Blogs

The Biggest Missed Opportunities from Outpatient Pharmacy

The hospital outpatient pharmacy should be targeting Meds-to-beds, specialty pharmacy and lowerin...

What are the 340B Discount Drug Program Requirements?

In 1992, Congress created a federal drug discount program under Section 340B of the Public Health...

340B Hospitals Breathe a Sigh of Relief

Many hospitals across the country breathed a sigh of relief last week when the Trump Adminis...

3 Best Practices For Outpatient Pharmacy

By including the following practices within your hospital’s outpatient pharmacy, you are we...

Why 340B Hospitals Need an Outpatient Pharmacy Strategy

There is a shift happening in health care from inpatient-centered care to an emphasis on outpatie...

3 Ways to Ensure The Success Of Your Hospital Outpatient Pharmacy

The success and profitability of hospital outpatient pharmacies vary widely. Some hospi...

How to Prepare for a 340B Audit

In 1992, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) started the 340B discount drug p...

Leverage Your Hospital Outpatient Pharmacy for Employee Benefit Costs

Hospitals who leverage their owned pharmacies for employee medications can easily reduce pharmacy...

How Outpatient Pharmacies Affect Employee Benefit Costs

More and more hospitals and health systems are considering building in-house outpatient pharmacie...

What is a Pharmacist’s Role in Hospital Readmissions?

Unplanned readmissions cost Medicare approximately $26 billion per year, and nearly 20 percent of...

How an Outpatient Pharmacy & Meds-To-Beds Lowers Readmissions

Medication non-adherence is a constant source of hospital readmissions and has been measured to b...

5 Criteria To Help You Decide How To Select Your 340B Contract Pharmacy

There has been a great deal of activity in the 340B contract pharmacy space in the last six years...

How Your Pharmacy Can Improve 3 Hospital Performance Scores

The role of pharmacists is changing and growing every day. This role now being viewed as a hospit...

3 Strategies to Better Manage Your 340B Program

The 340B discount drug program was designed to alleviate the large financial burden of costly pha...

Making Your Outpatient Pharmacy Your Employees’ Go To

Outpatient pharmacies can provide great value for employees when leveraged appropriately. In...

An Outpatient Pharmacy Strategy for Hospitals

Many large hospitals have deployed, or are in the process of deploying outpatient pharmacies. Not...

Part 3: How to Lower Hospital Employee Benefit Costs with an Outpatient Pharmacy

The third part of our series: Hospitals who leverage their outpatient pharmacies for employee med...

4 Reasons Hospitals Need an Outpatient Pharmacy

With all the complex departments that already exist in your healthcare organization, adding anoth...

Meds-To-Beds: Benefits Go Beyond Profit for Hospitals

A service that is often a complementary add-on to a hospital outpatient pharmacy is a meds-to-bed...

A Hospital’s Outpatient Pharmacy is a Strategic Asset

The Affordable Care Act and Value Based Care movement has made hospitals rethink their outpatient...

Why Hospitals – Big and Small – Need an Outpatient Pharmacy

Hospital-owned outpatient pharmacies are often unappreciated and shied away from due to the bad e...

Top 4 Issues Found During Pharmacist Home Visits

Hospital readmission penalties from the Affordable Care Act (ACA) continue to affect th...

How Hospitals are Partnering with Pharma To Improve Outcomes?

Hospitals and pharmaceutical manufacturers have traditionally looked at themselves as transaction...

Part 2: Leveraging An Outpatient Pharmacy for Employee Benefit Savings

A follow-up to our post from earlier this week: Hospitals who leverage their outpatient pharmacie...

Hospitals’ DIY approach to Employee Pharmacy

There are many examples of health systems that have taken a DIY approach to pharmacy, particularl...

Pharmacist’s Role in a Post-Discharge Medication Reconciliation Program

The Institute of Medicine’s Preventing Medication Errors report reveals that the average hospital...

Could Pharmacists Home Visits Reduce Readmissions?

In 2014, Regions Hospital in St. Paul, Minnesota, piloted the Medication Therapy Management (MTM)...

3 Keys to Meds-To-Beds Success at an Outpatient Pharmacy

During a visit to a large 340B hospital last month, we were surprised to discover that ...

How Hospitals Are Lowering Readmission Rates

Implementing processes to lower your hospital’s readmission rates is not only in ...

Six Steps To Opening an Outpatient Pharmacy

Outpatient pharmacy services can reduce one of the leading causes of hospital readmission: patien...

Cancer’s Untold Tale – Inflicting Financial Ruin

The term financial toxicity describes how out-of-pocket (OOP) costs can cause financial problems ...

Impact of Trained Oncology Financial Advocates on Patient Out-of-Pocket Expenses

Financial Advocacy Programs assist hospitals, infusion centers, and cancer care clinics gain acce...

Factors That Increase Risk of Cancer Patient Financial Toxicity

A quick-reference guide for oncology practices to identify cancer patients at risk of financial t...

Are You Eligible for Free Medication?

Qualifying for free medication for expensive oral or infusion drugs is easier than most expect. I...

What is a Copay Accumulator?

A breakdown of copay accumulators and copay maximizers for oncology practices to help patients be...

Top-10 Infusion Co-Pay Assistance Programs

The Inaugural Survey of Infusion Copay Cards The Inaugural Survey of Copay Manufacturer Programs ...

Manufacturer Copay Card Process

The step-by-step method Q Consulting Support Services (QCSS) uses to process manufacturer copay c...

A How-to Guide to Troubleshoot for Patient Financial Advocacy for Cancer Patients

A how-to-guide to troubleshoot financial advocacy for cancer infusion center patients facing fina...

The Financial Burden of GI Infusions

GI infusions for diseases like Crohn’s Disease are often required monthly and can be financ...

Financial Toxicity of Cancer Treatment

The negative impact of financial toxicity associated with cancer treatment related out of pocket ...

Improving Infusion Center Profitability with a Robust Prior Authorization Process

Hospitals can improve infusion center profitability by focusing on one area – the Insurance...

Reducing Hospital Bad Debt through Patient Financial Advocacy

How hospitals and oncology centers can reduce bad debt through Patient Assistance Programs, Copay...

Patient Story: Patient Financial Assistance of $42,000 for a CML patient

How QCSS was able to help Michael with $42,000 of medication costs Patient Overview: Michael Mich...

Patient Story: Financial Assistance for Mr. V

How QCSS was able to secure over $16,000 in financial advocacy for this patient Patient Overview:...

How Patient Financial Advocacy Improves Patient Satisfaction and Reduces Bad Debt

Patient Financial Experience The patient financial experience within the U.S. Healthcare System i...

Foundation Assistance for Chronic or Life-Altering Diseases

Foundation Assistance for Chronic or Life-Altering Diseases Foundations offer financial assistanc...

Manufacturer Copay Assistance Programs

What is a Copay Assistance Program? As healthcare costs continue to rise, patients are looking fo...

6 Elements of A Specialty Pharmacy Business Plan

As more and more hospitals begin to wonder if a specialty pharmacy is right for them, t...

4 Reasons Hospitals are Jumping on the Specialty Pharmacy Bandwagon

With a few exceptions, hospitals have been late to the game in the development of specialty pharm...

Is Specialty Pharmacy Accreditation Worth the Cost & Effort?

The answer: It depends As more hospitals and health systems move into the specialty pharmacy...

Specialty Pharmacy: A New Revenue Stream for Hospitals

Specialty Pharamcy Growth Specialty pharmacy has exploded from a niche industry catering to a ver...

How to Manage and Utilize Data in a Specialty Pharmacy

There are many benefits for a healthy system that operates their own specialty pharmacy. One of t...

3 Processes for Managing Specialty Pharmacy Patients

In the past decade, specialty pharmacies have become the fastest growing segment of the pharmaceu...

Why You Need Specialty Pharmacy Accreditation, Especially If You Partner

Generally, accreditation is not required for implementation of specialty services, but in some ca...

Is Specialty Pharmacy Accreditation Worth the Cost & Effort – Post2

The answer: It depends As more hospitals and health systems move into the specialty pharmacy...

Why Specialty Pharmacies Receive Limited Distribution

Specialty drug manufacturers will often limit the number of specialty pharmacies that c...

How Hospitals are Partnering with Pharma To Improve Outcomes?

Hospitals and pharmaceutical manufacturers have traditionally looked at themselves as transaction...

3 Trends That Will Affect Specialty Health Care in 2018

It’s no surprise that the health care industry is constantly transforming. 2017 pioneered new inn...

The Challenge with The Traditional Care Process for Specialty Pharmacies

Patient care processes needs to evolve to assure safety and effective use of specialty pharmaceut...

The Integrated Patient Care Process for Specialty Pharmacies

Specialty pharmacies typically operate in one of three approaches to patient care; traditional, c...

Quiz: Should Your Organization Implement A Specialty Pharmacy?

There are many factors to consider when developing a specialty pharmacy program. To help get...

How One Hospital System Generated Over $50 Million in Revenues With Specialty Pharmacy

The Specialty Pharmacy segment is seeing a lot of interest from hospital systems – one reas...

Why Hospital Specialty Pharmacy’s Should Have Access To Limited Distribution Medications

Health Systems Can Shine when it comes to Specialty Pharmacy Health systems are beginning to play...

How Pharmacies Can Use Data to Drive Business Models

Pharmacies face a new chore as they look to transition from their traditional business models to ...

A Brief Background: A Convergence of Drivers for Improving the Quality of Care

Post-discharge outcomes are an increasing focus for hospitals and healthcare organizations. Hospi...

The Coordinated Patient Care Process for Specialty Pharmacies

In recent years, specialty pharmacies began adopting a more comprehensive approach to patient car...

Why Hospitals of All Sizes Can Benefit from Specialty Pharmacy

There has been a significant jump in hospital-owned specialty pharmacies in the last two years, h...

Four Reasons Why Your Hospital Should Be Looking at Specialty Pharmacy

Hospitals have been late entrants into the specialty pharmacy business, which is mostly domi...

Hospital Specialty Pharmacy Interest Continues to Grow

Specialty Pharmacies are becoming of much greater interest to hospital systems. In 2016, about 1 ...

Jefferson Healthcare Enters The Pharmacy Market

Q Consulting Services has been working with Jefferson Healthcare, a Critical Access Hospital in P...

Hospitals Are Getting A New Look

Not only are hospitals starting to act more consumer-centric, they are beginning to loo...

Achieving Private Payer Success at Your Hospital’s Specialty Pharmacy?

One question that we regularly receive from hospitals who are looking to enter the Specialty...

How A Meds to Beds Program Improves Medication Adherence

Studies have shown that medication adherence is a critical factor in whether a patient ...

3 Lessons Learned From Opening a Hospital-Based Specialty Pharmacy

Specialty medications are the fastest growing segment of drug spending, with growth rates forecas...

Personal Service is Better At Hospital-Owned Specialty Pharmacies

Hospital-Owned Specialty Pharmacies have one significant competitive advantage over the large, na...

Quiz Results: Should Your Organization Implement A Specialty Pharmacy?

Tally your results. Hospitals typically fall into one of these three categories, use the category...

Defining Your Specialty Pharmacy Market

When analyzing the viability of a specialty pharmacy at your hospital, one of the first step...

Top Reasons Patients May Not Be Compliant with Discharge Orders

Post-discharge outcomes are an increasing focus for hospitals and health systems, which are chall...

3 Pharmacy Trends That are Threatening the Traditional Business Model

Pharmacies (like healthcare systems) all over the United States are dealing with three major tren...

3 Ways Hospitals Benefit from a Specialty Pharmacy

Specialty pharmacies have become the next big thing for hospitals. Within the past decade, specia...

How Telehealth Impacts Clinical Outcomes

The Evolution of Telehealth Telehealth or telemedicine has come a long way in such a short time p...

5 Steps for Developing a Telehealth Program

Developing a telehealth program at your organization can be costly, time consuming and challengin...

Is Your Healthcare Organization Ready for a Telehealth Program?

From social media platforms changing the way we interact to online shopping, the internet has tra...

Telehealth in a Post-Covid World

The shift from in-office care to telehealth is one that Q Consulting, amongst many others, made p...

How EMRs Increase Patient Satisfaction

Patients who have used electronic medical records are significantly more satisfied with their doc...

3 Ways Healthcare Systems Benefit from Analyzing EMR Opportunities

Traditionally, the medical system has been paid on a fee for service model that only considers pa...

Part 3: Can Telehealth Complement Retail Clinics & Urgent Care Centers

As consumer-centric healthcare continues to evolve and patients look to convenience and cost as a...

How EMR Data Can Drive New Profit Sources

Imagine being pregnant for the first time. You call your OB-GYN and schedule your very first mate...

3 Ways To Leverage Big Data For Healthcare

Big data earned its name because of its volume, complexity, diversity and timeliness. The emergen...

Benefits of Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM)

What is Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM)? Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM), or teleohomecare, uses&...

What are Electronic Medication Safety Notifications?

Improving patient safety is one of the most effective ways to add value to your healthcare organi...

Putting Patients at The Center of Digital Healthcare Transformation

Until recently, the majority of a hospital’s tech investments have been for clinical users ...

Top 5 Areas for Digital Health Solutions in 2018

As we continue to transition into a digital world, health care organizations have been investing ...

Part 3: Can Telehealth Complement Retail Clinics & Urgent Care Centers

As consumer-centric healthcare continues to evolve and patients look to convenience and cost as a...

Part 2: Retail Clinics & Urgent Care – Critical to Consumer Centric Healthcare

This is the second post in a series of blogs on the growing importance of retail clinics and urge...

Patient Loyalty Programs for Hospital Systems

Most of us are members of at least one loyalty program. My Starbucks app, my credit card rewards,...

Patient-Centered Healthcare: Lessons from Retail

Every year, senior hospital executives go through the process of determining what your system wil...

5 Steps for Developing a Telehealth Program

Developing a telehealth program at your organization can be costly, time consuming and challengin...

Why Are Hospitals Looking To Patient Loyalty Programs?

Looking at patient’s as ‘consumers’ is a new concept for hospitals, and many ar...

6 Key Patient Engagement Best Practices to Improve Patient Loyalty

The healthcare industry has a lot to learn from other consumer centric industries such as retail ...

Healthcare Consumer Segmentation: Industry Best Practices

Consumer segmentation is standard practice in industries like banking and retail, with the output...

Consumer-Centric Healthcare Starts with Patient Segmentation

Patient segmentation is a critical element in understanding how to attract new patients to your h...

8 Consumer-Focused Healthcare Services

The healthcare industry is evolving from a relatively static connection of care to one that embra...

4 Industry Shifts that Promote Consumer Healthcare

Healthcare savvy individuals are beginning to look more like consumers than just patients. Patien...

Part 1: Retail Clinics Role in Consumer Centric Healthcare

Background The first retail health clinic opened in Minnesota in 2001 after a father, and future ...

Is Your Healthcare Organization On These 4 Screens?

In 2015, the healthcare industry spent just under $10 billion in advertisement. With numbers like...

3 Steps Towards Consumer-Centric Healthcare

The healthcare landscape is quickly changing to a consumer-centric business model. Providers need...

The Power of an Online Review for the Healthcare Consumer

Hospitals have begun to realize, that to remain competitive in a rapidly shifting healthcare envi...

Walmart is Adopting a Consumer-Healthcare Strategy for Its Employees

Walmart has had variable success when it comes to entering the healthcare market. It under-perfor...

The Future of Patient Financial Experience

Strategizing the patient financial experience is a top priority for hospitals and healt...

The History of High Deductible Health Plans

In 2000, healthcare costs were beginning to consistently rise. In 2009, the Kaiser Family Foundat...

What the New Walgreens Alliance Means for Health Systems

Walgreens has recently announced an agreement with Verily, a data science and sister company of G...

Putting Patients at The Center of Digital Healthcare Transformation

Until recently, the majority of a hospital’s tech investments have been for clinical users ...

Four New Drivers of Consumer Healthcare Purchasing Decisions

The way that individuals make their healthcare purchasing decisions is dramatically changing, and...

3 Types of Value-Based Care Models

Value-based care has emerged as an alternative for fee-for-service reimbursement based ...

5 Strategic Healthcare Location Factors

Research shows that a high number of people would change physicians because of location over pric...

Consumer-Driven Healthcare: The Importance of Consumer Segmentation Part 2

We have written several articles on the importance of Consumer segmentation for Healthcare. It is...

How the Aging Population is Shaping Healthcare

Medicare patients make up the largest customer base for the United State’s hospitals and healthca...

Uber Health is Picking Patients Up

An average of 3.6 million Americans miss their health care appointments every year because of unr...

Value-Based Reimbursement (VBR) Models are Growing

Not only is the interest in value-based reimbursement (VBR) models growing, but the eff...

How Consumer-Centric Healthcare is Fueling an Investment Boom

The focus on consumer-centric healthcare initiatives has found its way from hospitals t...

Consumer-Driven Healthcare: What can hospitals learn from the retail industry?

What will your health system look like in the next five to 10 years? Do you think the taxi indust...

Amazon, Apple & Google Are Recruiting their Way into Healthcare

As Tech Companies look to enter the healthcare space, they are tapping into the knowledge base of...

How Cleveland Clinic Cut Employee Healthcare Costs

The rising cost of employee healthcare has been a hot topic lately. Amazon, Berkshire Hathaw...

5 Things to Know About Value-Based Reimbursement

It’s not surprise that the interest in value-based reimbursement (VBR) models are growi...

Consumer-Driven Healthcare: The Importance of Consumer Segmentation

Consumer segmentation is a standard practice for marketers in most industries – but healthcare ha...

How Is Value-Based Care Different From Fee-For-Service Models?

Value-based care has emerged as an alternative to fee-for-service reimbursement models. As y...

Top 5 Consumer-Centric Questions A Healthcare CEO Should Be Asking

It makes sense for healthcare systems to start behaving like retailers when patients are increasi...

6 Reasons You Should Have a Consumer Centric Retail Strategy

It’s time for your healthcare organization to think through your system’s consumer st...

The True Value of Patient Experience

Is your healthcare organization focusing enough on patient experience? Turns out that hospitals w...

What is Healthcare Consumerism?

onsumerism has been making its way into the healthcare industry. For the past decade, patients ha...

What is the New Legislation for the 340B Discount Drug Program?

In case you missed it, two new pieces of legislation have been introduced to help fix the 340B di...

5 Criteria To Help You Decide How To Select Your 340B Contract Pharmacy

There has been a great deal of activity in the 340B contract pharmacy space in the last six years...

The Contract Pharmacy Process for 340B Hospitals

340B Eligible Hospitals should look for ways to leverage their outpatient pharmacy operation...

Why 340B Hospitals Need an Outpatient Pharmacy Strategy

and population health management. Hospitals and health systems are seeking new revenue streams an...

3 Strategies to Better Manage Your 340B Program

The 340B discount drug program was designed to alleviate the large financial burden of costly pha...

A Meds-To-Beds Program for 340B Hospitals

340B Eligible Hospitals should look for ways to leverage their outpatient pharmacy operations to ...

How to Prepare for a 340B Audit

In 1992, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) started the 340B discount drug p...

340B Hospitals Breathe a Sigh of Relief

Many hospitals across the country breathed a sigh of relief last week when the Trump Administrati...

The 340B Process: How Hospitals Are able to Benefit

The 340B discount drug program can be highly beneficial for hospitals, especially ones that have ...

What are the 340B Discount Drug Program Requirements?

ongress created a federal drug discount program under Section 340B of the Public Health Service A...

How Outpatient Pharmacies Affect Employee Benefit Costs

More and more hospitals and health systems are considering building in-house outpatient pharmacie...

Starting a Remote Patient Monitoring Program in 3 Steps

Remote monitoring can help prevent readmissions, allows patients to recover in the comfort of the...

How Hospital Specialty Pharmacy Can Exceed Most Models

Specialty pharmacy is on the leading edge of health care innovation, and health systems, particul...

How Hospital Specialty Pharmacy Can Exceed Most Models

Specialty pharmacy is on the leading edge of health care innovation, and health systems, particul...