Specialty Pharmacy

What is a Specialty Pharmacy?

A specialty pharmacy is a state-licensed pharmacy that provides medications for people with serious health conditions that require complex therapies.

Specialty pharmacies connect patients who are severely ill with the medications that are prescribed for their conditions, provide services that are required for these
medications and support patients who are facing reimbursement challenges for frequently costly medications.

Why is a Specialty Pharmacy needed?

Retail pharmacies are the source for all of your usual prescriptions. These establishments allow you to purchase over-the-counter medications such as pain relief, allergy care, cough medicines and they provide the public with general healthcare advice.

Specialty pharmacies are intended to carry specific medications for highly complicated cases, such as those with chronic and rare conditions.

Non-specialty drugs are much easier to create, typically made into a pressed pill or is filled in a capsule. On the other hand, specialty medications are complex to administer, usually taken by mouth, injected, inhaled or infused, characterizing them as high cost drugs.

High cost drugs are also more complex to handle, often needing special shipping and storage requirements such as temperature control.

Due to severe side effects of specialty medications, they require advanced patient support, because of the impact the medications could have on their health.

Regarding the precise administering and care that comes with specialty medications, specialty pharmacies are needed because the distribution of specialty medications often is limited to specific specialty pharmacies.

How It Works

Patients

Specialty pharmacies help educate their patients not only on the specific medications and therapies they will be administering, but also on their diagnosed condition.

Therapy experts are usually available 24 hours a day for their patients and help them with financial assistance or to find foundations that are available to suit their needs.

Consultations, assistance and delivery of medications is provided to patients when needed.

Specialty Pharmacy Benefits to Patients

Prescribers

The partnership between a physician and a specialty pharmacy is an effective collaboration to improve patient outcomes.

Specialty pharmacies help doctors by providing them visibility into their patients' medication and therapy status.

The pharmacy also handles any investigation of the patients' health coverage and will
follow up with them to document their outcomes to share with the prescriber.

Specialty Pharmacy Benefits to Prescribers

Partners

Partnerships enable pharmaceutical companies to gain expertise, leverage more resources, and reduce risk. Partners, Pharma and Payer, are benefited by the support of specialty pharmacies.

Pharma partners are supported by specialty pharmacies by helping them to improve medication compliance and therapy success. They help to prevent disruption in their patient's therapy and reduce medication errors and any drug related issues by providing them with real time data on the adherence and success of specialty pharmaceuticals.

Payers are supported by specialty pharmacies throughout the prescription process, making sure that financial responsibility is promoted by working with prescribers and patients. It helps Payers with the improvement of the population's health, reduce unnecessary costs and helps with risk avoidance.

Specialty Pharmacy Benefits to Partners

Therapeutic Areas

Immunology

In cases of immune system over activity, the body attacks and damages its own tissues - autoimmune diseases. Immune deficiency diseases decrease the body's ability to fight infections, like multiple sclerosis.

Immunology has its origins in the study of how the body protects itself against infectious diseases caused by microorganisms, such as bacteria and viruses, and also parasitic organisms.

In response to an unknown trigger, the immune system may begin producing antibodies that instead of fighting infections, attack the body’s own tissues. Treatment for autoimmune diseases generally focus on reducing immune system activity.

Examples of autoimmune diseases or autoimmune disorders include:

Gastroenterology

The Gastroenterology medical specialty is devoted to the study, diagnosis and treatment of disorders of the digestive system.

The gastrointestinal tract (also called the GI tract) is a series of hollow organs that form a long continuous passage from our mouth to our anus. The organs that make up our GI tract are our mouth, esophagus, stomach, small intestine, large intestine, and anus.

Our GI tract, together with our liver, pancreas, and gallbladder, make up our digestive system.

Click here to learn more about Senderra's Gastroenterology Specialty Pharmacy.

A number of different conditions or diseases can affect the GI tract and have an impact on digestion:

Celiac Disease
Crohn's Disease
Diverticulitis
Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)
Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD)
Hepatitis C
Ulcerative Colitis

Neurology

Neurology is the branch of medicine (like Functional Medicine) concerned with the study and treatment of disorders of the nervous system. The nervous system regulates and coordinates the body's activities. It has two major divisions: the central nervous system and the peripheral nervous system.

Neurological disorders are diseases of the brain, spinal cord, cranial nerves, peripheral nerves, nerve roots, autonomic nervous system, neuromuscular junction, and muscles.

Examples of neurological disorders include:

Headaches
Epilepsy and Seizures
ALS: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
Alzheimer's Disease and Dementia
Parkinson's Disease

The Benefits of a Specialty Pharmacy

Benefits

The benefits of specialty pharmacy are not just economical - they also create real opportunities to advance patient care.

By coordinating care with other providers who offer these types medications, it gives doctors and hospitals an edge on improving patient outcomes while reducing costs associated with unnecessary hospitalizations and medications.

Other benefits of a specialty pharmacy include:

Specialty pharmacies offer 24/7 customer support, usually by phone and/ or sms. Specialty staff is known to not only be available for assistance, but to also reach out to their patients, including for things like refill reminders.
Personal patient care is what's so special about specialty pharmacies. They are able to offer their patients services like nursing support, advanced condition education, consultations with their pharmacist and free medication supplies.
These pharmacies are also known for having fast approvals and quick turnaround times on medications and writing biologics. They navigate the process on your behalf so that a determination for the most appropriate medication option can be reached quickly and easily. See here for how Senderra helps with prior authorizations!
Co-pay and funding assistance is usually offered by facilitating enrollment in support programs and programs dedicated to financial assistance to help manage patients and payers manage costly specialty medications.
Medication adherence is paramount in measuring the success of a new medication or therapy. With Senderra's pharmaceutical process, we are able to keep patients adherent to their medications. See Measuring the Success of Medication Adherence to learn more.
Specialty pharmacies, like Senderra, are HIPAA compliant to ensure patient's private health information.
An online physician portal is an excellent additional service for a specialty pharmacy to offer. Streamlining communication between physicians, specialty pharmacies and patients is essential in simplifying work processes and reducing time on task completion. At Senderra, our technological platform is called CarePath.

Why Choose Us

Senderra RX is a specialty pharmacy, but that's just the beginning. At Senderra, we believe success lies in service to others, and as such, we are dedicated to never losing sight of people.

We’ve modeled the way we operate around the needs of those who we serve - people with ongoing (sometimes life-altering) medical conditions. Our team strives to provide care and support to all parties involved.

By leveraging our unique proprietary technological platform, CarePath, and working with others in the healthcare continuum (managed care, doctors, nurses and drug manufacturers), we reach better outcomes for you.

Click here to learn more about the Senderra difference.

What's Covered

Therapies & Medications

Senderra Specialty Pharmacy works with patients, doctors, and managed care providers to fulfill prescriptions for a number of medical conditions.

Whether it’s education, proactive follow up or connecting your doctor and your insurer for a more expedient prescription process, we want to demonstrate the kind of care that makes a difference for you.

Senderra offers the following therapies and medications:

Accreditations