Specialty Pharmacy Management

Specialty drugs are high-cost oral, injectable and infused medications that are used to treat and manage complex diseases.

Specialty drugs are referred to, as such, because they are:

used consistently for long periods of time, often for life;

distributed using very precise handling which may include refrigeration, customized packaging and expedited delivery;

injected intravenously subcutaneously or intramuscularly, rather than taken orally;

dosed based on detailed weight-based requirements.

The Challenge

The specialty medication industry—often referred to as the biotech industry—is the fastest growing business within the pharmaceutical area.

Only between one and three percent of the population utilizes specialty medications, but that percentage accounts for roughly 20 percent of all pharmaceutical costs.

Nearly 800 drugs are in the biotech pipeline—many of which will undergo clinical trials in the hopes of treating current and new diseases. Are these drug treatments safe and effective?

Do consumers really know enough about their conditions to appropriately manage them? And who can consumers count on to help them manage and monitor their conditions?

The Solution

PrecisionRx Specialty Solutions (PRxSS) is a full-service specialty pharmacy that offers a comprehensive support program to help people taking specialty medications achieve the best possible results from their treatment.

It offers condition-specific member care coordination—through a dedicated team of health professionals—to help promote quality, safety and clinical effectiveness in the treatment of complex, chronic diseases. Those conditions include, but are not limited to:

Asthma

Cancer

Gaucher

Hemophilia/Bleeding Disorders

Hepatitis C

HIV/AIDS

Infertility

Multiple Sclerosis

Primary Immune Deficiency

Psoriasis

Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension

Rheumatoid Arthritis

Respiratory Syncytial Virus

Transplant

The Facility

Space

PrecisionRx Specialty Solutions operates in a 126,000+ square-foot, state-of-the-art facility in Indianapolis, IN. The pharmacy itself comprises 20,000 of those square feet.

Shipping Power

PrecisionRx Specialty Solutions is located on the Indianapolis airport’s property. It’s next door to the city’s FedEx hub. Additionally, the specialty pharmacy is in close proximity to the UPS hub in Louisville, KY. This network of shipping options allows PRxSS to ship most medications overnight for your convenience.

Safety/State-of-the-Art

The facility relies on four redundant sources that power the pharmacy’s capacity to fill prescriptions. Medications are stored at the proper temperatures. Some medications require walk-in coolers or freezers.

Computers help track the accuracy of specialty medications as PRxSS staff prepares prescriptions for shipment. An electronically-coded tote system helps automate the medication dispensing process, helping to ensure that the right medication, at the right dose, goes to the right participant at the right time. Then, a registered pharmacist verifies every prescription order again before it is shipped.

The pharmacy contains some unique safety and quality features. It radio codes the bins that transport a patient’s order between various stations, helping ensure that the pharmacist or technician chooses the correct medication for each prescription.

In addition, the pharmacy’s refrigerated audio-dispensing unit, or ADU, is the first installation in a commercial environment to automatically select and label high-volume medications and return them—hands free—to the pharmacists’ verification stations. These automated features allow associates at PrecisionRx Specialty Solutions to focus on superior care while minimizing the cost of traditional dispensing functions.