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It’s official: Alto Pharmacy is a great place to work! We’re honored to join the community of Great Place to Work-Certified™ companies based on team member feedback and a rigorous assessment of our company’s culture and benefits.

Join us in delivering our industry-leading pharmacy care to millions of people across the country. As a member of the team, you’ll play an integral role in improving our customers’ quality of life and redefining what’s possible in pharmacy. 

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Read the latest Alto blog posts covering healthcare, family health, managing diseases, and other Alto highlights.

Blog | Alto Pharmacy

Many medications for respiratory conditions like asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are taken by using a metered dose inhaler (MDI), also referred to as a hydrofluoroalkane (HFA) inhaler. These handheld devices — one of several types of inhalers used to treat asthma and COPD — are pressurized canisters of aerosol medication in a plastic container with a mouthpiece. They use a chemical propellant to release medication from the canister. 

The Right Way to Use a Metered Dose Inhaler

Many individuals use a plastic tube called a spacer with their metered dose inhaler, which can help ensure that the full dose of medication is received. Spacers may also be used to reduce side effects of corticosteroid inhalers such as mouth and throat irritation. Ask your doctor if a spacer is right for your health needs.

Taking your medication exactly as prescribed is critical to managing symptoms of asthma, COPD, and other lung diseases. If you and your doctor have decided that a metered dose inhaler is a good method of medication delivery for your treatment plan, it’s important to learn about proper use and cleaning of the device. Below, we explain how to use a metered dose inhaler with and without a spacer and share other considerations when using these devices.

The steps below offer a general overview of how to use a metered dose inhaler correctly. Consult with your doctor for more specific instructions. If using your inhaler for the first time, or if it’s been at least two weeks since your last use, be sure to prime your inhaler by spraying several puffs into the air to ensure that it is working.

1. Remove the cap from the inhaler and shake the inhaler for a few seconds. If using a spacer, remove the cap from the spacer and place the inhaler into the open end of the spacer.

2. If you are using your inhaler without a spacer, exhale completely and place the inhaler’s mouthpiece in your mouth and seal your lips around it. If you are using a spacer, place the spacer’s mouthpiece in your mouth first and then exhale completely.

3. Begin to inhale slowly, pressing down on the canister once.

4. Continue to inhale slowly and deeply for about five seconds.

5. Hold your breath for ten seconds so that the medication can enter your airways.

6. If your doctor has instructed you to take more than one puff of your medication, repeat these steps as needed, waiting about a minute between puffs.

If taking a corticosteroid medication, rinse your mouth with water after each dose to prevent mouth and throat irritation and oral yeast infections. Using a spacer will also minimize the chance of these side effects.

Cleaning your metered dose inhaler and spacer

Most metered dose inhalers can be cleaned by removing the medication canister and rinsing the plastic container under warm running water. If you are unable to remove the canister from the container, wipe the mouthpiece with a cloth or cotton swab. Refer to the manufacturer’s instructions for your inhaler as needed.

To clean your spacer, remove the soft ring at the end and soak both the tube and ring in warm water with light soap. Clean and rinse thoroughly and let the pieces air dry.

Frequency of cleaning depends on how often you take your medication. Consult with your doctor about when to clean your inhaler and spacer.

Keeping track of medication in your inhaler

It’s important to keep track of how much medication is left in your metered dose inhaler so that you can stay on top of refills and avoid any missed doses. For many metered dose inhalers, the total number of puffs will be printed on the medication canister. You must discard your inhaler after you have used that many puffs even if your inhaler continues to dispense medication. Priming puffs count toward the total number of puffs.

If you use a metered dose inhaler every day to take maintenance medication, divide the total number of puffs in your inhaler by the number puffs you take every day. That number is how many days you can use your inhaler before you need a refill. If you use your metered dose inhaler as needed for quick relief, you’ll have to keep track of each individual puff. Some metered dose inhalers now come with built-in counting devices, and there are also external dose counters that can attach to the inhaler. Ask your healthcare provider for recommendations.

There are other delivery methods available for asthma and COPD medications. Your healthcare provider can advise you on the best option for your individual treatment plan.

Dry powder inhalers are another option for medication delivery. Like metered dose inhalers, dry powder inhalers are a small handheld device, but the medication is in the form of a dry powder. Many dry powder inhalers provide a visual indication that the full dose of medication has been delivered, which is helpful for many individuals, as well as a built-in dose counter.

You can also take most asthma and COPD medications using a nebulizer, which transforms liquid medication into a fine mist. Nebulizers take longer than inhalers to deliver medication, but they are often helpful for those who find it difficult to properly use an inhaler. Many children with asthma use nebulizers.

Our team of pharmacists is here to help you get started with your medication for asthma or COPD. We can walk you through the steps of using your inhaler, discuss potential side effects, and answer any other questions you may have. In addition, we offer free, same-day delivery and medication management tools like reminders and auto refills in our app to make it as simple as possible to stay on track with managing your asthma. 

Reach out any time through in-app secure messaging or by phone at 1-800-874-5881.

This content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or another qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.

The first two members of our Advisory Board are Dr. James Hildreth and Jennifer Kent. Their years of experience as leaders in the healthcare industry will be invaluable to us as we continue to grow.

Alto Pharmacy's newly formed Advisory Board launches today with two anchor team members.

Since our launch in 2015, Alto has been committed to fulfilling medicine’s true purpose, and improving quality of life, for everyone who needs it. Today, we announce our newly formed Advisory Board and our first two anchor members, who will help guide Alto towards our mission, advise on key decisions, and support strategic initiatives. We’ve formed the Advisory Board to support our leadership as we navigate the regulatory landscape, launch new features to modernize the pharmacy experience, and adhere to the highest standards of operational excellence and patient care.

The first two members of our Advisory Board are Dr. James Hildreth and Jennifer Kent. Their years of experience as leaders in the healthcare industry will be invaluable to us as we continue to grow. 

Dr. Hildreth is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Meharry Medical College, one of the nation’s oldest and largest private historically Black academic health sciences centers. He received his Bachelor’s degree from Harvard University, his Ph.D. in immunology from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, and his medical degree from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He was the first Black American in the 125-year history of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine to earn full professorship with tenure and is internationally known for his influential HIV research.


Jennifer Kent served as the Director for the California Department of Health Care Services, where she led the second largest public healthcare system in the nation, with an annual budget of over $100B and serving over 13 million Californians. She oversaw the administration of 24 managed care plans as well as 56 county behavioral health plans. She has also held leadership roles in the Health & Human Services Agency, Governor's Office and has experience in the private sector as a lobbyist, consultant, and association executive. She has more than 15 years of health administration and policy experience in California.

This is an important milestone for Alto, and we look forward to working closely with Dr. Hildreth and Jennifer on the future of Alto. 

Today, we announce our newly formed Advisory Board and our first two anchor members, who will help guide Alto towards our mission, advise on key decisions, and support strategic initiatives.

Announcing Alto’s Advisory Board

Alto is committed to ensuring affordable, timely access to medications and full-service pharmacy coverage, including specialty medications for the treatment of complex and chronic conditions.

Hims & Hers, the direct-to-consumer digital health company, has partnered with Alto Pharmacy to offer free, same-day courier medication delivery for customers accessing primary care services through its growing telehealth platform. 

Patients using the Hims & Hers platform to access primary care services in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Orange County, Seattle, Las Vegas and Denver-Boulder communities will have the option to select Alto as their preferred pharmacy for prescription delivery. Prescriptions for patients selecting Alto will flow automatically to Alto for fulfillment, and patients can use the Alto app to select their preferred date and time for free home delivery, review copay and medication info, and message a pharmacist with any questions. 

“At Alto, we’re constantly looking for new ways to improve the healthcare and pharmacy experience and we’re excited to partner with Hims & Hers to offer free, same-day courier medication delivery for their patients,” says Omar Nagji, Vice President of Enterprise at Alto Pharmacy. “Our partnership with Hims & Hers offers patients control, discretion, and pharmacist access without making a trip to a doctor’s office or pharmacy.”

“Hims & Hers is a natural partner to Alto’s courier-based platform,” says Melissa Baird, COO of Hims & Hers. “We’re excited to work with Alto to bring the ease and convenience of their same-day delivery experience to those using Hims & Hers to access primary care services."

Streamlined digital healthcare services are more critical than ever as patients look to balance healthcare needs with social distancing considerations, and are key to expanding access to traditionally underserved communities. Alto is committed to ensuring affordable, timely access to medications and full-service pharmacy coverage, including specialty medications for the treatment of complex and chronic conditions.

Hims & Hers customers using Alto will get full access to Alto’s exceptional care and services: price investigation and automatic coupon application, easy access to chat with a pharmacist, medication reminders and other support tools, and the option to streamline all medications for the household into one easy delivery. Alto’s safe, secure courier delivery is always free.

Hims & Hers Partners with Alto for Same-Day Prescription Delivery for Primary Care Patients

If you are one of the thousands of womxn navigating these changes to your coverage, here’s what you should know about your options.

At Alto, we believe that affordable and equitable access to a medication as basic and fundamental as birth control should be protected by law.

A recent Supreme Court decision has changed the rules that employers must follow when determining what medications will be covered at no-cost by employer-sponsored insurance plans. Per the July 8th decision, employers can now opt out of providing no-cost coverage for contraceptives (previously required under the Affordable Care Act). This change may mean that you now have an increased out-of-pocket costs - or may have no insurance coverage at all - for your birth control medications.

Birth control is essential health care - nine in ten women will use contraceptives in their lifetime. At Alto, we believe that affordable and equitable access to a medication as basic and fundamental as birth control should be protected by law. 

If you are one of the thousands of womxn navigating these changes to your coverage, here’s what you should know about your options:

Generic options - If your current medication now has a high out-of-pocket cost, you can ask your healthcare provider if there are generic options or other alternatives to consider that may be more affordable, while still being safe and effective. 

Coupons and discounts - Ask your pharmacy to confirm they’ve checked for any available manufacturer coupons, copay cards, or savings programs that you may be eligible for.

Health savings account - If you have access to a health savings account (usually available with high deductible health plans), pay for your birth control with your HSA funds. HSA contributions are tax-free.

If you live in one of Alto’s service areas, we will automatically apply any available coupons, search for lower cost alternatives, and coordinate any switches with your healthcare provider so you can have affordable access to your medication, on schedule and without delays. 

Our pharmacies stock dozens of birth control options, all available for free, same-day courier delivery. Reach out to our pharmacists with any questions - we’re available seven days a week via secure messaging in our mobile app or phone.

1 https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/contraceptive-use-united-states, https://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/newsroom/press-releases/planned-parenthood-announces-nationwide-fight-for-birth-control

If you are one of the thousands of womxn navigating changes to your coverage, here’s what you should know about your options.

Tips for Navigating Birth Control Costs

Today, we are excited to announce a $250 million Series D funding round, bringing our total funding to over $350M.

Bringing Alto to a Neighborhood Near You

Mattieu Gamache-Asselin, CEO & Co-founder

Today, we are excited to announce a $250 million Series D funding round, bringing our total funding to over $350M. We are honored to welcome Softbank to our team of investors and thrilled that our existing investors — including Greenoaks, Jackson Square Ventures, OliveTree Capital, and Zola Global — have reinvested to accelerate our mission to bring the Alto experience to 100 million people by 2025.

Over the past four years, we’ve delivered over 1 million prescriptions directly to our patients’ doors, and created a service that makes our patients happier — our patient NPS is over 80 for the fourth year in a row — and healthier — our medication adherence rate is 77% compared to an industry average of 50%.

This has been possible because we’ve learned from experienced community pharmacists, we’ve reimagined and rebuilt the underlying infrastructure of pharmacy, and, most important of all, we’ve built an amazing and diverse team that truly lives out our values every day. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I’d get to work on such a meaningful mission with such a genuinely passionate and talented team. Whenever I have a tough day and need a boost of energy, I walk through our pharmacies and look around in awe at all the hard work, care and perseverance that goes into making this type of service possible for our patients — from our pharmacists and patient care champions to our couriers and product managers, all working together.

This new round of funding will enable us to take everything we’ve built and learned over the past four years and bring it to more people and more patient demographics. I’ve seen many companies scale too quickly, hire too fast, and in that process lose sight of the heart of the company’s values and mission. What is most important to me as Alto enters this next chapter is that we maintain the same empathy and human connection we’ve had since we were a small community pharmacy.

I want to thank our team for joining us on this mission, to thank our investors for believing in us, and most importantly, I want to thank our patients for reminding me every day of why we’re on this journey.

Alto Pharmacy Launches Local Daily Delivery in Denver-Boulder Metro Area

Alto’s launch in the Denver-Boulder market marks Alto’s first courier-based expansion outside of the West Coast.

Starting today, October 14, fertility patients in the Denver-Boulder metro area can now choose Alto’s same-day doorstep delivery and have their medications delivered by our Alto team.

Our evening delivery windows allow patients to more easily plan to be available to receive their packages. Patients schedule deliveries to the location of their choice — home, work or hotel — and on the day of their choosing. They can even track our couriers in real time on our mobile app. Next-day mail order service is also available for patients outside of the courier zone.

Courier delivery windows:
Monday - Friday: 

2:00 – 5:00 pm MT for Denver metro area

Fertility patients interested in using Alto’s services for their medication needs can ask their care team to send all prescriptions to Alto Pharmacy (via ePrescribe, phone or fax). 

Fertility is Complicated. Your Medications Don’t Have to Be.

Alto knows fertility pharmacy. With more than 50,000 patients served, we understand the treatment complexities and concerns of fertility patients. Our dedicated patient care team is available in the evenings and on weekends to walk you through your first injection or answer questions about medication storage, dosing or interactions. Our fertility deliveries include all necessary ancillary supplies, such as syringes, sharps container and alcohol swabs, and are carefully packaged for temperature control. Delivery is always free.

Alto will automatically connect you with all manufacturer-sponsored financial assistance programs for qualifying prescriptions. Alto also works with many fertility benefits programs, including ProgynyRx, and many leading financing and loan providers. If we cannot bill your insurance, we’ll find you a pharmacy that can.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in October 2019 and has been updated for accuracy and completeness.

Empowering Patients By Accelerating Healthcare Innovation

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

Today, I’m proud to announce Alto’s Series C round of $50 million. Over the past three years, we’ve proven that Alto’s model works for doctors and patients alike, reducing administration time for physicians and improving drug adherence rates for patients. This new funding will enable us to expand, reaching even more patients, and to further develop our full-stack platform, driving better health outcomes at a lower cost.

Alto removes the complexity from prescriptions to improve patients’ quality of life. Every prescription requires coordination among doctors, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and of course the patient. Traditional brick-and-mortar pharmacies depend on fax, phone and paper, which causes delays, errors in fulfillment, poor adherence rates, and 20 hours of administrative work a week per physician.

We’ve reimagined and completely rebuilt the pharmacy infrastructure to eradicate these problems. Through our provider platform (Alto Connect) and pharmacy management software, doctors and insurers spend less time on administration and more time on patient care. For patients, we offer free same-day prescription delivery, but more importantly, cost transparency, personalized in-app and phone support, and faster coordination with doctors and insurance companies to get patients the care they need. Learn more about our app.

The typical Silicon Valley playbook is to enter many new markets rapidly, throw money at problems, and figure things out on the fly. That’s never been Alto’s approach. Because we’re working with critical, life-saving medications, messing up is not an option. We’ve diligently, methodically built robust systems to make certain we leave no patient behind, and we’ll keep that mentality as we expand. Now that we’ve built our critical foundations — the platforms and clinical expertise — it’s time to scale.

Geographic expansion
We want to make sure all of America can benefit from the Alto experience. Last month, we opened our HQ2 in Denver, where we’ve already hired 60 employees across patient care, pharmacy and clinical operations, as a stepping stone to nationwide expansion.

Therapeutic area expansion
So far, we’ve focused on deeply understanding and serving the retail, dermatology, fertility, biologics, and HIV markets. We’re now bringing the same empathy and customized service to autoimmune, endocrinology, and cardiology — areas where patients are frequently overwhelmed with logistics, paperwork and side effects, and where Alto could offer deep value as a trusted partner.

Pharmacy represents 10% of healthcare spending, a $3.3 trillion market. Most pharmacies focus on just capturing as much of that 10% as possible. A select few are working to eliminate the ineffective portions of pharmacy spending. But even they look at the pharmacy spending in isolation.

The truth is, pharmacy shouldn’t be viewed as a disjoint piece. At Alto, we believe better pharmacy will make all of healthcare more effective and reduce healthcare spending overall. We’ve already seen progress — for instance, Alto’s primary adherence rate is 40% higher than the industry average.

From patients, we’ve heard, “Being able to speak to an Alto pharmacist directly allowed me to figure out how my drugs were interacting and causing painful side effects.” Some patients are cost-sensitive and consider skipping the medications that manage their chronic conditions and prevent hospitalizations. We’ve helped by delivering $11 million in medication savings to our patients so far.

From doctors, a common refrain is: “This is the first time my patients have talked to me positively about a pharmacy, and it’s the first time I can actually see what happens to a prescription after I write it.” This experience is why doctors have been the primary fuel of Alto’s growth. UCSF, One Medical, Stanford, and over 10,000 other providers recommend Alto as their preferred pharmacy.

This early progress is energizing, and only possible because of the dedication of Alto’s hardworking team, investors, and partners. Thank you all! The feedback I’m getting from the health ecosystem is even more inspiring — that our potential is nothing short of transformative for our patients and healthcare as a whole. As far as we’ve come, we’re only just getting started.

Round Health Joins Alto Pharmacy

Today, we're joining Alto Pharmacy! We wanted to share why this is so exciting for our team and everyone who relies on Round.

A single problem has galvanized our efforts over the last two years: nonadherence. A whopping 50% of patients in the US struggle to take their prescriptions as directed. This results in an estimated 125,000 deaths each year (NYT). Round and Alto share a mission to make sure more people can reap all the benefits of medicine. Joining forces means we can push that deadly nonadherence number ever lower.

So far, Alto has focused on people getting their prescriptions (primary adherence): simplifying opaque insurance policies, delivering medicines straight to homes and offices, and partnering closely with doctors to ensure the best care. They’ve served 25,000 patients devotedly, all while maintaining a perfect 5 star rating.

And at Round, we’ve tackled getting people to actually take their medicine (secondary adherence). Our reminder app gets to know the patterns and rhythms of your daily life, nudging you more effectively. We’re proud to help 90,000 users every month. And we’ve reimagined the pill bottle, making each part more communicative. We hope it becomes just as durable a part of your lives.

But we know most people don’t think in terms of primary and secondary adherence. Instead, the question is simpler: Can I get my medicine and all of the benefits from taking it? Together, Round and Alto can now help along the full chain of a prescription, from the time it leaves your doctor’s pen or computer to the time you successfully take your dose.

What does this mean for current users? Nothing will change about the app you love! Alto will continue to maintain it. And if you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, try using Alto for your next prescription — we think you’ll find a lot to like.

As of today, ScriptDash is now Alto. We want to briefly share a few thoughts on how Alto came to be, where Alto is going, and the exciting things you can expect on the road ahead.

ScriptDash is Now Alto

We have some big news to share: As of today, ScriptDash is now Alto. We want to briefly share a few thoughts on how Alto came to be, where Alto is going, and the exciting things you can expect on the road ahead.

You deserve to have easy access to the medications you need, when you need them. We started ScriptDash because we saw that, in a world with so much innovation and new technologies, pharmacy had remained unchanged. Very few people love their pharmacy, and we asked ourselves: What if they did?

We started ScriptDash to simplify the pharmacy experience for those in need. Over the past two years, it’s been our privilege to serve the San Francisco Bay Area community. We’ve learned a lot about what it means to provide you with the world-class care you deserve. In that time, we also began to feel that we had a larger story to tell than just a pharmacy that delivers. Our new name, Alto, better embodies our company’s mission to build the world’s most patient-centric pharmacy.

In short, not much: We’re still the same pharmacy that you know and love, and you can continue to trust that your prescriptions are in good hands. You can still access your dashboard with the same account, and we’re still here to support your well-being via in-app message or phone. Now, you can find us on the web at www.alto.com, and your doctor can start sending us prescriptions using our new name.

Today we’re also announcing a major round of funding that will help us stay completely focused on our mission of building the world’s most patient-centric pharmacy. We’re going to continue to invest in our people and our technology to better serve you and your patients.

Visit us at www.alto.com for more info, and don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions or feedback for us!

In recent years, EHRs and medical providers started to dispose of the paper prescription pad and began to send some prescriptions electronically from their EHRs. Those that know Alto Pharmacy know that we want all prescriptions to be sent electronically. It’s more efficient for providers and safer for patients.

The Case for E-Prescribing

Did you know that Electronic Health Record Systems (EHRs) have been around since the 1960s? Pretty much as soon as we got computers we realized that they could be used to make healthcare more efficient and more effective. Despite the massive forward leap in adopting EHRs, the tools used for prescribing medication didn’t change for another 50 years.

In recent years, EHRs and medical providers started to dispose of the paper prescription pad and began to send some prescriptions electronically from their EHRs. Those that know Alto Pharmacy know that we want all prescriptions to be sent electronically. It’s more efficient for providers and safer for patients. Whenever we broach this topic with medical providers we often hear them say “It’s illegal to send Schedule Two Narcotics (CIIs) electronically.”

The DEA made EPCS (Electronic Prescribing of Controlled Substances) a legally acceptable option for prescribing in June of 2010. Unfortunately the belief that it’s illegal to e-prescribe CIIs is widespread among medical providers and undoing it requires an awareness campaign. In 2012 the State of New York recognized the benefits of EPCS and passed legislation making it mandatory to E-prescribe all medications as of March 2016. We believe many more states will soon follow.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has declared prescription drug abuse in the US an epidemic. Nearly 10% of all prescriptions written are pain relievers (opioids), which too frequently lead to patient dependence and abuse. It’s important to remember that seventy-eight Americans die every day from an opioid overdose.

As long as these prescriptions are written on a piece of paper, the pharmacies dispensing the medications can be easily manipulated and the dispensing cannot be easily tracked. Electronic prescribing saves lives by making it harder to commit fraud.

Did you know that the street value of the paper in a prescription printer is over $20,000? Get your hands on one of these printers (or even easier, a paper prescription pad) and you can mint whatever prescriptions you want. As long as you take each prescription to a different pharmacy and always pay cash, it’s hard to get caught. The result of this paper based prescription process and the large volume of CIIs being prescribed in the US is causing epidemic scale drug abuse and nearly 29,000 preventable deaths every year.

Although undocumented, medical errors have recently been estimated as the number-three cause of death in the United States. As an example, today it is far too easy for a pharmacy to accidentally translate a handwritten prescription for Oxycontin (extended release) into Oxycodone (immediate release). Depending on the prescription strength and the patient’s tolerance for opioids this could be a very serious medical error that in some cases may result in death. EPCS significantly reduces the risk of this medical error and saves lives by eliminating room for interpretation.

3) Make Medication Reconciliation Accurate

Reducing medical errors and helping prevent opioid abuse are great reasons to get rid of all paper prescription pads, but there’s another reason that’s not so obvious. When a patient’s prescriptions are sent electronically they can be easily tracked, which means they can also be used in medical reconciliation. Imagine if you had a complete and accurate view of all of your patient’s prescription medications? Imagine if your EHR allowed you to see everything that was prescribed in the last two years and when it was last picked up? Now imagine the power of this information in an emergency inpatient setting. How many lives could be saved?

PDMP is currently enacted in every state except Missouri, and is invaluable in helping pharmacists track controlled substance transactions. PDMP, also known as ‘CURES’ in California, requires pharmacies to report controlled substance dispensing to a searchable database. In California, pharmacies are able to log into CURES and view data on all reported dispensing of controlled substances.

‘Red-flags’ dispensing pharmacies look for:

Multiple controlled substances dispensed under multiple providers.

Large quantities of controlled substances regularly dispensed.

Patients that often don’t use insurance for their controlled substance prescription.

CURES allows dispensing pharmacies to make informed decisions that can curb the abuse of medications. CURES, however, isn’t always checked. Retail chain pharmacies are frequently challenged with an increasing volume of prescriptions with less manpower, and checking the database doesn’t happen at all pharmacies 100% of the time. For this reason we believe tracking the prescriptions through an E-Rx network is a better solution and a more accurate source of truth.

How does a prescription get to the pharmacy from my EHR?

In 2015 Surescripts electronically delivered over 9.7 billion prescriptions and connected over 240 million patients. If your practice is using a moderately popular EHR it’s most likely integrated with the gold standard eRx network, Surescripts. When you select a pharmacy in your EHR and send the prescription, you are using Surescripts to deliver the prescription. When the prescription arrives in the Pharmacy Management System, it indicates that this is a legal prescription sent by a legally authorized medical provider.

What other medical providers support EPCS?

In the 2015 National Progress Report we saw a 667% increase in EPCS from 2014, with over 12.8 million e-prescriptions of controlled substances sent on the Surescripts network.

Looking at this chart it’s pretty clear that EPCS is on the rise and eventually every provider will be e-prescribing. Due to the severity of the issues associated with paper prescriptions, we urge you not to wait. Here you can see a list of all medical providers near you that have enabled EPCS. We ask that you do everything in your power to join them in their efforts to save lives and make healthcare more efficient.

Most major EHRs support EPCS. If you are part of a large hospital system, please contact your Director of Pharmacy and request EPCS access. If you are part of a private clinic you can verify if your system supports EPCS here. If your EHR supports EPCS, simply ask your administrator to enable it. If your EHR is not on the long list of systems that support EPCS please contact their support, requesting a timeline for when they plan to enable it. If it’s not on their radar, they forgot the ‘e’ in EHR. In this case please consider alternative EHR solutions that will ultimately save lives.

When you ask your EHR provider to enable EPCS, they will verify that you are legally authorized to prescribe CIIs by verifying your DEA and NPI numbers. Once verified they may ask for a small fee to enable the licensing for e-prescribing. Notably, systems like Epic do not charge any fees for enabling EPCS.

When prescribing CIIs your EHR will ask you for a temporary key code for every prescription. This is the digital equivalent of the“wet signature” that is required when you write a prescription on paper. This is also known as Two-Factor Authentication (2FA). Other forms of 2FA include the increasingly popular biometric method. You can learn more here. Once you successfully enter your temporary key code or satisfy the 2FA requirement in some other way, the EHR will send the CII prescription to the pharmacy of your choice.

In the process of verifying you as a medical provider that can lawfully prescribe schedule II narcotics, your EHR will outfit you with a tool that supports Two-Factor Authentication. This will either be a tool you log into on your computer or smartphone, or a device you cary with you. When you log into the tool or press the button on the device, it will give you a temporary code that is unique to you. You simply enter that sequence of numbers into your EHR and the prescription is ‘signed’ and ready to send electronically.

Once verified by your EHR, you’re all set. You can now E-Prescribe Schedule II Narcotics. This is a very big deal! This change in prescribing means fewer cases of opioid abuse and dependence, fewer medical errors, and a much more efficient and convenient process for you and your patients. You are now leading the industry in a new way of administering healthcare, and we welcome you as a proud partner of Alto Pharmacy.

Rapidly Growing San Francisco-based Startup Teams Up with Specialty Pharmaceuticals Veteran to Build the Modern Pharmacy

ScriptDash Appoints Dr. Mike Cunningham to Board of Advisors

SAN FRANCISCO, CA; November 3rd, 2016 — ScriptDash Pharmacy, a health-tech startup focused on building the modern pharmacy, announced today that Dr. Mike Cunningham has joined the one year old startup’s Board of Advisors.

Dr. Cunningham was most recently Vice President and General Manager, GPO Services, for McKesson Specialty Health (MSH), a business unit of the McKesson Corporation. There, he oversaw day-to-day business operations and long-term strategic planning for MSH’s group purchasing organizations, Onmark and Unity. Dr. Cunningham has deep expertise in healthcare having spent more than 30 years structuring, developing, and implementing relationships with pharmaceutical companies on behalf of practices and pharmacies.

“Dr. Cunningham has devoted his entire career to oncology and has accomplished remarkable feats in the industry. His reputation precedes him. We are excited to work with Mike as we build the pharmacy of tomorrow together.” — Vlad Blumen, Co-Founder

At ScriptDash, Dr. Cunningham will be a key advisor and partner in securing access to new, limited distribution specialty medications.

“I’ve been very impressed with the senior management team and their desire to significantly improve the patient pharmacy experience through modernization” — Dr. Mike Cunningham

ScriptDash Pharmacy is a year-old software startup based in the historic Dogpatch neighborhood of San Francisco. ScriptDash is disrupting the CVS and Walgreens dominated pharmacy industry of big box retail pharmacy chains by offering free same-day delivery of prescriptions.

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