Get your pharmacy ready to Test & Treat COVID-19

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#   What is the Test to Treat Initiative?

#   Why Should Our Pharmacy Become A Test to Treat Location?

#   Is Prescribing Paxlovid Good For Pharmacists?

#   What Is Required To Bring Test To Treat Into Your Pharmacy?

#   How can Scripted help me initiate and implement Test to Treat in my pharmacy?

#   How to help patients find covid Test to Treat Locations?

#   What is the reimbursement process for Test to Treat sites?

#   Addressing the AMA statement

#   WHY DID THE FDA REVERSE THEIR STANCE ON LETTING PHARMACISTS PRESCRIBE?

#   Offer Test to Treat at your pharmacy

What is the Test to Treat Initiative?

The Biden-Harris Administration instituted a nationwide Test to Treat initiative that provides faster, easier access to testing and treatment for patients with COVID-19. Test to Treat now allows patients to show up to one location, like your pharmacy, to be tested and treated for COVID-19 when applicable. 

Allowing patients to be tested and treated in the same place opens the door to easier access to healthcare and life-saving treatments. Test To Treat is crucial to patients who are at risk for progressing to severe disease because treatment with medications such as Paxlovid and/or Lagevrio should start within 5 days of symptom onset to be effective. However, prescription of these life-saving medications requires a diagnosis of a positive COVID-19 test. 

Without the Test to Treat algorithm, the time it takes to obtain a positive test and relay that test to a prescribing doctor for a prescription for medication is on borrowed time. Test to Treat has cut out many unnecessary steps in the prescribing process that otherwise would have delayed patients with COVID-19 from receiving life-saving treatment immediately. Therefore, Test to Treat is a truly revolutionary step forward in improving health equity for sick patients, and you can make healthcare even more accessible by bringing it to your pharmacy.

Why Should Our Pharmacy Become A Test to Treat Location?

Pharmacists are underutilized, highly-capable, and the most publicly-accessible health care professionals that can take the burden off providers who are overwhelmed with the increasing aging population with chronic health conditions. Additionally, in the case of COVID-19, when (many) patients are already coming to pharmacies to be tested for COVID-19, it makes overwhelming sense for them to receive treatment right when they test positive, rather than wasting precious time going through the traditional prescription algorithm.

Per the Pharmacist Code of Ethics, “a pharmacist seeks justice in the distribution of health resources” so a pharmacist should be eager to expand their services to provide more accessible, life-saving care to patients. As a pharmacist, you can advance your career, gain a new sense of fulfillment, engage in continuous learning, and join an opportunity to forge advancement for the career as a whole by bringing Test to Treat to your pharmacy.

Additionally, bringing Test to Treat to your pharmacy will increase the profit margins of your pharmacy immensely. Pharmacies involved in collaborative practice agreements accumulate more profit because of increased and diversified services, which brings in an increase in customers. Furthermore, collaborative practice agreements help pharmacy businesses adapt to changing payer preferences, allowing for fairer reimbursement rates.

Also, pharmacies involved in CPAs allow for more autonomy for pharmacists to make decisions instead of waiting on doctors’ responses, which tackles a usual barrier to reimbursement. Additionally, because of the convenience of the services you can offer at the pharmacy, patients will sometimes opt to pay cash for services, mitigating insurance reimbursement all together.

Finally, a publication by the National Community Pharmacists Association directly correlated the multi-billion dollar community pharmacy market with quality of care and positive patient outcomes as drivers for reimbursement. Both quality of care and positive patient outcomes are also both directly correlated with collaborative practice agreements and the services they allow pharmacists to offer.

Is prescribing Paxlovid good for pharmacists?

Many pharmacists and pharmacy advocates have valid concerns about pharmacists stepping into a provider role. Especially in our current pharmacy industry, in which overwork, understaffing, and underpay are rampant, many question whether prescribing drugs like Paxlovid might just be one more responsibility for pharmacists who are already overwhelmed.

This concern is well-placed — pharmacists DO deserve better. #PizzaIsNotWorking.

We are working toward a future in which pharmacists spend more of their time working directly with patients and less time on daily busywork and pill-counting. We at Scripted believe that in addition to helping patients access care, provider status and prescriptive authority for pharmacists can provide pharmacy businesses the stability and revenue they need to address staffing and workload issues and provide better working conditions for all pharmacists.

As long as our company fights for provider status, we’ll also be fighting for better work conditions and treatment for pharmacists.

Test to Treat — and get paid — the easy way

Scripted manages the regulations and workflows that make providing clinical services tough.

PROTOCOLS & WORKFLOWS

Built-in COVID pill protocol, workflow & clinical support

COLLABORATIVE PRACTICE AGREEMENTS

End-to-end CPA management

Appointment Scheduling

Patients can schedule appointments at home or at the counter

LAUNCH TEST TO TREAT AT YOUR PHARMACY

What Is Required To Bring Test To Treat Into Your Pharmacy?

To initiate Test To Treat in your pharmacy, your pharmacy must have prescriptive authority. This page on our site has more information on how your pharmacy can gain prescriptive authority.

A common way pharmacists can gain prescriptive authority is via a Collaborative Practice Agreement with a prescribing provider. A Collaborative Practice Agreement, or CPA, creates a documented, formal relationship between a pharmacist/pharmacy and a provider/physician and therefore allows pharmacists/pharmacies to provide and perform expanded services to patients under that provider’s consent. For more information on Collaborative Practice Agreements and how Scripted has streamlined CPAs, please visit this page.

Additionally, to bring Test to Treat into the pharmacy, your pharmacy will need to follow a series of steps. First, you must review the testing considerations and requirements issued by the CDC and FDA. Then, you must refer to your local and state health department to partner with an authorized laboratory. Next, you’ll need to decide what COVID-19 testing supplies to purchase, along with personal protective equipment. We’re currently building a resource that breaks down all available rapid diagnostic point of care testing machines that are suitable for use for Test to Treat.

Additionally, your store will have to stock COVID-19 medications such as Paxlovid and Lagevrio. Furthermore, now that more tasks are added to the pharmacies workload, the pharmacy will need to navigate management and workflow of the new tasks that come with becoming a Test to Treat site. Some of the new tasks associated with implementing Test to Treat at your pharmacy include patient assessments, specimen collection for testing, running covid diagnostic testing, prescription of anti-viral medications, and dispensing of the medications. 

Logistically, your pharmacy will also have to establish a communication plan with labs, health departments, and patients’ providers to relay results of tests, and establish forms of documentation for this whole process. Finally, you will need to collect payment for the services you provide, which will vary depending on the patients’ insurance.

How can Scripted’s service help me initiate and implement Test to Treat in my pharmacy?

Scripted handles the regulations, workflows, and more so you can introduce this new, high-margin service to your brick and mortar pharmacy. We know that initiating, introducing, and implementing an additional task to the workflow of your pharmacy can seem overwhelming. That’s where we come in.

First off, Scripted can help your pharmacy with end-to-end CPA management to get your pharmacy eligible to participate in Test to Treat. From there, Scripted offers built-in covid pill protocols, workflow, and clinical support. Additionally, Scripted’s services are all digital. Patients will submit intake forms and schedule appointments online from outside the pharmacy, minimizing your exposure to COVID-19 positive patients. 

How can I help patients find COVID-19 Test to Treat Locations?

As a pharmacist, you will be the person that patients will reach out to for further information about test to treat sites. Patients can be directed to the COVID-19 Test to Treat locator or can call 1-800-232-0233 (TTY 1-888-720-7489) from 8  am to midnight ET, 7 days a week.

In addition, the Disability Information and Access Line (DIAL) is also available to specifically help people with disabilities access services. For this type of  assistance, patients can get help by  calling 1-888-677-1199, Monday-Friday from 9am to 8pm ET or email via DIAL@usaginganddisability.org.

Simple clinical service support for busy pharmacies

Pharmacies with Scripted make thousands in additional revenue from clinical services.

Start writing scripts from COVID to cold sores in as little as 2 weeks.

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What is the reimbursement process for Test to Treat sites?

Pharmacists play a key role in providing accessible healthcare to millions of people, especially now during the pandemic. It is imperative that they get compensated for such services, thus, per the HRSA, “Health care providers who have conducted COVID-19 testing or provided treatment for uninsured individuals with a COVID-19 primary diagnosis on or after February 4, 2020 can request claims reimbursement through the test to treat program electronically and will be reimbursed generally at Medicare rates, subject to available funding.”

Furthermore, providers can complete a series of steps to request reimbursement for COVID-19 vaccine administration. These steps include: enrolling as a provider participant, checking patient eligibility, submitting patient information, submitting claims, and receiving payment via direct deposit. Providers must take initiative and must attest to the following at registration: “ You have checked for health care coverage eligibility and confirmed that the patient is uninsured. You have verified that the patient does not have coverage through an individual, or employer-sponsored plan, a federal healthcare program, or the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program at the time services were rendered, and no other payer will reimburse you for COVID-19 vaccination, testing and/or care for that patient.”

Additionally, the provider will accept the defined program reimbursement as payment in full, agree not to balance bill the patient and agree to program terms and conditions. These terms may be subject to post-reimbursement audit review.

Addressing the AMA statement

The American Medical Association (AMA) has addressed the Administration’s test-to-treat COVID-19. The AMA’s  point of view is that “This approach, though well intentioned in that it attempted to increase access to care for patients without a primary care physician, oversimplifies challenging prescribing decisions by omitting knowledge of a patient’s medical history, the complexity of drug interactions, and managing possible negative reactions”. This statement has been criticized by many healthcare professionals including MDs and PharmDs which have expressed their disagreement with such statements. Pharmacist’s main expertise is in drug-drug interactions and the management and titration of them. 

Why did the FDA reverse their stance on letting pharmacists prescribe?

Scripted launched the #LetUsPrescribe movement after the FDA’s initial Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) explicitly prohibited pharmacists from prescribing Paxlovid.

After months of advocacy — and support from the pharmacy community — the FDA has finally reversed its stance and allowed pharmacists to prescribe Paxlovid directly to patients. 

 

Offer Test to Treat at your pharmacy

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Scripted FAQs

Scripted is a new service that enables pharmacists to prescribe treatments and administer services for common conditions. Scripted was created to make healthcare convenient, affordable, and accessible.

No, Scripted is not a pharmacy. Scripted is a marketplace that connects patients who need care for common conditions with pharmacy providers. Scripted partners with pharmacies to expand access to healthcare.

Requesting a Scripted consultation is really, really easy.


You can book your visit online in a snap.

Or, walk-in to your local Scripted pharmacy any time and scan the QR code on the Scripted poster near the pharmacy counter.

Select a treatment and complete a digital self-assessment including medical history, symptoms, medications.

A pharmacist will have an in person consultation with you in the pharmacy.

If appropriate, the pharmacist will issue you a new prescription and fill or administer treatment in the same visit.

Scripted is free to start! There are no reoccurring fees, or monthly payments.

Consults with your pharmacist start as low as $19. Most services range between $19 – $50.

No, if you are issued a new prescription by your pharmacist, the medication will be an additional cost.

Most medications are billable through insurance.

Yes. Pharmacists can prescribe and administer services when following state and clinical guidelines (which may include collaborating with a physician). Prescribing rights and laws vary by state. Have questions? Contact us.

No, you do not need a prescription. If you are eligible to receive treatment or service, your pharmacists will issue you a new prescription, just like your doctor would. 

No. You can walk-in and receive same-day service, or you can plan ahead by scheduling an appointment.

After using Scripted, your pharmacist will automatically communicate your visit summary to your physician’s office.

Scripted is self-pay, and insurance is not accepted.

You can use Scripted at participating pharmacies near you. Use the Pharmacy Locator to find a service in your area.

Scripted was made to improve affordability and expand access to care for all. In some instances, if you have underlying conditions or if you have a more serious condition that cannot be treated by the pharmacist, your pharmacist may refer you to a physician.

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