Q: Where did you grow up?
Lansing, Michigan
Q: What are your favorites?
Food: Tacos
Movie: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and/or Elf. Both are great movies for family time.
Musicians: Lenny Kravitz, Mary J. Blige, Mumford & Sons, and Black Pumas
Destination: Northern Michigan
Q: What do you like to do outside of work?
When I’m not working, I enjoy reading, walking my yellow Labrador, and spending time on the water.
Q: What kind of work does your company do in 340B and what makes it stand out?
Avita Care Solutions is a national health care services organization committed to promoting health equities by providing comprehensive, compassionate, and inclusive health care and pharmacy services to underserved communities. Avita’s community care management strategy enables patients and covered entities to remove barriers across the care continuum by offering pharmacy services (Avita Pharmacy), 340B program administration, digital health (Q Care Plus), and delivery of clinical care (Q Care Plus and AvitaCare Atlanta) for more than 145,000 patients and 320+ covered entities at 65+ locations.
The result is a unique turnkey business model that serves as an irreplaceable “connector” for our patients, covered entities, and providers. Our integrated care offering empowers our partners to improve patients’ medical adherence, increase patient retention, and ultimately enhance clinical outcomes.
Q: Why did you choose to work in the 340B space?
I became interested in health equity when I joined AMN Healthcare’s Languages Services division in 2015. We focused on providing language interpretation services to Limited English Proficient (LEP) and Deaf & Hard of Hearing patients in health care settings.
Q: What do you feel is your most significant contribution to the 340B world or to a 340B customer/client?
One of my most important contributions has been bringing people and technology together. For example, tech-enabled services like Q Care Plus’ digital care management solution empower streamlined patient recruitment, virtual visits, testing, and Rx management, while also integrating compassionate, comprehensive, and inclusive care to the underserved communities who might otherwise face significant barriers.
Q: What advice do you have for a young professional who has recently launched a career in the 340B space?
Our internal rallying cry at Avita is “Be the care,” and I think it’s an important mindset for anyone joining the 340B landscape. Regardless of your role, you will directly contribute to providing access to care. Treat every role you have as the most important one and do it to the best of your ability. If you have questions, ask them. If you need help, ask for it. If you can do more, do more.
Q: How do you foresee technology continuing to change the 340B landscape?
The financial constraints in health care are driving an increased need to monitor 340B transactions to optimize savings. Transparency is key, so implementing transaction monitoring to provide awareness with an easy-to-use dashboard will shape future program management. Additionally, through machine learning, we should see an increase in the use of predictive analytics (although that is not without its challenges as the per-drug savings change periodically). Therefore, the ability to easily configure or modify the program management tool will remain critical.
For questions, Maureen can be reached at maureen.huber@avitacaresolutions.com.
