Birmingham, Alabama – July 10, 2024 — The ProxsysRx specialty pharmacy team, led by Vice President Heather Brooks and Compliance & Accreditation Manager Lauren Robinson, has earned accreditation status from the Utilization Review Accreditation Commission (URAC) — the medical profession’s gold standard for third-party validation of high-quality health care.
ProxsysRx is just the fourth company awarded the highly coveted status, and the only company offering health systems a comprehensive range of consultative and hands-on pharmacy-related support services.
“We could not be more thrilled by this honor, or prouder of Heather and Lauren, particularly given the backbreaking effort required to meet URAC’s unmatched standards,” said ProxsysRx founder and CEO George Salem. “Accreditation by URAC is no mere ‘bragging rights’ honor. It represents a genuine, empirical milestone in ProxsysRx’s ability to guide and support hospitals seeking to build, own and manage successful specialty pharmacies.”
“The single greatest benefit URAC’s validation offers the hospitals we serve is a significant reduction in the calendar time, and in the personnel time-investment, required to earn the accreditation they need to own a successful specialty pharmacy,” explained Brooks. “For all practical purposes, our accreditation cuts a hospital’s specialty pharmacy accreditation time frame — typically 12 months — in half."
While URAC does not publicly share its accreditation standards, the six-month validation process places, under the proverbial microscope, every aspect (and every member), of an applicant organization’s specialty pharmacy-services operation — from Clinical Patient Management and Quality Management to the security measures in place to protect all patient and pharmacy information.
“URAC even maintains standards for call center service,” Brooks continues. “A specialty pharmacy is expected to answer all calls within 30 seconds, with a ‘call abandonment’ rate of under five percent. And every effort undertaken in a specialty pharmacy requires reporting, in trackable metrics, to document that its processes and services are meeting URAC standards.”
To make the challenge even more daunting, URAC only awards full accreditation status to organizations meeting all mandatory measures and scoring 94% or higher in its validation testing.
What is a specialty pharmacy?
The National Association of Specialty Pharmacy defines a specialty pharmacy as a state-licensed pharmacy that solely or largely provides medications for people living with serious health conditions requiring complex therapies — including rare and expensive “specialty drug” prescriptions. According to industry estimates, specialty drugs make up around 2% of the volume of drugs dispensed in the United States, but account for more than 50% of total drug spending.
About ProxsysRx
ProxsysRx offers hospital systems proven solutions for optimizing pharmacy services’ positive impact on the continuum of care; solutions ranging from comprehensive 340B prescription-program management (including a proven process for overcoming manufacturer restrictions) and retail pharmacy operations to PBM program management and patient financial assistance. ProxsysRx’s services are available on an integrated-program basis — or in individual components — and are supported by the company’s proprietary software system, which places actionable data, and business intelligence, at clients’ fingertips, in real time.
Heather Brooks, Vice President
Lauren Robinson, Compliance & Accreditation Manager
ProxsysRx offers hospital systems proven solutions for optimizing pharmacy services’ positive impact on the continuum of care; solutions ranging from management of their 340B prescription-savings programs, Retail and Specialty Pharmacy operations, to Prescription Benefits program management, and patient financial assistance.
