Living Our Purpose Through Challenging Times
At AllianceRx Walgreens Pharmacy, we talk a lot about our purpose of providing hope and care for better tomorrows. I wanted to share a heartwarming example of our team members living our purpose through challenging times.
Early Sept. 29, a day after Hurricane Ian made landfall in southwest Florida, a patient’s mother called to request a refill of her daughter’s seizure medication. The patient and her family, who live in the Ft. Myers area, had evacuated to Miami. They only packed a few days’ worth of medication, and the prescription was out of refills. After seeing the full impact Hurricane Ian had on the area, it was evident they would not be able to return home as soon as they had hoped. The prescriber’s office was also in a heavily impacted area.
Mom was aware of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ emergency declaration authorizing early refills and emergency refill authorizations and came to us seeking assistance. Shu’tee R., one of our patient care advocates (PCA), immediately connected Mom to pharmacist Tola A. to discuss the situation. The pharmacist realized the urgent need and assured Mom we would escalate to leadership for a solution, with promises to update her along the way. When the pharmacist called the prescriber’s office, it was evident their phones were out of service due to the storm. At this point, Tola escalated to a lead pharmacist to review what could be done, given the regulatory and risk evaluation and mitigation strategy (REMS) program considerations. These considerations typically apply to medications with a high potential for serious adverse effects and must be monitored to assure safe use of the medication.
Megan K., the lead pharmacist, generated an emergency prescription order. She reached out to Danny A. and Jonathan M., team members on the pharma compliance and professional practices teams, respectively, to see how they could help this family. Danny was able to confirm what needed to be done to comply with REMS protocols. Jonathan collaborated with his team to provide clear direction on how to make an emergency fill happen while meeting applicable regulatory requirements, leveraging the emergency declaration in Florida to authorize a 30-day supply. Everyone understood it would be necessary to ship the prescription that day in order to give the patient the best shot at avoiding a gap in her therapy given carrier challenges associated with the hurricane’s impact.
Megan generated a verbal prescription with necessary documentation. Ja’Lynn D., a lead front-end pharmacy technician, quickly entered the order into the pharmacy system. Jonathan then coordinated with Insurance Verification Supervisor Tammy B. for support in obtaining the necessary overrides from the payer. Tammy immediately reviewed the referral and released the prescription to our patient care advocate team.
Once in patient care coordination, Megan coordinated with our PCA team to let Mom know we were ready to schedule delivery of the medication to the family’s hotel. Selettie C. completed the necessary REMS program documentation and Ebonie S quickly reached out to Mom to schedule the delivery of medication and address any additional needs. Pharmacist Matt C. efficiently completed pharmacist verification and Jonathan ensured the claim was submitted to the payer without issue. From an initial request for assistance that morning, we had an order ready in fulfillment by 3:45pm.
Megan worked with Kendra W., a fulfillment manager, to help ensure expedited shipping. Kendra worked with her team to complete the order within an hour and applied a Priority Alert label with FedEx to ensure prioritized handling for this patient. Kendra and Jonathan tracked the order with FedEx to monitor for successful delivery, and confirmed the medication was successfully delivered to the hotel. Our PCAs then called Mom to let her know her daughter’s medication was at the hotel desk.
In summary, in an unimaginably stressful situation for this patient and her caregiver, nearly a dozen AllianceRx Walgreens Pharmacy team members worked together to help prevent a gap in therapy for a critical specialty medication. This is just one example of the great teamwork that takes place at AllianceRx Walgreens Pharmacy every day and makes me even more proud of what we do to provide hope and care for better tomorrows.
Jonathan McLachlan, PharmD, CSP, contributed to this story.