Frequently Asked Questions
No. Our patient assistance software is a completely Internet based application. It should be accessible from any Microsoft Windows computer without modification.
The number varies rapidly depending on manufacturer decisions, but we currently work with over one hundred patient assistance programs. A user does not need to be familiar with the specific programs. When you select a drug for which to apply, we pick the appropriate manufacturer.
This is truly a moving target that changes almost daily. For outpatient drugs, we currently have nearly 3000 drug/strength combinations available. While using the system, we make it easy to search for a drug by either brand or generic name.
For inpatient replacement programs, the list is much smaller, but targets more expensive drugs.
For sample medications, we allow any drug to be tracked, not just those available on assistance programs.
We keep all undeleted data online for at least one year, after which it will be moved to an online archive which will be accessible as long as your account is active. Data for accounts that leave Drug Assistant will be purged.
You also have the ability to export your data on demand to Microsoft Excel formatted files. This gives you the ability to create your own backups as often as you like, or to analyze your own data anyway that you like.
We need basic charge information that would typically be part of a pharmacy management system. At a minimum, we must have a way of identifying the drug, the patient, and the quantity dispensed. We will work with your IT department to identify specific data elements that may be available.
- Re-keying of data is avoided, which reduces the manual workload and avoids the introduction of keying errors.
- Our system is designed to quickly search through large quantities of raw data and identify the charges and patients that have a high probability of being recoverable.
- When a potentially recoverable charge is identified, the system automatically consolidates all of the necessary drug, patient, and doctor information so that the assistance program staff can generate the paperwork with only a couple of clicks.
Our goal is to make the data transfer as simple as possible for your pharmacy and IT staff. We only need a “batch” text file of charge records once a day, and we can accept it in almost any format that is convenient for you (fixed width, delimited, XML, etc.). Our preference is for a fixed width record, which is usually very simple for an IT department to export.
We have a very simple, very small, executable program that looks in the dedicated folder and transfers a copy of the batch file to our web service. The program can either be left running in the background, where it will periodically check for new data, or it can be manually run once a day after the batch file is produced.
Our upload application can be installed on any desktop computer. Normally it would simply be put on the computer belonging to the patient assistance coordinator. The only requirements are that the computer be running a current version of MS Windows, have Internet access, and have rights to read and write to the folder where the batch data will be placed.
NO! Our upload application is simply a one-way file transfer program that cannot receive any data or instructions from us. It does not transmit any information from your computers, other than the batch file in the one dedicated folder, and it receives nothing from the outside other than an acknowledgement from us that the records were successfully uploaded.
Yes. If your users must login to a proxy server in order to access the Internet, they will need to configure our upload application with their credentials and the proxy server IP address. The proxy information is only stored in a local configuration file, it is not transmitted to us.
ALL communication between your site and ours uses 256-bit SSL encryption, including the upload application. Attempts to access our web application without using SSL are automatically redirected to a secure connection.
Since we deal with HIPPA protected information, every user with access to our system is required to have a private sign-in with a personal password. We do not allow shared logins or anonymous access.
At least one person at your account must be designated as an Administrator with full rights. The Administrator can then grant or revoke rights to any part of our application for each specific user at your account. We have the ability to limit rights to a very granular level, for example, you may have a user that can view existing patients, but can not add or edit patients.
We will assist in the initial setup and configuration, after that we encourage the designated Administrator at your site to manage local users. The Administrator can add new people, deactivate existing people, change rights, reset passwords, etc. As part of our policy, we will not, for example, reset a password based on an email request.
We will assist in the initial setup and configuration, after that we encourage the designated Administrator at your site to manage local users. The Administrator can add new people, deactivate existing people, change rights, reset passwords, etc. As part of our policy, we will not, for example, reset a password based on an email request.
No. Our security system is completely independent and has no access to your network security.
We use only a random, temporary "session" cookie while a user is signed in to the system. We do not store any persistent information on the local computer.
You may choose between allowing a simple password of six or more characters, or requiring a "complex" password with a mixture of uppercase, plus lowercase, plus numbers..
We try to allow you to implement your password policies on our system. There are a variety of configurations.
Our default timeout is after 60 minutes of no activity. You may configure your account to timeout anywhere from 5 to 60 minutes. We encourage users to sign-out when they are not using the system and we conveniently place a sign-out button at the same location on every screen.