Hello,
Recently, I had the pleasure of meeting with the Healthcare Distribution Alliance (HDA), and we discussed the healthcare supply chain and partnership opportunities for our organizations. HDA is the national organization representing healthcare distributors — the critical link between the nation’s pharmaceutical manufacturers and points of care, including pharmacies, hospitals, long-term care facilities, clinics, and others nationwide. It is distributors’ core service to provide the healthcare supply chain with safe, efficient, and low-cost logistics services. In fact, approximately 93% of medications arrive at dispensing locations from an HDA member. Healthcare distributors currently serve 4,413 customers in Florida, ensuring these customers can access the medications and healthcare supplies they need.
These companies are also employers, providing jobs to nearly 2,500 Floridians.
What’s more:
healthcare distributors are responsible for between $33 and $53 billion in healthcare cost savings annually—a major benefit for our business community and those that offer employer provided coverage. As logistics experts and efficiency professionals, some HDA member companies also offer other performance-based services to healthcare customers, including Pharmacy Services Administrative Organization (PSAOs). PSAOs are administrative intermediaries that independent pharmacies elect to hire to execute ‘back-of-office’ tasks.
These tasks, like managing pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) and insurer contracts and securing reimbursements, help to keep small, Mom-and-Pop pharmacies in business and owners and pharmacists at the counter, improving patient care. In Hispanic communities across the state, we know the value of community pharmacies—they are not only employers, but often our closest, most trusted points of care.
Both distributors and PSAOs are little-known entities in our state. I was glad to learn more about their function within our healthcare system—particularly to create efficiencies and save our state money. We hope this is the first step toward a fruitful relationship between HDA and the Florida State Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
For more information, please visit HDA’s website here.
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