Halfway There
By Joe Pugliese

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if zoom fatigue was our biggest problem? We hope you are all safe and well. It is the middle of what has been a most challenging year. I know I find it hard to stay focused on the job at hand but I think we need to take the approach that things will get back to a good normal.

The middle of the year is typically a time to look back and see how you are doing against the goals you set for the year. This gives you the opportunity to refocus on the things you want to have done by year end. One goal we set for 2020 was to have three new participating members and I’m pleased to report that year to date we have four. Alaska and University Health System, Cleveland were layups since they had both signed on before the end of 2019 and were awaiting registration on the OPA website. The other two are Connecticut Children’s and University of California San Diego. I think we have an excellent opportunity to have three additional participating members before the end of the year.

As a reminder, there is nothing preventing non-participating members from joining. All you need is to be a federally-qualified hemophilia treatment center listed on the Office of Pharmacy Affairs website with an HM designation. If you have questions about how to join, drop me a line.

There are an ever-growing number of reasons to be a member of the Alliance. Our group purchasing contracts are the most obvious. However, the work of our payer team in building out a national PPO (preferred provider organization) has quickly emerged as another tangible and compelling benefit of Alliance membership. Through our collaborative efforts with members, NHF and insurance brokers and plans across the country, we are capturing business for our members across the country. This is a classic win, win, win: patients enjoy better outcomes at a lower cost; HTCs are able to fund the staffing they need to provide outstanding clinical care; and the health system saves money.

We are presently at 31.5 HTCs who have signed the PPO agreement. I think the tipping point is somewhere north of 60, at that point we have sufficient reach in addition to the outstanding clinical results to compel national and large regional plans to include us in their networks.

You may recall that the end of March we were going to Washington for our annual Hill Day. It was particularly exciting because after years of effort we seemed to have found a solution for the skilled nursing facility (SNF) issue that has represented a significant access to care issue for the community. The events of the last 90 days have obviously slowed our progress on that front. We are moving forward with a virtual Hill Day later this summer and hope that you’ll join us in that effort. 

There are still six months to go in 2020, which provides lots of opportunity for us to make significant progress in securing the future of comprehensive care for the bleeding disorders community.