The Art of Collaboration: How Specialty Pharmacists Serve Payers, Prescribers and Pharma
Specialty pharmacies like AllianceRx Walgreens Pharmacy not only serve patients. Our customers also include payers, prescribers and pharmaceutical manufacturers. We deliver value to them as strategic business partners as part of the healthcare ecosystem. We provide best-in-class support for clients and their members through high-touch clinical programs, access to industry-leading limited distribution medications, dedication to reporting and quantification of what we do, and personalized account support.
Specialty medications play a significant role in driving up healthcare costs. Specialty pharmacies are uniquely positioned to serve as a safety net for payers (e.g. health plans, employers or pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs)), uncovering and acting upon potential opportunities for cost savings.1,2,3 As more specialty medications are approved and prescribed, innovative strategies are necessary to control spend.1,2,3 For pharmacy programs in any setting to be successful, they must manage rising medication costs without compromising quality of care for patients.
At AllianceRx Walgreens Pharmacy, patients are at the center of everything we do. Our Clinical Audit Programs provide outcomes data, cost containment, and waste management strategies to help ensure our patients achieve maximum clinical outcomes at the lowest possible cost. Specialty pharmacies work closely with health plans and PBMs to focus on one patient at a time, because one missed intervention or cost-reduction opportunity can have significant clinical and/or financial implications on the health plan.
Additional support staff are needed in specialty pharmacies to assist prescribers with the medication acquisition process. This may include benefits investigations, prior authorizations, and completing requirements for risk evaluation and mitigation strategies (REMS) drug safety programs mandated for certain medications with serious safety concerns. Specialty pharmacies also assist prescribers with coordinating care providers, such as nurses for patient injection training or infusions, and streamlining efforts to ensure seamless care and monitoring. Pharmacists follow up with patients and document their outcomes, adherence, adverse drug reactions, and escalate any concerns directly to their prescribers.
The Food and Drug Administration often requires pharmaceutical manufacturers to monitor for safety concerns, and specialty pharmacies assist with the reporting requirements. Specialty pharmacies strive to improve medication compliance and therapy success by preventing disruptions in treatment and working to mitigate issues as they arise.
Many drug manufacturers also offer patient financial assistance programs and specialty pharmacies help steer patients toward additional resources for drug information and disease state support. Specialty pharmacies may also share data collected from patients and prescribers with pharma to improve overall outcomes.
Collaboration with payers, providers and manufacturers is key when meeting the needs of patients, and specialty pharmacies partner with all customers in order to achieve the best possible patient outcomes.
Learn more how AllianceRx Walgreens Pharmacy works with payers, prescribers and pharma.
1 Kleinrock, Michael, and Muñoz, Elyse. Global Medicine Spending and Usage Trends Report. Published March 2020. https://www.iqvia.com/-/media/iqvia/pdfs/institute-reports/global-medicine-spending-and-usage-trends.pdf?_=1584990454881. Accessed October 14, 2021.
2 Hirsch BR, Balu S, Schulman KA. The impact of specialty pharmaceuticals as drivers of health care costs. Health Affairs. 2014;33(10):1714-1720.
3 Lotvin AM, Shrank WH, Singh SC, et al. Specialty medications: traditional and novel tools can address rising spending on these costly drugs. Health Affairs. 2014;33(10):1736-1744.
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