TRICARE Pharmacy Specialty Drug Fulfillment Services

Request for Information Title: TRICARE Pharmacy Specialty Drug Fulfillment Services Introduction: 1. This announcement constitutes a Request for Information (RFI). This announcement does not constitute a commitment, implied or otherwise that a solicitation will be issued. This is not a request for proposal (RFP) or an invitation for bids (IFB). 2. Please note that the collection of this requested information does not obligate the U.S. Government to incorporate any solicited comments nor does it obligate the Government to procure the services. Proprietary information should not be included in the RFI response. Responses to this RFI will not be returned. The Government is not liable to pay any costs associated with companies responding to this RFI. 3. All information received resulting from this RFI will be used by the Defense Health Agency (DHA) for acquisition planning and market research purposes only. However, your response may be releasable to the public under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). If you wish the DHA to consider any portion of your response as "confidential commercial information", you should clearly mark the portion as "confidential commercial information". 4. The Defense Health Agency (DHA), at its discretion, may request respondents to this RFI to elaborate on information in their written response. Respondents to this RFI will not be notified of any results derived from a review of the information provided. 5. The DHA invites all interested parties to submit a written response to this Request for Information (RFI). This RFI is issued for the sole purpose of conducting market research in accordance with the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 10. Background The DHA is the DoD organization responsible for managing the TRICARE health care benefits. This includes a world-class pharmacy benefit to all eligible beneficiaries through the integration of state of the art technologies to enhance patient safety, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness. Offered as part of the TRICARE pharmacy benefit, DHA is interested specialty pharmacy fulfillment services that are efficient, accurate, cost-effective, and maximize patient safety. DHA considers specialty drugs as high-cost drugs used to treat complex chronic or rare conditions including but not limited to cancer, inflammatory conditions, multiple sclerosis, HIV, and hemophilia. Specialty drugs may also include drugs that require special handling and administration. DHA considers Limited Distribution Drugs (LDD) as drugs for conditions affecting a small number of individuals that typically have special requirements or REMS programs. DHA considers LDD drugs to be included as specialty drugs for the purposes of this information request. A sample list of drugs meeting these criteria is attached, but should not be considered inclusive. Statement of Capability The Government is interested in gaining insight on commercial best practices for the delivery of comprehensive specialty pharmacy and drug fulfillment services to assist the Department of Defense (DoD) with developing requirements for these services. Interested parties are asked to submit information which includes but is not limited to the following: a. Service elements of a comprehensive specialty pharmacy management program, (e.g. case management, patient education programs, prior authorization assistance etc) i. Describe the service element ii. Describe how the element is provided iii. Describe how often the element is provided iv. Describe the value the service element provides b. Logistics and Cold Chain Management i. List and describe best practices for cold chain management during shipment ii. List and describe best practices for managing shipment returns iii. List and describe best practices for in-transit tracking iv. List and describe best practices for patient initiated scheduled delivery services c. Access to Limited Distribution Drugs or those drugs with REMS programs i. List and describe best practices for working with drug manufacturers to access Limited Distribution Drugs or those drugs with specialized REMS programs ii. List and describe best practices for complying with specialized manufacturer or REMS programs iii. List and describe best practices that protect the safety of patients using drugs with specialized manufacturer or REMS programs d. Specialty Pharmacy Accreditation i. Provide information on specialty pharmacy accreditation standards ii. Provide information to assist in decision making to determine if accreditation by a nationally recognized accreditation body should be included as a requirement e. Metrics i. List and describe performance metrics that facilitate the evaluation of the specialty pharmacy program ii. List and describe quality or outcomes measures that facilitate the evaluation of the specialty pharmacy program iii. List any pertinent medical-related data necessary to appropriately calculate these metrics f. Cost-Control Methods i. Describe any innovative cost-control methods that can be implemented to lower costs ii. Describe any value-based or outcomes-based contracting methods iii. Describe any successful strategies or programs that move billing and access of specialty drugs administered by a healthcare professional (e.g. intravenous infusion) from the medical benefit to the pharmacy benefit. Information Submission Instructions: The Government encourages responses from interested parties who are capable of responding to the entire scope of the RFI, as well as interested parties who may have specific expertise in only limited areas of this RFI. Respondents are advised that the Government will not pay for any information or administrative costs incurred in response to this RFI. All costs associated with responding to this RFI will be solely at the responding party's expense. Proprietary information may be submitted; however, interested parties are responsible for adequately marking proprietary, restricted or competition sensitive information contained in their response. Proper restrictions shall be marked as such on each page. Only the Government will review this RFI. Interested qualified interested parties, small or large organization, should submit information for this request. The information should not to exceed fifteen (15) single side pages, using 12 point Arial font. An additional ten (10) pages of other materials (e.g., graphs, tables, figures) may be submitted. All responses should be submitted using PDF, HTML, MS Word or PowerPoint formats with subject "TRICARE Pharmacy Specialty Drug Fulfillment Services". Only electronic submissions will be accepted. Electronic files larger than 10 MB should be broken down into multiple files with no one (1) file exceeding 10 MB. Each electronic submission shall include: a) RFI number and "TRICARE Pharmacy Specialty Drug Fulfillment Services" in the subject line. b) If the submission includes more than one (1) electronic email, the file number and total files being submitted (e.g., File 1 of 4, File 2 of 4, etc.) in the subject line. c) A brief summary of the email's content, the vendor's name, and mailing address. All responses to the RFI must be submitted electronically (via e-mail) to: contact@example.gov