Moving Beyond the Vendor Relationship: How BirdiRx Partnered With D2 Solutions to Achieve Compliance Excellence

Rapid Growth that Led to Fragmented Operations

Operating on a mission to make healthcare accessible and affordable for everyone, BirdiRx is a mail-order and specialty pharmacy that provides at-home delivery for patients with both routine and complex medication needs. The pharmacy serves the patient populations of several pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), including MedImpact Healthcare Systems — the largest privately owned PBM in the U.S. As a result, its 400 employees process over 1 million prescriptions a year.

The organization grew into the pharmacy it is today through a series of acquisitions. “When BirdiRx was established, it brought pharmacy locations in Arizona, Michigan, and Ohio together,” explains Sherry Yanez-Gregor, chief executive officer for BirdiRx. Her goal from the outset was to build a regulatory and compliance framework that would add efficiency and consistency across the three facilities.

That’s when she began talking with D2 Solutions, a leading healthcare consulting firm and technology provider, about how they could help bridge the gaps she saw and position BirdiRx as a leader in compliance excellence.

Accelerating the Path to Specialty Pharmacy Accreditation

At the end of BirdiRx’s acquisition journey, only the Ohio site was operating a specialty pharmacy. “The Michigan location was processing mail-order prescriptions, but we wanted to run a specialty pharmacy from there as well,” says Yanez-Gregor. The problem, she adds, was that the facility would need to acquire the appropriate accreditations before it could start dispensing specialty medications.

Ultimately, BirdiRx decided to work toward three accreditations at the same time: URAC, the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP), and Accreditation Commission for Healthcare (ACHC). “That’s a huge lift for any pharmacy to undertake, and we needed to get it done quickly,” says Yanez-Gregor. “The Ohio facility, which had been part of the acquisition process, had used D2 to help with their accreditation — so I was confident they could help us too.”

The pharmacy quickly implemented D2’s AccredComply™, an accreditation management platform that manages documentation, provides updates on standards, and maps out tasks to be completed — all in one place. “It wasn’t only their platform that was valuable to us,” says Yanez-Gregor. “We were also relying heavily on their expertise. The accreditation process was very arduous, and I don’t think we’d have been able to achieve what we did in the same timeframe without AccredComply and D2’s assistance.”

Tailoring Technology Platforms to Meet Complex Legal and Compliance Needs

While BirdiRx was working toward accreditation for their Michigan-based specialty pharmacy, Yanez-Gregor began examining what they needed to build out their regulatory and compliance framework. Just as the Ohio facility had used AccredComply, one of the predecessors to BirdiRx had used RegComply™ — a regulation management platform that is part of D2’s ComplySuite. RegComply automates and prioritizes alerts and tasks to stay ahead of regulatory changes.

“We had a traditional legal platform in place, but it was costly and not flexible enough for us to adapt it to meet our specific needs,” says Yanez-Gregor. She was interested in replacing it, but with her extensive background in legal and compliance, she wasn’t sure RegComply was the right solution. “I liked that RegComply was customizable, but at first I didn’t think it fit in with our goals for rigorous regulatory compliance.” That’s because, she says, up until that point, D2 had worked primarily with pharmacies and hadn’t dealt directly with legal departments. However, when she shared her concerns with the company, they were more than happy to work together to make adjustments to the platform.

The result of their collaboration was a robust regulatory tool that Yanez-Gregor felt could replace their traditional, less nimble legal tools. It also gave D2 the ability to work with pharmacies and more formal legal structures — enabling them to successfully expand their market.

As they were onboarding RegComply, Yanez-Gregor realized BirdiRx also needed a contracting platform. Yet again, when she began researching solutions, she found that most were not cost-effective. “I knew we couldn’t afford a traditional platform, so I reached out to D2 to see if they had anything to help.” As it happens, they had developed a basic construct of what would later become ContractHub for one of their pharma partners. “It was very bare bones, but D2 had been so receptive to our feedback throughout the RegComply process — we knew we’d be able to use what they had as the foundation for customizing a solution for BirdiRx.”

While they were working through ContractHub, Yanez-Gregor uncovered an opportunity to improve their HIPAA compliance processes. “Because we are a pharmacy, we have to comply with HIPAA and part of that obligation is reviewing, tracking, and reporting privacy-related incidents,” she explains. For example, if a prescription is delivered to the wrong address and the recipient opens the box, the patient’s private healthcare information has been exposed. “That’s a reportable event, and we need to document it. It’s an important part of what we do overall.”

BirdiRx was using an outdated tool to capture privacy incidents and was eager to upgrade. So once again, they turned to the experts at D2. This time, the two worked together to develop an entirely new technology solution — IncidentHub, a trend-management and operational-oversight tool.

An ongoing partnership built for the future

Today, in addition to ComplySuite solutions, BirdiRx uses D2’s Fair Market Value (FMV) tool — an essential component of its compliance framework. “As we are interacting with different types of clients who are providing us with unique scenarios on how we might be able to partner, a large part of that is determining fair market value for our services,” explains Yanez-Gregor. D2’s solution helps the pharmacy update pricing to align with market standards, ensuring it neither overcharges nor undercharges. “This process keeps us safe from inadvertently violating any compliance-related laws, particularly anti-kickback statutes.”

All this supports BirdiRx’s objective of compliance excellence. “We are constantly looking for new ways to bolster our compliance programs,” says Yanez-Gregor. “We want to be seen as a compliant partner and a leader in the space — someone a potential client can trust.” That’s why, she says, the service providers they choose to work with are so critical. “I have always felt that D2 is very much ‘pro-BirdiRx’. That’s one of the greatest benefits of working with them. They are constantly striving to make our business better by sharing new ideas and identifying opportunities that support our long-term growth strategy.”