Alright here we are again hanging out with Seth Price talking about Hemophilia. We really try to impact that community to the best of our ability. So Seth what is happening 2020 in the hemophilia community with Paragon Healthcare.

Oh my gosh 2020. First of 2019 was a phenomenal year but how do you even build on that. How do you go into the next year and sit back and say we are going to do even more knowing what was on our plate just  the year before. And well, I got it. We got a brick and mortar officially in Louisiana, we established that in 2019 and now we are just building up on it. And that just means more locations in Louisiana that we are going to be visiting, going out and seeing new folks and new areas. And then of course Alaska, we are actually coming to Alaska, we have already established somewhat but 2020 we are ready to actually make a good splash. So, I think we have a lot of people that are in good spots and as far as the direction they are headed, I think we will be expanding quite a bit in areas that we just previously haven’t been. PNW is just a huge part of that, Pacific North West, for those that don’t know the abbreviation. But yeah man, you know and of course in 2020 insurance changes. That is kind of the big talk right now. Insurance is just changing rapidly right now. How do you even work with that you know? It is about knowing your ins and outs. It is about talking with your insurance brokers and knowing how to get ahead of certain things like obstacles that families are facing and it is getting tough. You know preexisting is constantly on cusp of almost being eliminated from the ACA. It’s insane what we have ahead of us so just making sure we are prepared to the fullest extent and how we go about that and just making sure we are a member of every single nonprofit that we can be and making sure that they are working with us and that we are working with them to get ahead of that as well.

What does that mean, insurance wise, whenever we are talking about that patient side? Like what do our patients need to be aware of that is coming. That  they need to be talking to you or someone on your team or maybe to the manufacturer of that medication, is there something in that arena that we can maybe give them some practical’s on?

Patients need to constantly be asking the right questions, they need to be the best advocate for their own healthcare. And that means whether they are asking their specialty pharmacy or their clinic, asking their social workers at their clinic for the advice, even calling the insurance company, making sure that your medication is actually covered on your insurance formulary. Knowing what your deductible is. That is one thing people don’t realize is hey I got a deductible but they don’t realize exactly how much that is anymore. Deductibles aren’t just $2,000 that we used to see just 15 to 20 years ago, they are ranging between $5,000 to $14,000 and that is insane. It is questions you got to asking your insurance company because you got to know what is coming out of your pocket. Knowing and having to a good specialty pharmacy in place such as Paragon. You have the right to ask those questions “Hey, what is going on with my insurance policy”, can you look into it, can you find out the details? As a specialty pharmacy we can actually do verification so we can actually look into your insurance policy and we can tell you what you are responsible for.

I mean can we answer those questions for them? Can we help them say “Hey, paragon can’t take your insurance but we can help you know what questions to ask further down the road?

Absolutely, you know we actually already have people that will submit their insurance to us that we know for a fact we can’t accept but they need to know what is going on with their insurance policy so we can look into verifications, we can look into what their deductible is, we can find out what provider they should be going to and then of course how to later on down the road how to look for exceptions on how to get their policy a little bit more opened up to where they can actually accept Paragon.

Is there anything else you want to add before 2020 that is coming up that we should be aware of? I know we have lots and lots of events something like 100 or so that were attending this year, which is awesome.

100 plus events! Big ones are HFA, The Hemophilia Federation of America that is taking place in March. It is going to be in Baltimore this year. I’ve never been to Baltimore but I hear it is a pretty good area and I hear they got a pretty good football team from what I can gather so I am pretty excited to see what road we are going to go down over there. And then, Of course you have the Hemophilia B coalition that is happening down in Florida and takes place in March as well. So, two major events in the same month, in the spring. I am pumped. And of course, NHF, how could you forget about NHF. In fall, it will be literally in Atlanta, GA this year so yeah three major events out of the 100 that we are doing. Those are the three big ones, go to paragonhealthcare.com, you can go to Paragon Facebook site, Instagram, and we are loaded on social media so there is not a place you can’t find us.