Diplomat Pharmacy
The company focuses on serving those patients with complex chronic diseases. It has developed innovative tools such as starter kits and its proprietary CarePak, complete benefits investigations, dedicated prior authorization and PA Appeals teams, financial assistance availability and Medicare support. The company also offers back-end patient support services for national retailers and hospitals, and specialty-care coverage to managed care organizations.
“We’ve tried to figure out what patients and stakeholders are looking for,” Hagerman says.
Expansion Efforts
Diplomat has continued to evolve its footprint and develop its proprietary patient care solution eNAV, a workflow application that guides care specialists through patient-specific care plans. The company added to eNAV solution with eNAV Live, giving prescribers and authorized partners an online view into data. Diplomat’s online web portal shares dispensing status information for authorized users and gives real-time prescription and patient status along with patient-specific communications to prescribers and case managers. The company also launched its Retail Specialty Network program to provide back-end customized services, and it created Diplomat University, its education and training department.
Other investments include moving its corporate headquarters to a 550,000-square-foot facility in Flint. It is home to the company’s national distribution center, PAP pharmacy, national compounding laboratory, call center and patient assistance services.
Diplomat’s footprint has expanded with the opening of locations in Florida, Illinois and California. Other expansion has come through acquisition. In 2013, Diplomat acquired AHF, which served the hemophilia community through locations in Connecticut and Massachusetts. In 2014, it acquired MedPro Rx, headquartered in North Carolina, complementing its scale in the hemophilia space, and added IVIG as a significant infusion capability. This year, Diplomat acquired BioRx, based in Ohio and primarily serving the bleeding disorders community, while broadening the disease state capabilities, with the addition of HAE, Alpha-1 and nutrition capabilities. It also recently acquired Pennsylvania-based Burman’s Specialty Pharmacy, which will expand Diplomat’s hepatitis C specialty services.
All the while, Diplomat expanded services and added accreditations. It expanded operations in HUB services with the launch of EnvoyHealth and received the Accreditation Commission for Health Care (ACHC) for specialty pharmacy; infusion pharmacy; medical supplier provider; and durable medical equipment, prosthetics, orthotics, and supplies. It also received accreditation from the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) and rolled out its first 340B client program to provide hospitals with contract specialty pharmacy services for patients in need of a high degree of clinical support. Beyond that, it launched its Hospital Specialty Network client program, which provides personalized services in partnership with hospital outpatient pharmacies. Diplomat also received URAC’s Specialty Pharmacy accreditation as well as accreditation by the Verified-Accredited Wholesale Distributors (VAWD) program.
“We’ve become a service provider that can offer solutions thanks to our expertise in this industry,” Hagerman says.
Going Public
Another major change has been its decision to go public. Last fall, the company completed its initial public offering and began trading on the New York Stock Exchange as “DPLO”.
“We believe we can continue to build our platform, and many clients like the transparency we offer by being public,” Hagerman says.
Having become a nationally recognized specialty pharmacy, Diplomat will continue to seek out opportunities to use its penchant for innovation to have a positive impact on patient care.
“We will continue to celebrate our independence while we place our focus on the needs of specialty pharmacy,” Hagerman says.