When a large health system located in the southern United States needed to expand their services to include specialty and ambulatory care, their leadership reached out to SPARx for support.

The medical center is one of the largest in its state and provides healthcare services to patients across a wide geographic region. The organization, home to 139 physicians and 3,000 employees, covers 32 specialty areas across 43 facilities, including multiple clinic locations.

THE NEED FOR ACCESS TO SPECIALTY AND AMBULATORY SERVICES

The specialty drug market stands at $250 billion and growing. While hospitals are often well-positioned to deliver quality care for inpatients needing specialty medications, specialty pharmacy poses critical challenges for outpatients, including:

• Specialty medications often come at a high cost - ranging from thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars per patient.
• While less than two percent of the patient population requires them, specialty drugs account for approximately 50% of the total drug spend.
• Specialty medications are often associated with complex administration and compliance issues.
• Product manufacturers may choose to limit specialty drug distribution.

For many regional hospitals and health systems, the specialty market goes untapped and revenues derived from these medications escape to pharmacies outside the health system. This facility decided to take action to avoid this leakage and capture payer reimbursements by partnering with SPARx to tailor their strategy.

MEDICAL CENTER EXPANSION

In collaboration with SPARx, the medical center expanded its retail operations and added a new specialty pharmacy. SPARx provided comprehensive skills, expertise and turnkey solutions in specialty pharmacy conversion along with retail pharmacy build-out services.

The medical center now has the tactical strength required to overcome the hurdles that often overwhelm similar organizations. This empowers them to deliver specialty pharmacy services to patients while retaining reimbursements and avoiding reliance on third parties. The medical center benefits operationally while patients who require specialty medications receive improved access to the highest quality of care.

BENEFITS OF THE PARTNERSHIP

Working with SPARx reduces the administrative burden for prescribers and staff who deliver specialty therapies. With SPARx handling administrative tasks, the medical staff is able to commit greater focus to their core patient care competencies.

By integrating with the health system’s medical record, the SPARx Patient Care Services Center provides a level of patient care which could not be achieved through third-party specialty pharmacies. As a result, patient outcomes for speed to therapy, adherence, affordability and quality of care are improved over previous solutions.

Financially, the position of the medical center is improved. Their specialty and ambulatory operations empower them to capture new revenues and achieve improved financial performance while maintaining full continuity of care.

ABOUT SPARx

SPARx has the expertise to support healthcare organizations with an effective strategy and design a best-in-class facility that includes retail pharmacy, specialty pharmacy and infusion services. SPARx drives pharmacy revenue generation and delivers access to limited distribution drugs.

To learn more about the SPARx solution, click here.