Pharmacy Patient Care Coordinator

Pharmacy Care Coordinator I

The Pharmacy Care Coordinator I is responsible for acting as the patient's advocate to ensure that the prescribed drug therapy and pharmacy care plan are followed as prescribed and meet the medical, social, and personal needs of the patient. The Pharmacy Care Coordinator I assists the patient by coordinating their prescribed pharmacy care with the patient's health care providers, payers, and other health related resources to ensure successful drug therapy outcomes and demonstrate value to patients, healthcare providers and payers.

Located in Boston and the surrounding communities, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is a leader in life changing breakthroughs in cancer research and patient care. We are united in our mission of conquering cancer, HIV/AIDS, and related diseases. We strive to create an inclusive, diverse, and equitable environment where we provide compassionate and comprehensive care to patients of all backgrounds, and design programs to promote public health particularly among high-risk and underserved populations. We conduct groundbreaking research that advances treatment, we educate tomorrow's physician/researchers, and we work with amazing partners, including other Harvard Medical School-affiliated hospitals.

PRIMARY DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Responsible for managing the patient onboarding, initial activities and refill activities associated with assigned patients.
• Provides daily status updates to the appropriate provider offices and teams for all new orders related to their assigned disease or satellite.
• Evaluates new Epic orders from assigned groups and triages to OAT (oral anticancer teaching) team and releases to appropriate pharmacies as appropriate.
• Maintains timely status updates on all patient orders to facilitate the most efficient management of patients by the various teams.
• Answers and manages all incoming phone calls with timeliness to support our quality goals and initiatives.
• Responsible to coordinate with patient and prescriber office, as necessary for filling, refilling and/or shipment of medication, and signature delivery requirements.
• PCC will communicate with the patient, or prescriber, drug storage and handling guidelines.
• Promotes drug compliance/persistency and compliance to REMS requirements with a strict adherence of the use of pharmacy management assessments, templates, data collection, reporting, recording and call guides.
• Maintains current notes and documentation related to patient's drug therapy and pharmacy care plan; flags issues that need to be addressed accurately in TherigySTM.
• Avoids the use of slang, and abbreviations with system entries, unless on approved abbreviation listing for the company.
• Records the REMS authorizations accurately and timely.
• Reports all adverse events utilizing the appropriate internal or external form and escalates any active clinical issue to either a telephonic nurse or pharmacist.
• Establishes and maintains strong customer relationships with physician practices to streamline communication to the patient, payers, pharmacist, nurse, lab, and other healthcare related parties.
• Participates in administration of patient's pharmacy care plan as developed by the pharmacist or nurse.
• Troubleshoots and resolves patient and payer issues in a timely fashion, seeking clarification from either Benefit Verification or Reimbursement team, in order to provide accurate and reliable information to a patient, patient representative or prescriber.
• Embraces a continuous quality improvement customer service approach by pro-actively identifying areas of improvement and communicating those ideas to the healthcare team.
• Supports the process, structure and expectations of the phone metrics established for their team; including but not limited to phone readiness, out bound call queues, responding to voice messages, appropriate live transfers and avoiding unnecessary holds.
• Reports errors, incidents, occurrences, and complaints utilizing the company approved format.
• Coordinates responses and resolutions with appropriate internal and external parties.
• Completes reports with accuracy, factual detail and properly communicates to the manager or director in a timely fashion.
• Answers and resolves patient inquiries within committed periods, including the immediate handling of a complaint to resolution or escalation within first 24 hours of receipt.
• Actively participates in discussions with pharmacists, nursing services, pharmacy support manager and other pharmacy care coordinators to review cases and related drug therapy and pharmacy care plan issues.
• Provides timely updates to DFCI Disease Center programs related to the status of all prescriptions sent to DFCI outpatient pharmacy and appreciates the importance of maintaining strong disease center relationships.
• Performs related duties as assigned.

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, AND ABILITIES REQUIRED:

• Understands the physical, psychological and social challenges of specific disease states and assists the patient with drug therapy and pharmacy care issues within their scope of work, appropriately escalates clinical and counseling situations to appropriate licensed team members.
• Working experience with Microsoft Office resources such as Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint.
• Excellent communication skills Speaks clearly and effectively to all patients and providers.
• Strong attention to detail and excellent follow-through required.
• Computer and data management proficiency.
• Sense of humor and the desire to work collaboratively as a team.
• Promotes a culture of engagement, diversity, and teamwork.
• Well organized and able to multi-task quickly and effectively.
• Excellent communication (written, and verbal) skills with patients and providers.
• Able to recognize any opportunities for gaps in patient care and to respond appropriately.
• Works well in high-pressure situations.
• Motivated, shows initiative, and collaborates well in a team setting.
• Good written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to take initiative, problem solve, and exercise independent judgement.
• Ability to organize work and priorities to promote patient satisfaction and strong provider relationships.
• Ability to work closely and effectively with peers across the organization and with the medical staff.
• Recognizes team goals and work plan, able to work in a team-structured environment to providing consistent support for program or division team.

SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITIES: None

PATIENT CONTACT: None

MINIMUM JOB QUALIFICATIONS:

Minimum Education: High School or GED required.

Minimum Experience: 3 years of experience in a retail, outpatient and/or specialty pharmacy, oncology, healthcare, or health insurance environment is required. Utilization Review or Prior Authorization experience is preferred. Experience utilizing Specialty Therapy Management systems (e.g. Therigy, Asembia, etc.) preferred.

License/Certification/Registration: Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy Registration as Pharmacy Technician or Intern required. Nationally Certified Pharmacy Technician license required.

At Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, we work every day to create an innovative, caring, and inclusive environment where every patient, family, and staff member feels they belong. As relentless as we are in our mission to reduce the burden of cancer for all, we are committed to having faculty and staff who offer multifaceted experiences. Cancer knows no boundaries and when it comes to hiring the most dedicated and compassionate professionals, neither do we. If working in this kind of organization inspires you, we encourage you to apply.

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is an equal opportunity employer and affirms the right of every qualified applicant to receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender identity or expression, national origin, sexual orientation, genetic information, disability, age, ancestry, military service, protected veteran status, or other characteristics protected by law.