Analysis of prior authorization success and timeliness at a community-based specialty care pharmacy

Specialty medications may require a prior authorization (PA) before a patient can access the medication. Providers often identify PA approval as a burden for the practice. Pharmacists can facilitate the completion of the PA process.

The primary objective was to evaluate the time to first PA decision (approval or denial) for dermatologic medications dispensed by a community-based specialty pharmacy. A secondary objective was to compare PA timeliness (time to PA approval and time to first medication fill) between a community-based specialty pharmacy and a dermatology provider office.

Realo Specialty Care is a community-based independent specialty pharmacy that provides comprehensive care to patients with complex and chronic conditions such as plaque psoriasis, hidradenitis suppurativa, and atopic dermatitis. Pharmacy services include PA assistance, comprehensive medication management, patient education, and adherence monitoring.

Pharmacy dispensing system data were used to conduct a retrospective analysis of the effectiveness at resolving PA requests. PAs are traditionally completed by a provider's practice, and data are documented within the pharmacy system as a PA task.

Data included PA tasks for dermatology prescriptions for patients aged 18 years or older between January 1, 2017, and June 30, 2019. Initial receipt of the prescription, PA decision, and PA decision date were noted in the PA task and confirmed via fax documentation. The date of first fill was confirmed by prescription data.

The pharmacy completed 677 PA tasks with a mean time to PA decision of 1.9 days, whereas the provider's office averaged 20.9 days (P < 0.001). The pharmacy demonstrated a mean time to first fill of 6.6 days, whereas the provider's office averaged 16.2 days (P < 0.001).

Pharmacies can effectively complete PAs to expedite the filling process for patients and increase medication access. Provider practices could benefit from delegating these tasks to a partnered pharmacy.