bring in an
28:44
Speaker 7: education standard and a certification standard that really sets them
28:49
Speaker 7: apart from other pharmacists who don't really haven't had that
28:52
Speaker 7: investment yet. I want you to talk to us and
28:54
Speaker 7: bring our listeners up to date about that certification and
28:59
Speaker 7: how NASP has been pivotal to growing it.
29:03
Speaker 8: Oh, absolutely.
29:04
Speaker 11: I mean, the CSP credential has been around for a
29:07
Speaker 11: little over 10 years now since it's been accredited and
29:09
Speaker 11: out there in the marketplace. And, you know, year over year,
29:12
Speaker 11: it continues to get more and more traction as being
29:15
Speaker 11: a real high watermark to demonstrate a pharmacist's proficiency in
29:20
Speaker 11: being able to operate as a specialty pharmacist. And, you know,
29:23
Speaker 11: it's really been built as a you know, more of
29:25
Speaker 11: a generalized credential than what you see out there in
29:27
Speaker 11: other areas of practice. But, you know, there's been a
29:31
Speaker 11: huge investment by NASP and, you know, the Specialty Certification
29:36
Speaker 11: Board that's a subsidiary of theirs is continually dedicated to
29:39
Speaker 11: trying to find new and innovative ways to advance that profession.
29:43
Speaker 11: I was telling somebody yesterday, we had an orientation for
29:45
Speaker 11: some of our new board members, Brandon and I, but
29:48
Speaker 11: I took my exam Like back when it first started,
29:51
Speaker 11: back in like 2015, and it was one of like
29:54
Speaker 11: the lower numbers on the chart in terms of numbers
29:56
Speaker 11: of certified individuals. And now at this meeting, we're over 2,100
30:01
Speaker 11: pharmacists that have achieved this certification. And so I think
30:05
Speaker 11: it's a testament to folks like Brandon, the rest of
30:07
Speaker 11: the members of the board, NASP as well, to really
30:11
Speaker 11: put an emphasis on moving the profession forward by just
30:14
Speaker 11: showing that there are reasons why we work in specialty.
30:19
Speaker 11: There's a validation to what it is that we do,
30:21
Speaker 11: and we can actually now start to have a tool
30:24
Speaker 11: that's in place to be able to prove that we
30:26
Speaker 11: know what we're doing.
30:27
Speaker 7: Brandon, what's your experience been working with new pharmacists who
30:31
Speaker 7: come into the education standards and learning together, and what
30:38
Speaker 7: excitement has that brought you?
30:40
Speaker 6: So much excitement. I'm going to answer that through two
30:43
Speaker 6: different sets of lenses. The first one is going to
30:46
Speaker 6: be folks that are new to specialty pharmacy and new
30:49
Speaker 6: to the credential in general. Obviously, there's an experience component
30:54
Speaker 6: that's required before you can sit for the exam and
30:56
Speaker 6: earn the credential, but those discussions are usually centered around
31:01
Speaker 6: this is something that you work towards. There's a certain
31:03
Speaker 6: degree of experience that you have to acquire, not just
31:06
Speaker 6: by reading a book, but by doing this day in
31:09
Speaker 6: and day out, understanding the barriers that we have the
31:13
Speaker 6: privilege of helping patients and their prescribers overcome to get
31:17
Speaker 6: access to these life-changing therapies that are also very expensive.
31:21
Speaker 6: So it's one of those things that you can't really
31:23
Speaker 6: learn in a book. It's a rite of passage. But also,
31:27
Speaker 6: and then the second set of lenses is the set
31:29
Speaker 6: of lenses that Jonathan and I are blessed to occupy,
31:32
Speaker 6: which once you've been doing this for a little while
31:34
Speaker 6: and you get the opportunity to serve in a leadership
31:36
Speaker 6: capacity like we have on the board, there's a tremendous
31:41
Speaker 6: sense of gratefulness and honor for the ones that came
31:44
Speaker 6: before us, that paved that path for us.
31:46
Speaker 3: Yeah.
31:48
Speaker 6: I don't like to use the term obligation because it's
31:51
Speaker 6: something that literally we do for free as volunteer board
31:54
Speaker 6: members because we love doing it.
31:56
Speaker 12: And it's that whole pay it forward thing.
31:58
Speaker 6: People paved a pathway for us and now we have
32:02
Speaker 6: the privilege of doing that for the future generations of
32:05
Speaker 6: who will occupy the positions we now do. And that
32:08
Speaker 6: whole full circle of watching specialty pharmacy develop into... Like
32:15
Speaker 6: I got the credential in 2016. I was also an early...
32:19
Speaker 6: early holder of the certification to us now be over 2100,
32:23
Speaker 6: that growth is so rewarding. But we also know that
32:27
Speaker 6: growth is not finished, right? If you just look at
32:29
Speaker 6: the pipeline and where medicine is going right now, I
32:32
Speaker 6: expect that number to continue to go up just to
32:35
Speaker 6: meet market demands and the number of patients that need
32:39
Speaker 6: holders of our credentials in their corner to navigate the
32:43
Speaker 6: patient journey.
32:44
Speaker 7: So, Brandon, on that point, the FDA says there's 123
32:46
Speaker 7: orphan new molecular entities were approved by CDER. They call
32:55
Speaker 7: that CDER in the five years through 2025 over the
32:59
Speaker 7: next five years. That means that specialists in those disease
33:04
Speaker 7: states are going to be needed. So this certification is
33:07
Speaker 7: even more important. Do you see a splintering happening within
33:11
Speaker 7: the certification itself where you're saying, hey, you're an oncology
33:15
Speaker 7: specialty pharmacist, you're an HIV specialty pharmacist, or I don't
33:19
Speaker 7: know where, I'm not a pharmacist myself, so I don't
33:21
Speaker 7: know where the split would happen, but do you see
33:24
Speaker 7: education starting to even expand within the certification?
33:27
Speaker 6: So those are definitely things that we talk about as
33:29
Speaker 6: a board on a very regular basis.
33:32
Speaker 12: Right now, we're still putting the.
33:36
Speaker 6: You know, the generalized credential out there, you know, that's
33:40
Speaker 6: a decision that gets made beyond just Jonathan and I.
33:42
Speaker 6: But my prognostication would be, yes, there is going to
33:46
Speaker 6: likely be a market for that just from a pure
33:49
Speaker 6: numbers game. And when it makes sense for that to happen,
33:53
Speaker 6: that's likely the direction that we will move in as
33:55
Speaker 6: a board.
33:56
Speaker 12: One of the principles that he and I.
33:57
Speaker 6: Both live by is we have to be the voice
34:00
Speaker 6: of our customer. And our most important customer is the
34:03
Speaker 6: holders of our credential. And usually, not just for personal achievement,
34:09
Speaker 6: they seek that credential because there's a certain benefit to
34:12
Speaker 6: whoever's signing their paychecks to hold that credential. it's very
34:16
Speaker 6: likely that that type of specialization will be dictated by
34:19
Speaker 6: market demands. And as soon as their employers are wanting that,
34:23
Speaker 6: they're going.
34:24
Speaker 12: To want that too.
34:24
Speaker 6: And we've got to be ready to meet that need
34:26
Speaker 6: as soon as the market tells us, guys, I need this.
34:30
Speaker 8: Yeah.
34:30
Speaker 11: And even to jump in there, I mean, with it
34:32
Speaker 11: being a generalized credential, meaning that it's not truly focused
34:35
Speaker 11: on any one disease area, you need to know a
34:37
Speaker 11: little bit of everything, both operationally, clinically, et cetera. And
34:40
Speaker 11: so that's great for the pharmacists that are still in
34:43
Speaker 11: the trenches of doing the work on a day-to-day basis.
34:45
Speaker 11: But when you look around the profession and there's so
34:47
Speaker 11: many other aspects to what makes a specialty pharmacy a
34:51
Speaker 11: good specialty pharmacy, and we need to find a way
34:54
Speaker 11: as a board to be able to validate those efforts
34:57
Speaker 11: and those individuals that do excel at what they do.
35:00
Speaker 11: And so actually at this meeting, we launched a full
35:03
Speaker 11: job task analysis. We're looking at expanding the breadth of
35:07
Speaker 11: our board to open it up into some additional credentialing areas.
35:10
Speaker 11: So that way, Individuals who may not be pharmacists, but
35:13
Speaker 11: they're well-versed in the profession, or individuals who maybe are pharmacists,
35:17
Speaker 11: but they're not working in clinical areas. What would it
35:20
Speaker 11: take to put out leadership and development credentialing so that
35:23
Speaker 11: way those people that are here, they know the business
35:25
Speaker 11: better than anybody else, but maybe they've just been a
35:28
Speaker 11: step removed from the clinical or have never worked the clinical.
35:32
Speaker 11: How can we help to support them as our credential holders,
35:36
Speaker 11: our constituents, just to make sure that their voices are
35:39
Speaker 11: heard and really their their efforts to help advance the
35:42
Speaker 11: profession are growing as well. I know this will be
35:45
Speaker 11: coming out after the meeting as well, but we are
35:50
Speaker 11: here at the booth and things like that. We're allowing
35:52
Speaker 11: individuals to come and help to validate some of the concepts.
35:56
Speaker 11: What are things that people who are working in specialty
35:58
Speaker 11: truly need to learn to be a leader in pharma?
36:01
Speaker 11: They need to be a leader in just day-to-day practice management.
36:06
Speaker 11: And how then could we as a board look to
36:09
Speaker 11: find ways that we can certify those individuals as well
36:13
Speaker 11: to take it beyond just us being representative of pharmacists.
36:16
Speaker 11: I mean, it's the specialty pharmacy certification board. We're just
36:19
Speaker 11: now looking to see, like, what else can we have
36:22
Speaker 11: an impact on to continue to advance the profession that way?
36:24
Speaker 6: And then I'll drop the point after this, but just
36:27
Speaker 6: to put overemphasis on it. We made those decisions based
36:31
Speaker 6: on what the market was telling us. There were various
36:34
Speaker 6: options that we considered, one of which definitely is what
36:36
Speaker 6: you just alluded to, Todd. And the market told us
36:39
Speaker 6: loud and clear that the bigger gap that we need
36:41
Speaker 6: addressed in the immediate term is a type of credential
36:44
Speaker 6: for leaders in non-clinician roles. CSP historically has been something
36:49
Speaker 6: that is geared primarily as a clinician subject matter expertise.
36:53
Speaker 12: If you look at our exam content, it's still.
36:55
Speaker 6: Dominated by clinical versus operational, financial assistance, all the different
36:59
Speaker 6: things that go into the specialty pharmacy patient journey. The
37:02
Speaker 6: market told us loud and clear, I need something that
37:04
Speaker 6: is not geared towards clinicians because those roles absolutely are
37:08
Speaker 6: still critically important. This doesn't happen without those areas being addressed.
37:13
Speaker 6: There's never going to be any value to somebody who is,
37:16
Speaker 6: you know, A trade relations leader, a accreditation leader, a
37:22
Speaker 6: payer network access leader, a patient advocacy leader clinically. They
37:27
Speaker 6: have pharmacists on their team for that that are clinical experts.
37:29
Speaker 6: But I want a way to differentiate myself as a
37:32
Speaker 6: subject matter expert in specialty pharmacy for my business critical niche.
37:37
Speaker 12: So that's what we're trying to address.
37:38
Speaker 10: I love it.
37:40
Speaker 7: And what you were saying, Jonathan, this is career pathway
37:44
Speaker 7: assurance and validity information. So if you're listening to the
37:48
Speaker 7: podcast right now, you're a pharmacist, you're in specialty, maybe
37:51
Speaker 7: you're a senior care pharmacist or you're thinking about getting
37:54
Speaker 7: into specialty, this differentiate you for the rest of your
37:58
Speaker 7: life as a pharmacist that's now certified as a certified
38:02
Speaker 7: specialty pharmacist?
38:03
Speaker 11: Absolutely. The intent behind any of these credentials is not
38:07
Speaker 11: to create an upper echelon like, oh, it's something that's unattainable.
38:10
Speaker 11: It's really to help to promote the people that are
38:13
Speaker 11: in the in the field that know what they're doing,
38:16
Speaker 11: they know how to do it really well, and just
38:18
Speaker 11: to show to the others in the outside world that
38:21
Speaker 11: there is some method to the madness of how we
38:24
Speaker 11: run specialty differently than other areas of pharmacy practice. And so,
38:28
Speaker 11: you know, I think to your point, you know, it's
38:29
Speaker 11: something that, you know, it will be an exam-based credential,
38:32
Speaker 11: we'll be working to get it accredited the same way
38:34
Speaker 11: that it's accredited as the pharmacist credential, but really the
38:38
Speaker 11: intent is to help to show to all of these
38:41
Speaker 11: other areas of practice within the specialty industry How can
38:44
Speaker 11: you go out and prove that you know what you're
38:46
Speaker 11: talking about as well and do it? We would hope
38:49
Speaker 11: that people continue to recredential. It's actually funny. We're talking
38:52
Speaker 11: about credentialing. We, as the CSP board, we were talking
38:55
Speaker 11: just yesterday. It's one of the highest recredentialed credentials in
38:58
Speaker 11: all of healthcare right now. We have about a 96%
39:01
Speaker 11: recredentialing rate. Most others are in the mid-50s. And so
39:04
Speaker 11: it's just there's a lot of people that see the
39:05
Speaker 11: value behind the credential. If you've worked hard to put
39:08
Speaker 11: in the effort to get it and to pass the exam,
39:11
Speaker 11: to study and prepare for it, They want to keep it.
39:14
Speaker 11: They want to show that there's that lifelong learning component
39:18
Speaker 11: of it that really helps to validate their understanding of
39:21
Speaker 11: the profession.
39:22
Speaker 6: And as a board, we're real big on using data
39:24
Speaker 6: for decisions like that, like the statistic Jonathan just referenced.
39:27
Speaker 12: But at the end of the day, the whole.
39:30
Speaker 6: of our credential will tell us how valuable our credential is.
39:34
Speaker 6: At the high level, what you're putting on the first
39:37
Speaker 6: slide is when somebody holds one of our credentials, it
39:40
Speaker 6: tells you immediately they're one of the best in the business.
39:42
Speaker 12: At what they do.
39:44
Speaker 10: That's cool.
39:44
Speaker 12: And if we're not, that's our true north.
39:46
Speaker 6: That's what we're striving for with CSP and any additional
39:49
Speaker 6: credentials we put out. If you hold those letters behind
39:51
Speaker 6: your name, you're one of the best in the industry
39:53
Speaker 6: at what you do.
39:54
Speaker 7: All right, I'm listening.
39:56
Speaker 10: I want my certification.
39:58
Speaker 11: Where do I go? So you can visit the NASP website,
40:03
Speaker 11: so naspnet.org.
40:05
Speaker 12: Yeah, naspnet.org.
40:08
Speaker 11: And there's a whole section on there for certification and credentialing.
40:11
Speaker 11: So you could go visit that. It'll give you instructions
40:13
Speaker 11: on how to actually register for the exam, what the
40:16
Speaker 11: qualifications are now. And then as more information comes out
40:20
Speaker 11: mid to late next year about the new validated credential,
40:23
Speaker 11: there's going to be some more amount of information to
40:25
Speaker 11: come out that way as well.
40:26
Speaker 7: All right. Jonathan, Brandon, thank you for giving us an
40:29
Speaker 7: update on the CSP and how important it is to
40:32
Speaker 7: our profession. And thank you so much for having the
40:35
Speaker 7: PPM be part of the NASP. We are so honored
40:39
Speaker 7: to be embedded in the booth and echoing what's happening
40:43
Speaker 7: in the specialty pharmacy marketplace.
40:44
Speaker 4: Thank you so much.
40:45
Speaker 11: It's a privilege, John.
40:46
Speaker 12: Thanks for everything you do. Absolutely. Not just for specialty pharmacy,
40:49
Speaker 12: but pharmacy in general.
40:50
Speaker 7: Thank you.
40:51
Speaker 10: Thank you.
40:51
Speaker 3: Thanks, John.
40:55
Speaker 13: This is Dustin Eubanks with Plinful, and you are listening
40:58
Speaker 13: to the Pharmacy Podcast.
41:03
Speaker 7: Dustin, welcome to the NASP Podcast here at the Inspire 2026.
41:08
Speaker 4: It's great to have you.
41:09
Speaker 7: Yeah, thanks.
41:10
Speaker 10: It's great to be here, too. I appreciate it.
41:12
Speaker 7: Is this your first specialty pharmacy conference within the NASP's ecosystems?
41:18
Speaker 10: Yeah, not my first, but definitely my first within ASP.
41:21
Speaker 8: Oh, excellent.
41:23
Speaker 4: So what's the vibe been for you?
41:25
Speaker 7: We hear a lot of different interests, obviously AI and
41:31
Speaker 7: workflow and how it's impacting pharmacy, but give us your
41:34
Speaker 7: perception about this event.
41:36
Speaker 13: Yeah, I mean, it's actually been great. I'm excited to
41:39
Speaker 13: come back next year, and we've been extremely busy. And
41:42
Speaker 13: to your point, there's a lot of questions about AI
41:46
Speaker 13: and automating workflows and how does it all work. And
41:49
Speaker 13: I think a lot of the pharmacies that we work
41:53
Speaker 13: with or talk to are really interested and starting to
41:55
Speaker 13: take that jump.
41:56
Speaker 7: So you have a position within Plentful to bring things
42:00
Speaker 7: together with a lot of your partners and and then
42:03
Speaker 7: organizations that want to work with you. Sometimes that includes
42:06
Speaker 7: your direct client. Sometimes it involves clients who have already
42:11
Speaker 7: chosen partners that they're expecting you to kind of partner
42:15
Speaker 7: with so that they get their ROI. Describe to us
42:18
Speaker 7: that position and how that ties into Plentiful.
42:21
Speaker 13: Yeah, I mean, I've actually been doing this partnership stuff
42:24
Speaker 13: for over a decade now. And really, I work inside
42:27
Speaker 13: Plentiful on behalf of our customers, right? And so when
42:32
Speaker 13: they say, hey, I work with this pharmacy management system,
42:36
Speaker 13: I work with this EHR, or I need access to
42:40
Speaker 13: this clearinghouse or this data set.
42:42
Speaker 10: It's my job to do that on their behalf, right?
42:44
Speaker 13: So I think for me, it's always thinking about who
42:48
Speaker 13: do we need to work with to make it so
42:49
Speaker 13: that they don't have to touch multiple systems or reconcile
42:52
Speaker 13: multiple things and really kind of create that vision of
42:55
Speaker 13: that streamlined process. And so it means a lot. It's
43:01
Speaker 13: TPAs as well. It's basically if it's anything on this
43:05
Speaker 13: floor that would benefit them for us talking together, it's
43:09
Speaker 13: something that me and my team have responsibility for.
43:13
Speaker 7: We think of the complexity of specialty pharmacy. We start
43:16
Speaker 7: with the way that the patient is feeling when they're
43:20
Speaker 7: given a diagnosis by their physician. It could be something
43:23
Speaker 7: very serious like cancer. their minds begin to race. How
43:29
Speaker 7: am I going to deal with this? How is this
43:31
Speaker 7: going to impact my loved ones, my family? How am
43:34
Speaker 7: I going to pay for it?
43:35
Speaker 4: It's up to us.
43:37
Speaker 7: This industry, it's our responsibility to ensure that that fear
43:41
Speaker 7: is removed as much as possible in trying to make
43:44
Speaker 7: their journey as seamless as possible. We're talking about the
43:48
Speaker 7: electronic health records. People are still using faxes, for goodness sakes,
43:52
Speaker 7: the electronic health systems. the pharmacy management systems, the eligibility checks.
43:57
Speaker 7: Talk to us where Plentiful kind of fits into all
44:00
Speaker 7: of that.
44:00
Speaker 13: Yeah, I mean, I actually am really glad that you
44:03
Speaker 13: phrased it that way because what.
44:06
Speaker 10: I find is, yes, there's that moment where.
44:08
Speaker 13: You're in the doctor's office and you hear what needs
44:11
Speaker 13: to happen and.
44:13
Speaker 10: You're kind of taken back.
44:14
Speaker 13: But I commonly find that that person that is the
44:18
Speaker 13: best patient advocate and really holding their hand through this
44:20
Speaker 13: process is really that patient advocate, right? It's that person
44:23
Speaker 13: that's handling the dirty work and really understanding the patient's
44:28
Speaker 13: needs and requirements and doing that navigation and that advocacy
44:32
Speaker 13: on their behalf. So if you take a step back,
44:35
Speaker 13: the moment that doctor makes that decision, they're going to
44:37
Speaker 13: send an order over to a pharmacy, and it could
44:40
Speaker 13: be faxed, it could be electronic or whatever. And so
44:44
Speaker 13: when you look at it through the pharmacy's perspective, the
44:46
Speaker 13: journey starts there. at intake and it's kind of wrangling
44:50
Speaker 13: all that structured and unstructured information in order to get
44:53
Speaker 13: a signal that a patient needs therapy, right? And it's
44:57
Speaker 13: really our job to take that and make it usable
45:01
Speaker 13: and actionable and break that information down from all the
45:04
Speaker 13: different systems and make it so that they know the context,
45:09
Speaker 13: they know the steps and it's all usable.
45:11
Speaker 10: And they can walk into that next step of.
45:13
Speaker 13: The journey and never have to touch a piece of
45:15
Speaker 13: paper again and go through that.
45:18
Speaker 10: Process to get that patient what they need.
45:20
Speaker 7: And then we internalize. I think of our pharmacists who
45:25
Speaker 7: get the order handed to them, but we could back up,
45:28
Speaker 7: and it's actually the pharmacy technician who is the person that's.
45:31
Speaker 4: In charge of kind of organizing.
45:33
Speaker 7: But then they're scrambling because they can't find a lab
45:36
Speaker 7: that's been attached to the therapy and the data that
45:39
Speaker 7: we need. So talk to us about how that is being,
45:44
Speaker 7: you know, there's mitigating that risk that you're going to
45:47
Speaker 7: miss something.
45:47
Speaker 8: Yeah.
45:48
Speaker 13: I mean, when you, when you talk about that pharmacist tech,
45:50
Speaker 13: when I say like that patient advocate, that's really what
45:52
Speaker 13: I mean. That person that's like, I've got a responsibility,
45:55
Speaker 13: I've got a timeline, I've got to get this done. And,
45:58
Speaker 13: you know, I think back to one of the things
46:00
Speaker 13: that's really important to us and me personally as an
46:02
Speaker 13: organization is shadowing the pharmacy techs and the work that
46:06
Speaker 13: they do, those patient navigators. Um, And I can remember
46:10
Speaker 13: seeing one that was just looking for a single lab
46:12
Speaker 13: value for an hour. And, you know, when she originally
46:15
Speaker 13: got it, she said, this is easy. I've seen this
46:17
Speaker 13: in DC and I've seen this PBM before.
46:19
Speaker 10: I could do this in 20 minutes.
46:21
Speaker 13: And it took her an hour and 20 because she
46:23
Speaker 13: couldn't find a single lab value.
46:24
Speaker 10: She had that information.
46:26
Speaker 13: And so but but, you know, I think that the
46:28
Speaker 13: human element is that the entire time she kept talking
46:31
Speaker 13: about the other patients that were jammed up.
46:33
Speaker 8: Right.
46:33
Speaker 13: So if she thought it was going to take her
46:35
Speaker 13: 20 minutes, she's now four behind. And I think that
46:38
Speaker 13: that tax is what's really important. So if you have
46:41
Speaker 13: the information and intake is connected to different things, let's
46:44
Speaker 13: bring it through, right? Then the next step in that
46:48
Speaker 13: is what we would call deep benefits investigation.
46:51
Speaker 10: So is the insurance active? What's covered? What's not?
46:55
Speaker 13: And really kind of understanding that next step in the process.
46:58
Speaker 13: And that's really unique is putting that right between intake
47:01
Speaker 13: and prior authorization to make sure that you're on the
47:05
Speaker 13: best path for the patient.
47:06
Speaker 9: Mm-hmm.
47:08
Speaker 13: And then when you get to that prior authorization point,
47:10
Speaker 13: which is where she stuck on the lab, now it's like,
47:13
Speaker 13: do I have everything? Am I getting everything in place?
47:15
Speaker 13: Am I getting it through the journey? And so for her,
47:18
Speaker 13: you know, it was like I just wanted to reach
47:21
Speaker 13: out and help her. She wasn't a customer yet. We
47:22
Speaker 13: were doing some pre-implementation work. But, you know, help's on
47:25
Speaker 13: the way. Now the intake will be there. Everything will
47:29
Speaker 13: be in the system. She can now verify coverage and
47:33
Speaker 13: see that we're good to go. then she can autofill
47:36
Speaker 13: the PA. And at the end of the journey, it
47:37
Speaker 13: all reconciles back into the EHR and pharmacy management system
47:41
Speaker 13: so that she doesn't have to touch another system, right?
47:43
Speaker 13: We want to complement and reconcile with everything along that journey.
47:47
Speaker 10: That's great.
47:48
Speaker 7: Well, I appreciate the insights. Thank you for taking time
47:52
Speaker 7: to talk with us on the NASP podcast. We hope
47:56
Speaker 7: to see you at an upcoming conference, maybe a Symbio
47:59
Speaker 7: or NASP 2027 in Orlando.
48:03
Speaker 13: Oh, I will be at NASP and I have absolutely
48:06
Speaker 13: been to a symbiote.
48:07
Speaker 10: So see you there too.
48:09
Speaker 11: All right.
48:09
Speaker 4: We'll see you.
48:09
Speaker 10: Thanks Todd.
48:13
Speaker 4: Guess who's back.
48:14
Speaker 7: I almost feel like it's a, it's that, what's that
48:17
Speaker 7: rap song? Shady's back.
48:19
Speaker 11: That's right.
48:20
Speaker 8: Guess who's back.
48:21
Speaker 10: Guess who's back. Back again. Peter's back.
48:24
Speaker 12: Tell a friend. Tell a friend. Oh my.
48:27
Speaker 7: So we could just keep going, Jennifer.
48:29
Speaker 10: All right.
48:30
Speaker 7: Introduce yourselves just in case the listeners didn't hear our
48:35
Speaker 7: first episode that we partnered up with Cassian.
48:37
Speaker 4: You go first, Jennifer.
48:39
Speaker 10: Wonderful.
48:39
Speaker 4: Good to be here again, Todd.
48:41
Speaker 3: Jenny Iverson, Vice President of Clinical and Product Strategy for
48:44
Speaker 3: Acaria Health.
48:46
Speaker 12: Hi, Peter Bergen.
48:47
Speaker 14: I'm the Vice President of Pharmacy Operations, leading our fulfillment
48:50
Speaker 14: footprint and clinical teams.
48:52
Speaker 13: All right.
48:52
Speaker 7: What I was really excited about, what a way to
48:55
Speaker 7: kick off our three-part series with Cassian and A shout
48:58
Speaker 7: out to Chris Corsi for helping to be instrumental in
49:01
Speaker 7: putting that together. The patient journey, we hear that term,
49:07
Speaker 7: but in our first episode, we really started to unpack
49:10
Speaker 7: what that means. We're at the Inspire 2026 event. I
49:14
Speaker 7: want us to basically bring that to the listeners who
49:17
Speaker 7: didn't get a chance maybe to listen to that episode.
49:20
Speaker 4: Really, I want to.
49:22
Speaker 7: Arcaria Health is doing things to ensure that that's the
49:25
Speaker 7: case and you're putting the patient up front. Talk to
49:29
Speaker 7: us about what that means.
49:31
Speaker 8: So.
49:32
Speaker 3: I think one of the things that's really important to
49:34
Speaker 3: us at Icaria Health is making sure that when we
49:37
Speaker 3: build things, we're doing them with the patient at the center.
49:41
Speaker 3: And I will say it has been a theme of
49:43
Speaker 3: this conference that the patient should be at the center
49:45
Speaker 3: of everything that we do. But we're taking it to
49:48
Speaker 3: heart at Icaria Health and building structures so that we
49:52
Speaker 3: can talk to patients first before we build any new outreaches,
49:57
Speaker 3: any new apps, any new texts. So we're doing user
50:02
Speaker 3: experience work to really understand what it's like to be
50:05
Speaker 3: a patient with that particular condition, to be a patient
50:08
Speaker 3: that is navigating that healthcare system. I will say, we
50:12
Speaker 3: feel fundamentally that a patient should not have to connect
50:15
Speaker 3: the healthcare system for us. That's really incumbent upon us
50:19
Speaker 3: to do it. And Peter, maybe you can talk a
50:22
Speaker 3: little bit about what we do from a clinical aspect
50:26
Speaker 3: to really put the patient first.
50:28
Speaker 14: Yeah, you know, I'm also reminded, talking to everybody we've
50:31
Speaker 14: seen at the conference, that whether it's the patient experience
50:35
Speaker 14: or the prescriber experience, it isn't the experience that's the
50:39
Speaker 14: loudest that matters, right? It's the one that's most relevant,
50:42
Speaker 14: the one that adds the most value. So Edikari Health
50:45
Speaker 14: partnered very closely with Jenny on our digital strategy, on
50:49
Speaker 14: our clinical product strategy, and.
50:51
Speaker 10: Really just taking.
50:53
Speaker 14: a lot of pride in the training and the support
50:56
Speaker 14: that we have to specialize our clinicians and to provide
50:59
Speaker 14: expertise and availability for our patients regardless of their journey
51:03
Speaker 14: and supporting prescribers through that process as well to onboard
51:06
Speaker 14: and keep patients on therapy that matters.
51:09
Speaker 3: So I think one of the things that I think
51:11
Speaker 3: about is our Heart of Icaria Health Program, which was
51:14
Speaker 3: put into place about a year ago.
51:16
Speaker 12: But it is a program where we.
51:18
Speaker 3: Honor and recognize individuals in the organization who have gone
51:22
Speaker 3: above and beyond for patients.
51:23
Speaker 4: And the number of incredible stories where someone.
51:28
Speaker 3: behind a phone call or otherwise has done something remarkable
51:32
Speaker 3: like loading meds in their car and racing them to
51:36
Speaker 3: a drop-off point so that we can get them out
51:38
Speaker 3: for that patient even when a FedEx or UPS was
51:42
Speaker 3: closed is unbelievable.
51:45
Speaker 14: You know, sometimes I think we take for granted that
51:47
Speaker 14: extraordinary things happen every day, but we just live in it.
51:50
Speaker 8: So that's the norm.
51:51
Speaker 14: And to take that step back to your point, Jenny,
51:54
Speaker 14: and realizing the complexity of the work we do and
51:56
Speaker 14: how much needs to go right and how much care
52:00
Speaker 14: and passion goes into that whole journey, you know, through
52:02
Speaker 14: things like our Heart of Icaria health programs. not only
52:06
Speaker 14: do we recognize what greatness is, which in a sense
52:08
Speaker 14: sets a new standard, sets a new bar, it also
52:11
Speaker 14: really brings in empathy training. So perhaps a customer service
52:14
Speaker 14: agent or a pharmacy technician or a shipping clerk or
52:16
Speaker 14: even a pharmacist or some other clinician that might not
52:20
Speaker 14: have experience with some of these really complex and rare
52:22
Speaker 14: disease states to understand what are the needs from a prescriber,
52:26
Speaker 14: what are the needs from a patient journey perspective, how
52:28
Speaker 14: are they experiencing this perhaps new diagnosis or this new normal.
52:34
Speaker 14: And how can we approach them in a way that's
52:37
Speaker 14: going to resonate and is going to add value?
52:41
Speaker 3: And that's exactly why we do these monthly empathy moments
52:44
Speaker 3: that Peter was talking about, where we dig deep in
52:48
Speaker 3: walking a day in the life of a patient with
52:50
Speaker 3: cystic fibrosis or a cancer patient or a patient with
52:54
Speaker 3: multiple sclerosis. So we've chosen different indications. And monthly, we
52:59
Speaker 3: have this empathy training where we really dig deep about
53:03
Speaker 3: what it's like to be a patient in that scenario.
53:05
Speaker 3: And it's open to every single person. under the umbrella
53:08
Speaker 3: of Akeria Health, so that we all are thinking about
53:12
Speaker 3: the patient behind everything that we do.
53:14
Speaker 14: Yeah, and more and more highlighting not only the manual heroics,
53:18
Speaker 14: but ways technology is empowering us and helping us and
53:21
Speaker 14: help to bridge that gap, which is a really exciting
53:24
Speaker 14: time to be in specialty pharmacy.
53:27
Speaker 7: I think we forget about the patient's total ecosystem in
53:33
Speaker 7: specialty pharmacies. because we get, I know I'm guilty of this.
53:37
Speaker 7: I get so excited about hearing about the technology or
53:40
Speaker 7: the new platform that I'm like, but this person has
53:43
Speaker 7: a wife or this person has children or this person
53:45
Speaker 7: has a job that he's struggling with. There's aspects of
53:49
Speaker 7: specialty that people don't realize that it is the whole patient.
53:54
Speaker 7: And a carrier, that whole name of caring, a carrier,
54:00
Speaker 7: that makes a lot of sense that you're paying attention
54:02
Speaker 7: to stuff like that. And where the empathy sessions are
54:05
Speaker 7: starting to break down a real world experience and not
54:08
Speaker 7: just a blueprint. Blueprints are wonderful. You need them to
54:11
Speaker 7: follow processes and adherence and data. But you guys are
54:17
Speaker 7: taking time to say, time out. Let's talk about this
54:19
Speaker 7: person's life.
54:22
Speaker 4: Totally agree.
54:22
Speaker 3: And it's what brings me back to work every day.
54:26
Speaker 3: And I spend a lot of, and I think Peter
54:28
Speaker 3: would agree, I spend a lot of time with my
54:31
Speaker 3: team thinking about The person that we know that was
54:35
Speaker 3: diagnosed with breast cancer or the family member that we
54:39
Speaker 3: held a hand with as we walked them through what
54:42
Speaker 3: it's like to petition your insurance company or navigate medical
54:47
Speaker 3: and pharmacy benefit at the same time. There are a
54:51
Speaker 3: lot of different ins and outs of this system that
54:53
Speaker 3: are incredibly complex. And the structure puts that on the
54:57
Speaker 3: patient to navigate. And we're really working hard to understand
55:01
Speaker 3: all the nuances that a patient might have to hold
55:04
Speaker 3: up on their own and then picking them up on
55:06
Speaker 3: our end so that they don't have to navigate them
55:08
Speaker 3: by themselves. I think digital is a great opportunity and
55:12
Speaker 3: we get really excited. But digital identifies the opportunities. And
55:16
Speaker 3: in many cases, a human then has to step in
55:19
Speaker 3: and solve them. So we're working hard to kind of
55:21
Speaker 3: find that perfect nexus of technology and people so that
55:26
Speaker 3: we're doing the right thing for our patients, understanding the
55:29
Speaker 3: human behind everything, but also enabling ourselves to use technology
55:33
Speaker 3: where it makes the most sense.
55:36
Speaker 7: Yeah.
55:36
Speaker 14: Todd, thanks for the shout out about caring and to
55:39
Speaker 14: carry a, you know, just reminded, never want to take
55:41
Speaker 14: for granted the opportunity of being the pharmacy of choice
55:45
Speaker 14: to receive that referral from the provider or to be
55:47
Speaker 14: there for that patient. And Jenny, to your point, we've
55:49
Speaker 14: all been a partner, a.
55:53
Speaker 8: Child, a parent.
55:54
Speaker 14: We've played a caregiver role with so many people in
55:56
Speaker 14: our life, friends, family, acquaintances. So I think understanding how
56:02
Speaker 14: those nuances work and what good outcomes looks like and
56:06
Speaker 14: trying to bridge that gap, again, just something that I
56:08
Speaker 14: don't think any of us will overtake for granted. And
56:11
Speaker 14: we respect the privilege to be able to do that.
56:15
Speaker 7: Well, this has been an inspirational interview. And it's kind
56:20
Speaker 7: of the heart of what Inspire 2026 really wanted to
56:24
Speaker 7: kick off. So, hey, NASP team, if you guys want
56:27
Speaker 7: to use this clip to push the meaning of what
56:31
Speaker 7: Inspire meant as a new conference that's part of the
56:35
Speaker 7: NASP organization, you have our permission to do so. But
56:40
Speaker 7: Jenny and Peter, thank you so much for coming back.
56:44
Speaker 7: I think we're just going to start a trend with
56:45
Speaker 7: you guys and keep you plugged into the pods for sure.
56:48
Speaker 11: We love it. Yeah.
56:49
Speaker 8: Thanks, Todd. This was great.
56:50
Speaker 11: Yeah.