Lucille Accetta on the Distance Between Diagnosis and First Dose

Corporate website: surescripts.com (https://surescripts.com/) Intelligence in Action newsletter (subscribe): Subscribe to the Intelligence in Action newsletter (https://cloud.comms.surescripts.com/iia) Episode description  If you’re prescribed a medication for high blood pressure, you can usually pick it up at the pharmacy the same day. But a prescription for multiple sclerosis or cancer doesn’t go to the pharmacy shelf. It goes into benefit verification, prior authorization, financial assistance and nursing coordination. All of it stands between the patient and their first dose. Closing the distance is what Lucille Accetta calls her North Star. Over more than 30 years, starting behind the counter as a community pharmacist, she’s seen technology reshape what pharmacists can do for patients. Listen in as she explains how connected data gets specialty pharmacy patients started faster, why a quieter pharmacy is a better one, and how technology strengthens the human touch when we use it well. In this episode:  0:00 – Intro: what stands between a serious diagnosis and the first dose 1:00 – Closing that gap as a North Star: why a specialty prescription doesn’t go straight to the pharmacy shelf 3:00 – A grandmother with brittle Type 1 diabetes and a community pharmacy in Westchester County: where this work got personal 5:00 – 30 years watching technology scale pharmacy without losing the human touch 6:00 – What specialty pharmacy is: multiple sclerosis (MS), rheumatoid arthritis, cancer, hemophilia and therapies that demand far more than dispensing 7:00 – Benefit verification, financial assistance, prior authorization, clinical education: the work behind a first fill 8:00 – Same-day process for hypertension, complex process for specialty: the friction Lucille is working to remove 9:00 – Lucille’s better way: get patients started fast, then personalize everything around their diagnosis and therapy 10:00 – Three phases for keeping a specialty journey from breaking down after a cancer or MS diagnosis 11:00 – Connecting with the electronic health record to complete the clinical work a prior authorization requires 12:00 – Delivery, financial assistance and social needs support: coordinating the pieces before day one of therapy 13:00 – Scaling a high-touch experience to more than two million patients without it turning impersonal 15:00 – A mom who called at 3 a.m.: why always-on access matters for patients facing complex conditions 16:00 – Where connected data makes the biggest difference: addressing prior authorization requests for more than 80% of patients, more time for patients instead of paperwork 17:00 – Pharmacists as integral members of the care team, and what still has to change to make it real 18:00 – Working at the top of education and training: AI, predictive analytics and rethinking pharmacy workflow 20:00 – A day in the life of a pharmacist: from alert fatigue to clinical insight built for one patient 21:00 – Sharing work across pharmacies when one location gets buried 22:00 – The phone off the shoulder: why a quieter pharmacy is a better experience for everyone 23:00 – A specialty patient’s experience five years ago compared with today 24:00 – Untangling medical vs. pharmacy benefits and turning copay assistance into a link 25:00 – “The pizza tracker”: letting patients watch their therapy move from prior authorization to delivery 26:00 – A portal that ends the phone calls about where Mary Jones’ prescription stands 27:00 – Lucille’s one change for keeping complex care on track: simplification, one person and one family at a time 29:00 – Reflections: technology strengthens the human touch when we use it well 30:00 – Don’t ask patients to navigate the complexity—absorb it for them   Follow “There’s a Better Way” on Apple Podcasts (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...) , Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/1Z1apIa...) , YouTube (   • There’s a Better Way: Smart Talk on Health...  ) or wherever you listen. Know someone working at the intersection of healthcare and technology? Share this episode.