Why CTSRx!
WHY CTSRx!
Current Status: Retail pharmacies are an entrance for most of the Specialty prescriptions. Retail pharmacy technicians or even Specialty Pharmacy technicians, majority of whom come from retail, have not taken any formal course or education about how to process Specialty drugs, indications, dosages, days’ supply, storage conditions and dealing with third-party rejections.
Gap: Due to the absence of a comprehensive educational course, pharmacy technicians and even pharmacists find themselves uncomfortable dealing with processing Specialty medications. Therefore, they are not able to navigate the patients into the right channel. As a result, there is delayed or no access to treatment resulting in hospitalizations.
For example: An HIV patient comes to a pharmacy and asks for a refill on his Prezcobix. The technician takes the order and enters Prezcobix without noticing that he is also on Truvada. Prezcobix alone cannot treat HIV, it must be used in combination with other anti-retrovirals such as Truvada. As a result of incomplete regimen, this patient experiences treatment failure and therefore, his subsequent labs revealed a significantly higher viral load and a much lower CD4 count than the previous lab.
Another example: A elderly patient newly diagnosed with Colorectal cancer once came to the pharmacy to pick up her prescription for Capecitabine. The pharmacy technician looked up her prescription and noticed that her Medicare Part D insurance plan rejected it saying: Drug not covered. The patient's son, nervous and agitated, asked the technician: What should we do now? How much is it? The technician said: Its around $1500 but if you cannot afford it, we will call the doctor's office to obtain prior authorization from her insurance. The patient could never get any positive news till 4 months after this day. Then finally, the doctor's office found out that patient is eligible for Medicare part B as well and therefore, advised the pharmacy staff to process Capecitabine through her Medicare part B. Medicare part B covered 80% leaving her a copay of 20% which came out to around $300. The patient still could not afford it and her son mentioned something about supplemental plan. The pharmacy technician did not know what that meant. This further delayed the prescription by another week or so. Then finally, the pharmacy manager noticed this pending prescription and was able to process the copay with the supplemental plan leaving patient "zero" out of pocket.
In day-to-day retail life, we come across so many such cases in which patients are either not given complete regimen or not given access to the medication due to third-party reasons. Both issues can cause significant effects on patients' health as well as raise healthcare budget tremendously. These gaps in patient care can be prevented by providing advanced education to pharmacy technicians.
Gap Analysis:
1) In one of the published data from www.getreferralmd.com, its illustrated how cumbersome is the process of resolving prior authorizations! Its labor-intensive, expensive for the overall healthcare system and denials have a negative outcome on patient care. Here is the article:
https://getreferralmd.com/2020/06/5-reasons-why-prior-authorizations-are-challenging/
Specialty practice in Retail is an unexplored concept and thus, there isn’t directly published data to show the role of pharmacy staff for prior authorization processes, their efficiencies and their failures. But deriving from the firsthand experience of the founder of ProspeRx, Yogesh Gala, there is a big opportunity in Outpatient Pharmacies to successfully resolve prior authorizations so patients can get access to their life saving medications. Pharmacy technicians have a big opportunity to partner with their pharmacists in this aspect.
2) Another evidence of need of Pharmacy technicians’ advanced education in Specialty is proven in this study:
Care coordination cuts down the amount of time needed to dispense a prescription, monitors adherence, monitors labs, educates patients for side effects, reminds them of refills, appointments and even find help for transportation for MD visits. Some of these tasks are pharmacists’ and the others belong to pharmacy technicians. Some pharmacies have adapted to these roles with a lot of education and experience, but most Specialty Pharmacies are yet to demonstrate the high level of care. CTSRx addresses this need in a very elaborative and emphatic manner.
3) The introduction of Specialty Pharmacy has led to an enormous improvement in adherence. There are several studies that have proven that the expertise and the knowledge of Specialty medications with their indications have improved the adherence levels in patients resulting in positive health outcomes and healthcare savings. Here is one from Pharmacy Times:
https://www.pharmacytimes.com/view/the-role-of-specialty-pharmacy-in-medication-adherence
The processes involved in patient care management result in improved adherence. But as mentioned earlier, pharmacists alone cannot reach each and every patient and therefore, pharmacy technicians have a huge opportunity to provide their pharmacists with the much-needed support in helping them with this responsibility. CTSRx certificate course has specific modules that educate pharmacy technicians in addressing this need and help improve adherence levels in patients.
4) One of the most important aspects for the success of any business, especially, Pharmacy, is customer service. Patients who go through life-threatening chronic illnesses must be treated with white-glove customer service. Here is an example of expectation of customer service from Avella Specialty Pharmacy:
https://blog.avella.com/4-service-expectations-you-should-have-from-a-specialty-pharmacy
Educational need:
The cause or need for advanced education for pharmacy technicians is clear from the above discussions that the current level of education provided to pharmacy technicians is not enough to address the clinical, administrative and customer service levels required for the patient care needed at our Pharmacies. Specialty pharmacies have led the industry in demonstrating excellent patient care. But Specialty pharmacies are only a handful in number. As discussed above, majority of the Specialty medications enter through retail pharmacies. So, handling of these medications and caring for patients need an advanced level of education.
There isn't any such course for pharmacy technicians who help these pharmacists to meet the standards of patient care. ProspeRx has realized that Pharmacy technicians are a vital part of a Pharmacy operation and training them is an important step in elevating the level of patient care in pharmacy practice. This is exactly why, CTSRx course has been launched.
CTSRx stands for Comprehensive course for pharmacy Technicians in Specialty Pharmacy. CTSRx will serve as an advanced course for pharmacy technicians who are interested and passionate about learning clinical patient care. With CTSRx, technicians will demonstrate enhanced performance due to advanced knowledge about medications, billing, prior authorizations, accreditations, and patient care management.
To date, employers don’t have any specific yardstick or criterion of selection of candidates applying as Specialty pharmacy technicians. Specialty Pharmacy companies may now utilize CTSRx certificate as important evidence of a pharmacy technician’s advanced level of education while hiring. While CTSRx is not a certification and does not validate anybody's skill sets, it does assure an employer the level of expertise due to the education candidate obtained after passing this assessment-based Certificate course.
Advantages of CTSRx Comprehensive course:
- You will gain the overall knowledge needed to operate your Pharmacy (Retail or Outpatient Specialty or Health-Systems Pharmacy)
- You will gain the clinical expertise to take care of your patients.
- You will gain administrative and compliance expertise needed to keep your pharmacy compliant with standards of URAC or ACHC
- You will gain confidence when talking to providers, third-parties or foundations about your patients’ disease states and their prescriptions.
- Increased awareness of overall healthcare model: Opportunities for growth
So, if you have the passion to learn, are passionate about patient care, want to make a difference in patients’ lives, apply for CTSRx now!
