Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

We have many options for exploring collaborative clinical services to see if they are the right fit for you. We recommend starting with our free resources and exploring the links available through these resources. Check out our free resources course, free webinar series, and blog as a start! You can find pretty much anything on the internet these days. The difference between the internet and our trainings is that we have lived and breathed these services since 2013. Our team of instructors intentionally take you through our pitfalls and challenges so you are well-equipped to overcome them. It's not always a bumpy road! Our team has grown from two pharmacists dedicated to collaborative clinical services all the way to ten and this does not take into account our pharmacists who are pursuing a hybrid model of staffing and collaborative clinical services. 

At the Avant Institute, we teach models that strengthen the healthcare system, rather than fragmenting patient care. There are many models of pharmacist-led clinical services being taught that disrupt care by disconnecting the patient from their established primary care providers. These models may promote pharmacists conducting services and a telehealth provider billing for the service, even when the telehealth provider may not know the patient's history and may not be available for supervision. This is NOT the model that we teach. Things that are worth doing are never easy and approaching providers for collaborative clinical services is new to many that we train. We are here to teach you the fundamentals from pitching your value and training you on the services all the way to evaluating your opportunities and designing your contracts. 

We focus on the Medicare population and the reason for that is because the rules do not vary from state to state on the services. Pharmacists are recognized as auxiliary personnel and clinical staff team members in these models of care and services through Medicare are not dependent upon provider status or requirements for collaborative practice agreements. 

Since we target the Medicare population, we primarily train on the annual wellness visit (AWV), chronic care management (CCM), remote physiologic monitoring (RPM), behavioral health integration (BHI), principal care management (PCM), and transitional care management (TCM). We explore services that can be offered during the AWV and more but these are our primary targets. 

We know that the journey for collaborative clinical services is different for everyone. Some pharmacists pursue these services and collaborations the day after our trainings where others may pick it up in a year. For this reason, we have continual support to make sure you and your team are ready no matter when you start. Our program graduates are part of a network and are added to a course where they receive access to exclusive webinars, updated material, directories of fellow graduates, and more! In addition to this benefit, we also have a subscription model for those looking for guidance on next steps and want access to a live instructor. For those wanting individualized content or assistance with pitches to large organizations, we also have an option to purchase consultation hours but we find that most of our graduates find the training sufficient for their needs. 

You can use the Quality Payment Program Website and check a provider's participation status to determine if they must attest to MIPS. Some providers fall under certain thresholds and are not required to submit and others are considered to be Qualifying APM Participant (QPs) of Advanced Alternative Payment Models (Advanced APMs). This does not mean you cannot collaborate. It means that you may need to pivot your approach to share your value in their payment model.   

Some people may tell you that by offering services, such as the ones listed above (in FAQ #4), you will automatically improve a provider's quality measures. This is not the case. By offering a service, you have the opportunity to impact quality measures, but this is not guaranteed. As part of our trainings, we teach you about pertinent quality measures, how to satisfy them, and how to make the most of your collaborative clinical services to improve patient care while also impacting provider's reimbursements. 

Yes, we do! If you have a strong working knowledge of collaborative clinical services but would like to get assistance with approaching a provider group, talking to an ACO, or another individualized request, please fill out our consultation request form and someone from the team will reach out to you shortly. 

Our team of instructors have presented at numerous national conferences for various continuing education activities and also boot camps designed to teach the core content of our CCTDE bundle, ALIE, and EngageDr. program but since they are typically a few hours or days, they do not have the depth of content available through the ALIE and EngageDr. Most of our trainings at national conferences provide you with a solid introduction to the concept and services but do not provide the stories and experiences that make the difference in implementation. 

Yes, our team has published several articles that highlight the value of pharmacists in this space and you can also review publications from other pharmacists offering services, such as the annual wellness visit, by visiting this resource.