Editor's Note: The post was updated on November 8, 2021 to reflect the rebrand of AltoMD to Alto Connect.

Alto Pharmacy’s mission is to fulfill medicine’s true purpose — to improve quality of life — for everyone who needs it. The healthcare professionals who prescribe medications to Alto and the clinical teams that support them are critical partners in making our mission successful. To this end, the Providers Team at Alto is charged with building the tools and service components necessary to deliver an exceptional pharmacy experience for healthcare providers.

What does the Providers Team do at Alto?

Every day, clinical teams -  including prescribers and other clinical staff like nurses, practice coordinators, and billing specialists - spend hours tracking down insurance information, coordinating approvals and appeals, discussing options with their patients, and playing phone tag with pharmacies. The Providers Team enables these healthcare providers to spend more time on patient care and less time on back office tasks. 

Alto’s provider communications platform, Alto Connect, and related services, including insurance benefits coordination and prior authorization management, remove clinical blockers that traditionally slow down or prevent an individual’s access to treatment. Practices that share Alto with a majority of their patients can save three or more hours per day on pharmacy and insurance administration tasks, with less time spent waiting on hold, fewer faxes and improved employee satisfaction (not to mention happier patients!). 

Anu Kashyap, a Product Manager on the team says, “I joined Alto to make a contribution to people’s health using technology, and the Providers Team is working on specific, painful healthcare problems that are critical to solve. These challenges have been incredibly fulfilling to work on.”

How does the Providers Team play into the overall growth of Alto Pharmacy?

The Providers Team is fairly new, as they were originally part of a larger Growth team within Alto. Kjersten Elias, Engineering Manager, explains: “Alto's growth model is driven by conversations about pharmacy choice in the doctor’s office, and in the fall of 2020, we dedicated an engineering team to optimizing our product offerings and improving the experience for the healthcare providers having those conversations.”

Anu adds, “The key for our business’ continued growth is having healthcare providers trust that we are the best pharmacy for their patients and leverage us as their pharmacy of choice. This type of growth channel is much more powerful than anything direct to the consumer. We can only do this however, if our providers have an excellent experience with us, and we’ve only scratched the surface here.” 

Being part of a newer team has distinct advantages. Software Engineer Dereck Quock notes, “We have unique opportunities to modernize how we build apps and define our infrastructure and technical needs. With the freedom to utilize cutting edge tech and new frameworks, there is so much room for innovation.”

What is the culture of the Providers Team like?

The engineers each raved about a small-but-important recurring calendar invite each Friday: Team Time. This protected time is a space to catch up, banter about anything other than work, and, if folks are feeling brave, face off with Anu, former Teen Tournament champion, in a rousing game of Jeopardy.

It's not hard to see why Kjersten and her team light up when they talk about team culture. Amy Chen, a Software Engineer on the team, shared that  “Kjersten is an incredible manager. Everyone is empowered to ask for and share feedback, fine-tune our processes, and check in with each other.”

“When I joined, I could tell right away this team really lifted each other up and had each other’s backs,” said Dereck. “It’s one of the greatest teams I’ve worked on.”

The Providers Team is hiring! Learn more about open positions here.