Happy New Year to everyone! As people often do, when a year ends, I like to reflect upon the accomplishments of the past year while looking forward to the great things ahead in the coming year.
2017 was a banner year at PARx Solutions. The company continued to grow in both prior authorization (PA) volume and clients. PARx assisted more physician practices with their PA support than in any previous year. We added new capabilities in our PARx Prior Authorization Support System (PASS) system and launched new services to better support patients, physician practices and our pharmaceutical clients.
Why are more and more pharmaceutical clients and physician practices choosing PARx as their partner to assist with PA management and support? From a pharma perspective, we have seen more brands abandon their previous “forms based” PA service as they realize that simply sending a PA form to a physician does not ensure that the PA will be submitted. Several clients commented that they were no longer interested in paying for PAs that are never submitted to plans.
Physician practices are learning that the PA process often doesn’t end when the initial form is submitted to the plan. Many plans send back second patient-specific forms to be completed. Follow-up calls to plans to check status often result in long telephone hold times. In general, practices have come to appreciate the full-service approach to PA management offered by PARx.
PARx launched several new enhancements to our PASS system in 2017. Early in the year, we introduced our group practice log-in credentials, enabling a designated registrant from a group practice to submit PAs for any physician in the practice under a single user log-in. At the same time, we simplified our registration process, allowing new users to register and electronically sign their HIPAA business associate agreement at the same time. In the summer, PARx launched Guest PASS, enabling any physician to submit PAs through PARx Solutions, whether they were registered on not. We also added a “Chart Upload” feature that makes it much easier to include supportive information from the patient’s medical record.
In 2017, PARx offered our new “PA Card” service. This new service works in partnership with coupon card providers to identify new Rx’s filled with the assistance of a coupon card but where the primary insurance requires a PA. In these cases, PARx notifies the prescribing physician that their patient will require a PA in order to get their refills covered by their plan, and provides a unique code where the physician (whether registered or not) can access a partially completed PA for that patient in PASS.
With 2017 in the rearview mirror, we are excited about what is in store for PARx in 2018. We expect to continue to add new capabilities and services to support our physician practices and pharma clients. By mid-year, PARx will introduce our new electronic PA (ePA) capability. The PARx ePA service will be a unique “hybrid” service offering both speed and convenience for PA submissions to plans that are “ePA ready,” while continuing to provide our high level of full-service support for submissions to plans that are not yet equipped to handle ePAs. This whole process will be “invisible” to physician practices as they will simply access all their PAs through our PASS portal as they have done in the past. We are confident that our approach to ePA will set a high standard for PA support in the industry.
As always, I want to thank all of our physicians, their staff, and our pharmaceutical clients for their support and I look forward to working together in 2018 and beyond.