How Infuserve saves the insurance industry dollars

What happened and described below is but one small example of how Infuserve America saves the Insurance Industry and patients dollar$.

When the call came into the pharmacy, I was told there could be resistance by the patient and physician to homecare, but I was asked to please contact the patient and see if I couldn't convince him to receive his medications at home. If that was successful, I was told to call the doctor. I didn’t find any resistance at all. The patient, while he said he didn’t mind going back and forth to the hospital, said he wouldn’t mind doing his own infusion at home. After I spoke to the physician (directly) he too said he had no objection to ordering the medication for home care. (we were told the drug was Ceftin, but the actual drug ordered by the physician was ceftazidime)

I called our courier, and they don’t deliver on Saturday to that area. I had to jump through hoops to get it there on Saturday, and I did. I had to use creative delivery procedures to get the package where it was going. I did that and made the arrangements.

I called the patient to tell him that the medication is coming. I explained, our medication delivery system was probably different than what he was familiar with (what he had seen at the hospital a mechanical pump, IV bag hanging etc.) So I suggested he go to the local hospital and let the nurses show him how the system worked (the Eclipse pump). He agreed. I would have had a home health nurse go to the patient's home, but I was told there was no nursing agency within 100 miles of the small town where this patient lived, and no one was willing to do homecare there.

I called the hospital to see if they would agree to accept the delivery of the patients medications, and to show him how to use the system. They said they would agree to receive the delivery, but they would not show him how the pump worked. They were concerned about “Liability”. (They were probably more concerned about the loss in revenue, but that’s another story)

Since I was told there is no nursing service in the area, I called surrounding towns, and indeed there was no home nursing service except in a town about 109 miles away. BUT, I found a qualified IV nurse 30 miles from the patient’s home, who agreed to go see the patient on Saturday morning. She said she would train the patient, show him how the IV is infused, stay with him for the first infusion, and make sure he could handle the infusion on his own.

I called patient to make sure the infusion was administered, the patient said the nurse was terrific and he anticipated no problems with doing subsequent infusions.

Not bad. This call came to us after 4 PM Friday, left the pharmacy at 6:30PM and was running in the patient’s vein on Saturday by 2:30 PM. (More than 1538 miles away)

We arranged shipping to a place that Fed Ex, UPS, Airborne and DHL won’t deliver on Saturday, arranged nursing in an area where there is no nursing, and have a satisfied patient at the other end. (When we were told he’d resist homecare)

That’s the Infuserve Difference! Quality, cost conscience pharmaceutical care!

When we admitted the patient he had already received 5 ½ days of his 14 day order. Cost of that (plus the doses he’d consume before our delivery arrived) are calculated as follows:

Our eight day charge ($1,558.52) is less than the previous charge of $8,400 (even though our charges are for 8 days and the previous charge was for 6)

[1] It is interesting to note, the savings could have been another $6,373.86 had we started the case!