As of Monday, June 4, the URAC Sales team has initiated an aggressive outreach for our Telehealth Accreditation program. For some time, all eyes have been on new business sales as we’ve worked to generate new opportunities in the Provider Suite, for telehealth in particular.  The sales team is now engaged in strategic business development tactics that are being deployed on a daily and weekly basis.

On May 16-18, URAC’s Quality, Research and Measurement Team and Kiser Healthcare Solutions were pleased to present a poster session at the Pharmacy Quality Alliance (PQA) Annual Meeting held in in Baltimore, MD.  Our topic was, “Dispensing Accuracy of Specialty Pharmacies” and you can view the poster that our team created here.

Many of the high-cost, complex therapies dispensed by specialty pharmacies have specific temperature range requirements. There is a lot a stake when it comes to proper cold chain management of medications. (Cold chain refers to the management of temperature-sensitive products as they move through the supply chain from the manufacturer to the end user, the patient.) 

Social media has revolutionized the way we do business online and connect with customers. But without a strong voice, social media marketing is an uphill battle. This is why Marketing has put together a Social Media Brand Voice Guide. The guide offers direction not only on voice, but also style, tone and how to deal with negative feedback online.

E-mail is an important tool for communication, but it is also the number one vector for cyberattacks.  Phishing attacks, the fraudulent practice of sending emails purporting to be from reputable companies in order to induce individuals to reveal personal information, have tripled since 2016.  As such, URAC will be introducing a new piece of technology called Mimecast to our technology stack.

If you’ve been keeping up with Congress and the Trump Administration over the last month or so, then you know that drugs have been pushed to the forefront of just about everything healthcare related. On May 11, The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released their drug pricing blueprint, American Patients First, which coincided with a speech from the President about the ridiculously high cost of pharmaceuticals and what his administration plans to do about it.

I did want to make sure that everyone who wasn’t already aware knows I updated the compendium of accreditation citations. 

The Monthly Review spotlights a different URACer each month in a Q&A. This month it's Jason Buckner, one of URAC's new Pharmacy Reviewers.