RXVIP Concierge Defends the Critical Role of Pharmacists as Front-Line Healthcare Providers
June 30, 2020 – The services offered by RXVIP Concierge highlight the critical role that pharmacists play as front-line healthcare providers. In the company’s concierge approach to patient engagement, PharmDs and PharmD interns perform thorough and accurate risk assessments of patients’ health, allowing them to make cost-saving and in some cases life-saving recommendations to their physician. This distinctly modern platform also supports the ongoing care coordination to closely monitor the well-being of patients. The PharmD also helps Physicians assess patients virtually via telemedicine, thereby protecting vulnerable patients who should not be coming into the office.
The Pharmacist Society of New York (PSSNY) recently addressed the widespread misconception that it would be less expensive and easier for patients to obtain their medications directly from their doctor instead of their local pharmacy. A Wall Street Journal editorial asserted that doctors should be able to prescribe medication directly to patients instead of going through a pharmacist to dispense them.
PSSNY argued in its rebuttal that prescriptions should be dispensed by pharmacists who specialize in the complex nature of medications including their side effects and possible interactions. The expertise of Pharmacists has saved lives during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, Pharmacists rose to the challenge when doctors’ offices and hospitals became overwhelmed. They sorted and packaged daily doses for high risk patients who could not be exposed to their caregivers, delivered medication free of charge, and donated hand sanitizer and gloves to local hospitals. In this way, Pharmacists became a lifeline for patients and eased the burden on the healthcare system as a whole.
“As the Chief Pharmacist Officer of RXVIP Concierge, I felt the need to work with our team to move swiftly from Covid19 crisis response we all faced initially, towards recovery as quickly as possible. We recognized the challenges we faced in developing and executing strategies for restarting our business, especially the education of PharmD candidates who were impacted.
We decided to continue to focus on exactly what got us to the point before the pandemic, and then leveraged our greatest strength, which is the passion for our profession.” said Ken Sternfeld, Founder of RXVIP Concierge.
“With no revenue to support them, and with the country shut down, we came together to utilize the only capital we had which was our people and their unwavering dedication to our mission,” Sternfeld continued. “By doing that, we created a centralized, go-to resource and think tank for insights to address the changing landscape created by this nationwide health care crisis.
All considerations for restarting our business operations, especially as it related to the students we were mentoring as preceptors, focussed on safely and productively. Our people stepped up, big time, because like our Pharmacist brothers and sisters on the front lines at retail stores, we needed to help save lives.” Sternfeld added
We asked our technology partner, WellTrackONE, to think out of the box and move our entire business model over to a mobile engagement patient portal solution. We needed something scaleable that would allow us to deliver our services seamlessly while patients stayed home. They provided us with their proprietary THEO assessment platform that allowed our PharmDs and Students of Pharmacy the ability to offer telemedicine consultations, in collaboration with the physicians we worked with that documented our encounters and billed for our services. They provided this hand-held ‘Pharmacist in a Box” risk management solution via an iPad.
While working with Ken and his management team at RXVIP Concierge the past year, our company recognized the value of the Pharmacist in the health care continuum. The vision they have of setting a higher standard of patient engagement perfectly aligned to our goals as a clinical risk management provider. Stated Peter Bechtel, President of WellTrackNE. Helping more PharmD Concierge providers reach out to patients proactively to provide wellness programs that significantly enable physicians and large scale healthcare organizations to significantly increase their revenue as they come out of this pandemic, made this partnership even stronger. Bechtel added. We look forward to continued growth with RXVIP Concierge as we support their innovative ideas and vision.” Bechtel concluded
RXVIP Concierge has stepped up to support Pharmacists, Physicians and Patients in its own unique way. The network of PharmDs and students of pharmacy work collaboratively with other healthcare providers to provide a suite of value-based services, delivered at the point of care. These services increase reimbursements and enhance quality measures while providing a more personalized level of care as part of the PharmD Concierge program. The mission of RXVIP Concierge is to enhance the role of pharmacists as vital healthcare providers.
We are in a period in the history of healthcare where it’s not an option any longer for any Pharmacist whether they are new, mid career or close to retirement to function as we have for the last 10 or 20 years. stated Todd Eury, Founder, Publisher of Pharmacy Podcast Network. Ken designed the concierge pharmacist model by seeing the changes needed on how members of our profession were being paid while he was working at a retail chain six years ago. Now it is coming full circle as every Pharmacist can have their profession in the palm of their hand and be paid for the professional services they deliver as a provider. Eury added. The pharmacist is the hub of healthcare and can help lower the exorbitant costs associated for tens of millions of patients with this new mobile telemedicine outreach iPad solution. so We are excited about being the RXVIP Concierge marketing partner to bring this to our 70,000 subscribers as an expansion of our commitment to the pharmacy profession that we have had since 2009″, Eury concluded.
“Our vision of placing a trained Pharmacist right at the point of care to work with physicians never wavered during the crisis. We simply pivoted our in-office model seamlessly so that we could continue to service all of the patients with telemedicine. This allowed us to help to reach the patients plus also rebuild the practices at the same time.” said Crystal Cruz, ExVP/COO of RXVIP Concierge.. “For today and for the future, we felt the need to go to the patients and not expect or wait for them to come to us. They are frightened and scared so as health care providers, led by our Students of Pharmacy, we were able to connect with them to keep them healthy and possibly save their lives.” Cruz added. Our commitment to provide education and experiential eLearning has been enhanced as a result of the impact of the Covid19 pandemic which forced us to change the way we engage with our students, who have adapted to this change with great enthusiasm.”, Cruz concluded.
“The future of telehealth solutions that include direct observed therapy and remote patient monitoring for patients with chronic diseases have never been more critical to implement. Sadly, more people over the next year may die who don’t test positive for Covid19 if we are unable to stay connected with their care providers,” Sternfeld concluded.
The CareONE Concierge Academy, created by RXVIP Concierge as a result of Covid19, provides mentoring, elearning plus job training to PharmD candidates and Alumni from colleges of pharmacy and universities across the United States. Recognizing the need to help the experiential education pathways continue for students hoping to graduate this year, we opened our doors to all 2020 candidates impacted. Working closely with the schools, we were able to develop a fully remote course of study that aligns to traditional IPPE, APPE and residency timelines that PharmDs typically follow. It also included a Master of APPE proficiency course that secures a position for the student to join RXVIP as a PharmD provider at graduation.
By placing a pharmacist in a doctor’s office as an extension of their medical team, RXVIP Concierge staffs them with a healthcare provider who facilitates a high-quality level of care for patients and delivers an unmatched suite of services including:
- Medication Reconciliations
- Pharmacogenomic Analysis & PGx Testing
- Annual Wellness Visits
- Advanced Care Planning
- Chronic Care Management
- Direct Observed Therapy
- Remote Patient Monitoring
- Alcohol, Obesity, CVD and other types of counseling
RXVIP Concierge is also helping champion federal and state agencies to secure reimbursement for pharmacists who administer virtual services that are not covered by Medicare, Medicaid and private payers, including expanding payments for Covid19 Testing and Contact Tracing.
RXVIP Concierge knows that empowering the next generation of PharmDs entering our profession now on how to deliver Covid19 tests and services, will benefit the community as a whole. To that end, the company recently partnered with several laboratories to offer solutions that include in-office, on-campus and at-home Covid19 testing options to help bring employees, faculty and students back safely in the fall.
“Our resilient nature as professionals has never been stronger as Pharmacists who have proven over time that as medication experts, we are the Hub of Healthcare,” Sternfeld continued. “Last year alone there were over 4 Billion prescriptions written. It was the Pharmacists who filled those prescriptions while also providing critical patient consultations and education.”
“No matter what the healthcare industry says about our profession, the patients we serve know that Pharmacists are Providers. It’s been too long and disrespectful that the voices of legislative change remain silent, so perhaps the impact of a pandemic where Pharmacists are saving lives will help them see the light” Sternfeld concluded.
RXVIP Concierge is a network of Pharmacists, PharmDs and Students of Pharmacy who are committed to enhancing their roles as healthcare providers. By working collaboratively with other healthcare providers, RXVIP is able to deliver a suite of value-based services. These services increase reimbursements and enhance quality measures with the innovative PharmD Concierge program. Setting a new standard of patient engagement, the program includes training for PharmDs, PharmD interns, Physicians and their staff at no cost to those team members. RXVIP Concierge seamlessly integrates these offerings with zero out-of-pocket expense for healthcare practitioners looking to add a trained PharmD to serve as their medication expert and peer professional. Visit www.rxvipconcierge.com learn more.
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