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Originally Posted by golfing eagles
I was interested in what a specialty pharmacy was as well, never heard the term. Compounding pharmacies of course, but specialty I’ve never heard. My concern was whether it was a haven for all the quacks out there
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“Specialty Pharmacy” is a term in the dispensing of expensive therapies such as chemotherapy. I worked in biotech for many years and these pharmacies served an important role in getting patients their cancer medicine. These were mail order pharmacies that handled all the insurance authorizations and shipped out the product to the patient. Many times if the patient went to a local retail pharmacy they were told that our product was not covered. The specialty pharmacy knew that although the drug was oral it was covered by Medicare part B due to special circumstances. The cancer clinic called the specialty pharmacy and all was taken care of. The specialty pharmacy contacted the patient’s insurance company and educated them on Medicare coverage. (Part B) The patient was no longer in a state of panic about having to pay $2,000 a month for their cancer drug.