Why are Pharmacists an Important Part of Treatment with Specialty Drugs?

Achilles Alon, PharmD, RPh, Director of Specialty Pharmacy, Co-owner of ACE-Rx Specialty Pharmacy, discusses the importance of pharmacists when treating patients with specialty medications.

Achilles Alon: I think we’re integral actually. We’re part of everything that deals with the medication. We are closely involved with the patients, we’re closely involved with the physicians, as well as the insurance companies. So from start to finish we provide access to the patients vis-à-vis getting prior authorizations, ensuring that’s the right patient for that particular drug based on what their medication profile looks like, based on what other diseases they have.

We ensure the preauthorization’s are approved. If the copay is high then we help them get copay coupons or get assistance through foundations. And then once they are approved for that then we actually are charged with monitoring them, making sure we’re watching if they have any adverse experiences, and doing something about that. We also have to make sure the drug is working. If the drug is not working then we need to switch to something else, and discontinue what we’re doing currently.