Page 10 - DME Pharmacy, April 2021

Service Profile
A Shot in the Arm for Vaccination Services
As COVID-19 vaccines get rolling, an accreditation organization has launched a new immunization certification program for pharmacies, but the pandemic isn’t the only reason.
By David Kopf
Vaccinations for COVID-19 are rolling out nationwide and chances are your pharmacy
is seeing an uptick in inter- est from your customers. Fortunately, there’s a new service to help DME phar- macies meet this need.
In response to the growing market demand for pharmacies to provide immu- nizations, Medicare-approved accredita- tion organization The Compliance Team Inc. (TCT; thecomplianceteam.org) has unveiled a new certification service: the Exemplary Provider Immunization Cer- tification program, Including COVID-19. The certification covers both and adult and pediatric immunizations and puts an emphasis on COVID-19 vaccinations.
TCT’s Immunizations Certification, Including COVID-19 supports CDC’s COVID-19 requirements for both phar- macy network administrators as well as independent pharmacies. Certification reassures pharmacies’ patients, payers, and employees that their facilities and patient safety and quality standards have
been verified and validated by a trusted and nationally recognized third party.
The certification is a stand-alone pro- gram, so a pharmacy does not need to be accredited by The Compliance Team for any other service. Once a pharmacy has completed the program, it will receive the Exemplary Provider designation, and the certification is valid for two years.
GROWING MARKET DEMAND
While COVID-19 might be the main driver for the new service, even before the pandemic, pharmacies were seeing an expansion in immunization services due to a reduction in the amount of well visits pediatricians were making, says Sandra C. Canally, RN, the founder and CEO of TCT.
“That left it up to the pharmacy to almost be the family immunizer,” she explains. So, one of the reasons that we created the certification was not only the fact that the COVID-19 vaccine was coming, but also because things were
being done by pharmacists that were not previously done before.”
That, in turn, presented the need for pharmacists to show their communities that they had a third-party guarantee of safety and quality for these types of services.
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The Compliance Team’s Exemplary Provider Immunization Certification program, Including COVID-19 not only helps DME pharmacies show they support the CDC’s COVID-19 require- ments for both pharmacy network administrators as well as independent pharmacies, but also helps them tap into new service opportunities.
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