Optum Frontier Therapies (OFT) is specifically designed to support the evolution of a rare disease patient’s needs and provide care throughout their journey with monitoring of progress and symptoms, and partnerships with providers, to help achieve optimal therapeutic outcomes.
Between the lines
OFT’s pharmacy team is a part of a patient’s care journey from the moment they are prescribed a therapy, and ongoing through dose optimization and adverse effect management.
- This means that before a drug is dispensed, a pharmacist meets with the patient and caregivers to educate them about the medication and understand their personal goals for quality of life, and the team will continue to monitor, adjust, guide and support as needed to ensure those goals are met.
By the numbers
Rare diseases collectively affect more than 30 million Americans and are individually defined as a disease or condition that affects less than 200,000 people in the United States.1
Rare diseases present significant challenges for patients, families and the health care system due to difficulties in diagnosis, limited treatment options, as well as emotional and financial strain.
Skip’s story
OFT’s co-located distribution and specialty pharmacy capabilities also allow the team to reduce touchpoints in the supply chain and get medications into the hands of patients sooner.
These integrated capabilities are making a difference every day for the patients we serve — like Skip, who was an OFT patient with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
ALS is a rare neurodegenerative disorder that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, and leads to progressive degeneration of voluntary muscle movement, resulting in muscle weakness, paralysis and ultimately, respiratory failure. Even though there are treatment options, there is still no cure for ALS. Even so, OFT helped make Skip’s quality of life the best it could be.
Skip and his daughter, Anna
From the time of diagnosis through the end of Skip’s life, OFT provided Skip and Anna, his daughter and caregiver, medication and full clinical intervention services including ALS educational materials, grief counseling and quality of life support. Skip began to experience pain and discomfort as his ALS progressed. In his final days, his hospice provider could not find a local pharmacy with access to a specific type of neuropathic pain-relieving medicine that was needed to put Skip at ease.
Anna contacted the OFT care team to find a timely solution. Recognizing the urgency and uniqueness of what an ALS patient needs in moments like these, the team located the medication in the national Optum pharmacy network, and directly coordinated with an on-call pharmacist to expedite the package, enabling the delivery to be made the following morning by 8 a.m. This medicine helped relieve Skip’s immense neuropathic pain, making the final hours of his life as comfortable as possible.
“The miracles performed by the Optum Frontier Therapies care team made the biggest difference in my father’s final hours,” said Anna. “From the very beginning, we were met with exceptional care, compassion and access to the resources we needed throughout our journey together.”
Continued compassion
Pharmacies and pharmacists, often underrecognized in patient care, play a crucial role at the intersection of the care team. They connect providers, payers and pharmaceutical manufacturers, and support patients to provide the best possible care for patients at the lowest cost. Patients with rare diseases require high-touch pharmacy care and holistic, end-to-end support. And Optum pharmacists go above and beyond to make that happen.
Diana, an Optum Frontier Therapies pharmacist, stepped in when the wife of a patient with ALS was overwhelmed and exhausted from the mental load of being the full-time caregiver for her husband. The medication required specific mixing and timing, and she was concerned about its interactions with other medications. At the same time, she was also focused on ensuring her husband met his caloric needs with his tube feedings.
Diana was able to gather the list of the patient’s medications, including those not dispensed by Optum, and created a comprehensive schedule, providing immediate and ongoing relief — for both the patient and his wife.
“We are dedicated to providing comprehensive care while solving the challenges that get in the way of a patient accessing the medications they need," said Erin Satterwhite, chief executive officer of Optum Specialty Pharmacy and Founding CEO of Optum Frontier Therapies. “We encourage and support our pharmacists, who spend the extra time with the patient or a family to understand their needs and help navigate them through what is often a complex and challenging time in their lives.”
On Rare Disease Day, we honor the patients, caregivers and care teams who are bravely fighting these diseases and navigating the complexities of care. Patients like Skip and pharmacists like Diana exemplify Optum Frontier Therapies’ commitment to providing a full spectrum of support and innovative solutions to ensure that patients with rare diseases receive the unique care they need.
1 Data source: https://www.fda.gov/patients/rare-diseases-fda.
2 Data source: https://www.als.org/blog/is-als-really-that-rare.
3 Data source: https://www.cdc.gov/als/abouttheregistrymain/about-amyotrophic-lateral-sclerosis-als.
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