What if pharmacy transfers didn’t require phone calls?
Photon has empowered patients to “reroute” their Rx, enabling safe pharmacy transfers that reduce headaches for both patients and providers.
When it can take up to…
- A few days to discover that you need a pharmacy transfer (probably due to stock or other logistical issues)
- 24+ hours for the transfer to be completed
- Another 24+ hours for the medication to be filled
- And numerous phone calls throughout to ensure the transfer goes through
...the feelings of uncertainty, lack of control, and desperation grow for many patients.
A few days can feel like years for the millions of us who need medication for urgent health issues–or just everyday existence and functioning.
Can I get my meds on time? Or, will I have to go without? Should I call my doctor or pharmacist to expedite? Should I ask another pharmacy to call my first pharmacy? Why won’t my first pharmacy call another pharmacy?
Plus, for busy providers and pharmacists, transfers mean tedious phone calls and admin work that take precious bandwidth away from higher-priority work.
At Photon, we created the ability for patients to “re-route” prescriptions, in hopes that patients, providers, and pharmacists no longer feel dread upon hearing “pharmacy transfer.”
Before we explain how it works, we share how Caitlyn, a certified pharmacy technician on Photon's team, navigated a transfer issue–an experience we each know well and work tirelessly to improve for millions.
Caitlyn’s story: To transfer or not to transfer? That is the question.
When Caitlyn discovered that her Novolog medication was out of stock at the pharmacy, she immediately called her doctor’s office. While she had some of her essential medication left, the ongoing delay of this refill made her nervous.
The pharmacy could take 2 days to order and receive the medication, so she wanted to transfer pharmacies. If her provider could send the prescription to another pharmacy, she wouldn’t have to wait the 24-48 hours normally expected for a pharmacy-to-pharmacy transfer.
The office, unfortunately, didn’t pick up (it was already late afternoon).
Worried and down to just 20 units of insulin remaining, Caitlyn then tried calling the pharmacy to initiate a transfer. However, she couldn’t reach anyone on the phone.
She braced herself for a night filled with anxiety, uncertainty, and mildly high blood sugar. She mentally prepared herself to persist with the transfer the next morning.
To her relief, Caitlyn received her medication without needing the transfer–somehow, the pharmacy received the shipment early and filled it the following day.
Phew. Crisis averted. But, what about next month? Would she face another panicked day (or two) upon her next refill?
Pharmacy transfers cause friction for… everyone.
Like Alexis and Diya on Photon’s team, Caitlyn felt frustrated at the pharmacy transfer experience.
Even if Caitlyn had reached someone at the first pharmacy, they may not have initiated a transfer, as many pharmacies don’t want to drive prescriptions to another location.
As a result, patients bear the burden of asking a second pharmacy to call the first for the transfer. But, due to pharmacy staff shortages and other factors, it might take 24-48 hours for a transfer request to be completed.
Needing medication urgently and aiming to avoid phone-tag between pharmacies, patients often request providers to resend prescriptions elsewhere.
But, such additional attempts to reach providers require more effort from patients and burden providers and clinical support staff with more phone calls and tasks.
Thus, the current pharmacy transfer process seems painful for all:
- Patients might experience medication delays.
- Providers and pharmacists handle more tedious admin work.
- Everyone feels frustrated by an inefficient process that takes too much time.
Is there another way?
We think: yes. That’s why we created the ability for patients to re-route their prescriptions.
How can you “re-route” a prescription?
Photon created a new pharmacy transfer solution that alleviates burdens for providers and patients: we developed the capability for patients to initiate a re-route of their prescription from one pharmacy to another, right from their smartphones.
At a high level, how does this work?
Demo: how patients can re-route prescriptions with Photon
- When a clinician submits the Rx via Photon, patients receive a secure link by text, where they view their prescription, select an initial pharmacy, and track status updates.
- Photon informs patients of any issues that may arise via text notifications and updates on the status page, such as:
- The medication is out-of-stock or back-ordered.
- The pharmacy was closed or unreachable by Photon.
- The pharmacy doesn’t accept patient’s insurance.
- Patients overcome these issues by initiating a re-route: opening the secure link, they can tap “Change Pharmacy,” and select a new pharmacy.
- This selection prompts a cancellation to be sent to the first pharmacy on the back end. Shortly after, the prescription is sent to the new requested pharmacy.
- At the new pharmacy, Photon once again confirms Rx receipt, status updates, and a ready-by time, keeping patients in the loop on every step. If needed, patients can text Photon at any time to get assistance with re-routes.
Throughout this process, neither the patient nor the provider had to make a phone call to move the prescription between pharmacies.
While avoiding phone calls in pharmacy transfers might feel unfamiliar, we made sure to build a compliant solution with guardrails to ensure that (1) re-routes don’t occur after a prescription is filled at the initial pharmacy, and (2) patients use the re-route feature appropriately.
So how are providers impacted?
Having facilitated over 40K re-routes, Photon has helped remove hundreds of hours of pharmacy calls and administrative tasks for our customers each week.
One customer estimated getting 70% fewer prescription-related requests from patients since adopting Photon.
Previously, such admin tasks had taken unnecessary resources from clinicians and support teams, who'd rather focus on deeper, personalized care for their fast-growing patient base.
However, providers have gotten valuable time back and feel lighter as they scale, now that they have offloaded pharmacy transfers to Photon.
And patients?
Patients of Photon customers have been delighted and reassured by the ability to re-route prescriptions on their own, right from a text message.
Among the 30% of patient texts we receive that say “thank you”, some comment on the ability to re-route:
“Thank you, every doctor’s office needs to offer this. Would save so much time.”
“THANK YOU. I can't believe this service exists. This is blowing my mind.”
“Thank you SO much. It is beyond helpful and one of my favorite features.”
Besides the increased agency and satisfaction, patients also get their medications more smoothly, with one customer estimating that patients receive their prescriptions 2-5X faster.
Less phone tag in pharmacy transfers is possible. And it makes people happy.
Photon empowers people to own their prescriptions, which includes the ability to transfer prescriptions without providers nor patients having to make phone calls.
As a result, patients can feel in control, get medications with less friction, and save time for themselves and their providers.
We look forward to making the anxiety-inducing experience of medication fulfillment a bit easier for all of us in the U.S. Because we definitely deserve it.
