Scott Streator is a pharmacist by trade. Earning his stripes at the Johns Hopkins Hospital where he practiced as an oncology pharmacist, he went on to spend a large chunk of his career in the managed care realm, but always with the eye on how to use community-based pharmacy to improve health outcomes.
His current role sees him in charge of revenue, business development, and sales for Outcomes as the company’s VP of Payer Markets. In this interview, Scott paints a picture of the current pharmacy landscape and details how Outcomes is helping to shape the future of the practice.
“Pharmacy is really in a unique position to transform healthcare, especially because we're shifting from a volume-based profession to value-based,” he tells Fierce Healthcare’s Rebecca Willumson. “And we're really at an inflection point to do that right now.”
To hear more from Scott, including his thoughts on what makes for a successful relationship with payers, be sure to tune in to the full conversation.
Rebecca Willumson:
Hi there, I'm Rebecca Willumson. I'm the publisher of Fierce Healthcare, and I'm here today with Scott Streator, VP of Payer Markets at Outcomes. Scott, thanks so much for joining me today.
Scott Streator:
Thanks Rebecca.
Rebecca Willumson:
So, before we begin, can you tell me a little bit about yourself and your role at Outcomes?
Scott Streator:
Sure. Thanks for having me here again, Rebecca. By background, I'm a pharmacist, and I began practicing at Johns Hopkins Hospital during the day as an oncology pharmacist, but in the evening, I practiced independent pharmacy. And so, after practicing pharmacy, I spent most of my career in the managed care realm, both at health plans and pharmacy benefit managers, but always with the eye of how we use pharmacy to improve health outcomes. I have been with Outcomes for three years leading the payer segment.
Rebecca Willumson:
Okay, great. So tell me, what does the profession of pharmacy look like in the future?
Scott Streator:
That's been a great question for a while now. What is the practice of pharmacy? What does the pharmacy future look like? And this conference, of course, is great because we're talking about healthcare transformation. I believe pharmacy is uniquely positioned to compliment the healthcare transformation. Often, we wouldn't put pharmacy in that equation. In that conversation you'd think about new payment models, value-based care, ACOs, digital technology, but pharmacy is positioned nicely to advance changes forward, especially because we're shifting from a volume-based profession to value-based. And we're really at an inflection point to do that right now.
Rebecca Willumson:
So, tell me, how is Outcomes helping to shape the future of pharmacy?
Scott Streator:
Outcomes is positioned to accelerate the practice transformation for pharmacy, which will also benefit payers. We've been in the business for 20 years, mainly focused on the Part D plans where we've completely expanded on that core service to other types of interventions for payers. I'm a data person because I'm a pharmacist by background. So, there's three big trends that I think that are really driving the success of Outcomes, which will help payers. One, patients, payers, whether you're a patient or you are a health plan, a self-insured employer, or a government account, they're payers. One of the big needs that payers and patients want is convenient access, no doubt about it, convenient access. 90% of all Americans have access to pharmacies within five miles and Outcomes contracts with over 60,000 of them. We are the largest pharmacy network in the country for providing clinical services for pharmacists.
It's interesting when you look at the Google research 20 years ago when Google started tracking healthcare searches versus today. The top searches were around cancer and chronic illnesses, diabetes, hypertension, blood pressure, and so forth. Now it's about convenience. It's where's the nearest pharmacy? Where's the nearest urgent care? How can I treat myself with OTC remedies? Convenience is the currency for healthcare, but for pharmacy, we can't just stop at the script. It’s beyond the script and that's what Outcomes does. The second big trend is the personalization of healthcare. Payers want great population health results, but that happens one patient at a time on a personalized manner. Pharmacists, they're all doctorate programs coming out of school now, are one of the most trusted professions and most accessible to patients. This is why patients can have an individual consultation with the pharmacist about their medication needs.
Some recent studies provided that almost 60% of Americans will go to a pharmacy for non-emergency issues. Wouldn't it be great? I mean think about it. When I call my physician or call any practice, even if you call the minute clinic and they say they're closed, the recording goes, if this is a life-threatening emergency, call 911. Wouldn't it be great if the recording could say, if it's not an emergency, you can go to your local pharmacy. Again, about 80% of Americans trust their pharmacist for managing their medication. Outcomes helps to drive that. We have over 3.7 million different claims this last year that on the behalf of payers, the pharmacists will provide.
Rebecca Willumson:
Where do you see the greatest opportunity in working with payers?
Scott Streator:
Take a step back. The FDA approves drugs for safety and efficacy, and there's 3.8 billion prescriptions written a year. Whether you're a consumer or a plan, are you getting good value for that? And almost 40% of those scripts are not filled, and the number one reason they're not filled is because it's too costly. Utilizing pharmacists, especially in a face-to-face setting where the communication is the best- adds trust, and through intervening can find cost-effective alternatives or de-prescribing medication with the help of a physician consultation. Out of those 3.8 billion prescriptions written a year, Milliman thinks about half are not being taken correctly, and this is leading to other additional healthcare costs. Matter of fact, our own studies show we did about a million different comprehensive medication reviews last year, and about 60% showed identifiable patient problems. Where we want to go with payers is evolving pharmacist intervention for patients, and we're willing to do performance-based contracts to reduce medication errors and help go from just safe and effective on an individual product basis to include the whole patient's regimen.
Rebecca Willumson:
So tell me, what do you need from a payer partner to really make that relationship work?
Scott Streator:
Well, we're really grateful to have the relationships we do today. Often it's the payer innovating and challenging us. I like asking the question, how can this large pharmacy network that has 20,000 users logging in every day-help you? We appreciate innovative forward-thinking payers that are not just saying, we must do this because we're regulated and required to do that, but what else can we do? For example, with one plan, they asked, can we do some social determinants of health screening? If you already have the patient in front of you and you're working with them about their medication, asking a few informative questions about their overall holistic care helps uncover other opportunities. Through that program, one regional pharmacy chain, identified a patient who had housing insecurity. The pharmacist was able to identify a solution, and a few months later, the patient came back and thanked the pharmacist for helping them secure housing.
Rebecca Willumson:
That feels like a perfect place to end. Thank you so much for joining me today. I appreciate the conversation.
Scott Streator: