Understanding Specialty Drugs
Travis Leonardi founded Sentry Data Systems, Inc., in 2005. He continues to guide the company in the role of CEO, concentrating on developing technology designed to benefit the health care industry and its patients. Travis Leonardi's experience in pharmacy spans areas such as management, procurement, and specialty drugs. Consumers can go to any pharmacy and pick up over-the-counter drugs such as Nyquil and Tylenol. Specialty drugs are different. Physicians prescribe them, and pharmacists fill them, to treat chronic conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and different forms of cancer. Patients cannot get specialty drugs over the counter because they require special handling and monitoring by several parties besides doctors and pharmacists. For example, administrators must approve specialty drugs before they can be prescribed. Once a doctor prescribes a specialty drug, the patient should learn about that drug to simplify the process of retrieving the prescription. Not all pharmacies fill all types of specialty drugs, so the doctor may need to call the patient's regular pharmacy to check on the drug's status. Some specialty drugs can be mail-ordered, saving patients the trouble of driving to a pharmacy to pick them up.












