December 10, 2018 | Brandon Underwood Five Steps to a Better Specialty Pharmacy Data Contracting Strategy An effective specialty data contracting strategy starts at the finish line and works backward. The decisions made in terms of data fields, sub-status granularity, reporting frequency, and contact language, determine the metric outputs that are possible. This post looks at how the right specialty data contracting decisions enable diagnostic patient journey insights that help specialty brands save patient days of therapy. Read More Tags: patient journey, Patient Journey Analytics, Specialty Data Aggregation, Specialty Data Contracting, Specialty Patient Status Data
September 26, 2018 | Brandon Underwood Frequently Asked Questions – 340B Program The 340B program is subject to increasing scrutiny as pharmaceutical manufacturers search for solutions to identify and act on non-compliance such as diversion and duplicate discounts. This post is taken from the Q&A session of IntegriChain's recent 340B webinar. Topics discussed include growth in contract pharmacies/covered entities, 340B discount pricing for orphan drugs, and validation of 340B entities. Read More Tags: 340B, 867, contract pharmacy, covered entity, Diversion, Duplicate Discounts, Enriched 867 Data, National data, Orphan Drugs, Subnational data
August 20, 2018 | Shivani Patel Opioid Crisis Exposes Vulnerabilities in Suspicious Order Monitoring The American opioid crisis exposed gaps in the reporting systems designed to flag suspicious orders of pharmaceutical products classified as controlled substances. Pharmaceutical manufacturers are now facing increased scrutiny and need new approaches to monitor and report on irregular order patterns for controlled substances. This post discusses a new approach that provides visibility across pharmacy locations and wholesale distributors while weaving in additional demographic insights. Read More Tags: chargebacks, Controlled Substances, Enriched 867 Data, Opioid Crisis, SOMS, Suspicious Order Monitoring
August 3, 2018 | Sean McCarthy 3 Key Opportunities to Improve Specialty Patient Initiation There are several ways specialty brands can improve patient initiation by implementing data-driven patient support strategies. Successful interventions to streamline patient initiation have the potential to speed Time to First Fill and increase overall Fill Rate for new patient referrals. Each key opportunity to improve patient initiation is related to a friction point in the patient journey. In this post, IntegriChain Patient Access Segment Leader Sean McCarthy provides an overview of these key opportunities and the potential of analytics to unlock efficiencies for specialty brands. Read More Tags: Bridge Program, Forced Transfers, Patient initiation, patient journey, Prior Authorization, Specialty Pharmacy, Time to Fill
July 27, 2018 | David Carlson The Economics of Rare Disease and Implications for Payer Contract Strategy Rare diseases affect 30 million people in the United States, which roughly equates to 10% of the population. In 2017, 40% of the novel drugs approved by the FDA were designated to treat a rare disease. As approvals for rare disease treatments increase, these products account for an ever increasing share of overall pharmaceutical sales. The Payer community is reaching for value as per patient costs rise. This post discusses value-based contracts as a mutually beneficial solution for Payers and pharmaceutical manufacturers and the meaningful role analytics can play in executing and managing these innovative agreements. Read More Tags: Commercial Contracting, Managed Markets, Market Access, Orphan Drugs, Payer Contract Strategy, Rare Disease
March 21, 2017 | Brandon Underwood Specialty Pharmacy Status/Sub-Status Analysis Highlights Inconsistencies in Data Quality Brandon Underwood offers a sneak peek at IntegriChain's upcoming Specialty Analytics benchmark report. IntegriChain examined the quality and granularity of status/sub-status data across 40 specialty pharmacies representing different classes of trade (small independent, mid-sized payer, large PBM, etc.). The records we combed through included 15 specialty brands in five therapeutic categories: Immunology, Hematology, Virology, Oncology, and Pulmonary/Respiratory. Overall, IntegriChain and ProMetrics analyzed more than 657,000 sub-status records reported in Q4 2016. The brands we studied had comparable status/sub-status reporting requirements. Read More Tags: benchmark report, data confidence, patient journey, Specialty Pharmacy
June 2, 2016 | Sunay Shah Leveraging Scorecard Analytics to Optimize Changes to DSAs In my last post, I explored how IntegriChain Scorecard Analytics can be used to validate whether the implementation of Distribution Service Agreements (DSAs) drives channel performance. In this post, we will deep dive with a step-by-step approach outlining how Scorecard Analytics can be leverage to optimize changes to DSAs. First, let’s look at the metrics. DSA metrics come in two basic flavors – performance and data transmission The performance metrics are typically composed of a service level metric, purchase stability (or demand variability) metric, and an inventory level metric. The data transmission metrics are typically composed of data delivery timeliness, completeness, and […] Read More Tags: analytics, DSAs, metrics, Scorecard
May 27, 2016 | Colleen Hallett Trends in Specialty Pharmacy Channel Design – Takeaways from Asembia Specialty Pharmacy Summit The Asembia (formerly known as Armada) Specialty Pharmacy Summit is fast becoming the pharmaceutical industry’s most important meeting. This year’s Las Vegas show boasted a record attendance of nearly 5,000 pharmaceutical manufacturers, specialty pharmacies, payers, and solution vendors. As new therapies trend more and more towards high price, niche, or patient-tailored treatments often requiring special handling, this surge of interest in all things specialty pharmacy is no surprise. The enormous rise in specialty brand launches has changed the traditional channel distribution model. Life sciences distribution channels have become much more complicated, and this has led to an increase in the number […] Read More
April 6, 2016 | Sunay Shah IntegriChain Continues to Lead in Automated, End-to-End Management of Pharma Distribution Service Agreements Distribution Service Agreements (DSAs) have continued to evolve over recent years especially as they relate to how they evaluate channel performance. For the most part, manufacturers structure the agreements to ensure trade partners effectively and efficiently fulfill downstream orders, manage volatility of orders, maintain appropriate inventory level (as defined by manufacturer), and transmit data to manufacturers. As the industry matures in how DSAs are structured, we are seeing trends of new concepts such as misses being incorporated into agreements. However, what is very interesting is how much the industry has validated the efficacy of DSAs. Even as the agreements are […] Read More Tags: distribution service agreements, DSA, pharma channel performance, pharma DSA management
March 2, 2016 | Dave Weiss 867 Master Data and Channel Analytics Has Emerged as the Best Solution for 5i Products Under the Final AMP Rule By now, government price departments are well underway towards implementing the Final Average Manufacturer Price (AMP) Rule recently issued by the Center of Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). AMP is the average manufacturer price paid by retail community pharmacies (RCP). One of the key provisions of the sub-regulatory guidance is related to “5i” drugs (i.e., infused, injected, implanted, inhaled, or instilled drugs) that are drugs that are “not generally dispensed“ (NGD) in retail pharmacies but rather at infusion centers, specialty pharmacies, and so on. Even though 5i drugs are not sold into retail, they still require an AMP for other […] Read More Tags: 5i drugs, 867 data, AMP rule, retail community pharmacies
